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One of the big themes are CEDIA this year was 3D, and Da-Lite was in the thick of it with a new screen material called 3D Virtual Grey (though I would have used the American spelling "Gray"). Designed for 3D applications, the material is said to retain 99% of the incident light's polarization, which is the key to achieving a good 3D effect using polarized light and passive glasses. The demo looked quite good, smoother than most I've seen, which could be due in part to the fact that the real-life material was shot stereoscopically with two cameras and the CGI was created specifically for 3D.

If I had to pick a single obvious trend at this year's CEDIA Expo, it would be 2.35:1 anamorphic projection using an add-on anamorphic lens. At least five lens manufacturers were showing product, and all but a few projector manufacturers were featuring some sort of 2.35:1 anamorphic projection. (The fact that our October 1008 issue, distributed at the show, featured an article on this type of setup was a happy coincidence).

Sony's new XBR8 series uses LED backlighting with local dimming. Shown here was a demo setup in which you can see a single cluster (of the many--number not specified which will be positioned behind the panel) of red, green, and blue backlights. The interesting feature here is the presence of two green LEDs. That's not so puzzling when you realize that in our HD color TV system the luminance signal is encoded with more green information than red and blue put together.

The entire Focal Utopia line has been extensively re-engineered into its third generation. The flagship Grande Utopia EM ($180,000/pr) is shown. It's the first commercial loudspeaker system in decades (to our knowledge) and possibly ever (at least in the hi-fi era), to use an electromagnet in its woofer design. Electromagnets were common in the Paleolithic era, but were all but abandoned in the middle of the last century for the simplicity of the permanent magnet. But the electromagnet has undeniable advantages, including adjustability, and in this case can be used to tailor the characteristics of the speaker's bass to suite the music, the listener, and the room.