LATEST ADDITIONS

Toshiba 52XV545
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008  |  First Published: Sep 04, 2008

Toshiba's press conference revealed many new models of LCD TVs—in fact, the company admitted that its product cycle is now closer to six months than one year in order to get new technology to market sooner and to remain cost-competitive for the key holiday selling season. Among the new sets in the upscale REGZA line is the XV series, which sports a "double-skin" cabinet with a cool 3D look and Pixel Pure 4G processing. Also new is Super Resolution Technology (SRT), which is said to upscale standard-def material to HD resolution far better than what is available in most TVs. Another new feature is AutoView, which dynamically adjusts all settings according to an ambient light sensor and detects film-based content.

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Panasonic DMP-BD35/55
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008  |  First Published: Sep 04, 2008

Never one to rest on its laurels, Panasonic unveiled two new Blu-ray players—the DMP-BD35 and BD55. Both are BD-Live capable and feature 7.1 decoders, P4HD video processing, PHL (Panasonic Hollywood Labs) Reference Chroma Processor, and HD Networking with an SD card slot and Viera Link (HDMI CEC). The BD55 also provides a 7.1 analog output and 96kHz remastering. Prices are TBA, and both should be available in a few weeks.

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Panasonic PT-AE3000
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008  |  First Published: Sep 04, 2008

LCD projectors are among the most cost-effective ways of getting a <I>really</I> big picture, and Panasonic's offerings have shown steady improvement over the last two generations of 1080p models. Now comes the third-gen PT-AE3000, which improves on its predecessors in three ways. First, it has an advanced optical system with manually aligned aspherical glass lenses.

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Looking Sharp
Tom Norton  |  Sep 03, 2008  |  First Published: Sep 04, 2008
Sharp sees the worldwide market for LCD flat panel televisions growing rapidly in the next year, despite a slower economy in the US, and it's ready to meet the demand. While it has a number of new models, the ones that caught my eye were the Aquos Limited Edition designs. Available in October at prices yet to be announced, these sets will be available in two sizes: 52" (the LC-52XS1U-S) and 65"(the LC-65XS1U-S).
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Audio Video News
PSB's Imagine: "Affordable High-End" Speakers
SV Staff  |  Sep 03, 2008
Canadian speaker manufacturer PSB has released a new line of speakers designed to be affordable, while maintaining an extremely high quality sound and construction. The new speaker line, if you can imagine it, is called "Imagine." ...
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Audio Video News
CEDIA: A Projector ditches bulbs for LED
SV Staff  |  Sep 03, 2008
As this bitstremia item went to post, the CEDIA Expo in Denver hadn’t yet opened. But we’ve already seen what will surely be one of the show’s real groundbreaking products: a bulb-free video projector. No more spending $300 and up to change the...
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Sony Gives us a Finger?
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008
If you look closely in this picture of the chaos that immediately followed the Sony press conference, you’ll see…chaos. If you look a little closer, you’ll see some pencil-thin speakers (actually, I think the term they used was “the width of a finger” but I may have been in the middle of a mile-high altitude-induced alcohol-enhanced stupor at the time so it might as easily have been “the width of a fingerling potato”) on display here as part of the BDV-IT1000ES - Sony’s first ES HTiB that includes an integrated Blu-ray Disc player. The main speakers each measure approximately .75-inch wide by 22 inches long, and they’ll come with the rest of the system when it ships in October and you fork over the required $1,999.
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Audio Video News
Wilmington, N.C.: The Future is Now
SV Staff  |  Sep 03, 2008
While most of us have until February 2009 for the digital switch, for Wilmington, North Carolina, the switch is happening now!  Well, next Monday, to be exact. In a test by the FCC and local broadcasters, Wilmington stations will begin...
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More Cirque du SpeakerCraft
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008
Oh, yeah, and the new SpeakerCraft Rox outdoor rock speakers look “more like rocks”.
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Cirque du SpeakerCraft
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 03, 2008
Bringing back fond memories of the one misdirected year (1998) when CEDIA held its convention in New Orleans (just after another near-miss storm) and not many conventioneers (including me) made it to many of their appointments or meetings, SpeakerCraft enlisted the aid of some scantily clad acrobatic dancers to catch the attention of the press folks who didn’t go to the Toshiba press conference. (It worked.)
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