Fred Manteghian

The Sherwood Newcastle R-972 won't be out until April '08, but I sat down for a demo of their new receiver. What sets it apart from other 4 HMDI in (1 out) AVRs is their Trinnov Optimizer. The fuzzy shot above shows green speakers along the peripheral of the coincentric circles that describe the speaker placement positions used during soundtrack mastering. The smaller red speaker positions show where people normally put them. By generating tones, I was told, the Sherwood receiver will figure out where you've placed speakers in your room, and compensate for it. I asked if you'd get that great on-screen display with the R-972's implementation, but alas, no. However, you can interface your laptop to the receiver and work with the setup that way.

LCD panel manufacturers are touting the effectiveness of 120 Hz refresh rates for dragging their little darlings out of the drug-induced haze that is LCD smear. I've seen JVC, SyntaxBrillian's Olivia and Sharp LCDs with the technology and it clearly works and works well.

LG demonstrated what may be the most exciting at the show. Mobile-Pedestrian-Handheld (MPH) technology piggy backs TV broadcasting to handheld mobile phones over fringe portions of existing DTV broadcasts. Working with Harris Corporation, a leader in communication infrastructure technology, you'll be able to watch Seinfield reruns on your phone for free or watch a premium service. While there's no anticipation that this is going to be high-def (hell, I'd settle for the right aspect ratio), it's going to be really, really hot.

Jodu Sally was as upbeat as could be expected. She admitted she had planned to discuss the great strides HD DVD had made in 2007, and continued to highlight HD DVDs many successes from Ethernet connectivity and dual video processing. But beyond that, what can you say. Warner has played its cards.