"Technology breeds crime," FBI agent and one-time con man Frank Abegnale told a CEDIA breakfast audience. "It always has, always will." The subject of Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can discussed the misdeeds of his youth and offered two bits of advice to those seeking to avoid identity theft: (1) Use a micro-perf shredder--other kinds leave paper intact enough for reconstruction. (2) Pay for everything with credit cards, not with debit cards, which offer little recourse against fraud; nor with checks, which tell crooks more than you want them to know about your bank accounts.
Nuvo's new Essentia NV-E6G system is a six-zone, six-source system that's packaged with six Control Pads (each with a 1" OLED display). It's expandable up to 12 zones, and is plug-and-play compatible with Nuvo's M3 Music Server, T2 Dual Tuners, and NuVoDocks for iPod. At $2,299 - less than $400 per room - that's a pretty smokin' deal for six rooms of music.
It’s $999, has HQV processing, plays Blu-ray and HD DVD. What else do you need to know? Oh, the model number probably. BD-UP5000. Look for it before the end of the year. What a coincidence it’s the same price as the product in the post below…
Panasonic has two new plasmas and two new projectors. The plasmas use the same glass as the 700 series, but lose an HDMI input, the anti-reflective coating, and about $200 each. The TH-42PZ77 is $1800 and the TH-50PZ77 is $2800. Both are scheduled to ship this month.
Omnimount isn't happy with just hanging things on the wall any more. This new pro-style equipment rack will retail for $999 with other versions to come soon. It's sturdy. The shelves are adjustable. It makes your system look neat and tidy. What more could you want?
A company called Accell (www.accellcables.com) offers a variety of video switching and splitting options and cables. Their products include the tiny UltraAV, one-in, two-out HDMI splitter for $129, and the UltraAV HDMI two-in, one-out HDMI switcher that's smaller than its included remote control. Both are powered by external, wall-wart supplies. We plan on checking both of them out soon.
Aerial prez and designer Michael Kelly stands next to a version of his company's impressive System 1. it's shown here for the first time with a 2.35:1 screen, which may be flat or curved, masked or unmasked.
Although they won't be at CEDIA, Amimon WHDI chipset (see my "Tired of Being Wired" blog earlier this year) is finally ready for consumption. WHDI, for the acronymly-challenged, stands for Wireless High Definition Interface. Due to the high bandwidth requirements of 1080i and doubly high requirements of 1080p, wireless transmission of high definition digital video signals has been impossible or at least laboratory grade only. Already working with Motorola, Sanyo and Pixelworks, the Israeli-based Amimon hopes to end all that.
Shane didn't mention it so I will: JVC's new DLA-RS2 / DLA-HD100 projectors have a claimed 30,000:1 native contrast ratio without the use of an auto iris-stopping technology. Contrast that, pun intended, to the new Sony VW200 which they said had a 35,000:1 contrast ratio, but Sony uses auto-iris correction to achieve these ratios. Both are outstanding figures and, in this stratosphere, pretty close numerically speaking, but it will be interesting to see if our golden eyes can detect a difference or develop a preference.
Every year Apple stage a major product introduction just as CEDIA is getting underway. In case you hadn't heard, this year's news includes the iPod Touch, like the iPhone but without the phone; the iPod Classic, now with up to 160GB capacity; and a third-generation revamp of the iPod nano, now shorter and wider and therefore today's poster boy. You can get the complete details...elsewhere.
The Arcam MS 250 Music Server ($6500) isn't your father's iPod. In fact, Arcam prefers to call it an archiving CD player. It will play CDs, rip them to its 400GB hard drive, and also compile play lists that may be recorded back onto a CD—the MS 250 is also a CD recorder. The hard drive is said to be able to hold up to 1200 entire CDs (not "songs") when they are recorded in full, uncompressed PCM.
Harman Kardon has the new DMC-1000 Digital Media Center ($3499), with a built-in 250GB hard drive. It can store program material from an iPOD, record and store music from sources such CDs, and play back DVDs upconverted to 1080p. But it cannot record or play back high definition program material from a TV tuner, HD disc, or other source. The press release claims that it can deliver full high definition digital video, but DVDs upconverted to 1080p, which appears to be as close as it can get, are not high definition.
A lot of horizontal multiple-channel speakers designed to go with flat-panel sets look a mite starved. Not so the Atlantic Technology FS-5000 ($1499). Each of the three front channels gets two 4.5-inch woofers and a tweeter.
Audyssey, the company behind the room compensation system that is appearing in more and more AV receivers and pre-pros, introduced its latest technology: Audyssey Dynamic EQ. it's designed to compensate for the loss of sound quality that results as the volume level, is reduced.
I think Aviamo in Italian must mean "expensive," if it means anything at all. At $18,000 this 65" 1080p Fujitsu plasma looked great, but it faces stiff competition for a lot less money. And we thought that the new 60" Pioneer Elite was steep at $7500.
CEDIA 2007
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