Issue 22 by The Gadget Group

WIN PRIZES WORTH $10,000+

22 A U S T R A L I A ’ S C O M P L E T E D I G I T A L L I F E S T Y L E C O M P A N I O N ISSUE $7.95

AUDIO SPECIAL

• Setting up for stereo and surround • Choosing the right loudspeakers • Essential audition tips

TANNOY PRESTIGE Man-sized loudspeakers REVIEWED THIS MONTH

SPEED THRILLS Sony’s 200Hz Bravia LCD

THE YEAR AHEAD

News from world’s biggest gadget show

GO DIGITAL NOW How to save your analog music, movie and photo collections forever

• SAMSUNG HT-X810 • PIONEER KURO • SHARP AQUOS LC46D85X • ONKYO TX-SRX706 PDP-C509A • KLIPSCH ICON XF-48

A SPECIAL

PROMOTION

WATCH AND PLAY Combining all the features of a world class games machine, PC, DVD and Blu-ray player, the PLAYSTATION 3 delivers digital entertainment in the highest possible resolution, making it the perfect companion to your high definition home entertainment system.

FREE TO JOIN, FREE TO ACCESS

playstation.com.au/ps3

HD games is our resolution It seems like everyone’s upgrading to enjoy the unmatched sound and vision offered by full high definition home entertainment these days. And that makes the choice easy if you’re looking for something to play videogames, browse the Internet, chat to friends or buy games online from the comfort of your lounge room. Because only PLAYSTATION 3 makes use of the highest definition storage format available, Blu-ray, to do full justice to your new HD TV. With an amazing selection of games shipping on Blu-ray disc, you can choose your poison: whether you’re into fighting, racing, action, movie or sports games, there’s a PS3 game that will suit you and it will look incredible in full high definition up there on the big screen! Adventure through lush, tropical jungles that look so real you’ll be swatting away the mozzies, hurtle across mountainous racetracks with jumps that make you gasp, wince and duck for cover from your couch as comrades scream warnings about incoming mortar fire, and jam with friends in a concert hall so alive you’ll swear you were really there – there are new worlds to lose yourself in and it’s all thanks to the power of Blu-ray and PLAYSTATION 3.

Browse and chat at your leisure Better still, you can play those games online, with or against friends and like-minded friends-to-be, and it’s totally free! PLAYSTATION 3 lets you choose a unique, global ID that connects you to the PlayStation Network via your home network without any fuss. Free to join and with no on-going subscription fee, the PlayStation Network catapults you into an exciting world of gaming, chat, browsing and online shopping. Pop a game into the machine and you can hook up with your friends to jump into fun, multiplayer sessions, keeping your tactics in line thanks to real-time in-game voice chat as you play in certain games. Even after the gaming session is over, there is heaps to explore to enhance your enjoyment of the game – extra game content (such as new courses, tracks, levels and weapons) can be downloaded for the favourite games in your library, you can check out new game trailers for forthcoming releases, and there’s always a ton of associated free and premium content available, such as themes and wallpapers, to personalise your PLAYSTATION 3. And if you’re feeling nostalgic for some of the great classics in the PlayStation portfolio, you can even download PS one games directly to your PLAYSTATION 3 or, if you have one, to your PSP for gaming on the move! When you fancy a change from gaming, PLAYSTATION 3 also comes with full internet browsing functionality built in. You can check your webmail or just browse your favourite websites – go wherever you like. If you prefer, you can also use your PlayStation Network ID to access PlayStation Store using your PS3 or PSP. Pick up a PlayStation Eye USB Camera or Wireless Headset, available separately, and your PlayStation Network access is a passport to exchanging video and chat messages with friends completely free of charge!

A new home online

With PLAYSTATION 3, there’s always more to come. And the brand-new ‘Home’ user community is an online destination in its own right, providing you with a virtual community to explore what looks and feels like a 3D game. Create an ‘avatar’ of yourself as your online identity, venture outside your very own apartment in the world (fully customisable to your taste, by the way) and you’ll find yourself in a thriving environment full of other players to meet, talk to and dance with, gaming and movie spaces to investigate, and mini-games to actually play. Pack a large, virtual suitcase, because you’ll never want to leave!

SOME OF THE EXCLUSIVE GAMES AVAILABLE ON PS3 • GT5 PROLOGUE • LITTLE BIG PLANET • SINGSTAR ABBA • METAL GEAR SOLID GUNS OF THE PATRIOT • RESISTANCE 2 • MOTORSTORM 2 *Broadband internet service required. Users are responsible for broadband access fees. Charges apply for some content. PlayStation®Network and PlayStation®Store subject to terms of use and not available in all countries and languages. Users under 18 require parental consent.

The Latest Technology. HD Audio? Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just the Marantz Home

QLF435 L

The Greatest Sound. beginning of your Entertainment Experience…

The new Marantz SR8002 AV Receiver maintains the high standards for which Marantz has been known for since 1953. With performance levels arguably surpassing that of separate pre-power components in both sheer brawn and subtle sophistication, this THX Certified AV Receiver offers a clean power output of 125 Watts RMS from each of its seven current-feedback amplifiers, accurately recreating both movie soundtracks and music.

With HDMI 1.3 connectivity providing brilliant High Definition video switching (Deep ColorTM compatible) and full HD Audio (Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital TrueHD, DTS High Definition, DTS Master Audio and Multi-channel PCM), the SR8002 is ready for High Definition Blu-ray and HD-DVD soundtracks.

Reflecting Marantz’s music heritage, the SR8002 incorporates customised components for superior sound quality, a copperplated chassis to minimise unwanted interference and a huge Toroidal Transformer with shielding for instant delivery of high power levels.

Even MP3, WAV or AAC compressed music files (including iPod music) will now sound better with the activation of the built-in M-DAX (Marantz Dynamic Audio eXpander) compressed audio enhancement feature.

Setting up your system could not be easier, thanks to Marantz’s application of Audyssey’sTM ‘one touch speaker set-up’ feature. The programmable main remote allows control of your entire system – and for music in additional rooms of your home, Marantz have even included a separate dedicated remote control.

To experience the phenomenal performance of the new SR8002 (or its smaller brother, the HD Audio-equipped SR7002), please contact us or your nearest Marantz stockist.

Distributed in Australia by QualiFi Pty Ltd • (03) 8542 1111 • info@marantz.com.au www.marantz.com.au

QLF435 R

FAST FOREWORD

Show and tell THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE TECH EDITOR’S YEAR, THE JANUARY CONSUMER Electronics Show In Las

Vegas presents a pipeline view of what we’ll be buying in the future. In 2009, the focus was (again) on the TV. Thinner, larger flat panel displays with 3-D pictures, higher resolution images and source systems, internet-connected tellies and flat panels with energy efficient LED backlights. Green electronics were, in fact, a minor theme of this year’s show, with the Sustainable Planet exhibit presenting a range of products purporting to be environmentally friendly. Most qualified by dint of being solar powered, according to our unimpressed tree-hugging correspondent (read his coverage from the show floor on page 22), while some were manufactured from recycled or recyclable materials, used sustainable packaging, or excised toxic chemicals from the production process. None, however, were all of these.

CLEARLY THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY HAS A LONG WAY TO GO HERE, BUT SOME outfits are already doing good work. The English-based Freeplay Energy Group (www.freeplayfoundation.org) advanced the concept of a wind-up radio in 1996 by developing technologies to efficiently harness human, solar and rechargeable energy and convert it into electricity to power a range of self-sufficient portable products. While these radios, mobile phone chargers, torches, lanterns and foot-powered generators are in wide use in developing countries where mains power or batteries are not readily affordable or available – the lights are used in makeshift hospitals and purpose-designed humanitarian radios assist with providing populations with important information and education – they’re also a handy addition to any picnic or camping kit, caravan, boat or household emergency pack. Select Freeplay products are marketed locally by Bush Australia, our pick being the Grundig DRP5100 Always Ready

Radio. When its torch dims, its radio falls silent, and the mobile you’ve plugged into it goes dead, all that’s needed is some vigorous winding of the hand crank for life to be restored to all. No batteries needed, and none to leach poison into our landﬁlls. Bravo.

WHETHER IT’S SMALL AND PORTABLE RADIOS OR LARGE AND IMMOVABLE speaker systems, the equipment that allows us to listen to whatever we want – and whenever and wherever we want – is often given only a passing thought as we fall over ourselves to install gargantuan ﬂat panel tellies in our living rooms. So, this issue, we’ve decided to shine a light on audio. What makes for good sound, the gear that reproduces it, and how to audition and set it up for maximum enjoyment.

LASTLY, AFTER 40 YEARS IN THE AUSTRALIAN MARKET, NEC products will cease to be stocked on retail shelves. The company, which follows the exit of Hitachi, Fujitsu and Philips, cited rapidly changing market conditions, the falling Australian dollar and the need to play to its strengths (these being the commercial and business market) for the pullout. It will continue to honour warranties on whitegoods, consumer appliances and home entertainment products. Cheers

Publisher Peter Blasina peter@gadgetguy.com.au Managing Director Valens Quinn valens@gadgetgroup.com.au Editorial Director Anika Hillery anika@gadgetgroup.com.au Editorial Contributors Anthony Fordham, Nic Tatham, Thomas Bartlett, Max Everingham, Nathan Taylor, Colin Hinton Advertising Director Daniel Russell daniel@gadgetgroup.com.au Advertising Manager Nathan Yerbury nathan@gadgetgroup.com.au Director Tony Read tony@gadgetgroup.com.au Art Director Bill Chan bill@gadgetgroup.com.au Printing The Quality Group Distributed by Gordon & Gotch www.gordongotch.com.au

All care is taken in the compiling of this magazine,the editors and proprietors assume no responsibility for the effects arising therein.Correspondence,manuscripts and photographs are welcome,and books, equipment and materials may be submitted for review.Although care is taken,the editors and publisher will not accept responsibility for loss or damage to material submitted.The magazine is not aligned with any company or group within the Australian electronics industry.Its editorial policy is completely independent.Views expressed are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. All rights reserved and reproduction without permission is strictly forbidden. Price on cover is recommended retail price only. ISSN 1327-0338 Copyright 2009

CONTENTS FEBRUARY/MARCH 2009

FEATURES Best in Show 22 LED, 200Hz and 3-D television, plus green electronics and internet piped directly to the TV. Dave Bullard reports on the latest tech trends to emerge from the world’s biggest electronics show.

Sound Guide 30 From stereo to surround and from source to speakers, our bumper audio special explains how to get the most from the music and movie soundtracks you love.

REGULARS Random Play

Home entertainment news and product highlights.

You Wish 28 Country gentlemen looking to fill the wood-paneled smoking rooms of their stately mansions with refined tunes will find a willing companion in Tannoy’s Westminster Royal.

Gear Log

A showcase of standout electronica.

Ear & Eyes & Thumbs 78 Watch, listen, play. Max Everingham’s roundup of the best movies, music and games.

Time Warp A retrospective of milestone entertainment products and

technologies. This issue: the bass reﬂex speaker.

COLUMNS Guy Talk Channel Seven’s GadgetGuy, Peter Blasina, reports today’s

technology trends.

Tech Corner 20 Flat panel TVs don’t ﬂicker, so what’s the point of 100Hz and 200Hz processing? Anthony Fordham explains.

HOW TO BUY Beautiful Noise: VISIT US AT

WIN $10,000+ worth of prizes!

Pioneer Kuro plasma TV and Blu-ray player + Klipsch and Sony audio gear See page 17 and 33 for details and enter online at www.gadgetguy.com.au

Want Home Entertainment delivered straight to your door?

Reviews, articles and news from Home Entertainment magazine online

Exciting digital pageturning format!

Subscribe on page 46, or online at www.isubscribe.com.au

Choosing the right loudspeakers 48 Not too big, not too small, but just right. When it comes to ﬁnding the Goldilocks of speaker systems for your stereo and surround needs, there are myriad options to consider. Our simple guide explains them all.

TechLife: Analog to Digital 67 Want to convert those old vinyl records, VHS tapes and rolls of ﬁlm to digital and make your old movies, music and photos last forever? We show you how.

BOX FRESH Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A Klipsch Icon XF-48 Samsung HT-X810 Sony Bravia KDL-40Z4500 Sharp Aquos LC46D85X Onkyo TX-SR706

56 58 60 62 64 65

RANDOM PLAY

Back in black

NEC joined Hitachi, Fujitsu and Philips in January by announcing its departure from the Australian AV scene, a move that further decreases choice for buyers in the ﬂat panel market. This leaves Pioneer pretty much alone in a landscape dominated by the big four – Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and LG – but fortunately for consumers it is expanding its range of class-beating Kuro plasma TVs. The ninth generation 50 inch PDP-LX509A shares the same performance characteristics of its 60 inch cousin, which won the EISA ‘European Plasma TV 2008/2009’ when it was released last year. In addition DISTRIBUTOR to the benchmark black PIONEER ELECTRONICS levels made possible by the WEB www.pioneer.com.au

Nice views

Full HD resolution, TruSurround XT, a 15,000:1 contrast ratio and 1080/24p compatibility for displaying Blu-ray movies as they were intended to be seen by the director, the LC-37D85X sure packs a lot into its smallish (37 inch) diagonal. Adding to the package is Fine Motion Advanced processing – Sharp’s version of 100Hz technology – for smoother, crisper fast-action image sequences, and HDMI sockets for connecting up to three digital video devices. Aquos Link allows the TV’s remote to control Sharp’s Aquos Blu-ray player when connected over HDMI, an optical output for sending digital surround soundtracks from high deﬁnition TV broadcasts to an outboard receiver, and a headphone output for private listening top off the feature list. The LCDISTRIBUTOR 37D85X costs $2099. See SHARP CORPORATION PHONE 1300 135 022 our review of its 46 inch WEB www.sharp.net.au brethren on page 64.

Kuro2 video engine’s advanced ASIC video processor, exclusive cell structure with crystal emissive layer and Direct Colour Filter, these include full HD resolution, DLNA-certiﬁed Ethernet port, KURO-Link, 24 frames per second processing and Home Gallery (JPEG Picture Viewer). The $6499 PDP-LX509A is supported by the PDP-C509A, which provides similar performance for a thousand dollars less. Read our review on page 56 for a full evaluation.

Wee control

The Mini Mote puts kids in charge of any Foxtel Pay TV box, which is good and bad. Good, in that the toddlers are empowered to select their own shows (and you’re freed from their channel changing demands), and bad in that it empowers them to select their own shows by interrupting yours. Dressed in colourful kiddy livery, the Mini Mote allows access to Foxtel’s children’s channels only, with each large-hard-capped button taking you straight to either Animal Planet, Boomerang, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, Playhouse Disney, Nickelodeon, Nick Jnr, and the ad-free BBC channel, CBeebies. In addition, parents can directly program two more channels, such as ABC1 and ABC2, into the remote’s Star or Moon buttons, and use the parental control features standard on Foxtel receivers to restrict access to unsuitable programming on those channels. Costing $29, Mini Mote turns any Foxtel set-top box on or off, will change or mute volume, and scroll through all channels up or down. It also comes with an image compartment DISTRIBUTOR that kids can FOXTEL ﬁll with a PHONE 1300 785 622 WEB www.foxtel.com.au photo.

RANDOM PLAY

HDMI 1.3 goes deep Manufactured in Japan, Denon’s AVR-2309 surround sound receiver offers 7 x 100 watts of power, decoding of DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby True HD soundtracks found on Bu-ray discs, and HDMI version 1.3 Deep Colour and XV Colour support. Many electronics marques are now marketing panels and BD players that are XV Colour and Deep Colour compliant, and while Blu-ray discs don’t yet support the range of colours offered by XV Colour or the high-bit technology speciﬁed by Deep Colour, with its provision of HDMI 1.3 the DISTRIBUTOR AVR-2309 is equipped to AUDIO PRODUCTS GROUP PHONE 1300 134 400 pass on the beneﬁts when WEB www.denon.com.au they do.

Elsewhere, 1080p upscaling of analog video is handled by Faroudja’s renowned DCDi processors, with Denon’s High Picture Quality Circuitry enhancing the playback quality of DVD. A range of Audyssey calibration and optimisation features can be called on to tailor sound to the requirements of individual rooms, with Audyssey’s Dynamic Volume working to make the ‘level’ of all sources and programs the same. In addition, Compressed Audio Restorer circuitry helps restore the dynamic range of audio signals such as MP3, AAC and WMA, network audio and even AM/FM radio broadcasts. Available in silver or black the AVR-2309 costs $1499. Available options include the ASD-11R iPod dock ($199), ASD-3N Network and iPod dock ($399), and the ASD-3W wireless network and iPod dock $499.

The go-between Around the same size as a coaster, the ScreenPlay TV Link acts as a bridge for transferring photos, music and video stored on HDD or ﬂash-based devices to the entertainment gear in your living room. It connects via USB to the storage device on one end and to the entertainment gear on the other via component, HDMI or composite video connections, and RCA, coxial and optical audio. Video settings from 480p/720p/1080i (720p and 1080i are achieved through upscaling) can be achieved over component and HDMI connections, and supported ﬁles include MP3, Dolby Digital AC3 , WAV, WMA, MPEG-1, MPEG-2 DISTRIBUTOR (AVI/VOB), MPEG-4 (AVI/DiVX 3.11, 4.x, 5.x/ IOMEGA XViD) and JPEG. It costs $149. WEB www.iomega.com.au

RANDOM PLAY

Born to serve

Media servers employ home networks to allow users to distribute and play all their movies, videos, music and photos in one or more rooms simultaneously. Key to the success of any such system, however, is the interface through which people can access and manage their collections, and it is here that Escient has carved out something of a name for itself among custom installation professionals. Its latest offerings include the VS-100 and the VS-200, the former with dual DISTRIBUTOR 500GB drives and the latter AUDIO PRODUCTS GROUP with dual 1TB drives. This PHONE 1300 134 400 WEB www.denon.com.au represents storage capability

for about 100 and 200 movies respectively, and both models sport RAID 1 redundancy and backup for extra reliability. Other features include video upconversion to 1080p via HDMI 1.3, automatic DVD identification using Movie DB database and cover art, plus automatic CD identification using Gracenote CDDB with cover art from AMG. Both offer multi-zone, multiuser audio support when integrated with the Escient Fireball line of E2, SE, FP-1 and ZP-1 media managers, and PC file sharing for transferring music and picture files to and from a networked PC or Mac. The VS-100 costs $8999 and the VS-200, $12,999.

Little luxuries “Designed to let you discover true musical performance, without constraints and without encroaching on your environment,” Dome is a new high-end compact loudspeaker from French specialists, Focal. Informed by experience gained through developing some of the world’s most renowned – and expensive – speakers (think the $250,000 Grand Utopia), the Dome is a two-way speaker in a cast aluminium enclosure with a rated power handling of 100 watts. The subwoofer accompanying the satellite pair has a 20cm driver and 100 watt amp. Made entirely in France, the Dome features black or white high-gloss lacquer ﬁnishes as standard, with red, blue or yellow grilles available as an option. Wall and ceiling mounting is possible and DISTRIBUTOR the speakers can be employed for LEN WALLIS AUDIO PHONE 02 9427 6755 stereo, 2.1 and 5.1 sound duties. WEB

www.lenwallisaudio.com.au

Stereo Rules, OK? We’re always hearing or reading that “Vinyl is making a comeback” or “Stereo is making a comeback”! As far as we and many of our customers are concerned, they never went away. Unfortunately, in recent years, so much attention has been given to surround sound that some manufacturers dropped the ball when it came to good stereo music. Happily, there are some great new stereo products appearing at all price levels.

