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CES 2009
Touch Pad Remote is Virtually All Thumbs
Barb Gonzalez  |  Jan 11, 2009
Panasonic showed a prototype of a TV remote control that works on technology like that of a mouse touchpad on your laptop. Actually, it is equipped with two touchpads and is motion sensing. A point and click technology, the secret is in the onscreen navigation and onscreen virtual remote. Turning it sideways you can thumb-type—like you would for texting—on the onscreen virtual keyboard. The cartoon thumbs that appear onscreen to show you what you are clicking on definitely add a comic personality to this interface.
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CES 2010
Samsung SP-A900B
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

When I heard that Samsung has a new Joe Kane-designed single-chip DLP projector, I had to check it out. The SP-A900B boasts 35% better contrast than the SP-A800B, mostly due to lower blacks thanks to the DarkChip 4 DMD and other refinements. To help Samsung sell the projector—which it has been unable to do in any volume with previous models—Kane is helping to set up a real distribution channel that will make the projector available only through dealers who install and calibrate it. The SP-A900B should be available next month for $15,000. The demo is using the new Da-Lite Affinity screen, which Kane also helped design, and the result is spectacular—the best video image at the show in my view.

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CES 2010
Dolby Vision/Contrast
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

Dolby has been working on an LED local-dimming system for LCD TVs for a couple of years, but now it's finally finished and ready for manufacturers to use in their products. It comes in two flavors—Dolby Vision is intended for prosumer, commercial, medical, and industrial applications, while Dolby Contrast is intended for consumer TVs. Pictured here is a 47-inch prototype implementation of Dolby Vision from SIM2. I also saw a demo of Dolby Contrast next to a Samsung 950 LCD with local dimming, and the difference was clear—the set with Dolby Contrast had better contrast and lower blacks, and the colors popped more.

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CES 2009
Hitting the Heights
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2009
This diminutive speaker (about as high as the water bottle sitting beside it), uses two 3.5", full-range drivers. While it may be used as a surround, its real purpose is as the first speaker specifically designed for use in the new Dolby height format, Pro Logic IIz (discussed in an early blog). No price as yet; this was an early prototype.
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CES 2010
Optoma HD8200
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

I've always liked Optoma's 1080p DLP projectors, except for one thing—no lens shift, which makes placement difficult. I guess the company listened, because the new HD8200 takes lens shift one step beyond normal. Called PureShift, the Optoma shifts the entire light engine up to 20% left/right and 30% up/down, keeping the light path in the center of the lens. It'll be available only through custom installers for $5000 starting in February. The similar HD808 will be available at retail for $3500 in March; the 808 uses the DarkChip 2 DMD, whereas the 8200 uses the DC3 chip for greater contrast.

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CES 2010
Dish Network ViP 922
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2009

New to Dish Network's lineup of HD DVRs is the ViP 922 with Slingbox built in, which lets you watch any recorded program from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection. To store all the HD programs you can't live without, it houses a 1-terabyte hard disk. Also new is the remote, which sports half the number of buttons as the previous design and a little touchpad that moves an onscreen cursor around a much more graphical menu system. As if that weren't enough, the 922 also offers RSS widgets, and it even recommends shows you might like based on what you select to watch.

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CES 2009
Meridian Projector
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2009
We've seen the Meridian 810 Reference Video System before; it's the first 4K x 2K video projector available to the consumer. It won't come cheap a just a few thou south of $190,000 for the projector, video processor (needed to scale available 1920x1080 material up to 4800 x 2400. It looked fabulous, even though even better images are possible from it with native 4K program material (essentially non-existent to you and me). They had to settle for a 10' wide projection screen (a curved, 2.35:1, Stewart Studiotek 130), and were claiming 48 foot-Lamberts! Clearly the projector is intended for a much larger screen.
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CES 2010
THX Roomcaster Wireless Speaker Technology
uavGary Altunian  |  Jan 11, 2009

Radiient Technologies has partnered with THX to jointly license and market THX Roomcaster, an ultra-wideband wireless speaker adapter system for surround sound and stereo speakers. THX Roomcaster operates in the 3.1 to 10.6 GHz frequency range to deliver uncompressed audio to as many as eight speakers in 24-bit signal resolution. High frequency operation minimizes potential interference from other electronic devices and THX Roomcaster has a range of 30 feet. The system includes one Wireless Audio Source Adapter that connects to any audio source in the system and one Wireless Speaker Adapter connects to each powered speaker in a system.

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CES 2009
Chario
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2009
Chario is Italy's largest high-end speaker manufacturer.The setup here shows the Academy Serendipity (far left and right), Academy Sovran, and Academy Solitaire center channel—the Academy series sits at the top of Chario's line, and fall into the "if you have to ask" price category. The Solitaire ($17,000/pr) was recently reviewed in Stereophile.
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CES 2009
Joseph Audio Pulsar
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2009
Joseph Audio announced the Pulsar, a two-way stand mount speaker that will retail for $7000/pair when it streets later this year. There's no center channel, but if you can spare the dime you could buy five (or seven) of them for identical performance in each channel!
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