Before introducing its new D-ILA front projectors JVC offered a fascinating glimpse of what's beyond HD. It showed some flight simulation clips and some native 4K movie material (from and odd movie called <I>The Trident</I>) on its 4k x 2k D-ILA system in a movie theater-sized venue, on a screen not quite movie sized. This is far more pixel density than current 1920x1080 HD, and the depth and dimensionality of the image quickly demosntrated why I believe digital cinema in theaters needs 4K to take off.
Every show has a surprise, and for me CEDIA's 2007 surprise was the demo I saw from the St. John Group, the importer/distributor perhaps best known for handling the Cabasse line of loudspeakers. This group has picked up Screen Research for distribution, and now has a projector line to shine on those screens: CineVERSUM.
Although everything was blue at the Blu-ray introduction, including the martinis,no one was feeling blue when we were invited into a large theater and shown comparisons of standard definition video vs. high-definition on one of Sony's 4K SXRD digital cinema projectors.
In addition to a wealth of impressive title announcements, the Blu-ray association adopted the sternest language I’ve yet heard in offering some very compelling sales numbers and statistics to state its case that Blu-ray will be the decisive winner of the format war. According to the BDA’s stats, the war is already over in Japan with Blu-ray scoring 96% of the high-definition player market there.
Not only does the sign say so, I'm holding a full production copy of <I>Hitch</I> on Blu-ray Disc right now! OK, it's actually sitting next to my laptop since I can't type and hold it at the same time.
No pricing or availability was set yet, but Panasonic showed this portable Blu-ray player, which includes the same capabilities as its standard players. It uses the same outstanding UniPhier decoding/processing chip the standalone players do, and here’s a trick- it also has an HDMI out so you can plug it into your TV when you get back home from your road trip. Because you can doesn’t mean you will, but that’s still kinda cool.
Alright, this is the least interesting Blog I've posted in some time. But I thought some of you might want to kick around the piece that posted today on Blu-ray Disc interactivity. So, here's a spot to ask me any follow-up questions you wish. Fire away!
JVC’s TH-SB100 raises the soundbar to a new level. Not only does it ship with a BD-Live capable Blu-ray player, this “3.1-channel” system includes left, right and center channels plus a wireless subwoofer for the boom king. Ok, like all “wireless” speakers we’ve seen AC is required, but you get the drift. Available in April for $699.
Late Thursday I made it over to Sony's Blu-ray demo theater display, where I was treated to the most extensive Blu-ray demo I've yet seen. Sony had a demo BD that was put together to show off not only clips from many popular films (<I>Spider-Man 2</I>, <I>Chronicles of Narnia</I> and the digitally animated <I>Chicken Little</I> among others) but also the first look at BD's dynamic interactivity.