Yamaha released an audiophile quality integrated ampliﬁer in 2008 in the shape of the A-S2000 ($3299), featuring fully balanced circuitry throughout. Then they followed up with the A-S1000 ($2499) and the A-S700 ($1099). The electronic circuitry is thoroughly modern, while the styling is delightfully retro. There’s a matching CD player for each of these options too. Marantz have a proud history of producing quality stereo, and they continue to do so at whatever level you aspire to. Their new SA8003 CD/SACD player and PM8003 integrated ampliﬁer ($1999 each) will deliver “affordable high-end” performance. They also

do a very high quality AM/FM tuner in a similar finish, the ST15s1 ($1999), and a lower-priced option the ST6003 tuner ($599). The new “premium-look” series of stereo components also includes the gorgeouslooking SR5023 stereo receiver ($999) with 2 x 80W power and inbuilt tuner. Team this with the matching CD5003 ($599) for a great entry-level hi-fi setup. NAD have not been idle either, and are introducing a number of new stereo amplifiers and players this year. Among them will be the C725BEE stereo receiver ($1199), which will replace the C720BEE, and the C326BEE integrated amplifier ($749). There will also be a new heavyweight integrated amplifier, the C375 ($2199), capable of driving larger and more difficult speakers with its 150W x 2 rating. The two principal CD players will re-emerge as the C545BEE ($749) and the C565BEE ($1099). NAD have maintained a strong commitment to stereo from their very beginning in the 1980s. In a world full of gadgets, there is no doubt that music – whether from LP, CD or uncompressed files from a hard drive – through a good stereo sound system remains a pleasure. If you would like more information on any of these products, or a recommendation on what might suit your needs, give us a call or write to us by post or email.

RANDOM PLAY

Colourful sorts Following the colourful trend set by today’s iPods and MP3 players, Bang & Olufsen’s distinctive-looking A8 headphones now come in hues of green, orange, yellow and white. “I was looking for pure and bright signal colours,” says Anders Hermansen, the chief designer behind Bang & Olufsen’s digital audio master BeoSound 5 which will be released later this year, “and I found inspiration in the sports world. These are colours for people on the move. They reflect an active lifestyle, but are a fashion statement as well.” Made from anodised aluminium and hard rubber, the A8’s ($220) are flexible, robust and durable, according to the Danish brand. Their unconventional design ensures a snug, ergonomic fit for every individual ear, and they are claimed to rarely fall off, even during vigorous activity such as running or bike riding. DISTRIBUTOR

BANG & OLUFSEN WEB www.bang-olufsen.com.au

Small end of town

Most of the interest in ﬂat panel televisions concentrates on large screens for the living room, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to watch in the home’s more compact spaces. Akai’s L8 series LCD televisions include 19, 22 and 42 inch (48, 56 and 106 cm) models, each with inbuilt high deﬁnition TV tuners, HDMI, S-Video, and composite video connections, and a USB port that enables them to double as an XL-sized photo frame. The 42 inch offers full HD resolution, while the smaller models integrate a DVD player and three-in-one card reader. DISTRIBUTOR Pricing starts at $600 for the L819DDVD, with the AUDION INNOVISION PHONE 1300 300 364 L822DDVD costing $700 WEB www.audion-mm.com and the L842DDFD, $1700.

Loud and clear with HDMI Avico Australia says that while many consumers are investing in the latest television and audio technology they are missing out on the best sound and picture quality through continued use of analog cables. It recommends – as do we at Home Entertainment – the use of HDMI cable, not just for its higher quality vision and sound, but because it replaces numerous analog cables with just a single lead and, with version 1.3, enables several HDMI devices to be controlled via a single remote. Avico’s Origin brand of 1.3b compliant HDMI cables are available in six lengths – 1.5, 3, 6, 10, 15 and DISTRIBUTOR 20 metres – and priced from $170 for the 1.5 metre AVICO PHONE 02 9624 7977 length to $380 for the 20 WEB www.avico.com.au metre length.

Top marques The Ferrari of the projection world, SIM2 has released its most affordable 1080p projector to date. The Domino 60 is a single chip DLP design based around Texas Instruments’ 1080p DarkChip3 0.95 inch DMD chipset. Like more expensive SIM2 projectors, the Domino 60 shares a few similar features such as a variable dual iris in the lens which adjusts to produce the right amount of light output for each of three operational modes; DISTRIBUTOR Cinema, Dynamic and AUDIO PRODUCTS GROUP PHONE 1300 134 400 Standard. The advantage WEB www.audioproducts.com.au of the dual iris, according

to SIM2, is to enhance contrast and shadow detail. Further use of Texas Instruments’ DynamicBlack technology digitally examines the video source material and adjusts the iris aperture based on the level of light shown on screen. Aimed at the serious, but not OTT, home theatre enthusiast, the Domino 60 has the connections to ﬁt into most AV systems. There are twin HDMI inputs, plus composite, S-Video, component and RGBHV. Thirdparty system integration such as Crestron or AMX is provided for with an RS-232 port and 12 volt trigger output. Priced at $5999, the Domino 60 comes with a nationwide two year parts and labour warranty.

Sing the blues Developed by a Las Los Angeles entrepreneur who wanted a safe way to cycle, listen to music and make phones calls at the same time (now that’s sooo LA), CyFi is a compact speaker and speakerphone that attaches to a bike stem and connects over Bluetooth to just about any MP3 player or phone you might be carrying in your pocket. The player or phone needs to support A2DP, the latest stereo wireless standard, and for maximum safety when making calls, connected phones should support voice recognition. An iPod adaptor also lets you listen to and share your favourite tunes DISTRIBUTOR wirelessly when CY-FI you get off the WEB www.cyﬁ.com.au bike.

With six hours of battery life, track, volume and playlist settings, plus a remote control, the compact and water resistant CyFi will, according to its distributors, appeal to bushwalkers, boaties and campers as well as cyclists. It costs $350.

RANDOM PLAY

Ear, ear

Started back in 1995 by rock band Van Halen’s sound engineer, Ultimate Ears is now owned by Logitech which has continued to develop the brand’s unique professional and domestic style in-ear speaker systems. The latest to join the extensive range is the $329.95 Super.Fi 5 headphone, which despite its ultra compact design is said to deliver rich, detailed sound from your Apple iPod or MP3 player. Using a single, wideband driver, the Super.Fi 5 has a frequency response that extends from the lowest lows to the highest highs. Maximum sound pressure is 115dB, which is loud, so as with any in-ear headphone mind you don’t give your eardrums too much of a workout. Another feature that enhances sound quality is a custom-made armature housing a tuned ﬁlter that supposedly ‘shapes’ the sound. To keep things comfy, the Super.Fi 5s include three interchangeable soft silicon ear tips, and the earphones’ body is made of a machined liquid silver plastic DISTRIBUTOR housing, allowing LOGITECH AUSTRALIA COMPUTER long listening periods PHONE 1800 133 274 WEB www.logitech.com.au without discomfort.

Love youse all Borne out of the perceived need for simplicity and wireless freedom, the U4 MP3 player plugs directly into the USB port on a PC or Mac for instant ﬁle transfer and charging. Samsung’s EmoDio software allows you to drag and drop music ﬁles, sort play lists, and establish favourite datacasts to upload automatically. You can also download free album art to view on the 2.5cm OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen. Supporting MP3, WMA and OGG, the U4’s 4GB capacity can store up to 200 songs. DNSe 2.0 (Digital Natural Sound engine) provides nine different EQ settings, a seven-band user EQ setting, and Street Mode that allows music to sound clearer in high noise areas. A microphone for voice and music recording is integrated into the player’s teeny chassis, as is an FM transmitter for broadcasting playlists from the U4 to an incar audio DISTRIBUTOR system. It costs $109. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS PHONE 1300 369 000 WEB www.samsung.com.au

COMPETITION Enter only online at

by answering the question below. Check out our other competitions while you’re visiting. Entry is totally free!

Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A plasma TV valued at $5499 (Read our review on page 64)

& BDP51FD Blu-ray player valued at $799

WIN A

50 INCH PLASMA

& BLU-RAY PLAYER

he established choice of home cinephiles the world over, Pioneer Kuro series televisions provide unsurpassed full high deﬁnition (1920 x 1080p) performance, with the PDP-C509A delivering ultra-deep blacks, rich colours, superior video processing technologies, space-saving bottom-mounted speakers and

WORTH

$6298

1080p/24 frames per second support for judder-free playback of Blu-ray movies. You’ll play these, of course, on the BDP-51FD, a premium disc spinner with BonusView, onboard decoding for 7.1 Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, plus a Video Adjust Mode for optimising pictures for display on a plasma, LCD, Pioneer plasma or projector.

For more information visit www.pioneer.com.au or www.kuro.com.au

Tell us in 25 words or less what movie you’re looking forward to watching on Pioneer’s HD plasma/Blu-ray combo and why.

Answer online at www.gadgetguy.com.au • ENTRIES CLOSE 19 APRIL 2009 TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF ENTRY Terms and Conditions of Entry can be found at www. gadgetguy.com.au by clicking the Competition graphic on the right-hand side of the page. The competition is open

to all permanent residents of Australia and there is no limit to the number of entries a single person can make. The competition comprises two prizes totalling $6298, including one Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A plasma TV valued at $5499

and one Pioneer BDP51FD Blu-ray player valued at $799. Prize value is the recommended retail value as provided by the supplier and is correct at the time of printing. All prize values are in Australian dollars.

GUY TALK

Real TV F

or the past 13 years, attending the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January has reaped enormous beneﬁts. Generally, these have been insights into the key technologies that would dominate the market over the remainder of the year and often into the next. But this year was different. Very different. Gone was the buzz. Missing was the excitement of the ‘next big thing’. Absent were the disruptive technologies of past shows; those innovations that shook the market to its foundation and radically altered consumer expectations. Instead, there was an overriding feeling of malaise, and as I moved from booth to booth, a chronic and industry-wide aversion to risk. With the ﬁnancial meltdown of the past six months I guess this sentiment is to be expected. However, without real innovation and leadership the negative attitude of many of the exhibitors will only fuel the downward spiral.

It was phenomenal and I’ve already cleared my credit cards in anticipation of investing in 3D when it arrives Two companies, however, appeared to buck the trend. LG and Samsung – which have both just posted huge operating losses in the US – displayed technologies that have the potential to excite consumers, prime among them being OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode), a potential replacement for LCD and plasma. LG announced it will release a 38cm (15 inch) active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) TV this June. The prototype, on display at CES, was simply amazing. At only 0.85mm it’s virtually paper-thin, and the picture is razor-sharp with impressive contrast ratios. It was a screen that could easily be stuck to any surface with regular double-sided tape! The display has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels – more pixels cannot be crammed onto the screen’s surface area – and accepts video signals up to 720p. An LG representative at the display stand said that it was his personal opinion that AMOLED would be the replacement technology for large screen LCDs and plasmas in around 8-10 years time. And indeed, the image quality was nothing short of spectacular – remarkably bright and colourful. The TV was far and away one of the most impressive products at the show.

Not far away was the Samsung booth. Here, virtually every panel on display – and there were hundreds – was wafer thin, and with nary a bezel in sight it looked like the pictures extended beyond the TV and right onto the wall space. In this space could be found the company’s third generation Series 9 LED-backlit LCD HDTV with Motion Plus 120Hz (100Hz when it arrives down under later in the year). I had considered the second generation LED-backlit LCD the best I had seen but gen-three was a visible step up again. A remarkable image. And then there was 3D TV. Virtually every manufacturer, including Intel, was showing one flavour of this technology or another. Sony’s version of 3D was crystal clear and immersive. For animated features and games on the PS3, nothing in 2D comes even close. After 10 minutes watching MotorStorm: Pacific Rift, Wipeout HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in 3D I was smitten. And then I saw the Panasonic demo. Employing a full HD 103 inch plasma with Blu-ray player, this system delivered full 1080p content to each eye, with those images then melded together via three dimensional glasses and 3D drivers in the plasma. The demo immersed you into clips from Hollywood’s recent 3D materials – Journey to the Centre of the Earth and a preview of Disney’s recent animated flick Bolt – followed by NBA action, WWE matches and footage from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It was phenomenal and I’ve already cleared my credit cards in anticipation of investing in 3D when it arrives. And arrive it will, for 3D technology has now evolved to the point where (cue fanfare to herald the bold prediction…) you can expect to have it in your living room in the next 24–36 months! Content is forthcoming too, with the major studios already creating 30 movies from the ground up in HD, all of which – they claim – will be viewable on home systems. Heck, even the polarising Bollé style glasses were cool. ■ The GadgetGuy™, Peter Blasina, is the technology reporter for Channel Seven’s Sunrise program, appears regularly on other network programs and is broadcast weekly on various national radio stations. The Gadget Guy, Home Entertainment Magazine and Sunrise were guests of LG and Samsung at the 2009 International CES convention in Las Vegas.

TECH CORNER

So complex, it hertz E

ver notice the way new features on AV products come in little clusters? One company announces ‘SnazView’ technology, and then everyone else responds with their own versions of SnazView. In 2009, the tech du jour is 200Hz motion interpolation on HDTVs. Sony makes a big deal of it in its latest Bravia TVs, and Samsung too has 200Hz tech. But what exactly does it mean? And how can it make your TV experience better? Back in the good old days of cathode ray tubes (no wait, they were bad old days), a TV would use its electron gun to ‘paint’ an image on the inside of the screen. Almost instantly, the electrical charge created on the phosphoring screen would dissipate, and the gun would fire again to ‘repaint’ the image. The amount of times a TV could do this per second gave it a ‘hertz’ rating – and you’ll remember from science class that hertz is a measure of cycles per second. Originally, it was difficult to get electron guns to do this at any rate other than the alternating current line frequency (or a multiple of it) that came from the plug in the wall. So in the US (NTSC), TVs ran at 60Hz, while in Europe and Australia (PAL) they ran at 50Hz. Now this is no problem when you’re looking at a signal straight from a 50Hz or 60Hz television camera, though if you look at an old TV out of the corner of your eye you can see some flicker. But when it comes to showing movies – that is, a 24 frames-per-second 35mm film – on a TV, things get fiddly. On PAL TVs, 24 obviously doesn’t go into 50, so turning an essentially 24Hz signal into a 50Hz signal involves speeding the film up by 4 percent and playing each frame twice. This results in an acceptable picture, but a very slight, almost undetectable rise in pitch of the audio. NTSC on the other hand is more complicated. Much more complicated. Using the Telecine system, a technique called 2:3 pulldown allows 24fps and 25fps movies to run on a 60Hz television. But film doesn’t run smooth – the phenomenon is even called Telecine Judder. So the quest has always been to improve smoothness. On a 50Hz television, extremely rapid motion or wide panning shots sometimes appear to flicker, so the first thing manufacturers did was double the refresh rate to 100Hz. These televisions – humble

So 200Hz tech isn’t about creating an image in the ﬁrst place, it’s about improving the natural movement of that image 20

CRTs all – doubled each frame again, making for smoother motion. Now, a decade later, the technological landscape of the television has changed dramatically. Modern TVs use either LCD or plasma tech, and unlike a CRT, these televisions don’t have a refresh rate, as we traditionally understand it. But a hertz rating still has relevance. As 200Hz technology applies to LCD TVs, let’s focus our discussion here. Refresher course: an LCD is a grid of liquid crystal pixels which activate when you pass an electrical signal through them. If an LCD grid is receiving power, it’s on. It doesn’t have to ‘repaint’ the picture hundreds of times a second. There’s a fluorescent backlight behind most LCD TVs (though you can expect Light Emitting Diode or LED units to become more common in the near future – watch this space!) which does flicker, but backlights already flicker at about 200Hz. So 200Hz tech isn’t about creating an image in the first place, it’s about improving the natural movement of that image. It’s called motion interpolation, and with the advent of 1080p Blu-ray and even 1080i TV content, it’s more important than ever. It’s also nowhere near as simple as just doubling (or in 200Hz’s case, octupling) frames. A processor on the TV’s mainboard looks at two sequential frames and then actually creates – or interpolates – additional frames in between them. The results are dramatic. On a big television running at 1080p and 50Hz, wide panning shots can show pronounced judder. There’s just so much image information being shifted around, the human eye can’t be fooled into thinking it’s a smooth image. And that’s where interpolation saves the day. Interpolation at 100Hz is good, but again, with high resolution content now being beamed to every home, there’s absolutely no harm in your TV doubling its efforts. So 200Hz is here to improve motion smoothness and indeed make objects just look more solid. There’s a downside, of course. You’ve grown up watching film in the cinema, where light beamed through a celluloid frame instantly creates a relatively high resolution image on a giant screen, and then changes it 24 times a second. It’s not natural, but you’ve learned to recognise a ‘film look’. Tech such as Sony’s MotionFlow will eliminate the judder, but it can also eliminate the film look. Instead, films appear like they’ve been shot in a TV studio. It’s hard to explain, but it’s easy to spot. Still, with so much content now being shot on HD digital cameras, 35mm is becoming the domain of the arthouse project. And you can always turn off motion interpolation features with your remote. Here’s a parting thought. Think TV resolution has hit its peak? Then consider this: a 1920 x 1080 (or 1080p) TV has a total of 2,073,600 pixels in its grid. That’s two megapixels. And the $300 digital still camera you just bought most likely records six, or even eight. We’ve got a long way to go on our moving pictures. And the tech is only going to become more complicated from here. Anthony Fordham

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CES 2009

As the world’s biggest electronics love-in, the Las Vegas CES always features cool and interesting stuff. Dave Bullard gives us the skinny on what to expect in the way of better and more innovative gear this year.

UPER-thin LED TVs, micro-notebooks, 3D TVs, gadgets, gizmos and superstars like Diana Ross and Akon ... on the face of it, there was no sign of the economic slowdown at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. More than 2700 companies from around the world, including 300 new exhibitors, unveiled an estimated 20,000 new products at CES, one of the world’s biggest consumer technology trade shows. Yes, there was a little more elbow room for attendees, with visitor numbers down an estimated 20,000 to about 110,000, and there weren’t many executives who didn’t touch on the economic crisis in their speeches or conversations with the press, but the buzz was still there as new technologies and products were debuted and companies put a positive spin on the future. “We will continue to focus on high quality,” Samsung

Senior Vice-President Dr Dongho Shin told Home Entertainment, “but this year we will make more effort to make prices more affordable.” And after conceding that consumer electronics sales are expected to slip 0.6 percent in the US this year, Gary Shapiro, the President and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, said: “More consumer technology business deals start at the International CES than any other event on earth. The success of the 2009 show gives us optimism that innovation will restart the world’s economic engine.” Innovation like the Palm Pre, a touchscreen smartphone featuring a new operating system – webOS – built from the ground up to be constantly connected to the web. It’s hoped to be an iPhone-killer, and certainly had the more geeky among the attendees drooling. And innovations like these on the followng pages, some of the show’s standouts:

CES 2009

LG Model LHX LED TV

Samsung 8000 Series LED TVs

Samsung describes its 8000 Series LED-backlit TVs as “Picture perfect products”, which is a big call but not altogether too far from the truth at this stage in the evolution of TV. Thanks to the LEDs, these panels are eco-friendly, super-slim and produce darker blacks, crisp and bright whites and vivid colours. Samsung says the technology produces a picture that combines the brightness of a conventional LCD TV and the cinematic quality of a plasma panel. These sets boast a refresh rate of 240Hz (NTSC) for eliminating motion blur, while the 7000 and 6000 Series TVs clock in at 120Hz (NTSC).

Pioneer VSX-1019AH AV receiver

Bowers & Wilkins Panorama soundbar

B&W showed it could produce audiophile-grade gear for the masses last year, when it brought out the brilliant Zeppelin iPod speaker dock. This year they’ve done it again with the Panorama soundbar. Made to mount on the wall below your flatscreen TV, and taking its design cue from the Zeppelin, the Panorama’s aluminium casework houses nine speakers powered by six class D amplifiers, giving a combined power output of 175 watts.

LED TELEVISIONS

“

There were a few confused glances when a new range of LED TVs was announced by Samsung at its early press conference. Then the penny dropped, and people realised the company was speaking about LCD TVs backlit by LEDs. Using LEDs as the primary light source, rather than traditional Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL), has a number of benefits. These include energy savings of about 40

We will continue to focus on high quality... but this year we will make more effort to make prices more affordable 24

What set the LG Model LHX apart from other LED-backlit LCD TVs on show at CES is that the 140cm TV uses a full array of LED backlights instead of the more common “edge” lighting. This allows LG to claim an almost incredibly high dynamic contrast ratio of 2,000,000:1. It’s a 240Hz model, which reduces motion smearing when watching fast-moving images. To get its super-slim 2.5cm profile, LG has removed the TV tuner and connections and put them in a separate wireless media box. But there are still built-in speakers.

