CES 2012

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CES 2012
THX Media Director Gets Real
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 
THX's long-promised Media Director technology has finally found its way into products including two Sharp Elite LCD TV models and the Acurus ACT4 preamp-processor. Media Director automates the selection of video parameters for Blu-ray and DVD titles, saving the less tech-savvy consumer a giant pounding headache. This can be something as basic as selecting 2D or 3D mode or something more subtle. In the example somewhat fuzzily shown, under "Video Processing Flags," are two entries reading: "Video content is intentionally noisy." And: "Video content contains film grains" [sic]. It works not only with Media Director encoded content but also with regular content when the disc is played in a BD-Live enabled Blu-ray player which will go online to grab the data from the THX database. If you're not ready to ante up for a top-line TV for the kitchen, you might still get limited Media Director functionality in a non-Media Director product. It's great that this newbie-empowering technology is finally seeing implementation.
CES 2012
CES 2012 Press Day: Panasonic
Michael Berk  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 

Where some other Press Day events - namely Samsung's - were big production numbers, Panasonic's was low-key, almost to a fault. Strangely for a consumer show, a big chunk of time was spent by chairman Joseph M. Taylor and CTO Eisuke Tsuyuzaki B2B and industrial products like solar panels, avionics and green initiatives for institutions and industry (Ed Begley, a Vegas-area resident, told the crowd that they could "have a cool beverage and a warm shower, but you can be more efficient").

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CES 2012
CES 2012 Press Day: Samsung
Michael Berk  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 

Samsung opened their packed - and I mean packed, there must have been 1,500-plus people in the room - Press Day event with a bang.

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CES 2012
As Usual, CES is a Zoo
Rob Sabin  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 
This bouncy little guy got to curl up at the DISH press conference, and seemed reasonably bored despite the 4,000 camera flashes he had to endure. But those of us in the CES press corp looked and acted more like cattle as we were herded through a marathon of dog-and-pony shows at the Venetian hotel and the Las Vegas Convention Center yesterday. Celebrity sightings included Justin Timberlake at the Panasonic press conference promoting the new MySpace app in this year's HDTVs, and Will Smith with director Barry Sonnenfeld were at Sony's event to promote Men In Black 3. Sony closed it out with an acoustic guitar-accompanied performance by Kelly Clarkson. But the best news out of the day for Home Theater was the announcement of pending OLED and/or 4K sets from LG, Samsung, and Sharp. The real show begins today; check back for our reports from the floor.

CES 2012
Samsung, LG Wave Hello To TV Control
Rob Sabin  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 
One of the more interesting developments out of yesterday's CES press conferences was the imminent arrival of gesture control for upcoming models from Samsung (pictured) and LG Electronics. Gesture control uses an Xbox Kinect-like camera mounted near the screen to allow hand movements to be used to change channels or volume, for example, with no need to pick up a remote. Samsung's version should also allow voice control according to the company. We'll report more on this feature from the floor; stay tuned.

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CES 2012
DISH Hopper Does Prime Time, All The Time
Rob Sabin  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 
DISH Network is attempting to "hop" all over its competition at CES with a new whole house DVR that records prime time, all the time.

As part of a full company makeover that includes a new kangaroo mascot, the satellite TV provider is introducing Hopper, said to be the world's most advanced DVR. It's a 3-tuner model with a massive 2-terabyte hard drive that can record up to six HD programs simultaneously, and allows simultaneous viewing of different channels in up to three additional rooms through the companion Joey set top box.

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CES 2012
CES 2012 Press Day: Sharp
Al Griffin  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 

Sharp kicked off the company’s 100th year with a slew of impressive CES product announcements. What you need to know is that the company is now all about really big screens — 60 inch or larger LED models to be exact.

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CES 2012
CES 2012 Press Day: Dish Network
Al Griffin  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 

Dish Network would like you to know that most everything about the company is now new: new CEO, new DVR, even a new mascot (see video). To be sure, watching a CES press conference that kicked off with an executive cuddling a live baby kangaroo qualified for me as new.

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CES 2012
CES Press Day: Pioneer AppRadio 2
Leslie Shapiro  |  Jan 10, 2012  | 

At their Monday press conference the day before the CES officially opens, Pioneer focused on their car electronics line.

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CES 2012
CES 2012: OnStar FMV
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 
OnStar, owned by GM, was one of the first embedded telematics options for cars.
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CES 2012
CES Day One: Monster Press Event
Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 

Cutting the cable” is a fashionable trend, but Monster is doing it in a different sense: It’s now just going by Monster instead of Monster Cable. True to its new moniker, the company didn’t even mention cable in its CES press conference today. But given the onslaught of cool new products the company introduced, nobody seemed to notice.

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CES 2012
CES 2012: CES Unveiled
Brent Butterworth  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 

CES kicks off with Unveiled, an event that crams a thousand or so members of the press, most of them desperate for a snack and a free drink, into a loud, stuffy ballroom full of manufacturers exhibiting a few key products in tiny booths. It’s so loud inside that any serious demos are impossible. Why do I go?

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CES 2012
Dish Network Gets New Mascot
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 
Dish Network’s new mascot, Hopper, was happy to be at CES.
CES 2012
Klipsch Takes to the Air(Play)
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 
Klipsch says that sales of iOS devices - those handheld and portable digital multimedia/smartphone/tablet/etc things we all can’t live without - are eclipsing (“eKlipsching”?) sales of HDTVs and other “traditional” entertainment devices. Keeping to the company’s audio-reproduction roots, the Klipsch folks want to bring high-performance audio to you and me in whatever form we find the most convenient, be it a home theater system, a bookshelf system, or a pair of earphones. At the Klipsch press conference this morning, the company presented a couple of the new and soon-to-be AirPlay-enabled audio systems.

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CES 2012
Stream TV Banishes 3DTV Glasses
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 09, 2012  | 
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a one-eyed Cyclops or a three-eyed alien being locked away deep in some secret laboratory in Area 51 - no one likes the idea of wearing glasses to watch 3D video. Stream TV hates glasses for 3D, too, and this morning they showed off the company’s Ultra-D technology that can produce a glasses-free 3D image that’s watchable across a wide range of viewing angles. (Just to eliminate any confusion, “glasses-free” doesn’t mean you get “free glasses” with the system. It means you don’t need no stinkin’ glasses at all to watch 3D on the screen.) According to Stream TV, the proprietary technology can be used with all types of displays; and they anticipate we’ll see Ultra-D technology in everything from flat-panel TVs to tablets to smartphones.
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