Mark Fleischmann

LCD TVs with LED backlighting will surpass the more common kind, with CCFL backlighting, within five years, according to DisplaySearch.

Gatefold LPs and CDs with copious booklets seduced past generations of listeners with form factors that made them want to buy longform music--and settle down for long, pleasurable evenings playing it. While these formats are not exactly dead, a struggle has broken out over what kind of longform digital music album will succeed them in the age of downloads.

Price: $2,200 At A Glance: 5.1-channel decoding in a single soundbar • Decoding for Dolby Digital and DTS, not lossless • Strong bass even when subwoofer output is not used

5.1 Channels in One

Why shouldn’t respectability and innovation be on speaking terms? In loudspeakers, that’s not as easy as it sounds. Much of the recent audio innovation in home theater has come in products that are designed to complement flat-panel TVs. These products are morphing before our eyes—into soundbars, on-walls, and ever-smaller satellites. They are also moving beyond the standard five-speakers-and-sub configuration in their deployment of surround’s 5.1-channel array. This makes for a striking contrast when you look at the high-end speakers that grace audiophile short lists. These include a staid group of medium-density fiber-board boxes whose fundamentals, in many cases, haven’t changed in decades. Traditional speakers can sound great, but that’s not often enough to make people buy them.

We've already reported on the arrival of the HDMI 1.4 standard. At that point, the chips supporting it were still in the works. But it looks as though they'll arrive later this year, and will probably get into products next year.