”

While many AV receivers have iPod capability of some kind, Pioneer has gone the whole hog with its four new VSX models. These have both iPhone and iPod certification, and full-colour graphic user interfaces, including the ability to view album art on your TV. They’re packed with lots of new technology, but most interesting is Advanced Sound Receiver which can restore lost data from the compressed audio tracks on your iPod.

percent, ultra-high contrast ratios that help the TV to produce darker blacks (a perennial weakness with LCD panels) and crisp and bright whites, plus ultra-slim depths of “under an inch thick” (so under 2.5cm thick). And unlike the ultra-slim TVs we were drooling over at last year’s CES, these LED models still leave room for a full suite of connections and an HDTV tuner. Sharp was another company showing LED TVs at the show, but as ‘limited edition’ models rather than a mainstream product line. JVC showed a prototype LED model, and LG showed a model that was a bit thicker than the Samsung offerings. Accompanying the LED TVs was the news that some of the models featured refresh rates of 240Hz (NTSC), which promises to further reduce the screen smear, or motion blurring, that still accompanies LCD TVs. By the way, realising that ultra-slim TVs look plain silly mounted on big, clunky wall brackets that hold the TV about 5cm away from the wall, Samsung has also created an ultraslim wall-mount that reduces the gap between the TV and the wall to around 1.5cm.

Samsung HT-BD8200 Blu-ray Home Theatre Soundbar

The name says it all, really. This is the world’s first home theatre soundbar (a self-contained, wall-mountable system with disc player, amp and speakers) to feature a Blu-ray player and wireless subwoofer. The HT-BD8200 has Samsung’s ‘Touch of Colour’ design to complement the company’s TV sets and is a svelte 6.6 cm deep.

Panasonic RP-HJE900 in-ear headphones

In-ear headphones never look like much, but these new ones from Panasonic are high-fidelity units with hidden treasures. A sound chamber made of zirconia claims to produce less resonance than the usual plastic or aluminium, so the sound from these headphones is ultra-clear with virtually no distortion. Frequency response is 6Hz28kHz, so there’s a decent low-end evident.

Sony VAIO P-Series Lifestyle PC

Accessing the internet through your TV might seem like an idea on a par with doing it through your fridge, but the way Samsung and Toshiba are doing it, you’ll probably start liking the idea. Using Intel chips, new TVs from these companies let you call up Yahoo’s Widget Channel over what you’re watching. Using either a wired or wireless Ethernet connection, consumers can access content onscreen from Yahoo!, Flickr, YouTube and more by selecting from a widgets-based interface and scrollbar running along the bottom of the screen. At first the widgets will offer access to basic news, weather and sports information, but this will expand as developers and content providers take advantage of the open-platform widget development kit. Also working on similar offerings are LG and Sony, while Toshiba showed off a TV model featuring a MySpace widget that allows users to keep in touch with friends while watching their favourite shows. Many people are already using gadgets such as Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3 to access the internet in the

When Sennheiser announces a new flagship audiophile headphone you’d better listen – literally! The completely open design headphones have a 56mm sound transducer, which is the largest to be found in dynamic headphones. Frequency response is 6Hz to 51kHz, and we can attest to their depth of detail and absolute clarity. They’re also very, very comfortable.

Shure USB microphones

The world’s lightest 8 inch (20.3cm) notebook – also referred to as a netbook – is small enough to slip into a pocket but still has the processing grunt of larger models. If you’re worried about typing, don’t be: the Lifestyle PC’s keyboard extends to the perimeters of the chassis and the spacing between the keys has been engineered to help reduce mistakes.

INTERNET ON YOUR TV

Sennheiser HD 800 headphones

Making a voice or instrument recording to a laptop or PC just became a whole lot easier. Shure’s new PG27USB and PG42USB microphones have USB connectors rather than XLR types, which means you can plug them straight into your computer. The cardoid condenser mics have built-in headphone monitoring and zero latency, so there’s no delay and less disorientation. Among the other features is a mix control which lets you listen to backing tracks while recording new ones.

lounge room, but will this take off as a mainstream feature? If you’re already turned off by scrolling tickers along the bottom of the screen, then this might be your worst nightmare. The internet was evident in other product groups as well. Sony was leading the way by showing web-enabled digital cameras and MP3 players, and said that 90 percent of its products would be able to connect to the internet by 2011.

BD LIVE Every manufacturer worth its salt brought out at least one Blu-ray player featuring BD-Live, which enables you to access content via the internet. It can allow you to download up-todate content such as refreshed previews and exclusive special features, and also has the capability to do so much more, such as social interaction via chat and video messaging, and participation in live events. Sony Pictures, for example, has these great features: On the Starship Troopers 3: Marauder disc you can upload your own photo and join the fight in select scenes from the movie. You can also download ringtones and exclusive video content. On the 21 disc you can enter the Classroom to pick up

CES 2009

LG LD-GD910 wrist phone

Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD Blu-ray disc player

Pioneer’s flagship Blu-ray player delivers the goods via a newly-engineered 16-bit video engine which includes a Marvell award-winning QDEO processor and Renesas Technology video decoder. It’s a BD Live model, so you can take advantage of the internet capabilities of new-generation discs. And audiophiles will love the fact that there’s a dedicated Wolfson WM8740 Audio DAC for each one of the eight audio channels.

Dick Tracy had a wrist radio in 1946, but it’s taken 63 years for technology to catch up with the cartoon hero in the form of LG’s GD910 – the world’s first market-ready touch watch phone. It’s very easy to use: you just touch the screen, and icons appear for all its functions. The 3.6cm screen turns into a number pad for dialling, and is surprisingly accurate. You can use the phone by holding it half-way between your mouth and ear, but LG recommends using a Bluetooth headset.

ION Tailgater iPod sound system

Here’s something for the amateur musician in all of us. ION’s Tailgater is a guitaramp-style sound system that features an iPod dock on the top of the block. The black unit also has an instrumentin jack for connecting your guitar, mic or other musicmaker. There’s a bigger, more powerful model called the Block Rocker for travelling entertainers and event coordinators.

blackjack tips and learn the card counting technique used in the film. Or on the Men In Black disc you can test your Men in Black knowledge against other fans around the world. The standout product at CES featuring BD Live came from Pioneer, in the form of the Elite BDP-09FD, the company’s new flagship Blu-ray player.

NETBOOKS The ‘must-have’ gadgets of the year are cheap, ultra-portable notebook PCs referred to as ‘netbooks’. Asus more or less made the market last year with its Eee PCs, but now there’s just so much to choose from that’s it’s likely many of us will be dumping our heavy, full-sized laptops for the ease and health benefits of these micro marvels. Asus again came up with the goods at CES by showing off its Eee PC T91, which features a touchscreen and a swivel hinge for converting it from a regular netbook into a tablet with a 23cm LED-backlit screen. And, contrary to what you’d expect from a low-cost PC, it also features a GPS receiver, TV tuner and FM transmitter. But the talk of the show was definitely Sony’s Vaio P Series, which the company described as being “about the size of a business envelope and roughly as thin as a mobile phone”.

Altec Lansing Expressionist Classic computer audio system

We’re all using our PCs for playing music, videos and games these days, and as most built-in PC speakers are bad, to say the least, you need a decent external set. From what we heard at the show, the Expressionist Classic 2.0 amplified audio system from Altec Lansing is set to be a big seller. It delivers a fairly powerful, balanced sound from dual 3 inch (7.6cm) drivers.

This amazing PC is small enough to slip into a jacket pocket or handbag and only weighs 640 grams. It features a 20.3cm, LED-backlit widescreen and, like the Asus T91, it has GPS functionality. It comes in red, green, black and white colours. Another really nice touch is that the Windows Vista unit also has an instant-on option that launches directly into Sony’s Xross Media Bar interface – like the interface on the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable – so you can boot up instantly for quick access to music, video, photos and the Web.

3D TV We’ve been seeing 3D monitors in various forms at the major trade shows for a few years now, but judging by this year’s CES, 3D TV seems to be about to make the jump into our homes. Well, within a couple of years, at least Almost every major TV manufacturer was showing off what they could do with the new generation of full HD panels. (The higher the resolution, the better the 3D effect.) We tried it out at the Samsung stand, where the Korean company was displaying two forms of the technology, both of which require the viewer to wear a pair of clear glasses. One was a TV capable of showing programs and movies shot in 3D, and anyone who’s ever gone to a 3D movie at a

Roland DT-HD1 drum tutorial This is something every aspiring drummer needs, an easy-to-use drum tutorial software linked to an electronic drum kit. The software teaches introductory drum patterns and techniques in a fun way, while the HD-1 V-Drums Lite is an incredibly quiet, compact and affordable drum kit that sounds like the real thing through your headphones.

Panasonic VIERA Z1 Series plasma With all this talk of LCD technologies you might be forgiven for thinking that plasma is dead. Far from it – the technology still represents the best value in sizes above 140cm. And just look at this slim beauty from Panasonic: the flagship Z1 Series plasma panel. It’s a monitor rather than a TV, as the tuner is contained in a separate wireless media box so the panel can achieve its one inch (2.5cm) thickness. The Z1 features the Viera Cast web menu which will allow viewers to use the new streaming HD movie rental capability via Amazon Video-onDemand in some markets.

cinema will know what this looks like. But the other was even more impressive: a TV with the processing ability to take a normal movie, program or videogame and turn it into 3D on the fly. It works really well, though we can’t imagine anyone other than kids having the desire to sit for hours wearing a pair of 3D glasses.

THE GREEN DREAM We’ve already mentioned that using LED backlighting in TVs reduces power consumption by about 40 percent compared to fluorescent lamps, but LEDs are also mercury-free, which adds another degree of environmental friendliness and safety. But besides LED TVs, there were plenty of other green technologies on show at CES. The one that really caught our eye was Toshiba’s SCiB Battery Assisted Bicycle. This was a Schwinn Tailwind electric bicycle with one of Toshiba’s long-life, rapid-charge SCiB batteries mounted on the carrier. How long? How rapid? It can travel a distance of about 30 km to 50 km on a single charge, and – get this – the battery can recharge to 90 percent in five minutes. Amazing. Sony showed off its VE5 series of LCD TVs that cut energy usage by 40 percent by using a hot cathode fluorescent lamp rather than a cold one. The TVs also turn themselves off when

Motorola Moto W233 Renew

You know how discarded plastic water bottles are one of the biggest threats to our environment? Motorola’s showing the way forward by producing the world’s first carbon-neutral mobile phone whose plastic housing is made solely out of these. It’s a basic phone, made for talking and messaging.

Monster ultra-high-speed cable

Yes, it looks like any other HDMI cable, but Monster’s new range of Hyper Speed and Ultra High Speed products carry perfect, high resolution signals over long cable runs – eliminating signal attenuation and timing errors. The new M Series cables, at lengths of up to 23 metres, Monster Maximiser signal boosters and Cat5e/6 wall plates will all be welcomed by custom installers keen to embrace the world of HDMI.

no movement is detected for a while. From LG comes the “world’s lowest power” 32 inch LCD TV panel, in which energy use is slashed by 56 percent by adding a white pixel to the RGB pixel. Among other innovations, the company also showed off a 36cm LCD panel for notebook PCs which is illuminated by sunlight instead of the backlight when used outdoors, reducing power consumption by a huge 75 percent. Great idea. Motorola hasn’t been having a good time of it lately, but it really made an impact when it unveiled the world’s first carbon-neutral mobile phone. It’s achieved this by making the Moto W233 Renew’s plastic housing out of recycled water bottles, reducing its size by 22 percent and making the box and all of the materials inside it from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. In addition, a postage-paid recycling envelope in the box makes it easy to return your previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost. Fuji showed off an eco-friendly, high performance line of batteries called EnviroMAX Battery line. They’re alkaline batteries that contain no cadmium, lithium or polyvinyl chloride. No ozone-depleting compounds are given out during the manufacturing process, and they are made and packaged with recycled or recyclable materials. ■ Dave Bullard travelled to Las Vegas as a guest of Samsung Electronics

OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Tannoy Prestige SE Westminster Royal

magine a loudspeaker as big as a fridge. Double it and you have Tannoy’s Westminster Royal. Top dog in the company’s Prestige SE Series, the Westminster’s colossal enclosure – 530 litres against the 220 litre average capacity of today’s refrigerators – would look just the biz either side of the drinks trolley in the drawing room of Lord Lotsaloot’s pile in the Home Counties of England. Its walnut veneer construction, solid walnut edging and trim detail would, one suspects, confer the perfect impression of heritage and gravitas to such environs, but it actually ﬁnds a more ready home in Japan, where Tannoy has been a highly regarded audiophile brand since the 1970s. Central to the company’s success – its studio monitors are the choice of recording engineers and producers worldwide – is its Dual Concentric drive unit. Developed in 1946 and used in various iterations throughout many of its loudspeaker ranges since, this places a high frequency pressure unit slap bang in the middle of a large bass driver – a 38cm whopper in the case of the Westminster. The aim here is to have all frequencies – from the loudspeaker’s rated low of 18Hz right up to 22kHz – radiate from a single ‘point-source’, just like the sounds from a musical instrument. Replicate this balanced distribution of sound and you are ever closer to reproducing the ‘ﬁdelity’ of the original

music, with this ‘truth’, of course, being the manna of hi-fi enthusiasts. Many other speakers have adopted the point-source approach – electrostatics and speakers with d’Appolito arrays have this as a design goal – but golden-eared aficionados agree that Tannoy’s implementation achieves a particularly refined result. The Dual Concentric drive unit is, however, supported in its work by an acoustic engineer’s wet dream of technologies and innovations, including an ingenious super-hard-wired crossover network, the computer designed and manufactured reverse throat ‘PepperPot WaveGuide’ (so called for the myriad tiny holes that populate its length) which ports high frequencies through the centre of the woofer without interfering in any way with the reproduction of bass frequencies, and Alnico magnets – an iron/nickel alloy mixed during the melt process with cobalt and aluminium – for clean transient response and increased sensitivity. Speaking of sensitivity, the ‘Westies’ go way loud too – 99dB in fact (2.83 Volts @ 1 metre). Assisting here is the traditional compound horn-loaded enclosure, a massive curved cross section in front of the drive unit that effectively amplifies and improves the directivity of the sound in much the same way as a megaphone does. With such volume levels possible, the loudspeaker can be driven by even modestly powered amps – Tannoy recommends those rated 50225 watts – but will happily handle 135 watts continuous output should you choose to mate it to one with credentials as muscular as its own… and you should. If there aren’t sufficient funds in the kid’s education trust and Visa won’t extend the $49,990 credit necessary to own a pair Ro of Westminster Royals, you can adventure through the English landscape with other Prestige SE models. The hierarchy includes the Stirling, Turnberry, Sandringham, Kensington, Yorkminster, Canterbury and Glenair, each one offering the tandem benefits of horn loading and Dual Concentric drive units.

Tannoy Prestige SE Westminster Royal Loudspeakers $49,990 Syntec International www.syntec.com.au

THE SOUND GUIDE

thE sou Whether itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movies or music, we explain how to get the most out of the soundtracks that underscore your life.

hile stereo has been the mainstay of music reproduction for more than 40 years, home cinema has added a new dimension to the at-home audio experience The latest surround sound formats are the aural equivalent of high definition video. Just as HD video can provide five times as much picture information as standard definition video, so surround sound delivers a lot more audio detail and involvement to soundtracks. It does this in two different ways, by providing: 1. More channels of digital sound 2. Better quality digital sound

1. More channels Sometimes we like to pull out our Deep Purple CD Machine Head, and transport ourselves back to the uncomplicated early-1970s. But we also have the DVD-Audio version of

this. Both versions provide the best that their respective technologies have to offer, and both are limited by the quality of the sound recording technology of the early 1970s. Despite that limitation, the DVD-Audio version is much more enjoyable, mostly because it is easier to hear everything that is going on in the music. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s because DVD-Audio offers 5.1 channel digital surround sound instead of the two channels of digital sound provided on the CD. This allows all the instruments to be pulled apart and delivered into our room without being mashed together in a confusing way. And so it is with movies and even some TV shows. Where full 5.1 channel digital surround sound is provided, the clarity is improved enormously. It is far easier to comprehend the dialogue if it is being delivered from the centre speaker while the music swells from the other speakers, than when all the sound is mixed together into just two speakers.

nd gUIDE 2. Better sound

For movies, that 5.1 channel experience ‘envelopes’ you into the sound. It is absolutely wonderful to be embedded into the movie by the swirl of sound behind and beside you as you’re watching Cars or The Terminator. Many moviemakers these days use surround sound as part of their narrative devices, surprising you with sounds from behind. Do not deprive yourself! Digital surround sound is, in addition to the extra channels, more accurate. More truthful. That’s because new technology has allowed some of the compromises of older surround formats to be eliminated. The old Dolby Surround from the 1970s was quite restricted in sound quality, but the Dolby Digital 5.1 available on some HDTV shows and most DVDs delivers excellent quality all around. Blu-ray steps things up even more, providing super-high resolution sound formats such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. These are sound delivery systems without compromise. They preserve the full integrity of the original sound in a way that standard Dolby Digital can’t, and can deliver up to 7.1 channels

of audio. Some soundtracks employing these high resolution sound formats also offer 24-bit rather than the standard 16-bit sound, or 96kHz sampling rather than the standard 48kHz. The benefits of these improvements are rather technical, but we can assure you that each increase allows the original sound to be even more precisely – truthfully – replicated.

sound cHEcK Check the setup menus of your HDTV receiver. To get full Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, you will need to make sure that it does not convert the sound to ‘PCM’, the two-channel format used on CD. Instead, find out where the sound output is determined and set it to ‘pass through’ or Dolby Digital (the label varies depending on the unit).

THE SOUND GUIDE

1. The source Surround sound comes from HDTV broadcasts and from several different kinds of disc. For HDTV you need some form of HDTV receiver, of which there are three categories. Your TV may already have one built-in, and that could be plenty good enough. Just remember that to get the best surround sound from your TV, you will need to connect it to a home theatre receiver using optical audio cable. An inexpensive HDTV receiver does basically the same job as one built into a TV. This is useful if your TV doesn’t have one built-in, or you are using a front projector (since these never have TV tuners). More commonly you will want a HD PVR – a personal video recorder – such as a Tivo media device or Foxtel IQ or IQ2. A PVR has inside it a computer-style hard disk drive for recording and storing TV shows, and allows you to time shift programs for watching at times more convenient to you. For discs, HD sound can come from Blu-ray, DVD Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD (SACD) or games from Xbox and Playstation. Both the Xbox 360 and the Sony Playstation 3 consoles provide full surround sound of the highest quality, really adding that all-important sense of immersion in a game.

sound quality Dolby Digital TruHD/ DTS-HD Master Audio SACD DVD-Audio Dolby Digital Plus/ DTS-HD High Resolution DTS CD Dolby Digital iPod/MP3 Hi-Fi VHS Vinyl LP FM Audiocassette AM Blu-ray discs can potentially offer the highest quality HD sound available, but not all do. After all, many

WHAT YOU NEED FOR SURROUND SOUND Just like an old-fashioned stereo setup, your surround sound system consists of three parts:

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DOLBY TRUE HD CHANNEL SEVEN

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1. The source 32

2. The amplifier

3. The loudspeakers

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Klipsch CS-700 and RoomGroove Combo A 2.1 AV system with Dolby Virtual sound and a wireless subwoofer, the CS-700 plays CD and DVD, provides AM/FM radio and has connections for two other sources, such as a Pay TV box, PVR or Blu-ray player. Add the RoomGroove iPod/iPhone dock and you’ve got yourself a two-zone wireless multi-room audio system, with KlipschCast transmitting, say, music from MTV’s Video Hits to the bedroom upstairs while a DVD plays in the lounge.

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1 of 4 Sony USB turntables A full functioning turntable, the PSLX300USB is also equipped with a USB port for transferring your slowly disintegrating pressed vinyl into theoretically indestructible MP3. Just plug it into a PC, use the software to name tracks and albums, clean up crackly or popping audio, and up the sample rate. Once done, archive your collection safely or take it to the streets in your portable player of choice.

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Tell us in 25 words or less which two songs you’d like to play in which two areas of the house at the same time using the klipsch cS-700 and roomGroove combo, and why.

Tell us in 25 words or less which vinyl album you’d like to convert to mP3 using the Sony USB turntable, and why.

Answer online at www.gadgetguy.com.au • ENTrIES clOSE 9TH APrIl 2009 TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF ENTRY Terms and Conditions of Entry can be found at www. gadgetguy.com.au by clicking the Competition graphic on the right-hand side of the page. Both competitions listed on

this page open to all permanent residents of Australia and there is no limit to the number of entries a single person can make. The competitions comprise five prizes totalling $3844, including one Prize of Klipsch multi-room audio products

valued at $2648, plus four Sony USB turntables, valued at $399 each. Prize value is the recommended retail value as provided by the supplier and is correct at the time of printing. All prize values are in Australian dollars.

