Tucked away in one corner of the Sharp booth is a new single-chip, 1080p DLP projector, the XV-Z15000, which will sell for a mere $3000 starting in March. It has Sharp's VyperDrive, which bypasses the video processor for gaming, but it doesn't have anamorphic capabilities or, more importantly, lens shift, which makes placement more difficult.
The new E77 series of 120Hz LCDs from Sharp include 40-, 46-, 52, and 65-inch models, all with the new Super Lucent Advanced Super View panels (say that three times fast!) that are said to improve contrast while reducing glare.
Yet another concept demo in the Hitachi booth was called Super Resolution, which interpolates new pixels on a frame-by-frame basis to increase an image's resolution. The split-screen demo was very impressive, as shown here.
Among the many interesting concept areas in Hitachi's booth was the gestural remote control. By waving your hands in various simple gestures, you can control the volume, change the channel, dim the lights, and other tasks, and the onscreen user interface is simple and attractive. The system uses a 3D camera and infrared beams to sense your gestures. It felt a bit awkward at first, but I believe I could get the hang of it eventually.
Perhaps the most highlighted section of Hitachi's booth is called Style Unlimited, in which the current Ultra Thin TVs are wrapped in various designer frames, including the gold-leaf pictured here. The gold leaf was applied by a company called Hakuichi, one of the most famous in Japan for this skill. Hitachi had several people in the booth asking attendees which designs they preferred to gather data on the US market. Some of the designs were way cool and very beautiful, but I always prefer a black bezel that calls as little attention to itself as possible, and I said so to the pollster. However, I realize that I'm quite geeky and many Joe the (insert occupation here) types might really like this idea.
Sure enough, Hitachi is demonstrating wireless HDMI using ADI's JPEG2000 codec and UWB wireless transmission. The LCD TV is the current Ultra Thin model with an outboard input/tuner/processor box (on the floor) whose output is connected to a transmitter (on the riser next to the box) that sends the signal to a receiver (mounted on the TV's pedestal), which is connected to the TV's HDMI input. The picture looked fine to me under less-than-ideal conditions.
RBH Sound showed its new high performance Signature Series speakers, dubbed the 8300-SE and the reference version, the 8300-SE/R. The 8300-SE features three 8-inch aluminum cone subwoofers, two 6.5-inch mid-bass drivers and 1-inch soft dome tweeter. The 8300-SE/R, shown in the photo has upgraded 6.5-inch mid-bass drivers with a phase plug, a liquid-cooled Scanspeak silk dome tweeter and a modified crossover network resulting in increased power handling capacity. The 8300 speakers can be bi-amped or bi-wired.
Video expert Joe Kane was on hand showing his new Affinity projection screen, to be manufactured by Da-Lite. The gain was 0.9, but other gains are expected shortly (up to a maximum of 1.3).
Sharp’s DLP front projectors have always been overachievers that offered a ridiculous amount of performance for the money. Nevertheless, with the company’s sharp (ahem) focus on LCD flat panels, I wasn’t certain we’d see any new front projector products from Sharp at this show. Well, I was wrong!
The bottom floor of the Hilton Hotel's convention center (adjacent to the Las Vegas Convention Center) is home to hundreds of small stands hawking every description of small electronic thingamajig, most of them representing small Chinese companies. I searched out two of them, only to find that they didn't market anything like what I expected to find: speakers (Dayton) and projectors (Sharpvision).