Audio Video News

Every year, Sony holds a late-winter Open House (aka line show). As in years past, it was located at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. The current financial situation, not to mention bad weather back east, kept most of the consumer-electronics press at home, but I was there from sunny southern California, camera in hand, to bring you the latest scoop.

There weren't a lot of new introductions in our core area of coverage—home theater audio and video—but there was still enough of interest to make the trip worthwhile.

Sony showed most of its new LCD televisions at last September's CEDIA Expo or January's CES. But a new W5100 series was on display at the Paris. Due out this summer, the 52" KDL-52W5100, 46" KDL-46W5100, and 40" KDL-40W5100 all offer 120Hz Motionflow technology, Ethernet network capability, Bravia Internet Video Link, and Energy Star 3.0 compliance. Of course, all are 1920x1080. No prices were given.

W5100 TVs on display

By all accounts, Blu-ray discs and players are selling surprisingly well despite the struggling economy (though DVD sales are not all that rosy). There were two new Sony BD players at the Open House—the BDP-S360 at $300 and the BDP-S560 at $350. Both are due by summer, are BD-Live capable, and will decode (or output via bitstream) Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

BDP-S560

But the BDP-S560 offers another wrinkle: WiFi wireless network capability. The player is not completely wireless—you'll still need to make the usual hard output and power connections. But the WiFi feature lets the player connect to your home network wirelessly for BD-Live, streaming photos from a networked computer, and firmware updates.

All major manufacturers are producing (or working on) Blu-ray equipped home-theater systems—or to use the term they hate, home theaters in a box (HTIB). Sony showed two new Blu-ray home-theater systems—the BDV-E300 at $600 and the BDV-E500W at $800. Both are also scheduled for this summer and offer an integrated BD player, 5.1-channel A/V receiver, speakers, BD-Live, S-AIR wireless for the surround speakers, an iPod cradle, and playback of both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.

BDV-E500W

There were four new budget A/V receivers, from the STR-DH500 at $200 up to the STR-DH1000 at $500. The latter is the most talented of the four, with 7.1 channels, 1080/60p and 24p acceptance over HDMI (4 in, 1 out), and upscaling via component and HDMI. It will be available in July; the remaining new receivers should be in stores in March (the $200 STR-DH500 and the $300 STR-DH700) or June (the $400 STR-DH800). There's even a new 100Wpc, 2-channel stereo amp (the $150 STR-DH100, March).

STR-DH1000

In slightly peripheral news, I noted that a number of Sony Viao laptops not only offer Blu-ray drives, but also HDMI outputs to drive an external monitor. The HDMI outputs on these computers can carry audio, but they do not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio, either in bitstream form or converted to PCM. I suggested to Sony reps that adding full support for high-resolution audio, together with the sort of features widely available on standalone BD players and a remote control, might do the same for Blu-ray adoption that the PS3 has.

Finally, Sony also put on a great demo of its VPL-VW70 SXRD projector ($8000), together with a Schneider anamorphic lens on a 120" (diagonal) 2.35:1 Stewart Studiotek 130 screen. That projector is currently under review here at Home Theater.