THE SOUND GUIDE

older classic movies were made with only mono or stereo soundtracks. Nonetheless, most movies made in the last two or three decades, when released on Blu-ray, come with the highest quality sound treatment that they’ve ever enjoyed.

sound cHEcK The soundtracks of most recent movies are recorded in surround, but there are thousands of movies – and most of the music over the past half century – that have been recorded in stereo only. Most surround sound systems allow you to convert these to some form of surround sound, and are known, variously, as Dolby Pro-Logic IIx, DTS Neo:6 and Circle Surround, but there are others. These can be worth experimenting with, but first recognise that these circuits will be doing things with the sound that the original recording engineers weren’t expecting. So the results can easily be unexpected.

DVD-Audio and Super Audio CD offer sound quality very nearly as good as the best of Blu-ray, but these days it is hard to find discs for either formats. Meanwhile, the good old DVD often includes exceptional Dolby Digital or DTS surround sound. A Blu-ray player will also play regular DVDs, but it won’t play either DVD-Audio or Super Audio CD. If you want to explore those formats, you will need a DVD player that supports them.

2. The amplifier At the centre of your surround sound system will be a home theatre receiver. This decodes the digital sound held within the broadcast or on the disc into the music and voices you hear. It switches between the different audio-video sources you have available, and processes the sound so that it works best in your room and with your speakers. And, equipped with multiple amplifiers, it is also the power that ‘drives’ all those speakers.

3. Speakers The most personal choice for your high definition sound system will be the loudspeakers. They will largely determine

STErEO ScENE: 2 cHANNEl SOUrcES

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Stereo scene

sound quality

the final sound quality, and whether the system meets your tastes. But they have to fit into your room as well. Normally you need five speakers to truly deliver surround sound (some new technology can reduce the number you need) and a subwoofer to deliver the clean bass required for those movie explosions. These choices that need to be made when selecting speakers can be simplified by considering packaged systems. These may have the home theatre receiver and loudspeakers and subwoofer combined in one large carton. Some also have a DVD player built into the home theatre receiver part of the system, or even a Blu-ray player. We talk about speakers in more depth in the buyers guide on page 48. For the best overall performance from your home theatre system, we recommend spending roughly the same amount on your source, receiver and speakers as you are willing to spend on your TV. That way the picture and sound will be in balance with each other, rather than one coming at the expense of the other.

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Unlike the surround sound formats on DVD and Blu-ray, CD uses an uncompressed format called (Pulse Code Modulation). CDs support two channels of PCM, but most Blu-ray discs can provide up to seven channels of PCM audio. This offers better quality surround than Dolby Digital or DTS, but is not as good as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. As most Blu-ray discs carry the same basic sound in two or more different formats, it can be worth checking the menu to see whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s available when you load a disc for the first time. For example, some of the Blu-ray discs with multichannel PCM sound default to the backup Dolby Digital soundtrack. If you have a system capable of using the better multichannel PCM soundtrack, take a moment to switch to it. To get the most from MP3 and other compressed stereo formats, download files or rip your CDs at a bitrate of 192kbps or even 256kbps, as this will allow better sound quality than the default 128kbps. You may even be able to afford the space for either Apple Lossless or Windows Media Lossless. These compress the music, but without throwing any of it away (unlike MP3 and AAC, which discard material which they think you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear). These formats use roughly half the amount of space as the original digital music (MP3 and AAC use between one eleventh and one sixth), but lose no quality at all.

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THE SOUND GUIDE

sPecial soURCEs D igital surround sound originates from either broadcast digital TV, digital pay TV, or from a disc you have purchased. One day, perhaps, it may also come from the internet, but that is for the future. To enjoy the full range of HD sound, you will need at least two source devices: 1. A HDTV receiver 2. A disc player

1. HDTV receiver Almost all standard definition TV is broadcast with twochannel stereo (or even mono) sound. But there are often high definition TV shows – especially movies – broadcast with full DVD quality 5.1 channel Dolby Digital surround sound. Along with the improved picture quality of high definition broadcasts, this is why you need a HDTV receiver. That receiver may already be integrated into your flat panel digital TV, but a television usually won’t deliver surround sound itself. For that you will need a full surround sound system – with a home theatre receiver – and an optical digital audio cable to connect your TV to it. The cable takes the raw Dolby Digital ‘bitstream’ from your TV to your home theatre receiver, which then performs its

decoding magic and delivers full surround sound to the five speakers and subwoofer. If your flat panel TV doesn’t have an optical output socket (only the most recent models do) an external HDTV receiver (aka set-top box) connected to a home theatre receiver and surround speaker system will achieve the same result. Greater value is offered, however, by HDTV set-top boxes that integrate a hard drive for recording. Referred to as personal video recorders (PVRs) these offer all the sound and picture benefits of high definition free-to-air broadcasts – and in the case of Foxtel IQ and IQ2, cable TV programming – plus the convenience of easy recording. Just imagine, you’re watching the TV and the kids start rioting at the other end of the house. Press the ‘Pause’ key and the live TV broadcast will do just that – pause – while you go and sort out the problem. Come back, press ‘Play’, and you haven’t missed a thing. Or you really want to watch that show on Wednesday night, but you know you have that meeting then. Press the ‘Guide’ or ‘EPG’ (Electronic Program Guide) key on the remote, page through to Wednesday night and select that program. Press ‘Record’ and your HD PVR will schedule a recording for you. While the EPG in most HD PVRs presents the standard

STErEO ScENE: AmPlIFIErS - 2 cHANNEl AmPS

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Hd souRcEs

HD RECEIVERS Plasma or LCD panels with inbuilt HDTV tuners

Pay TV

HD PVRs

Games consoles

PCs with Blu-ray drive

HD DISC PLAYERS Blu-ray players/recorders

scheduling information transmitted alongside the digital free-to-air TV broadcast, others such as the Tivo media device (below) go a step further by providing advanced functions that make searching for archiving programs easier. The nice thing about all HD PVRs, though, is that both the picture and the sound quality is identical to the original broadcast. If that Wednesday night show was broadcast with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, that’s what you’ll get when you play it back.

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2. Discs: Blu-ray, DVD and games Much of the fun of having a fine home entertainment system is that you get to choose what to watch, rather than being at the mercy of the TV stations. For that you will require a disc player. You may choose to interact, rather than watch, in which case you may have a games console. The Xbox 360 can also play DVDs, while the Sony Playstation 3 trumps this by supporting not only DVDs but also Blu-ray discs. As far as the games go, both consoles offer an excellent, immersive high definition sound experience with their games. Obviously DVDs can deliver very decent sound, as we’ve experienced over this past decade. Those for which the producers have gone to the trouble of creating a DTS surround soundtrack are generally even better. But the world is moving on, and the Blu-ray format is poised to surpass DVD, both for its brilliant picture quality and its as-good-as-it-gets high definition sound. That does not mean abandoning DVDs, because Blu-ray players – and PCs equipped with Blu-ray drives – will also play them, and CDs as well. Some premium model Blu-ray players also function as PVRs, recording shows to either a hard drive or Blu-ray disc. TV recordings made to the hard disk can even be copied to Blu-ray, providing a high quality archive for favourite movies and TV series. What’s more, prices of Blu-ray players have been falling too, with leading brand players now available for well under $500.

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THE SOUND GUIDE If you’re not yet ready to upgrade to a HD-capable home theatre receiver, to get the best out of the high quality tracks on a Blu-ray disc you will need a higher level Blu-ray player: one that can decode both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks, and has 5.1 channel analog outputs that you can plug into your receiver. If neither your Blu-ray player nor home theatre receiver can decode these new ultimate-quality audio formats, don’t worry. You will still get surround sound, but it will be limited to DVD-quality Dolby Digital and DTS.

Digital Radio A new source of sound is, as we write, just about to arrive in Australia: Digital Radio. Haven’t heard much about it? While it hasn’t had much of a publicity splash, ABC and SBS radio and virtually all (98%) of the commercial radio broadcasters have been quietly developing it

Stereo scene

sources

While vinyl has exhibited extraordinary staying power, most music is now consumed in digital format, either from CD or as computer-based audio files from a PC, media centre device or portable player. Sound quality from a CD player can be excellent, especially when mated to a good quality amplifier, but as people increasingly go straight to the PC for their music the CD is likely to vanish from the audio chain entirely. PC-based music, however, suffers from the dual impediments of compression and the poor quality output stages of computers. This is where a good quality DAC (digital to analog converter) comes in. Digital to analog (and analog to digital) conversion is an unavoidable part of the audio chain, and each time the process occurs errors are introduced to the audio signal. The effects won’t be audible to most ears, but any distortion to the original signal impacts musical truth, or fidelity, and that is counter to the purpose of electronic music reproduction. DACs are built into amplifiers and AV source equipment and are also available as standalone components. High-end gear will crow about the accuracy and premium nature of its 24-bit D/A and A/D circuits, so search out hi-fi-like descriptions for those devices that wirelessly stream music from a PC to the home entertainment rack. These will help achieve results every bit as good as a high-end music setup, especially when fed with lossless files and those recorded at high bit rates.

for a launch on 1 May 2009. On that day it will appear in the five mainland capital cities, and afterwards it will be rolled out across Australia. Don’t worry, existing AM and FM stations are expected to continue for many years. What digital radio offers is something extra.

Better quality The main ‘extra’ it offers is quality. Digital signals are more robust than analog ones, so digital radio offers the likelihood of freedom from the nasty noise and sound quality problems of analog radio. AM has always been limited, in large part because it is noisy and mono (yes, there is a stereo version but this has been declining in use, with few Australian radio stations now transmitting in stereo). Even FM falls apart when you hop into your car and start driving. The major problem is ‘multipath interference’, which causes the reception to break up and become crackly, while stereo sound increases the noise level and reduces the range. Digital radio should eliminate all this, delivering high quality, interference free, stereo sound into your home or car. In Australia the digital audio format of the sound will be AAC+, otherwise known as HE-AAC. The HE stands for ‘High Efficiency’.

Extra fruit But there’s more. As with digital TV, the efficiency of the digital broadcasting technology allows more radio stations to be broadcast. This will be up to individual broadcasters because they can trade-off between offering higher quality or multiple stations. We can also expect information services to be provided with this format. Even inexpensive digital radio receivers are expected to have scrolling text read-outs for broadcast information, and as with digital TV, you will be selecting your radio stations by choosing from a list, rather than having to tune in to a particular frequency or channel. And there’s the promise of even better features too. Since the radio signal will be digital, there is no reason why there can’t be built in memory – or perhaps a memory card slot – so that you can pause or rewind the program. You know the thing: “Did he really say that?” You will be able to rewind and find out for sure. And if the radio stations permit, you may even be able to record programs to keep. Expect digital radio equipment to be available in stores in early 2009. Be cautious about purchasing overseas. In Australia digital radio will be using the so-called DAB+ system, which is quite different to (and much better than) the DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) system that has been used in some other parts of the world.

Stereo scene: MINI SYSTEMS

Meridian F80e

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HOME THEATRE RECEIVER T he home theatre receiver is, literally, the centre point. All your sources – your DVD player, Blu-ray player, games console, HDTV receiver and so on – plug into it. The receiver selects between those different sources. All your ‘output devices’ – your loudspeakers, your subwoofer, your TV screen – also plug into the home theatre receiver. It drives and controls them. Home theatre receivers range in price from $300 to over $10,000, and while overall performance is important the feature set of any given model is likely to have the biggest influence on your purchase decision. These sets of features fall into roughly three categories: 1. Connections 2. Formats 3. Extras

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1. Connections

Your home theatre receiver is the ‘hub’ of your system. It connects everything to everything else. But it can only do that if it has enough connections, and enough of the right sort. How many source devices do you have … or will you have in the future? What kinds of connections will they require? Your receiver must have enough input sockets to support them all. As a starting point any receiver will need an input socket for connecting to a HDTV receiver (possibly the one built into your TV) and some form of disc spinner – a DVD player, Blu-ray player or Playstation 3. More likely, though, you will need a lot more input sockets than this. Do you still have a VCR, for example? Then you’ll need an input for that (stereo sound and basic composite video). A turntable to play your collection of old vinyl? Then you may need a

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THE SOUND GUIDE player. DVD players generally start up and read discs more quickly than Blu-ray players, and so are often more convenient to use for playing CDs and DVDs.

Back and front The choice of source equipment is a rather individual thing, so take into account what sources you already have, or are likely to acquire, when choosing your home theatre receiver. Remember that more and more devices will be using HDMI as their main connections, so the more HDMI inputs on the receiver, the better. And don’t forget the front of the unit. Many receivers have AV input sockets on the front, which is just the thing for plugging in a camcorder to play back your recordings. Some higher end models even have an HDMI input on the front, a trend we think will continue. These are useful for high definition camcorders. Finally, a huge convenience offered by many receivers is video conversion. Such receivers can take your VCR’s composite video output and turn it into digital video, and deliver it to your TV over the HDMI cable. That doesn’t make it super high quality, but it does make things convenient because you won’t have to switch inputs on the TV anymore. The receiver will be the only item for which you will need to select a ‘source’. Some receivers go a bit further and can even convert standard definition video signals to the high definition standards. Once again, this can’t magically generate greater quality, but it can mean that your TV doesn’t have to flick between different standards, which often means the screen going black or blue for a few seconds while it ‘looks for’ the video signal. special ‘phono’ input on your receiver, although there are some turntables that boost the level so that you can plug the turntable into a regular audio input. You may have an Xbox 360 with the basic output connections. These are analog component video capable of delivering high definition video. You may want both a DVD player and a Blu-ray

sound cHEcK If your home theatre receiver has a USB port for playing back digital media, then for just a few hundred dollars you can have a massive music server. Just buy an external hard disk drive – one terabyte models are available for a couple of hundred dollars – plug it into your computer and load it up with your MP3 music files. Once complete, you can then connect the drive into your home theatre receiver and have tens of thousands of music tracks instantly available for selection from an onscreen menu.

HDMI We love HDMI – the High Definition Multimedia Interface – for many reasons. In particular, it is convenient since it uses just one cable to carry both picture and sound, and it is of the highest quality since it keeps both picture and sound in digital format between your various pieces of equipment. There are a few complications with HDMI, which has already moved from versions 1.0 through 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 and, as we write, is presently on revision 1.3c. Each version adds functionality, but as the extra functionality doesn’t have to be implemented it’s hard to tell if a device with 1.3 HDMI actually provides everything the standard allows. We suggest, then, that you ignore the numbers, and concentrate only the features advertised for the various equipment. The first of these is CEC, or Consumer Electronics Control. Different brands give it different names – Panasonic calls its Viera Link and Sony’s is Bravia Sync – but the function is the same: it allows you to control other devices, such as the receiver, or a connected

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Blu-ray player, through the TV’s remote control. The various devices communicate to each other through the HDMI cable. Another is auto lip sync. Unfortunately, modern displays tend to take a little while to display an image. As a result the sound could actually be ahead of the picture, which is very disconcerting to our eyes. Most modern receivers offer an audio delay feature, and the latest versions of HDMI support an auto lip sync feature, in which the display tells the receiver via the HDMI cable how long it should delay the video for. There are other more esoteric features, such as ‘Deep Color’, which extends the range of colours capable of being delivered in video. However this isn’t broadly supported yet, even by Blu-ray.

2. Surround formats Of particular importance are the audio standards supported by the receiver. Just about all of them will handle standard Dolby Digital and DTS, whether delivered via HDMI or over optical or coaxial digital audio. That’s fine for HDTV and for DVDs. But Blu-ray raises the bar with three new super high quality audio standards, all of which demand HDMI for the best performance. The first of these is 5.1 or 7.1 channels of uncompressed digital sound (PCM). Every home theatre receiver that can accept any sound at all over HDMI supports this format. But some receivers also include support for the new ultra high quality Blu-ray audio standards: Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. Since some

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Blu-ray players cannot extract the full quality from one or both of these, having this capability in the home theatre receiver ensures that you can get the best possible sound. Alternatively, some of the more expensive Blu-ray players – and the Sony Playstation 3 – can decode the new audio standards themselves and deliver them in that multichannel PCM format. If your receiver lacks HDMI inputs, you can still enjoy these highest quality sound formats with those better Blu-ray players that are equipped with multichannel analog outputs. These can be plugged into the multichannel analog inputs of a receiver. However, even if you have an older home theatre receiver and a Blu-ray player that won’t decode the new formats, you can still get excellent sound, just not the very best that is available. That’s because Dolby TrueHD has built into it a copy of the sound in standard Dolby Digital format. Likewise, with DTS-HD Master Audio there is a ‘core’ audio track of standard 5.1 channel DTS. Both of these can be extracted by all Blu-ray players and sent over a standard digital audio connection to your home theatre receiver. That way you can still have high quality surround sound… just not quite as high as that available with a more modern and expensive set of equipment.

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THE SOUND GUIDE 3. Extras iPod, USB, Ethernet More home theatre receivers are coming with network connections (‘Ethernet’, the standard network system). Models with Ethernet connectivity allow, at a minimum, music stored on a remote PC and internet radio stations to be played back on the ‘good’ sound system in the living room, rather than the computer’s inferior speakers. Some receivers extend network functionality to photos and video and, in addition to providing access to the contents of the computer, provide nice onscreen lists of your PC’s contents so that you can easily select the material you are after. So far, we haven’t seen any that use wireless networking, although we won’t be surprised when they do appear. Some receivers have a similar facility for USB storage devices that can be plugged into the unit. And many receivers feature an iPod dock, usually as an optional extra but sometimes included in the cost. These also offer a convenient display, this time of the contents of the iPod. This is a great way to unleash your personal music collection into your home.

Setting Up Home theatre receivers can seem quite daunting in their complexity, but modern technology has reduced this considerably. Many now provide features that help calibrate your system for optimum sound performance, taking into account the size and shape of your room, as well as the number of size of your speakers. Using a supplied microphone, they conduct measurements and after a couple of minutes your home theatre receiver is fully set up. Some of these features go even further, providing ‘equalisation’ to correct sound problems with your loudspeakers or listening room. This feature goes by different names for different brands, although one used by several brands is called Audyssey.

SOUND CHECK Some home theatre receivers have a useful feature in their setup menus: the ability to rename their inputs. This allows you to better identify sources by changing the generic default names of ‘Video 1’ and ‘Video 2’ to, say, ‘Games’ or ‘Blu-ray’. You can even rename the inputs as the brand names of your source devices, if you find that more memorable. Then you can see at a glance on the receiver’s front display what source you have selected

Zoning in Many home theatre receivers have 7.1 channels. Most soundtracks are 5.1 channels, though, and many home theatre speaker packages provide 5.1 speakers, not 7.1. So what’s the point of the extra two channels in your home theatre receiver? Waste not, want not. Many home theatre receiver manufacturers have provided a feature where those two amplifier channels can power a pair of loudspeakers in another room (called a ‘zone’). The benefit here is that what you listen to from those speakers doesn’t need to be the same as what’s playing in the main room. There can be a movie with 5.1 sound running in the main room, while you can listen to the radio tuner built into the receiver in the second room, or a CD player plugged into it, or any of the other sources you might have connected to your home theatre receiver. Some receivers provide even more powerful zone arrangements, offering support for more than two zones, or video as well as audio to a second room.

