Tom Norton

JVC's new, $6299 DLA-HD1 projector is due to ship in February. This time around, their demo compared it to the new Sony Pearl, with both projectors firing HD source material onto 120" (diagonal) Stewart StudioTek 130 screens. Yes, the JVC did look better, with crisper contrast, darker blacks, and a richer-looking image. JVC claims that their D-ILA imaging chip offers a peak native contrast ratio of 20,000:1, which is why the in-projector contrast is so good. No iris of any sort is used. We don't know how well the Pearl was set up, of course (though the JVC rep did say that the auto iris was engaged). But it was an impressive demo nonetheless.

NAD announced a gaggle of new products, including 4 AV receivers, a tuner pre-pro, DVD player, and amps. The top of the line T785 receiver at $2999 (shown on the bottom in the photo; on the top is the T775, one step down at $2499) is rated at 110W x 7, has multichannel analog inputs and preamp outputs, and 4 in, 1 out HDMI switching. The HDMI 1.1 inputs for the 785 and 775 are fully AV capable, and will accept multichannel PCM on the HDMI AV line. They are also equipped with the Audyssey MultEQ room equalization system.

Sony's VGX-XL3 VAIO XL3 Digital Living System is essentially a computer with a horizontal form factor, a Blu-ray read-write HD optical drive, a CableCARD enabled HDTV TV tuner, HDMI connectivity, and Windows' Vista operating system. Since Vista has not been released yet, this hasn't either.

Samsung's new Super Clear technology, one of several new technologies developed by Samsung for better LCD performance, will appear soon in the company's new 65 Series flat panel LCDs. It definitely produced a more vibrant image (which can't really be seen in a photograph, so I'm showing you a brief tech explanation card that appeared in the demo instead). Is it more natural? When we get our hands on one, we'll let you know.