| CES 2004 Highlights From Jerry Del Colliano |
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| Home Theater News Industry-Trade News | ||||
| Written by Jerry Del Colliano | ||||
| Friday, 16 January 2004 | ||||
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 Having
just returned from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas I
can report that it was, even after 10 previous trips to the show, even
more overwhelming than I have could have predicted. More and more
companies from businesses ranging from handheld PDAs to hardcore smut
have flocked to the show. It is a great environment with lots of
enthusiasm for the future of AV, electronics and the U.S. economy in
general. I am certainly glad I went. In my travels I saw only a fraction of what was available yet I was able to catch a few very notable items that you might want to consider for future or current upgrades. Here they are in no specific order: Kalidescape Video Server ($27,000 and up) – Before you faint over the price this video server allows well heeled movie buffs to load over 1 terabyte of hard drive space (and infinitely expandable) with about 200 feature films. Literally, you never need to touch the DVD again. Much like a good music server, the Kalidescape system hunts down the title, art and other relevant details of a disc and stores them along with the movie. In the case you are loading up your obscure collection of German fetish videos you can send in the codes from the DVDs and they will create the profile for your more rare movies. The coolest feature about the system is its ability to be able to allow you to determine your best demo scenes and save them in a list. At any time, you can with the touch of your Crestron or AMX, can fire up the “where’s the goat?” scene and bang – there it is. I want one of these systems really bad. Bohlender-Graebener In-wall Speakers – On my way to a meeting, I was drawn in by the most crazy demo of in-wall ribbon speakers. The B&G folks had created about the most impossible 5.1 speaker setup I had ever seen that included in-wall speakers on the front along with in-wall rear speakers suspended in boxes from a concert stage-like rig. In theory, these should have been the worst sounding setup at the show. In reality, they were strikingly good. Not only did they play loudly in an open environment, they sounded crisp, warm and open. I was fully impressed. I am not sure how much the speaker system cost but it was worth easily $10,000. Faroudja’s Projectors – Faroudja’s booth had unbelievably gorgeous looking video demonstrations ranging from single chip DLP projector setups for $15,000 complete to multi-chip D-ILA projectors that were able to light up a gigantic screen with ease. Forgetting the incredible cost of the large projection systems for a moment, the two most affordable DLP and D-ILA systems were truly impressive. They are expensive however with a William Phelps setup and a complete system approach, Faroudja has a compelling offer for the serious movie buff who doesn’t want to deal with studying the video industry for 3 years before he invests in a projector. Also the Meridian sound system with Transparent cables sounded notably good. Humax LCD Sets – One of the most overwhelming elements of CES is the “off site” demonstrations. If you dedicated all of your time just seeing off site demos you could not get to all that there is to see in 4 days. In my travels, I found some hot looking 30 inch LCD sets from Humax. I have raved about offerings from the direct resellers V Inc. in the past and these Humax sets also make an awesome picture at an affordable price. Humax is a new name to the consumer world however they have been around in OEM and international sales for quite some time. They have a TiVo license and had a few cool PVRs on display including a TiVo/DVD-R unit in one box. HD PVRs – I honestly expected to see more HDTV recorders at CES. I wasn’t able to make it to TiVo’s press conference but I have heard from good sources they will have an HDTV version in Q1 2004. Dish Network had an HDTV PVR (not a TiVo) that was looking good and fully functional. We were able to zip through prerecorded HD material and the image still looked fantastic. I am sure there was some compression however that would be a small price to pay to actually be able to record the best in HDTV so you can watch it on your own schedule. |
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