Power Power is important. Always has been. The more power that your home theatre receiver can deliver, the louder your loudspeakers

Stereo scene: making to most of mp3

MMaking

the most of MP3

P3 music has become popular for one reason: it is compact. Because most MP3 songs use less than one-tenth of the amount of space of their CD version, they are far easier to download from the internet, and you can fit far more of them onto a portable player. But things have moved on and limited space is no longer a pressing problem on portable players. The bigger issue these days is, since so much of our music collections now resides in these players, how do we get our music out of our MP3

players and into our homes? Fortunately, there are solutions to please everyone.

iPod

Apple’s iPod so thoroughly dominates the portable music scene that we must open with a section specifically on it. This domination means that there is a huge number of devices and adaptors designed to work specifically with the iPod, and no other device. Like any portable player, you could simply plug its headphone socket into a spare analog

input socket on an amplifier or music system. But that’s missing out on both the convenience and cool stuff available for the iPod through the iPod dock. This is a cradle and set of connections specifically designed for this unit make life easy. You simply slip the iPod into the cradle and it stands there, all the connections made, ready for action. And it gets its battery charged at the same time. Your two options with the iPod are for a standalone player, or an adaptor for existing

stEREo scEnE

aMPlifiers

can go. But there are limits. The most obvious one is that loudspeakers can only absorb so much power before they overheat and are damaged. Clearly, that is something that you do not want. So how much power do you need? Here we return to the concept of balance: you need the right amount for your particular loudspeakers. Most speakers have listed in their specifications a range of amplifier power outputs for which they are suitable. We recommend that you aim for the high end of the range so listed. That will typically be 100 or more watts of power from each channel. It’s best to avoid the bottom end of the range. Many a loudspeaker has met its demise due to an inadequate amplifier being driven too hard. The large loudspeakers (eg. the bass drivers) will usually survive this treatment, but the tweeters (which produce the high frequencies) are very susceptible to the noise that is produced when an amplifier is driven beyond its capabilities. Also remember that adding more power does not give you as much additional volume as you might suspect: to double the apparent volume of the sound you have to increase the amount of power by ten times! So we suggest that you combine a home

equipment. There is an extraordinary range of standalone units, from inexpensive portable speakers and clock radios – the latter allow you to wake up in the morning to the contents of your iPod – to near audiophile quality loudspeaker docks that can fill a large room with sound. Adaptors for existing equipment also come in two forms: proprietary or general. Several brands of home theatre receiver, for example, include iPod ports into which that brand’s iPod dock can be plugged. Others have more general docks that are simply plugged into a spare set of video and audio inputs on a receiver or amplifier. These

Stereo receivers perform the same control and switching functions as an AV receiver, but for two-channel only setups. This means they provide inputs ’round the back for connecting audio source equipment, a pair of amplifiers (rather than six or seven) for driving just two speakers, and no surround sound processing. Those without AM/FM radio tuners are referred to as stereo amplifiers. Integrated stereo amplifier/receivers combine power and preamplier functions into a single chassis, and the mainstream Japanese brands don’t really offer much improvement – or price advantage – over their multichannel brethren, especially as many surround sound models now route audio signals away from interference-causing circuitry and provide features that improve the dynamic range of MP3 signals. At the serious end of the two-channel amplifier market, however, performance improves dramatically, with manufacturers employing high end preamp processing circuits and DACs, and amplifiers with individual power supplies for beefier volume levels. These integrated amps are regarded as second only to systems that use separate pre and power amp components. From here, the audiophile community divides between solid state and tube technology. Tube guys say solid state sucks the life out of music, but it is more reliable and efficient, with the latest Class D (digital amplifiers) generating the least heat in operation and therefore being the most efficient at turning electrical power into volume. theatre receiver capable of delivering 100 watts or more per channel with highly efficient (or ‘sensitive’) loudspeakers, that will make the loudest sound for each of those watts.

Quality Power is only one determinant of the sound you will get in your home. There are other aspects to quality, like how well the receiver decodes digital audio, the levels of noise it generates, how well it controls loudspeakers and so on. Judging all these things can also be daunting. Fortunately there has been a narrowing in the quality range. By that we mean that the difference between the lower cost and entry-level equipment, and the higher cost, fully featured equipment, is less than it used to be. If you go to a reputable retailer and stick with the well-known brands, you can be confident that your home theatre receiver will sound excellent.

arrangements usually provide more than just sound: they add an onscreen display of the iPod’s menus and contents, and support the use of the receiver’s own remote control for scrolling through these and selecting items to play back. Some even include the ability to display video contained on an iPod.

These devices all support any and all of the digital sound formats that the iPod itself supports, including MP3, AAC and the high definition Apple Lossless format.

USB

Many of the higher end home theatre receivers include USB sockets, allowing them to play back music from attached USB memory sticks. Alternatively, you can simply add an external USB hard disk drive and fill this from your computer with your entire music collection. The capacities of these are so large that it is viable to avoid

THE SOUND GUIDE

THE AUDITION I t’s time. You’re about to jump into the car and go down to the store to buy your high definition sound system. But how do you go about it? What do you take with you? What do you listen for? Take some movies – and CDs – that you are very familiar with. This will allow to you best compare the sound of the speakers yo are thinking of buying with those you already own. You don’t want to pay good money for speakers that aren’t a clear improvement! If you like action movies, then take some of these; if you like rock music, take a stack of CDs encompassing your preferred subgenres. You get the idea. There are specific things you can listen for when auditioning

a potential high definition sound system. There is also a less definable ‘feel’ that probably relates as much to our personal preferences as it does to some objective quality. Nonetheless, regardless of any ‘scientific’ validity, it is this very individual feeling that, if satisfied, you will find very pleasing over years to come. So as you’re listening, be alert for a system that just kind of hits the mark for you. Meanwhile, let us examine the more traditional performance aspects you should judge during your audition. Soundstage/imaging: The whole point of surround sound is to envelope you in the movie that you are watching… or in the case of music, make the aural space plausibly real. To do this the

Stereo scene: MAKING THE MOST OF MP3 (continued) MP3 completely and instead use the better quality uncompressed ‘WAV’ PCM format for high quality sound. A couple of hundred dollars for one of these drives can provide an enormous jukebox for your home theatre receiver. Since the sound must be read from the memory stick or hard drive in digital format, it must be in a digital audio format the home theatre receiver can decode. In general, home theatre receivers support MP3, Windows Media Audio and WAV, but some add more formats such as AAC.

In theory you can plug an iPod into the USB socket. In practice, the contents of iPods are organised in such an idiosyncratic way that you will never find the tracks you wish to play.

Network

We reckon the way that everyone will be accessing digital media in the very near future is via a computer network. Already a number of home theatre receivers have Ethernet ports (ie. network ports) at the rear which, connected to the router of your home computer network, allows them to access the music files on your computer and, in some models, the many thousands of world internet radio stations. With network hardware now fairly inexpensive – whether wired or wireless –

understanding what’s going on. That is especially the case when it comes to the spoken dialogue within a movie. Above all, you must be able to understand everything that everyone is saying to everyone else, even when the music is swelling. Accuracy: Voices sounding a bit ‘chesty’, or bass heavy, can denote problems in the bass. Likewise, sibilance – an ear piercing zing in the spoken voice around the consonant ‘s’, especially when spoken by a female voice – indicates a nasty peak in the upper treble that will recur movie after movie, sapping your enjoyment.

system has to locate each element of sound in its correct place in space. That can be at any point around you, or even above you. It can sound close or distant. To achieve this, a sound system’s components must be in superb balance with each other. Tonal balance: This is the essential quality of the treble, the mid-range and the bass working in harmony with each other at the correct relative volume levels, rather than overpowering each other. As you play your test discs, ensure that the music instruments and the human voice sound natural. Detail: Detail is a more difficult to define characteristic of high quality loudspeakers. It is a sense of revelation, of removing the veils covering subtle elements in the music, or the movie, that lesser systems fail to disclose. It may be a whisper in the background of a Hollywood scene, or shimmer of the brushes on the snare drum in jazz recording, but some loudspeakers and systems are better at revealing them than others. Clarity and coherence: When you are watching a movie, much of the time the sound is more important than the picture for

there’s no reason why your high definition sound equipment shouldn’t have access to the contents of your computer, or even to suitable network storage (a hard disk drive that plugs directly into your computer network). Games consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Playsation 3 were some of the first source devices capable of sharing the music, photo and video files stored on a remote PC, and Tivo will soon join them. Lately, we’ve also seen some TVs also offering these capabilities. Some equipment we’ve seen requires a fair bit of configuration, but the new generation

Take some movies – and CDs – that you are very familiar with. This will allow you to best compare the sound of the speakers yoU are thinking of buying with those you already own. Bass: For music, bass should be tight and tuneful. Unless you are into synthesiser or pipe organ, super-deep bass isn’t an essential for music. Normal floorstanding loudspeakers can do well enough. But for these, make sure that they sound tight and controlled. When it comes to movies, though, a subwoofer that plumbs very deeply into the bass regions becomes more important, because very often really deep bass is used to generate a mood within a movie. n

make life very easy. For this, look for these letters: DLNA. This stands for the Digital Living Network Alliance, a large group of major computing and home electronics companies, which have developed super-easy ways for all these devices to work together with a minimum of configuration (generally, none at all). In addition to audio, an increasing number of DLNA equipment also supports the display of photos and playing of video over the network. No longer do you have to huddle around your computer to see pictures or watch a movie or

play music. Instead, with DLNA, you can dial up on your lounge room’s TV screen a list of multimedia content on your computer, scroll through it and select it. The music will not be coming through your computer speakers, but through your high definition home sound system. It may even be improved by the compressed music enhancing circuits included on a number of home theatre receivers.

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HOW TO BUY

When you want to get into home entertainment but need to learn more, our How to Buy section is the perfect starting point. Our expert advice and buying tips will help put you in the know before you venture onto the shop ﬂoor.

HOW TO BUY Beautiful Noise: Choosing the right loudspeakers

48 64 67

Loudspeakers have the most influence on the way your system will sound, so it’s important to make the right decision. Our super-sized guide covers everything you need to know, from the many configurations on offer, to the specs and what they mean, and right up to the final audition.

BOX FRESH Reviewed in this Issue

Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A Klipsch Icon XF-48 Samsung HT-X810 Sony Bravia KDL-40Z4500 Sharp Aquos LC46D85X Onkyo TX-SR706

56 58 60 62 64 65

Analog to Digital

Convert your old movies, music and photos to digital format and they’ll not only last longer, they’ll be easier to copy, backup and even store online. We explain how it’s done and what you’ll need.

OUR RATINGS The Home Entertainment star rating system indicates how any given product compares to other products in the same category and price range. A $1000 product that earns a ﬁve star rating, for example, is not directly comparable to a $10 000 product from the same category – the ratings are speciﬁc only to the product category and price range of the product under review. Products are rated for feature set, performance, price and ease of use. Where stated, an ‘Overall’ rating is an average of these criteria. Poor

Fair

Good Excellent Reference

Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

HOW TO BUY

CHOOSING THE

beautifu

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RIGHT LOUDSPEAKERS

L noiSe

Sound quality is such a personal thing, which is why speakers have such as huge inﬂuence on your entertainment system. Colin Hinton explains what to look for among today’s myriad speaker options

he loudspeaker system is the interface between you and the rest of the entertainment system, and consequently among its most important parts. The loudspeaker does the hardest job of any item in a home theatre system: it converts an electrical signal into vibrating pressure waves in the air, and this is inherently a very difficult thing to do accurately. Consequently of all the parts of a home entertainment system, one brand or model of loudspeaker will sound far more different to another brand or model than is likely to be the case with the home theatre receiver or audio-video source That means that picking the right loudspeakers will often be the most important part of making your system sound the way you want it to. There are three main ways to approach this, with the options for surround sound being: 1. Surround speaker package 2. Home theatre in a box 3. Soundbar The first describes a full set of specialised surround loudspeakers, while ‘Home theatre in a box’ refers to a set of speakers packaged with a home theatre receiver (and sometimes with a built-in DVD player). The last uses some of the advances of modern technology to deliver surround sound into your room without a need for the full set of loudspeakers.

Achieving balance One thing you may have noticed missing from the three options above is a set of surround loudspeakers assembled item by separate item. This kind of system is possible, but we recommend against it. The reason is balance. Just as we believe your sound system should be balanced in price, performance and ‘size’ with your video display system, so we think that the speakers should be balanced with each other. To put that another way, in order to get the best surround performance all your loudspeakers need to be tonally balanced against each other. If they aren’t, then the surround sound will

be far from convincing. The easiest way to achieve this balance is to assemble a set of loudspeakers from a specific range provided by single reputable manufacturer. These will have all been designed to provide similar tonal characteristics, and thus excellent surround sound.

Space, numbers and looks Beyond that, and making a final choice as to sound quality (see ‘The Audition’ on page 44), there is a wide range of things that you may want to take into account. First, how much space do you have? A small listening area may lead you to choose ‘satellite’ speakers for stereo or surround sound movie soundtracks, tiny things with no bass that you can screw to a wall. For these, all the bass is delivered by a subwoofer. A large space would be ill-served by satellite speakers. Instead this may demand large loudspeakers with a high sensitivity. ‘Sensitivity’ in this context has nothing to do with feelings, but the efficiency with which a loudspeaker turns amplifier power into sound. A higher sensitivity loudspeaker (rated at 90dB or higher) provides much higher volume levels for a given home theatre receiver than a low sensitivity loudspeaker. You may also want to consider whether 5.1 channels will meet your needs, or if 7.1 channels will work better. While 7.1 channel material constitutes only a very small proportion of the discs on offer (and even then, only on Blu-ray), 7.1 channel speaker systems can improve the surround effect in some cases. The main advantage is in larger rooms where some of the movie watchers tend to be towards one side wall or the other. Also on the subject of fitting in, there are aesthetics to consider. Loudspeaker styles occupy a gamut as wide in range as furniture styles, so you should be able to find something that looks good in your room. As a general rule, higher sensitivity loudspeakers in larger, heavier boxes and with the greatest power handling provide the best performance. But there is little in this field that is absolute. Innovative loudspeaker companies keep on breaking rules and delivering more for less.

HOW TO BUY

Speaker packageS A

s we have suggested, you will get the best results for sound from your home theatre system if all five (or seven) of your loudspeakers are from the same range by the same brand. That allows them to work together to deliver a seamless sense of surround sound. But what else should you look for? There will be considerations of décor, fitting them into your home and so forth. You may want to consider one of the several types of

whaT To look for • • • • •

Make sure size is right for your home (and décor) Within the above constraints, larger is usually better High sensitivity for more volume Wide frequency response A matching subwoofer

wireless speakers for the surround channels, just for their ease of installation. But when it comes to quality, as a very general rule, the bigger the numbers in the specification, the better. Let’s look at some of these things: Drivers: These are the actual cones and domes within the speaker box that produce the sound. Most loudspeakers these days have at least two drivers: a small one (typically 19–25mm in size), called the tweeter for producing the higher notes, and a larger one called the woofer or the bass/midrange driver. The strength and depth of the bass is in large part determined by the amount of air the larger driver can move, so look for larger diameter bass/midrange drivers, or multiple drivers for each enclosure (two or three aren’t uncommon). Size and weight: The box in which the drivers are mounted contributes nearly as much to sound quality as the driver. A large box generally goes with better bass performance and high sensitivity (see opposite), and a heavier one is generally better built and less likely to resonate inappropriately. Still, ‘bass reflex’

LFE

LFE C C

poSITIoN, poSITIoN, poSITIoN Achieving the ideal surround sound does not end at handing over money at your retailer. The loudspeakers need to be correctly located. There are standards here that will make the high definition surround sound optimum. 1. The centre channel speaker must be directly in front of you, above or below the TV screen. 2. The front left and right should be to either side of the screen, about 30 degrees away from the centre channel speaker. 3. To locate the normal surround or rear speakers, sit in your normal viewing position and point your arms directly sidewards. Then move them back a little towards the rear wall, by about 15 degrees. That’s the direction in which those speakers should be mounted, but about a metre above the level of your head. 4. If you have a 7.1 channel speaker system, then the two surround back speakers should be mounted directly behind you, about a metre apart from each other and, once again, a metre above the level of your head. 5. As for the subwoofer, in nearly all cases the best performance is achieved by placing it in a corner at the front of the room. SL

SCL

enclosures (which have a carefully designed port or hole in the enclosure) can get more bass and volume out of a modestly-sized box. Frequency response: This gives a sense of how accurately a loudspeaker can deliver the full range of sounds it is supposed to reproduce. Reliable figures will be in the form of, say, 35 to 20,000 hertz, +/-3dB. The 35 figure represents how far into the bass region the loudspeaker can go. Twenty hertz is ideal, but few loudspeakers can reliably manage that. The 20,000 figure is for the upper end. That figure is what young healthy people can hear, but some sound systems can deliver even higher frequencies from some of the new digital audio formats. The +/-3dB tells you

SCR

how close in volume level all the different tones of frequencies are to each other. Even two identical frequency response specifications using that +/-3dB qualifier do not necessarily sound the same. (That’s part of the charm in buying loudspeakers! You really do have to go by sound.) But without that figure, the stated range of sounds is pretty meaningless. Power handling: Power handling has nothing to do with how loud a speaker will go, it refers to how much power a speaker can take from a home theatre receiver without being damaged. In general, the higher the rating (eg. 100 watts or more), the more robust the loudspeaker will be when it comes to handling the power output of your home theatre receiver. Sensitivity: This is a measure of the efficiency with which the loudspeaker turns electrical energy into acoustic energy. In other words: how much sound you will get for a given amount of power output from an amplifier. This can make a big difference to the loudness of the system. A loudspeaker rated at 92dB will generally require only half the amount of power of an 89dB loudspeaker to achieve the same volume. Again, the higher the number the better. Impedance: Nearly all loudspeakers are rated between 4 and 8 ohms impedance. Generally, sticking with 8 ohm speakers is less likely to lead to a home theatre receiver – especially an inexpensive one – being overloaded and damaged.

GeT DowN Don’t forget the subwoofer. Much of the emotional content of modern movies is conveyed by the Low Frequency Effects (LFE) channel. To deliver this properly, a subwoofer needs power and the ability to dig into the very deep bass. The amount of built-in power, plus the size of the enclosure and driver will all contribute to this.

HOW TO BUY

home theatre in a boX i

f you are really getting surround sound for the first time, then the chances are that you need a home theatre receiver and a set of loudspeakers and a subwoofer all together. You can choose loudspeakers, as we’ve outlined in the previous chapter, and a home theatre receiver as we’ve discussed in earlier chapters, or you can consider an all-in-one ‘home theatre in a box’ system. This is a system in which the five loudspeakers, the subwoofer and at least the home theatre receiver all come together as part of a package. The main advantage of this approach is that it cuts down the number of decisions you need to make, since if a reputable brand is selected you can be confident that all the components have been engineered to work well together. Often

whaT To look for • • • • •

Sufficient input sockets Good sound quality A quality match with the subwoofer HDMI inputs The ability to upgrade

these packages constitute very good value, and they especially suit people who are confident that they will not be seeking to expand or extend their system in the future.

What is it? Despite the name, a system of this nature is not necessarily packaged in a single box. Instead it conveys the fact that you take the package home, plug it into an existing TV and you have a high definition surround sound system with a minimum of fuss. So it includes the five loudspeakers, a subwoofer, a box of electronics and, most times, all the speaker cables. We’ll get to those electronics in a moment. The loudspeakers are very often either compact satellite speakers, or two smallish floorstanding stereo speakers and three very small speakers for the centre and surround channels. When making your choice on a home theatre in a box (HTiB), we suggest that you consult the previous pages on selecting loudspeakers because many of the same considerations apply. The subwoofer is often, but not always, very similar to subwoofers purchased separately. That is, it is often an active system (which means it has its own built-in amplifier) and often connects in the usual way to the electronics with a single cable to the Low Frequency Effects output of the electronics package. But in these systems there can be differences.

Sometimes a passive subwoofer is used instead. This lacks its own amplifier, and it derives its power from a special amplifier built into the main electronics. Other systems shoot for compact electronics, and instead have six amplifiers – one for the subwoofer and five for the loudspeakers – all built into the subwoofer. As you can see, the electronics are not necessarily the same as a standard home theatre receiver, but the package as a whole still delivers most of its functions. Another way some of these systems vary is that with some systems a DVD player or even a Blu-ray player is also built into the electronics. For those systems, all you do need to add is TV!

To the wall One thing you can do with satellite speakers that should never do with large speakers is to attach them to the walls. It isn’t just a matter of size and weight, it also has to do with performance. If you put a large loudspeaker hard up against a wall, unless it has been specifically designed for this purpose (few are), then the bass will be too loud and kind of lumpy and unpleasant. But satellites don’t produce any bass, so feel free to attach them to wall brackets. It is a good idea, though, to swivel them if possible to point towards your couch. The high treble is directional with most satellites, so you will not be getting much of it if the satellites are ‘firing’ in a different direction.

Soundbars W

e do not live in a perfect world, and quite a few of us don’t live in a home with sufficient space for a full-fledged home theatre system. Fortunately, the world makes adjustments for

imperfections. The most space consuming parts of a home theatre system are the display and the loudspeakers. You can’t really get rid of your display, but you can reduce the number of speakers you need. The idea is to replace the ‘5’ speaker part of 5.1 with what we’ll call a ‘soundbar’. These go under several different names but their intention is the same: to produce a realistic surround sound effect without the benefit of rear loudspeakers. They are also similar in basic visual layout, being quite wide (usually a metre or so), only 150 to 300mm tall and perhaps 200mm deep. This physical layout suits them to wall mounting immediately below a plasma or LCD television. However they do vary widely in their method of operation and their features.

