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CES 2012
Samsung Does Vacuum Tubes
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012
When have you last seen a Home Theater in a Box that uses vacuum tubes in its AV receiver section? Samsung has one in its 6730W home theater system&$151;flat panel available separately! It sounded warmer and more pleasant than it had any right to in an open space, though of course tubes alone are no panacea. No price available as yet, but it's the first HTiB I've found at least interesting. The tubes are in the receiver's input stages; the output is solid state. Samsung is also offering some one-piece, two-channel iPod (and Android) docs with vacuum tube inputs.
CES 2012
Samsung Explains
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012
Here is Samsung’s story about its use of vacuum tubes in an HTIB.
CES 2012
Samsung is Totally Tubular
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012
Here's a closeup of the two tubes (or at least the only ones that are visible) in Samsung's tube-input HTiB.
CES 2012
Westinghouse UW70 LED-LCD TV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
At 70 inches, the UW70 is the largest LCD TV Westinghouse has ever introduced. With LED edgelighting, 120Hz refresh rate, and frame interpolation, it should be available in the second quarter of this year for—get this—$2300 or less!
CES 2012
Westinghouse UW46 LED-LCD TV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
The 46-inch, LED-edgelit UW46 from Westinghouse incorporates 120Hz operation but no frame interpolation and sports a super-slim, silver-edged bezel. It should be available this quarter for $700. The company says that 46-inchers were the best-selling large-size TVs in 2011, a trend I expect to continue at this price.
CES 2012
Samsung Does Compute
Tom Norton  |  Jan 11, 2012
And I just bought a Macbook Air!
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CES 2012
Westinghouse W473D 3D LCD TV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
Westinghouse's first foray into 3D, the 47-inch W473D uses conventional CCFL backlighting and passive-polarized glasses. It should be available in the second quarter of this year for $900. The prototype pictured here exhibited severe crosstalk/ghosting, so I'd say the company has some work to do before it's ready for prime time—and even then, it might not fly that well at big-box stores, where 3D is not in much demand.
CES 2012
Westinghouse EW55 LED-LCD TV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
I've long been impressed with Westinghouse flat panels—surprising, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Among the company's introductions at this CES is the 55-inch EW55, an LED-edgelit model with 120Hz operation and frame interpolation as well as a new brushed-metal black bezel. It should be available in the next couple of months for $1000.
CES 2012
SRS StudioSound Audio Enhancement
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
Also being demonstrated in the SRS suite at the Trump was StudioSound, which combines PureSound (described in a recent post) and NviroSound (discussed in yet another recent post). The demo consisted of the custom-created short The Escape played on a JVC TV's internal sound system as well as a Samsung soundbar. The spatial depth was not very pronounced on the JVC's internal system, but it was much more apparent and convincing from the soundbar.
CES 2012
SRS Multi-Dimensional Audio & NviroSound
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 11, 2012
Just over a year ago, I wrote about the Advanced Rendering Lab (ARL) at SRS Labs, makers of various sound-enhancement algorithms found in many consumer-electronics products. Among other things, the ARL is used to develop a technology called Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA), which was in its infancy back then. At CES this year, it was clear that MDA has evolved quite a bit.
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