Onkyo was not (reportedly) at the show, but this prototype AV receiver seen in the DTS booth suggests HDMI 1.3, and the capability to accept native DTS HD Master Audio directly from a player via HDMI (and presumably Dolby TrueHD as well).

JVC's new, $6299 DLA-HD1 projector is due to ship in February. This time around, their demo compared it to the new Sony Pearl, with both projectors firing HD source material onto 120" (diagonal) Stewart StudioTek 130 screens. Yes, the JVC did look better, with crisper contrast, darker blacks, and a richer-looking image. JVC claims that their D-ILA imaging chip offers a peak native contrast ratio of 20,000:1, which is why the in-projector contrast is so good. No iris of any sort is used. We don't know how well the Pearl was set up, of course (though the JVC rep did say that the auto iris was engaged). But it was an impressive demo nonetheless.

NAD announced a gaggle of new products, including 4 AV receivers, a tuner pre-pro, DVD player, and amps. The top of the line T785 receiver at $2999 (shown on the bottom in the photo; on the top is the T775, one step down at $2499) is rated at 110W x 7, has multichannel analog inputs and preamp outputs, and 4 in, 1 out HDMI switching. The HDMI 1.1 inputs for the 785 and 775 are fully AV capable, and will accept multichannel PCM on the HDMI AV line. They are also equipped with the Audyssey MultEQ room equalization system.

The Thiel room was a full home theater setup using their new CS 3.7 speakers with Sim2’s C3X DLP projector and a 110”-wide screen. The three chip C3X is quite a good 720p projector when it comes to filling large screens and the newest model, the HT3000, is a 1080p single chip DLP at about the same price. Though the picture was good, it was the sound that blew me away. Never have I heard Thiel speakers sound like this. Then came the shocker: They turned off the active shielding on the Synergistic Research Tesla Series cables (interconnects, speaker cables, and power cords) and much of the magic just disappeared. Either these cords sound real bad with the power off or real good with it on or maybe both, because the difference was far from subtle and was easily the most impressive cable demo I’ve ever heard. These newest cables, much smaller than before, are expensive but not out of reach and certainly deserve investigation for any high-end home theater sound system.

Here's a cut-away of the Polk in-floor sub. Start tearing up the hard wood!

Sherwood Newcastle was showing a static display of its next-gen R-972 AVR, which will feature HDMI 1.3 and offer full decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio lossless.

Although no products were officially announced, Olevia demonstrated prototype LCDs with a 120Hz refresh rate that produced noticeably smoother motion compared to the 60Hz model next to it.