Three flavours For features, there are essentially three kinds. One kind is a fully integrated system with a built-in DVD player, amplifiers and, of course, the speakers. Another kind is entirely passive. You wire it up to the speaker terminals of a home theatre receiver as though it were a regular set of five loudspeakers. And there is an intermediate kind, which provides the functionality of a home theatre receiver and a set of speakers, but requires you to add all the source equipment, such as DVD/CD player and HD PVR. In each case, the soundbar works by using multiple drivers to deliver different amounts of all five of the sound channels at slightly different times. That way the surround sound can be ‘steered’ towards the back of the room. The more effective systems actually ‘beam’ the surround channels to the back and bounce them from the walls. This is very clever indeed, but can lose its effectiveness if the room doesn’t have hard, reflective surfaces at the back. Whichever choice you make, we suggest you add to the unit a compact subwoofer. None of the surround bars offer, in

our experience, really deep bass so their performance can be enhanced considerably but this simple addition. A couple of models already include a separate subwoofer in the selling price; some of these are even wireless, which allows for tidy placement in your room.

What to look for • • • •

Good surround effect Method of operation suits your space Works with your other equipment Includes subwoofer

HOW TO BUY

Stereo SpeakerS FOR THE MUSIC LOVER I

f you hanker for the big screen movie experience, with sound to match, surround sound speaker systems of some sort are the way to go. But if music is your first love, it’s a good idea to approach your loudspeaker buying in a quite different way. The perfect loudspeaker for music is also the perfect loudspeaker for movies, and vice versa. But since we live in world of compromise, perfection is not available to us. Instead we have to try to choose the best loudspeakers available for our budget. The music lover’s choice, therefore, is between whether to spread the money over five loudspeakers and a subwoofer, or two loudspeakers and a subwoofer, or just two loudspeakers alone.

whaT To look for • • • •

The sound that suits the music you like Appropriate inputs and outputs on the subwoofer Good quality electronics to match For compact speakers, stands may be required

Two’s company

For the music lover, we think that either of the last two is the way to go. For convenience, we will talk primarily about two speakers and a subwoofer – a 2.1 channel system. The main reason is that the subwoofer can deliver great results with music, yet still add an additional dimension to movies that few regular speakers can deliver: the extreme bass. So why 2.1 channels? If you buy a 5.1 speaker system for, say, $2000, then the allocation of value will be roughly $700 for the subwoofer, $600 for the centre and surround channel speakers, and $700 for the front stereo pair. But you love music above all else, so wouldn’t it be better to spend $700 on the subwoofer and $1300 on the front pair? In our experience, the differences in the performance between a $700 pair of speakers and a $1300 pair is enormous. And since you will also be using a subwoofer your stereo speakers need not be large, floorstanding models. Instead, you can use smaller speakers from the audiophile ranges offered by many leading brands. In our view, you can actually get better sound quality on the most important criteria – musical accuracy, stereo imaging, tonal balance, delivery of fine musical detail – from a system like this than from an equivalently priced pair of stereo loudspeakers.

Loudspeaker styles occupy a gamut as wide in range as furniture styles, so you should be able to find something that looks good in your room The overwhelming majority of music is sold in stereo format. We do have a particular soft spot for the high definition surround sound formats on DVD Audio and Super Audio CD, but these are at best limping along with very little available material. Your favourite musician almost certainly has nothing out on DVD-A or SACD. In the future we suppose that an audio version of the Blu-ray disc will advance high resolution multichannel music availability, but that is some way off.

Two plus one There are some special considerations for a 2.1 channel system. One possibility is the specially designed system in which the amplifier is included as part of the package. Some of these have additional features, such as built-in Dolby Virtual (or equivalent) processing that, when switched on, creates a surround sound effect. However this does limit your choice of loudspeakers to those available with the system. Alternatively, you can go for a traditional stereo amplifier to drive your compact audiophile loudspeakers. These don’t have a dedicated LFE output socket for sending bass directly to the subwoofer like home theatre receivers to, so there are special – though not overly complex – wiring considerations with this kind of setup. Or you could still purchase a home theatre receiver and use it as a 2.1 channel amplifier, with the subwoofer connected to its LFE output. Used as a stereo amplifier, most

home theatre receivers can produce more power than they do when driving the five speakers in a surround setup, and many also have a Dolby Virtual (or equivalent) circuit builtin. Plus they give you the advantage of switching between different video sources for those times when you do just want to veg out with a movie.

Stealth speakers Sometimes we simply can’t have 7.1, or even 5.1, channels of large speaker boxes in our homes. Perhaps our space, or our décor, or even another family member, will not permit it. If that applies to you, there are several ‘almost invisible’ speaker options. There are tiny satellite speakers with a hidden subwoofer. There are loudspeakers providing decent performance, but in compact, shallow enclosures that do not intrude much upon a room, or there are in-wall loudspeakers. None of these will perform quite as well as professionally designed, carefully located, individual loudspeaker boxes, but they can still do a very strong job. The ranges on offer are enormous, and some require installation (eg. in-wall). Or you may prefer to mix and match. For example, some installations use normal loudspeakers for front, centre and surround, and in-wall (or inceiling) speakers for the rear channels.

BOX FRESH

Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A A

‘budget’ plasma TV from Pioneer? Doesn’t seem likely, does it. But that’s what the Pioneer PDPC509A is. Okay, let’s be serious here. Budget for Pioneer means a couple of thousand dollars more expensive than similar sized, similarly speciﬁed TVs from some other brands. What you do get for the extra dollars is the Pioneer edge – sheer picture quality.

Features You may recall our recent review of the Pioneer Kuro PDPLX609A TV (Home Entertainment 21, Dec/Jan 09). We

described this as “about as good as you can get today. Indeed it’s hard to see how it could get any better.” This 152cm/60 inch is expected to be supplemented by a 127cm/50 inch model, the Kuro PDP-LX509A, which is identical but smaller. The TV under review here, the Kuro PDP-C509A is very similar to this forthcoming 127cm LX model, according to Pioneer, but offers black levels only “somewhat”, rather than “ﬁve times”, better than the previous eighth generation models, and loses the multimedia support, which includes both Ethernet and a USB memory card reader. The present TV retains the USB socket, but this is used only for upgrades, not multimedia.

PIONEER KURO PDP-C509A

Otherwise, you still get three HDMI inputs, both an analog and HD digital TV tuner and, as far as I could see, identical video processing capabilities as those provided in the higher level models. The plasma panel itself offers full high deﬁnition resolution with 1920 pixels across by 1080 vertically. I would love to tell you about contrast ratios and brightness levels and so forth, but Pioneer has abandoned the practice of providing these speciﬁcations. It says, not altogether unreasonably, that they are becoming increasingly meaningless.

Performance I plugged in this TV and found myself startled anew by the excellent picture quality. Drawing on my memory of the black levels from the PDP-LX609A, I suspect that this TV didn’t quite match it. Nevertheless, when I played my favourite test Blu-ray disc, the brightly coloured foreground objects floated over the black background as though sitting on a black velvet cushion. When full-black screens appeared, with my viewing room completely darkened, there was a slight, neutral, glow from the panel. But this wasn’t enough to detract in even the smallest way from picture detail during dark scenes. Consequently the TV’s colour performance was excellent, yielding natural tones and considerable image ‘depth’. This was aided by the excellent scaling from standard definition resolutions. However there was a clear improvement with true high definition material, as you’d expect from a true HDTV. Blu-ray and HDTV were excellent, with the precise quality of the source being transparently revealed by this TV in every case. Full 1080p24 (24 frames per second) support is provided for smooth motion from Blu-ray movies. And special notice is required for Pioneer’s superb video processing. With 1080i

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $5499 Warranty: three years Contact: Pioneer Electronics Australia 1800 060 852 www.pioneer.com.au Image: plasma; 127cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness not stated; contrast ratio not stated Inputs: 3 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 3 x HDMI, 6 x stereo audio Outputs: 1 x stereo audio, 1 x subwoofer, 1 x optical digital, 1 x headphone Audio: stereo, 2 x 18 watts Features: HD digital TV tuner, analog TV tuner, ‘Optimum’ display mode, ﬁeld noise reduction, mosquito noise reduction, block noise reduction, 3D Y/C separation, 1080p24 support, Picture-in-Picture Supplied accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand Dimensions (WHD): 1233 x 723 x 93mm (without stand) Weight: 33.8kg

material from a test Blu-ray disc, it did as good deinterlacing as any TV, Blu-ray player or video processor I’ve yet seen. With 576i material from PAL DVDs, it delivered better deinterlacing performance than any other device I have seen, regardless of price, except for the other Pioneer TVs. In a word: brilliant.

Conclusion Okay, I withdraw that word ﬁrst used to describe this television. The Pioneer Kuro PDP-C509A is not a ‘budget’ TV. It is a magniﬁcent 127cm plasma TV that is among the best in the world. It omits network and USB connectivity, but is that really Thomas Bartlett important to you? It isn’t to me. PROS

Excellent black levels As-good-as-it-gets video processing Top quality picture with DVD and even better with Blu-ray Good built-in TV tuner CONS

Doesn’t allow both tuners to used at same time with PIP Fairly expensive

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

BOX FRESH

Klipsch Icon XF-48 K

lipsch is not so much US loudspeaker maker as a high fidelity legend, with its reputation for incredibly high sensitivity loudspeakers beginning well before the Second World War. Although at first glance the Klipsch Icon XF-48 surround loudspeaker package may appear to depart from the hornloaded boxiness of those Klipsch speakers of yore, look closely and you will find that the horns remain.

Features In fact, each of the ﬁve speakers (not the subwoofer, obviously) feature a 19mm compression driver mounted in a quite obtusely angled horn, rather than the dome tweeter most companies would use in its place. This provides high efﬁciency, with the centre XL-23 LCR speaker rated at 94dB sensitivity, and even the small XB-10 rear effects speakers having a claimed 92dB.

The front speaker sensitivity is not stated because the XF48 floorstanders are active, with each having a 100 watts of power built in. Connections can be made with either line level signals from a preamplifier, or speaker levels ones. What first appears to be an impressive line up of five drivers on the front of these turns out to be two, with the pair of large oval units actually being passive radiators. So the tweeter and a pair of 133mm bass/midrange units do all the work with that 100 watts. The narrow form of these speakers is stabilised by a 300mm circular floor stand, supplied pre-attached. A similar stand is supplied for the XL-23 LCR centre channel (this can be fitted to allow either vertical or horizontal placement) and wall mounting hardware is provided for both this and the compact XB-10 speakers.

SONY BRAVIA KDL-40Z4500

This is simply a marvellous sounding system. The ﬁrst impression was one of total authority For really deep bass the XW-500d subwoofer is included. This uses a 254mm driver mounted in a sealed enclosure and supplied with 500 watts of Klipsch’s ‘BASH’ hybrid digital ampliﬁcation. Klipsch has tossed in some DSP processing and an electronic controller which allows you to save settings. There are three EQ settings to allow greater bass extension or more power in the main LFE range.

Performance During the process of wiring everything up, I was inclined to think that this system seemed a bit contrived to fit in with the home theatre norms of today. But once I got it going, that prejudgement rapidly disappeared, because this is simply a marvellous sounding system. The first impression was one of total authority. One reason for that was the higher than usual volume levels for any particular notch on the volume control knob. Since it is always difficult to know what an active loudspeaker is getting up to internally, that didn’t mean very much. So I turned the knob clockwise, and the whole system simply got louder and louder, without stress, and only with the tiniest bit of dynamic range compression sneaking in at the extremes. For stereo sound, the XF-48 speakers produced superb imaging and gave a performance of startlingly good tonal

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $9299 Warranty: Five years (two years on subwoofer) Contact: Powermove Distribution (03) 9358 5999 www.powermove.com.au Drivers: XF48: 2 x 133mm bass drivers; 1 x 19mm horn loaded titanium diaphragm compression driver; XL-23 LCR: 2 x 102mm bass/midrange drivers; 1 x 19mm horn loaded titanium diaphragm compression driver; XB-10: 1 x 102mm bass/midrange driver; 1 x 19mm horn loaded titanium diaphragm compression driver; XW-500d: 1 x 254mm fibreglass cone ultra high excursion driver Enclosure: XF48: Aluminium construction with two x 133 x 229mm passive radiators; XL-23 LCR: Aluminium construction with two front-mounted bass reflex ports; XB-10: Aluminium construction with front-mounted bass reflex port; XW-500d: Sealed Frequency response: XF48: 40-23,000 hertz +/-3dB, 33 hertz low frequency extension; XL-23 LCR: 86-23,000 hertz +/-3dB, 64 hertz low frequency extension; XB-10: 96-23,000 hertz +/-3dB, 73 hertz low frequency extension; XW-500d: 21-120 hertz +/-3dB Nominal impedance: XL-23 LCR, XB-10: 8 ohms Power: XF48: 100/360 watts (continuous/peak – built in output); XL-23 LCR: 70/275 watts (continuous/peak); XB-10: 50/200 watts (continuous/peak); XW-500d: 500/1,200 watts (output continuous/ dynamic) Sensitivity: XF48: N/A; XL-23 LCR: 94dB; XB-10: 92dB Dimensions (WHD): XF48: 178 x 1,238 x 200mm; XL-23 LCR: 667 x 146 x 171mm; XB-10: 146 x 273 x 152mm; XW-500d: 337 x 356 x 445mm Weight: XF48: 17.7kg; XL-23 LCR: 8.2kg; XB-10: 2.9kg; XW-500d: 21.8kg

balance and clarity. Adding the other channels into a surround mix gave excellent in-between speaker imaging. The subwoofer truly delivered the claimed 21 hertz, as conﬁrmed by my test tones rattling my room.

Conclusion The problem with a speaker package like this is ﬁnding the obligatory negative point to make. I declare that I have failed in my duty, and have no such thing to say. This is a great system. Thomas Bartlett

PROS

Excellent sound quality Plenty of volume available Good styling and design considerations Excellent integration CONS

Simply nothing worth mentioning

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

BOX FRESH

Samsung HT-X810

S The whole system delivered

amsung’s HT-X810 is a combination bar-type speaker system with subwoofer and a built-in DVD player. It is wall mountable and comes with the necessary mounting hardware.

a good punchy sound with music and the subwoofer’s bass delivery did a nice job, producing kick drums with plenty of impact 60

Features One special point of interest with this system is that the separate subwoofer isn’t (can’t, in fact, because it has no inputs) be connected to the main unit with a cable. Instead they communicate wirelessly in the 5.8GHz band. All the subwoofer needs is a power point to be plugged into. The DVD player, unusually these days, also plays DVD-Audio discs, the super high quality format for music that is, sadly, disappearing. It also has a USB port on the side and can, from this, display JPEG photos (although only at standard deﬁnition resolution), and play DivX and Windows Media video, along with MP3 and Windows Media Audio music. It will also act as a Bluetooth stereo audio device which you can use if your phone is full of music.

Performance Setting up this unit was exceptionally easy because there really was only one adjustment to make. The wireless subwoofer

SAMSUNG HT-X810

connected automatically to the main unit once both were switched on. The sole adjustment was setting the subwoofer level. It was a little strong by default for my taste, so I just wound it down by a few notches. Inserting DVDs and CDs was a little odd at first. The unit uses a slot, like a car CD player, but this is angled so upon first use, it isn’t entirely clear what angle you should tilt the disc to have it insert smoothly. Proceeding gently did the trick and it wasn’t a problem after that. The whole system delivered a good punchy sound with music and the subwoofer’s bass delivery did a nice job, producing kick drums with plenty of impact. There was no unwanted noise issuing from the subwoofer, so the wireless connection did not hurt its performance in any way. The video output from HDMI could be scaled to 720p, 1080i or 1080p from its default of 576p. The colour delivery was good and in general the picture was nicely sharp, but there were artefacts with some material. In particular, small text elements of the picture on some DVDs flickered noticeably, which was a touch off-putting. There were also some artefacts on finely spaced but moving parallel lines. These tend to be a marker of low-quality progressive scan conversion. My reference DVD

players did noticeably better jobs on the same test clips. For movies, the system generates a kind of pseudo surround sound, there being no rear speakers. This occasionally produced a little ambience, but only in a very conﬁned ‘sweet spot’ immediately in front of the main unit. Surprisingly for these kinds of systems, this unit didn’t really expand the front ‘sound stage’ beyond the conﬁnes of the speaker itself.

Conclusion I was a little concerned about the video performance from this unit, but the sound was quite good in view of its size and cost. The wireless subwoofer in particular was very useful, allowing an escape from the long cables that subwoofers otherwise invariably demand. Thomas Bartlett

PROS

Compact wall mountable sound solution Good punchy sound Wireless subwoofer makes for good ﬂexibility Wide range of input sources CONS

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $1099 Warranty: One year Contact: Samsung Electronics Australia 1300 369 600 www.samsung.com.au Drivers: Not stated Cabinet design: Main unit not stated, subwoofer is bass reﬂex Frequency response: 35 hertz to 22,000 hertz Power output: 2 x 75 watts + 1 x 150 watts into 3 ohms Inputs: 2 x analog stereo audio input, 1 x digital audio optical input, 1 x USB Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x component video, 1 x HDMI Dimensions (WHD): 998 x 180 x 142mm for main unit, 255 x 412 x 322 for subwoofer Weight: 7.4kg for main unit, 8.9kg for subwoofer

Surround sound effect only adequate Video performance from DVD could be problematic

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

BOX FRESH

Sony Bravia KDL-40Z4500 A

s I write, Sony has five different ranges of full high definition LCD TVs available, with their respective 40 inch (101cm) models ranging from $2199 to $3399. For that higher figure you receive the Bravia KDL-40Z4500, the model under review here.

Features This TV is from the new Z4500 series, and features a technological ﬁrst: a 200 hertz picture. Similar models are marketed in the US as 240 hertz TVs.

The default ‘Standard’ setting was simply brilliant. It smoothed motion, allowing ﬁner detail to be discerned during movement 62

The 200/240 figure is the number of picture frames that the TV can display each second. As we point out from time to time, unlike the old CRT TVs, there is in general no need to have faster frame rates for LCD TVs. They don’t flicker, so what’s the point? The point is what those extra frames consist of. Sony’s older ‘Motionflow 100Hz’ takes the usual 50 frames per second from

SONY BRAVIA KDL-40Z4500 DVDs, TV or whatever, and between each pair of them creates a new frame which is half way between the two original ones. This eliminates ‘judder’, which is a jerking of the picture as it moves across the picture frame. This model, with its brand new ‘Motionﬂow 200Hz’ processing creates not one, but three new frames between each original pair. The TV also features a dynamic backlight which stretches its contrast ratio to a claimed 80,000:1, and a Digital Living Network Alliancecompatible Ethernet port, plus a USB socket along with Sony’s proprietary Digital Media port.

Performance There is one leading edge technological innovation not included in this TV: LED backlighting. Sony ought to have a model including this out soon, at a marked increase in price. So while this TV won’t provide the ultimate LCD black level performance, you get what must be the best black level performance I’ve seen from a relatively conventional LCD TV. In dark Blu-ray and DVD scenes, the backlight turned down and full detail was revealed within the shadows. The only significant weakness appeared when a bright item flashed up on an otherwise dark screen, causing the dark bits of the picture to brighten. In a normally lit room this was basically unnoticeable, but in my dark room it was a mild performance weakness. The Ethernet and USB music and photo access worked well. But let us cut to the chase: what, if anything, does Motionflow 200Hz offer compared to other, lower-powered, motion smoothing features. Nothing directly, it seemed to me, but quite a bit indirectly. The TV provided four settings for this feature: Off, Low, Standard and High. ‘High’ delivered the smoothest motion, but it also produced a glossy video-like result and some heat haze artefacts. The default ‘Standard’ setting was simply brilliant. It smoothed motion, allowing finer detail to be discerned during movement, but avoided the distractions of ‘High’.

