Audio Video News

New gear to brighten the New Year — and maybe Christmas if you hurry.

With Christmas only three weeks away, the 2020 Holiday Season is in full swing as A/V makers fill the pipeline with new gear and performance updates in hopes of bringing holiday cheer to a pandemic-weary public that’s embracing home entertainment like never before. Thank goodness for big-screen TVs, home theater setups, and the plentiful selection of music and TV/movie streaming services. From a $100 amp/DAC to a unique and nostalgic take on the classic hi-fi console, we review the latest A/V news.

As most home-theater fans know, DVD, the format, arrived ahead of digital television. Despite the fact that video is encoded on a DVD as 480 lines of progressive-scan MPEG-2, the first generations of DVD players put out signals in 525 interlaced lines, otherwise known as NTSC "legacy video." Converter circuitry inside the players makes MPEG-2 video back-compatible with existing TVs. Until recently, it was primarily consumers with DVD-ROM drives in their computers who could enjoy the full benefits of progressive-scan video.

<A HREF="http://www.threefive.com">Three-Five Systems</A> announced the first public demonstration of the company's recently developed Brillian 1920, a high-resolution, reflective, liquid crystal on silicon "microdisplay," which the company has created in addition to its more traditional LCD products. The demonstration took place at the 19th Annual Flat Information Displays Conference in Monterey, California last week.

New technology often debuts at the annual <A HREF="http://www.nab.org">National Association of Broadcasters</A> convention. This year's late April confab in Las Vegas is no different. From Monday the 23rd through Thursday the 26th, engineers, marketers, and journalists alike will get a glimpse of the world to come.