Scott Wilkinson

The demo of Projectiondesign's 3-chip DLP Helios was mighty impressive on a 2.35:1, 11-foot-wide Da-Lite Affinity screen. The clip was from <I>10,000 B.C.</I>, an eminently forgettable movie that was chosen because it was color-graded on a Projectiondesign projector. The dual-lamp Helios was at its minimum lamp and iris settings to accommodate the screen, which means it can easily fill a screen up to 16 feet wide. Like the Kroma, the Helios produced very natural skin tones and razor-sharp detail.

After blogging about these in-wall speakers before the show, I was eager to hear them for myself. The demo consisted of some CD selections in 2.1 (using the new SCS subwoofer, about which more in the next post), multichannel audio from DVD concert videos, and a clip from <I>Monsters, Inc.</I> shown on a Screen Research ClearPix2 woven, acoustically transparent screen. The system controller provides Audyssey MultEQ XT and several memories for different setups&#151;music, movies, speakers behind a screen or not, etc.&#151;and the result sounded great, with deep, clean bass and excellent imaging.

Other than the TH-85PF12U plasma and an extensive 3D demo, Panasonic has been pretty tight-lipped about what it's going to be showing at CEDIA. But late-breaking news from the IFA trade show in Berlin has revealed a new LCD projector, the PT-AE4000. Like it's predecessor, the new model lets you store lens zoom and focus settings for content with different aspect ratios, such as 16:9 and 2.35:1, providing a poor man's anamorphic capability. New to the AE4000 is an aspect-ratio detection function that automatically selects 16:9 or 2.35:1 depending on the incoming signal. The projector should be available in October for less than $4000.

JBL is bringing its A game to CEDIA with a plethora of products, such as the new Performance LS series of speakers, which includes the LS40 bookshelf ($700 each), LS60 and LS80 floorstanders ($1100 and $1500 each, respectively), LS Center ($800), and LS120 subwoofer ($1100 each). All the main speakers feature a 3/4-inch ring-radiator ultrahigh-frequency driver, a horn-loaded titanium compression driver for the highs, and polymer-coated cellulose-fiber, 6.5-inch cone woofers. The 12-inch sub reaches down to 25Hz backed by 400W RMS (700W peak).