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $3399 Warranty: One year Contact: Sony Australia Limited 1300 137 669 www.sony.com.au Image: LCD; 101.6cm/40 inch diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness not stated; 3000:1 native contrast ratio; 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio; panel response time not stated Inputs: 3 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 2 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 3 x HDMI, 7 x stereo audio, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, 1 x (Sony) Digital Media Port Outputs: 1 x composite video, 2 x analog stereo audio, 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x headphone Audio: Stereo, speakers not stated, 2 x 9 watts + 12 watts for woofer Features: Analog TV tuner, HD Digital TV tuner, Bravia Engine 2, 24p True Cinema, Motionﬂow 200Hz, USB and Ethernet HD photo display and audio playback, picture and picture mode Supplied accessories: Remote control; manual; desktop swivel stand (attached by user) Dimensions (WHD): 1005 x 666 x 128mm (without stand) Weight: 23kg (without stand)

I don’t know whether the TV was working at 200 or 100 hertz mode in ‘Standard’, but it didn’t matter. What seemed to matter was that the processing power that Sony has built into this TV to allow it to perform its 200Hz frame creation has allowed it to deliver almost all the smoothness, and almost all the motion detail, without any of the processed artiﬁciality of earlier systems. And it worked ﬂawlessly even with 1080p24 material from Blu-ray.

Conclusion Short of the new LED backlight models that seem destined to dominate high-end LCD TV performance over the next few years, the Sony Bravia KDL-40Z4500 LCD TV offers about the best performance presently available. The 200Hz capability is important primarily in the way that it allows the picturesmoothing processing to proceed entirely in a picture-improving, rather than artefact-introducing, mode. Thomas Bartlett PROS

Full high deﬁnition display Excellent picture quality Superb video processing Plentiful range of inputs Direct high deﬁnition picture mapping CONS

Black levels not up to plasma or LED backlight levels PIP feature available only with some modes

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

BOX FRESH

SHARP AQUOS LC46D63X

Sharp Aquos LC46D85X T

V manufacturers like to blast the marketplace with a completely new range of devices every couple of years, and now it’s Sharp’s turn. So welcome Aquos, a range of TVs from a massive 52 inches all the way down to a positively cute 19 inch model for benchtops and bedrooms. Here today is the 46 inch, destined to be one of the more popular models. It’s from Sharp’s top-end D85 series, which adds 100Hz functionality over the cheaper D63 series.

Features What the D85 series really has going for it is depth, or lack of it. This TV is only 93mm thick, which means it has a very diminutive presence as furniture, despite its 46 inch display – that’s 117cm by the newfangled metric reckoning. The frame has a piano-black finish, which means it’s shiny, which can be a little irritating if you have a lamp on in the room, as the fascia will reflect quite a lot of light. As a high-end unit, the D83 includes everything that should be considered essential in a serious, modern TV purchase. There’s 1920 x 1080p resolution, analog and HD digital tuners, a 2000:1 native contrast ratio, 4ms response time, and most importantly, 24-frame Movie Sync technology for largely judder-free Blu-ray playback on the full 1080p display. Another intriguing feature is the RGB blacklight. It uses LEDs rather than fluoro tubes, which is what allows the TV to be so thin. It also uses four different colours, making reds redder, blues bluer and greens greener. This said, there is very little to separate this from the cheaper D63 series, except for the inclusion of 100Hz Fine Motion Advanced tech. However, 100Hz functionality should really be considered de rigueur for any new TV purchase, especially if you’re a sports fan!

Performance It’s hard to believe that no so long ago, big TVs were just ‘dumb displays’ that did nothing to help the viewer actually watch television. Where the D85 really shines is in its integration of the free electronic program guide (EPG). With Freeview just around the corner, nearly all the major freeto-air networks now broadcast a proper EPG that will show you every program for the rest of the day.

When viewing a list of tuned digital channels on the D85, you not only get the name of the network, but also the current and following programs. Handy! The TV also uses Sharp’s HDMI-based Aquos Link technology to allow the TV to talk to a PVR and schedule recordings, without having to first switch to the PVR’s input. Aquos Link is Sharp’s implementation of the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) system that’s part of the HDMI standard. Technically, CEC can work with all devices that support HDMI, but manufacturers are still limiting their implementations to samebranded products. This means Aquos Link only works with Sharp Aquos Link devices; it can’t control a device with, say, Sony’s Bravia Theatre Sync. We tested visual quality using the onboard tuners and Sharp’s own HP50X Blu-ray player. The four-wavelength LED backlight does make a difference to areas of very bold colour: reds really do scream at you and blues are deeper. Extremely sensitive viewers will note the red is slightly dominant, however. The 100Hz motion interpolation system is great for sport, especially on 1080i broadcasts. You probably didn’t even realise the action was slightly juddery, until you turn on 100Hz and everything smooths out. Once you go 100Hz, you won’t want to go back! The 100Hz functionality is an option you’ll need to enable via the fairly overwhelming onscreen display (lots of lists and options!) but 1080p24 functionality works automatically when the display detects this input via HDMI. (continue to page 66)

OnkyoTX-SR706

OnkyoTX-SR706 W

ith Blu-ray leading the way in AV sources, the average AV receiver has had to lift its high definition credentials. Decoding all that Blu-ray offers has its own set of challenges for ancillary hardware and one of the first companies to offer an affordable AV receiver that was up to the task was Onkyo. This is its latest offering in the upper mid-market AV receiver arena, but does Onkyo still deliver what’s required?

Features Specs are fairly standard at this level, with four HDMI 1.3a inputs and one output (with upscaling to 1080p), rated power output at 7 x 100 watts and the THX Select2 Plus certification. The latest audio decoding is handled onboard, with DSD (for SACD), Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio all supported. The 706’s styling is standard-issue Onkyo, and a look the company’s been using for a while now. Build, like all Onkyo gear, is solid and instills confidence. A bit of a rarity these days, the ‘706 also includes a MM phono input as there are plenty of us out there who still want to spin a bit of vinyl. A basic version of Audyssey’s auto calibration setup takes care of the tricky bits – it’s accurate and works a treat. Plus Onkyo’s included some new DSP features on the ‘706, such as THX Loudness Plus and Audyssey’s Dynamic EQ that both (independently) maintain movie soundtrack dynamics at low volume listening levels; great for late night viewing. And when the lights are out at least the fairly standard issue remote is partly backlit and has learning capability.

Performance If an AV receiver performs well in two-channel mode, it typically does the same when it comes to multichannel duties, so our first test was with music. To eliminate extraneous noise, a ‘Pure Music’ button bypasses all the internal circuits that are unnecessary for processing the audio signal and, in full voice, the ‘706 proves Onkyo’s record for very musical-sounding AV receivers. This Onkyo can hold a tune, and with surround receivers doubling as stereo amps in most homes, this is a very good thing. The 706 is the sort of amplifier that is easy to listen to – the bass is lean and tight, mids bring out good vocal character and the highs never grate or leave you flinching. It achieves a good, balanced performance. Switching to 7.1 channels and the Onkyo turns on the movie magic. Fed by a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player, the Onkyo handles all that the HD format has to offer. Its Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding provides a high degree of multichannel audio dynamics and excellent (continue to page 66)

In full voice, the ‘706 proves Onkyo’s record for very musical-sounding AV receivers 65

BOX FRESH (Sharp Aquos LC46D63X - continued from page 64) Display from an analog source such as the Nintendo Wii is a bit disappointing though, with areas of high contrast strobing or showing barbershop-pole patterns. A quick note on contrast: the documented 2000:1 native ratio (and 10000:1 dynamic ratio) sounds great, but blacks are perhaps not as black as they could be. Fiddling with the Optical Picture Control function – where the screen dims in response to ambient light conditions – makes a difference, especially if you turn it off!

Conclusion For less than $4000, this is a lot of TV. The tuner offers good EPG functionality, and there are enough settings to tinker around with to keep even the fussiest viewer happy.

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $3799 Contact: Sharp www.sharp.net.au 1300 135 530 Warranty: three years Display: 117cm/46 inch LCD, 1920 x 1080, 2000:1 contrast ratio, 450cd m2 brightness, 4ms response time, RGB Plus backlight, 176 degrees horizontal viewing angle, 24-frame Movie Sync Tuners: 1 x analog, 1 x HD digital Audio: 2 x 15 watt stereo speakers, SRS TruSurround XT, Audyssey Spatial EQ Connections: 3x HDMI, 2x component, 3x AV, PC D-sub, 1x optical audio output, 1x AV output Power consumption: 267 watts Dimensions: 1101 x 698 x 95mm (without stand) Weight: 29.5kg (with stand)

(OnkyoTX-SR706 - continued from page 65) channel steering. Effects seem to be generated from every quarter; the DTS-HD soundtrack on the Blu-ray version of Fantastic 4 is a treat for ears, with the audio action panning convincingly around the room. The Onkyo delivers impressive punch and weight with explosions while keeping a firm grip on surround sound placement; such action movies engulf the listener in a highly dramatic way. And as things quieten down the Onkyo doesn’t let the finer details disappear either – it’s here that the THX Loudness Plus and Audyssey Dynamic EQ come into their own.

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $1999 Warranty: one year Contact: Amber Technology 1800 25 1367 www.ambertech.com.au Power output: 7 x 100 watts (8 ohms, 20-20 kHz, 0.08% THD) Audio decoding: DTS 96/24, DTS Neo:6, DTS 5.1, Dolby TrueHD, THX Select 2, DTS-ES Matrix 6.1, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS-ES Discrete 6.1, DTSHD Master Audio, Dolby Pro-Logic IIx, Dolby Digital Surround EX Video inputs: 4 x HDMI 1.3a, 2 x component, 6 x S-Video, 6 x composite Video outputs: 1 x HDMI 1.3a, 1 x component, 2 x S-Video, 2 x composite Audio inputs (digital): 3 x optical, 3 x coaxial Audio inputs (analog): DVD (multichannel), 6 x line level, 1 x phono (MM) Features: THX Select2 Plus, Audyssey MultEQ for Room Correction and Speaker Calibration, Audyssey Dynamic EQ for Loudness Correction, Faroudja DCDi Cinema 1080p upscaling, WRAT ampliﬁer technology, Zone 2 audio, backlit learning remote, iPod dock (optional) Dimensions: 435 x 174 x 377mm Weight: 12.3kg

This can be a bit fiddly though, having to set individual colour temperatures and RGB values. Is it too much to ask that, since our AV receiver can automatically set audio for our room, a TV can’t sample ambient conditions and set its output accordingly? Something for the next generation perhaps... Lots of tech, lots of inputs, a super-thin body and a reasonable price. Not a bad package at all! Anthony Fordham

PROS

Extremely slim Unobtrusive design Good EPG implementation CONS

Disappointing contrast Fiddly image settings Reﬂective frame

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

Conclusion While not quite as powerful or heavily featured as some models at this price point, there is no doubt that the TXSR706 is an accomplished all-rounder. It puts in a solid performance with both movies and music, plus it’s still got what it takes to make the most of today’s high definition Nic Tatham sources and displays. PROS

Good HD audio decoding Accurate automatic calibration Decent 1080p video upscaling over HDMI Effective EQ DSPs Phono input CONS

Not as well speciﬁed as some of the competition

RATINGS Performance Features Ease of use Value for money

GEAR GUIDES FOR DIGTAL LIVES

Making music, video and photos last forever

Conversion T Everything old is new again when you convert analog collections into nearindestructible digital. Nathan Taylor explains easy ways for music, video and photos to make the transfer.

e’ve all got them: the aging collection of vinyl LPs from our childhood; the family photos slowly rotting away in an album in the cupboard; the personal VHS and 8mm tapes recording some of our finest (and not so fine) moments from ages long past. So rather than let those memories fade with the analog media on which they’re recorded – or be rendered useless as the analog equipment that plays them disintegrates – now might be a good time to start thinking about converting them to a format that will last. With digital you can make endless copies and backups, and it makes it much easier to store the media off-site.

For family photos, you don’t need to buy an expensive scanner – in fact, one that comes in an entry-level MFD will probably do the trick 68

But how do you go about converting your old media to new? We’ll we’ve got you covered right here.

PHOTOS So you want to preserve the family photo album to a format that’s not going to degrade over time? You’d also like to have multiple copies that you can spread around. The answer is simple: get a scanner or multi-function device (MFD). A scanner (or MFD, which is a printer/scanner combo) can digitise your photos in high resolution and transfer them to a PC. Most scanners and MFDs sold today are what are called ﬂatbed scanners, which look like the copying surface of a photocopier. Hand-held and sheet-feed scanners are pretty rare now, and we generally don’t recommend them anyway, since their results are often pretty iffy. For family photos, you don’t need to buy an expensive scanner – in fact, one that comes in an entry-level MFD will probably do the trick. Don’t be dazzled by the wall of specs most scanners are listed with: mostly just check how it connects to your PC (generally you’ll want a USB 2.0 scanner, not FireWire or SCSI) and the maximum optical resolution. One with an optical

pHOtOs

RecOmmenDeD scAnneRs In practice, most people are likely to acquire a scanner as part of an MFD, which can be readily purchased for ridiculously low prices. A cheap MFD can be acquired for less than $100 now. There’s no question, however, that standalone scanners tend to do a better job of scanning than MFDs. In MFDs the printer tends to be the focal point of the device, with scanning a tackedon feature. It’s definitely worth checking the scanner specs before buying one of these devices. Standalone scanners can also be purchased quite cheaply, with the lowest cost models in the $100 range as well.

HP Photosmart C5380 All-in-One

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An affordable MFD with a quality inkjet printing engine, the C5380 is also a top pick when it comes to scanning. It has a fiveink printer, memory card slots and an LCD print preview pane. Its scanner has an optical resolution of up to 4800dpi and HP claims it can scan 10 x 15cm colour photo in less than 21 seconds. PRICE $219 WEBSITE www.hp.com.au

Epson Perfection V30 An example of a stand-alone scanner, the Epson is affordable but very powerful. It’s capable of 4800dpi scanning in up to 48-bit colour, which will produce massive files that are very true to the originals. Epson says it can scan an A4 page in 300dpi 24-bit colour in 16 seconds. PRICE $149 WEBSITE www.epson.com.au

Brother DCP-145C Multi-Function Centre

resolution of 2400dpi or more will produce excellent, extremely high resolution images from photos. Even 1200dpi is more than enough for most people. Most photo-editing tools have some kind of integration with scanners, being able to download images from scanning devices at will. Even free tools such as Windows Photo Gallery can import from a scanning appliance. It’s easy, and it’s much quicker than it used to be.

A very low-cost MFD, the Brother DCP145C still manages to produce acceptable prints and scan at a resolution of 1200 x 2400dpi. It’s not going to set the world on fire when it comes to either printing or scanning, but it’s cheap and light. PRICE $119 WEBSITE www.brother.com.au

older sources, you’ll use the line-in. On laptop computers this is trickier. You need to check the notebook computer manual – some simply don’t have line-in ports; in some cases there are separate ports; in others the two ports are combined and the PC detects what kind of input is coming down the wire and whether to amp the signal or not. Some media players can also record audio, though line-in or mic ports are very rare indeed. Most media players don’t have input ports, just integrated mics – and using an integrated mic would be pretty much the same as option 3 below. 2. Use a dedicated device such as a USB turntable to capture the audio on a vinyl record. 3. Acquire a dedicated CD-audio recorder and hook up the audio outputs of the analog player to it. 4. Stick a microphone next to the player’s speaker and hope for the best. Obviously this solution is not recommended since it will generally produce awful audio as well as pick up ambient sounds, but sometimes the technology is so old you have no other choice, such as with certain tape players that have no AV or headphone outputs.

Line-in and mic ports

AUDIO One of the good things about the MP3 revolution is that there’s actually not much music that can’t be acquired digitally. Most music can be found in MP3 or a similar digital format, or purchased on CD and converted to MP3 using free MP3 ripping software such as Exact Audio Copy (which can be found online at exactaudiocopy.de) or the simpler CDex (cdexos.sourceforge.net). Although it might gall a little to pay again for music you already have, it is generally much easier than trying to digitise your vinyl or cassette collection. If, however, you’re really keen on doing your own ripping then you have four broad options at your disposal: 1. Use the line-in or microphone port on a computer or media player to capture the audio output of any analog device. Most desktop PCs have both a microphone and a line-in port. The difference between the two is that a mic port typically has a high-gain amp attached, while a line-in port expects line-level audio and does not have an amp. For most recording from

There’s a pretty good chance you’ve already got just about everything you need to try this solution out: a PC with a line-in port; a player for your analog media with either AV or headphone output ports; an audio cable to string between them. If you don’t have the last, you’ll have to make a trip down to your local electronics store and get the proper cable. One end of this cable will need to be a 3.5mm stereo audio jack for plugging into the line-in port of the PC; the other will have to match the audio output ports of the player. Often that’s left/right RCA, though it could also be the older 6.3mm audio jack used for headphone output. You’ll also need recording software. Audacity (audacity. sourceforge.net) is the most commonly used, although there are various other audio capture tools available as well. Unfortunately for beginners, Audacity is a complex product that can take some learning to wield properly. We’d recommend visiting audacityteam. org/wiki/ for a guide on using the software. What Audacity does is record all the audio coming into the PC’s line-in port as a waveform, which you can see in the main viewing area. To use it, you’d start the playback on your vinyl deck or cassette player and hit record in Audacity. Assuming the correct audio input port is selected in Audacity (you can change the recording input by selecting Edit>Preferences), the waveform of the audio will appear in the Audacity window. The best idea is to start slow. Set the volume of your player to a fairly low level and record for a few seconds before pressing ‘stop’ in Audacity. Then have a listen to what you’ve recorded to see if it’s OK. If it’s too soft, increase the volume and try again. When you hit the right level, you can go ahead and record an entire album. If you don’t see any waveform, then it’s probably that Audacity is set up incorrectly (check the wiki) or that the cable between the player and the PC is incorrect or plugged into the wrong ports. Audacity records audio as a continuous wave. Unlike a CD ripper, it doesn’t neatly segment the album into tracks for you. You have to do that yourself. It’s fairly easy, when you’re looking at the whole waveform, to see where individual tracks begin and end because the waveform dies down to nothing because

AUDIO Recommended vinyl players There are a number of products available right now from vendors such as ION, Terratec and TEAC. They start as low as $100, but things you should look for include support for 33, 45 and 78rpm, audio outputs that allow you to plug speakers into it (so the USB turntable can operate stand-alone), high speed recording of 33rpm records and possibly 1/8 inch (3.5mm) or ¼ inch (6.3mm) inputs so you can plug a tape deck into the turntable and thereby use it to digitise your tapes as well.

Audacity in action. It can record any audio coming into the computer’s line-in port as a waveform. Then you can select chunks of that audio (usually individual songs) to save as MP3 tracks of the silence between songs. Once you’ve identified where a single tracks begins and ends, simple click and drag to select that section of the whole audio. Then you can save that individual song by selecting File>Export Selection from the Audacity menu (and generally you’ll want to choose the MP3 format to save it in).

USB turntables It can be tricky to get the line levels right when using the line-in to record audio from external players, and interference inside the computer might well make your audio sound more than a little off. And let’s face, it’s not guaranteed that your vinyl deck actually has audio outputs that you can plug into the PC. That’s when you might look to the host of USB vinyl recorders now available. These are vinyl record players that actually plug into the USB port on your PC. The player digitises the music on the record and sends it to your PC. In the cheaper USB vinyl players, your PC actually becomes the playback device – they use the PC speakers to output audio, for example. More expensive players can also operate as standalone vinyl decks with their own speaker sets. In all cases, however, you can use your PC to capture the audio on the vinyl LP and convert it to MP3. A number of USB turntables actually come with Audacity or similar audio software, so the process of ripping and extracting individual tracks is very similar to what’s described above. Others might come with custom software, including software that automatically detects the gap between tracks and separates the file for you. If you’re prepared to pay about $90 for it, CFB Software’s LP Ripper and Recorder is a good tool for simplifying the process of ripping LPs and converting them the MP3.

Although it might gall a little to pay again for music you already have, it is generally much easier than trying to digitise your vinyl or cassette collection

Sony PSLX300USB It’s not a cheap option by any means, but it is one of the best. It uses its own Sound Forge Audio Studio software for ripping vinyl to mp3, and it’s much easier to use than Audacity, at least in Wizard mode. It also comes with crackle and pop filters (which you may want to switch off to preserve that vinyl scratchiness). It’s a quality turntable, a cut above most others but also rather more expensive. PRICE $399 WEBSITE www.sony.com.au

Pro-Ject Debut III/ Phono USB An even more expensive option than the Sony, the Pro-Ject product is something of a Rolls Royce of USB turntables, the kind that will really appeal to audiophiles looking for the best sound quality and hang the cost. It comes with an in-built preamp, but you pretty much have to supply your own recording software. PRICE $659 WEBSITE www.internationaldynamics.com.au

ION TTUSB10 turntable Like the Sony, it’s not a cheap option, but it has a lot going for it: it can work standalone; it has an input port for a tape deck; it supports high-speed recording. It uses Audacity for recording with custom noise reduction filters. PRICE $399 WEBSITE www.ionaudio.com

VIDEO Of all the analog to digital conversions you can pull off, converting your VHS tapes to a digital format is probably the most frustrating. By today’s standards, VHS is an awful storage medium and as a rule you simply can’t get high quality conversion from the tapes. It’s made more noticeable by today’s high definition ﬂat screens and monitors, which actually make VHS look worse because the higher quality displays show up its ﬂaws. If you do want to preserve those videos, however, you have two broad options: 1. Record the VHS on a DVD using a DVD recorder device. The simplest way is to acquire a DVD recorder/VHS combo

component that will allow direct copying from one to the other. Alternatively, you can plug your existing VHS player into the back of a DVD recorder (assuming the DVD recorder has analog AV inputs). 2. Use a TV tuner card or analog capture device to record the VHS tape to a computer’s hard disk. This is rather more complicated than method 1, but does allow a lot more ﬂexibility. It’s also cheaper – capture devices can be purchased for less than $100 and will work for any analog source that uses RCA outputs (including 8mm video formats). That means it’s not just limited to VHS – any analog device you have can plug into the capture device.

tIps FOR GettInG tHe best pIctURe QUAlIty On vHs cAptURes As we’ve mentioned, it’s hard to get high quality rips from VHS tapes. They’re frequently plagued by distortion and snow around the edges, colour banding and nasty artefacts in the picture (which is especially true if you want to compress them to a small file size). There are some things you can do to get a better picture, however. Here are some tips to get the best results: • Clean those VHS heads. Before you start your recording, run a head-cleaning tape on the VHS player. It can reduce distortion and dropouts significantly. • Turn off any ‘sharper image’ features on the source VHS or video player. Softer images compress better and look better when encoded to digital, while sharper images are more likely to produce blocking artefacts. • Set that bit rate/recording quality to high. When capturing a VHS or other analog video source for the first time, set any recoding bit rates or quality settings as high as you practically can. All the ‘noise’ in analog video recordings gives digital compression systems trouble since more noise equals more data that has to be digitised. If the bit rate or quality setting is too low, then you’ll get blocking artefacts and other image quality problems. Sure, a higher quality means you’ll fit less video per disc, but if you’re keen enough to convert your analog video, you’re probably going to want it in high quality. • If the software or device you’re using has a noise filter, use it.

•

If you’re recording to a computer, you can try re-encoding the video later. Sometimes the software that comes with your capture device will allow you to do that, and some third-party tools, such as the free MediaCoder (www.mediacoderhq. com), can do that as well. One thing that is useful to try is to reduce the resolution of the captured video. Coverting a VHS recording from, say 720 x 576 to 360 x 288 may seem like a step down, but the decreased resolution might actually improve the look of the video by smoothing over some of the noise. An analog video processor and de-interlacer such as the $1099 DVDO EDGE placed between the VHS player and the capture device can do wonders to the picture. They’re not cheap, however, and tend to be focussed more on the professional end of the business. Converting old analog Hi8 and Video8 to digital is often best done using a Digital8 camcorder. Many Digital8 camcorders can play the older 8mm video formats, and some models have the ability to convert recorded video to digital and transfer it to PC via FireWire or (more rarely) USB. Thanks to inbuilt noisereduction, these will often look much better than using a PC capture device. Of course, with Sony the only company really supporting these 8mm formats anymore, you may have to move fast on this before the format disappears forever.

VIDEO PC analog capture devices You can go quite high-end in this space, but for most of us a simple video-to-DVD converter or reasonable TV tuner card is more likely to be in an acceptable price range (TV tuner cards are devices that allow you to watch TV on your PC). A video-to-DVD converter can be purchased from a number of vendors for less than $100, and are typically USB devices. You plug your VHS player into the device, plug the device into your computer’s USB port and run the software. It’s very simple, though the results can sometimes be less than ideal. Of course, once you’ve done converting your video to a digital format, the converter will probably be of no use to you anymore. TV tuner cards, however, can continue to be used after you’re done converting. Most computer TV tuners are digital now, but a number of them still come with analog inputs, and to record from VHS you simply plug your VHS player into the AV inputs, use the PC software to ‘tune into’ the line-in of the tuner card, and press record. n

DVD recorder/VCR combos Combo devices are becoming increasingly hard to find, and many of them have features that are a little retrograde (such as no support for HD tuning). Still, there remain some around – just make sure you get one that will still be useful to you once the VHS to DVD recording is done.

Panasonic DMR-EZ48V A combination standard definition digital TV tuner, DVD recorder and VCR, it features onetouch copying between media formats. It’s not cheap, but it is a high quality product that will continue to be functional even after you’ve moved all your videos to DVD. PRICE $549 WEBSITE www.panasonic.com.au

Recommended video capture products Kaiser Baas Video to DVD Maker Given the price, this USB device is remarkably effective at ripping VHS video, though in some cases you might want to re-encode the resulting video files to lose some of the noise. It accepts composite (standard AV) input as well as S-Video. It also comes with some very nifty software for transferring the captured video to an iPod or uploading it to YouTube. PRICE $79.95 WEBSITE www.lakopacific.com.au

AVerMedia AVerTV Hybrid Volar HX A USB tuner (so you don’t need to open the PC to use it), this incorporates analog inputs for video capture as well as FM radio tuning and excellent software for video capture. Its analog capture isn’t up to the standards of the Compro above, but you’d be very hard pressed to find a USB tuner that is. PRICE $139 Altech Computers PHONE (02) 8831 9999 WEBSITE www.avermedia.com

Compro VideoMate Vista E900F Dual D/A HW2 PCIe An excellent TV tuner, it incorporates some pretty advanced analog encoding systems and noise reduction tools, and comes with very good software. It also has a nearly unique ability to capture component video sources. However, it is an internal card for desktop PCs – it won’t work on notebooks and even if you own a desktop you’ll have to crack open the computer’s case to install it. PRICE $269 Anyware Computer Accessories PHONE (02) 9879 5788 WEBSITE www.comprousa.com

Samsung DVD-VR375 A combo player with HD upconversion, this is a high quality DVD player with a VHS player built in. It integrates a good, old analog TV tuner but no digital tuner (though it does have digital inputs for an external digital tuner). PRICE $349 WEBSITE www.samsung.com.au

LG RC389H A product that looks very similar on paper to the Samsung above: DVD upscaling, Divx support, quick cross-conversion between VHS and DVD, analog tuner. It’s probably not quite as good as the Samsung, but it’s close. PRICE $349 WEBSITE www.lge.com.au

CEDIA CEDIA INSTALLER DIRECTORY

WANT A CUSTOM INSTALL? Make sure you use a CEDIA CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL and have peace of mind. CEDIA members specialize in the planning, design, supply, installation and concealment of automated electronic systems for the modern, intelligent home. They can install anything from multi-room audio and home cinema systems to complete home networks and sub-systems which intelligently control lighting, HVAC and even garden areas. For more information go to www.cedia.com.au

ACT Millennium Audio Visual Unit C, 66 Maryborough St. Fyshwick ACT 2609 02 6162 3330 www.mav.com.au Sound Advice Australia 21 Molonglo Mall Fyshwick ACT 2609 02 6280 8777 www.soundadvice.com.au

NSW Advanced Entertainment Systems Unit 14 12 Cecil Road Hornsby, NSW 2077 02 9477 3377 www.aesonline.com.au Advanced Living 2/29 Mitchell Road Brookvale NSW 2011 02 9939 0188 www.advancedliving.com.au Andrew Parker Custom AV Installations 5 Honeysuckle Place Kellyville, NSW 2155 02 8824 7177 www.andrewparker.com.au Audio Connection 455 - 40Parramatta Road Leichhardt, NSW 2040 02 9518 3000 www.audioconnection.com.au Audio Connection (Caringbah) 381 Port Hacking Road Caringbah NSW 2229 02 9518 3000 www.audioconnection.com.au Audio Connection (Drummoyne) 137 Victoria Road Drummoyne NSW 2047 02 9561 0788 www.audioconnection.com.au Audio Junction 4/74-84 Tudor Street Hamilton, NSW 2303 02 4962 1490 www.audiojunction.com.au

Audio Solutions 1133 Botany Road, Mascot, NSW 2020 02 9317 3330 www.audiosolutions.net.au

EBM Systems PO Box 1865 Hornsby Westfield, NSW 1635 02 9029 9245 www.ebmsystems.com.au

Audio Visual & Security Unlimited 5/686 New South Head Road Rose Bay, NSW 2029 02 9371 2052 www.audiovisualunlimited.com.au

Electronic Enterprises Shop 2, 9 - 11 St Johns Ave Gordon, NSW 2072 02 9880 02111 www.electronicenterprises.com.au

Audio Visual Lifestyle 86 Merewether Street Merewether NSW 2291 02 49 635304 avlifestyle@exemail.com.au

Electronic Environments 1 Lansdowne Parade Oatley, NSW 2223 02 9585 1233 www.electronicenvironments.com.au

AVD Australia Pty Ltd 55 Atchison Street St Leonards NSW 2065 02 9906 2424 www.avd.com.au

Eris McCarthy Home Technology PO Box 8099 Tumbi Umbi, NSW 2261 02 4389 1990 www.erismccarthy.com.au

Castle Integrated Media 372 B Military Road Cremorne NSW 2090 02 9953 8037 www.castleintegrated.com.au

Harvey Norman Commercial Home Automation Systems 15 - 21 Atkinson Rd Taren Point, NSW 2229 02 9710 4321 www.hncommercial.com.au

CONNEXIONS (NSW) Pty Ltd 19C Grace Ave Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 02 9453 2766 connexions@cnxns.com.au Custom Home Electronics PO Box 564 Hamilton, NSW 2303 02 4940 0409 jefferson@customhomeelectronics.com.au David Leisk Electronics 25/1 Short Street Chatswood, NSW 2067 02 9882 3733 www.davidleisk.com.au

Home Control & Audio PO Box 1324 Sutherland NSW 2232 02 9528 0071 www.homecontrolandaudio.com.au Infra Red Entertainment & Automated Interiors Ste. 2, 11 Albany Street St Leonards, NSW 2065 02 9439 6444 www.infrared.com.au Insound Pty Ltd 108 West Street Crows Nest, NSW 2065 02 9954 9122 tex@insound.com.au

Domayne AV/IT Castle Hill 16 Victoria Avenue Castle Hill NSW 2154 02 9846 8831 mark.borg@au.domayne.com www.domayne.com

Instinct Electrical PO Box 557 Dee Why, NSW 2099 02 9938 3188 www.instinctelectrical.com.au

E.C.S. Services Pty Ltd 22 Forestwood Cr West Pennant Hills, NSW 2125 02 9871 4061 www.ecss.com.au

Intelligent Control Systems ‘ICS’ 13/3 Apollo Street Warriewood, NSW 2102 02 9999 0766 www.icsonline.net.au

IntelliStream PO Box 4018 Kotara East,NSW 2305 02 4957 8820 www.intellistream.com.au

Smart Home Solutions Unit 21 56 O’Riordan Street Alexandria, NSW 2015 02 9304 4700 www.smarthomes.com.au

JFK Audio Visual PO Box 78 Seaforth, NSW 2092 0414 434 535 www.jfk.com.au

Soundys Electrical and Computers 383 Goonoo Goonoo Road Tamworth, NSW 2340 02 6765 4477 day1@bigpond.net.au

Jory Home Systems Pty Ltd 6 Morrisey Way Rouse Hill, NSW 2155 02 9836 5132 www.joryelectric.com

Sturman Electronics Pty Ltd 443 Crown Street West Wollongong, NSW 2500 02 4226 6690 www.sturmans.com.au

Len Wallis Audio 64 Burns Bay Road Lane Cove, NSW 2066 02 9427 6755 www.lenwallisaudio.com

Sydney HiFi ASV PO Box 150 Mascot, NSW 2020 02 9578 0118 www.sydneyhifi.com.au

Life Style Store Pty Ltd Unit 8 - The Junction, 2 Windsor Road Parramatta, NSW 2150 02 9683 7222 www.lifestylestore.com.au

Sydney Home Cinema Pty Ltd PO Box 6072 Narraweena NSW 2099 0413 397 256 www.sydneyhomecinema.com.au

LovemyTV PO Box 3320 Bangor, NSW 2234 0439 888 113 www.lovemytv.com.au Mac Hi Fi Pty Ltd 17 Flinders Street Wollongong, NSW 2500 02 4227 6767 www.machifi.com.au Matrix Audio Visual Services 22 Palm Street St Ives, NSW 2075 02 9440 0282 bradley@matrixaudiovisual.com.au McLeans Smarter Home Entertainment Cnr Minto & The Entrance Roads Long Jetty, NSW 2261 02 4333 3545 www.mcleans.info Neutral Bay Hi Fi 89 Spofforth Street Mosman, NSW 2088 02 9908 1285 nbhifi@bigpond.net.au New Fidelity Pty Ltd 392 Darling Street Balmain, NSW 2041 02 9818 2333 www.newfidelity.com.au OPOC Solutions Pty Ltd 1 Campbell Avenue Normanhurst NSW 2076 02 9489 0906 www.opoc.com.au Pacific Hi Fi 62 Macquarie Stree Liverpool NSW 2170 02 9600 6655 www.pacifichifi.com.au SKE Communication & Automation Pty Ltd Unit 2, 51 Pacific Highway Bennetts Green NSW 2290 02 494 867 60 www.ske.com.au

TJA Communications PO Box 300 Seven Hills, NSW 2147 02 9838 4622 www.tjacom.com.au Tomorrows 430 New South Head Road Double Bay NSW 2028 1300 880 840 www.tomorrows.com.au Zeale Group P.O. Box 1196 Albury NSW 2640 02 6041 1484 www.zealegroup.com.au

QLD Audio Dreams Australia 17 Lillypilly Place Mooloolaba, QLD 4557 07 5444 8122 www.audiodreams.com.au Auztech Industries Pty Ltd PO Box 4368 Logenholme DC, QLD 4129 07 3806 3133 www.auztech.com.au AVTEC 12 Buckle Court Sinnamon Park QLD 4073 07 3279 6353 www.avtec.com.au Custom Install PO Box 1250, Spring Hill, QLD 4004 07 3277 9823 www.custominstall.com.au Electronic Interiors Brisbane (Formerly Toombul Music) 2 / 180 Northgate Road Northgate, QLD 4013 07 3266 2533 www.einteriors.com.au

Electronic Living 14 Smallwood Place Murarrie QLD 4012 1300 764 554 www.electronicliving.com.au

Visiontronics PO Box 11, Landsborough, QLD 4550 0412 314 466 www.visiontronics.com.au

howdoi.com pty ltd 6a / 4 Rocklea Drive Port Melbourne, VIC 3207 03 9646 9116 www.howdoi.com.au

Frank Prowse Hi-Fi 6-14 Glyde Street Mosman Park, WA 6012 08 9384 1362 www.frankprowsehifi.com.au

Liquid Automation P.O. Box 300753 Albany Auckland 632 +64 9 444 2440 www.liquidautomation.co.nz

Fi Audio Video 3/3 Gibson Road Noosaville, QLD 4566 07 5455 6300 www.fiaudiovideo.com.au

Visual Focus 16 Clifford Street Toowoomba QLD 4350 617 4632 0402 www.visualfocus.com.au

IBS Audio Visual Pty Ltd 43 Dalgety Street Oakleigh VIC 3166 03 9568 2800 www.ibsav.com.au

Hillstone Communications PO Box 599 Kalamunda, WA 6926 08 9293 3621 hillstone@westnet.com.au

Smartline 37 Cracroft Street, Waitara, Fitzroy New Plymouth 64 6 754 6771 www.homenet.net.nz

Harvey Norman Home Automation PO Box 5935 GCMC Bundall, QLD 4217 07 5584 3128 steve.cavalier@au.harveynorman.com

Integrated Technologies Australia PO Box 570, Kilsyth, VIC 3137 03 9761 8700 www.integratedtechnologiesaustralia.com.au

Home Cinema Systems 2 / 18 Port Kembla Drive Bibra Lake WA 6163 08 9434 5556 www.homecinemasystems.com.au

Interior Sound and Vision PO Box 1093, Niddrie, VIC 3042 03 9336 7643 www.isvinfo.com.au

Innovative Home Systems 7/3 King Edwards Rd Osborne Park WA 6017 08 9242 8983 www.innovativehomesystem.com.au

TAS

Inteverge Pty Ltd PO Box 2501, Kew, VIC 3101 0409 178 076 www.inteverge.com

Intelligent Home Automated Solutions 25 Wittenoom Street East Perth, WA 6004 08 9325 7775 www.intelligenthome.com.au

Soundtech Integrated Systems 262 York Street Launceston TAS 7250 03 6331 9900 www.soundsmart.biz

Livingstone Audio Pty Ltd 3 Lawrence Street Blackburn South, VIC 3130 03 9878 4800 www.livingstoneaudio.com.au

Light Application Pty Ltd 78 Erindale Road Balcatta WA 6021 08 9240 6644 www.lightapplication.com.au

VIC

Smart Systems Pty Ltd 0Church Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 03 9818 8006 www.smartsystems.com.au

Northam Home Cinema 5 Oliver Street Northam, WA 6401 08 9622 5198 bevanautopro@westnet.com.au

Steve Bennett Hi Fi 174 Ryrie Street, Geelong, VIC 3220 03 5221 6011 www.sbhifi.com.au

Surround Sounds Unit 3, 83-85 Stirling Highway Nedlands, WA 6009 08 9389 6900 www.surroundsounds.com.au

Tasman AV Pty Ltd 6 Hood St, Collingwood, VIC 3066 03 9416 2255 www.tasmanav.com.au

Starship Industries PO Box 30 Claremont WA 6010 0428 912 099 starship@global.net.au

Ultimation 488 Scarborough Beach Rd Osborne Park WA 6017 1 300 880 544 www.ultimation.com.au

HomeTech Systems Pty Ltd PO Box 979 Nerang QLD 4211 07 5502 0760 info@hometechsystems.com.au Home Theatrix - Bundall 56 Ashmore Road, Bundall, QLD 4127 07 5531 7244 www.hometheatrix.com.au Home Theatrix - Murarrie Unit 11 Nautilus Business Park 210 Queensport Rd Murarrie, QLD 4172 1 300 555 270 www.hometheatrix.com.au Hoopers Sound Centre Shed 11 Durietz Court Gympie, QLD 4570 07 5482 3409 www.hooperssound.com.au Look & Listen 6 Ascot Street Murarrie QLD 4172 1300 765 322 www.lookandlisten.com.au In Sight & Sound Pty Ltd 125 Shamley Heath Road Kureelpa, QLD 4560 07 5445 7799 www.in-sight.com.au Skehan Antennaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Pty Ltd 14 Goombungee Rd Kingstaorpe, QLD 4400 07 4630 0447 mjskehan@bigpond.com.au Star Home Theatre 9 Bonavista Avenue Doonan QLD 4562 07 5471 1194 www.starhometheatre.com.au Stereo Supplies Gold Coast Mail Centre PO Box 6817, Gold Coast QLD 9726 07 5531 7955 www.stereosupplies.com.au Todds Sound & Vision 1 308 New Cleveland Road Tingalpa, QLD 4173 07 3907 7777 www.todds.com.au Videopro Level 1 1062 Ann Street Fortitude Valley, QLD 4006 07 3250 0000 www.videopro.com.au

Harvey Norman Mile End PO Box 288 Torrensville, SA 5031 08 8150 8000 www.harveynorman.com.au Sound & Vision Studio 237 Greenhill Road Dulwich, SA 5065 08 8364 4000 www.sv-studio.com.au

Advanced Lifestyle Solutions Pty Ltd PO Box 360, Niddrie, VIC 3042 03 8307 5618 www.advancedlifestylesolutions.com.au Audio Trends 10 Argent Place Ringwood Vic 3135 03 9874 8233 www.audiotrends.com.au Cableman Pty Ltd Level 1/1227 Glen Huntly Road Glen Huntly, VIC 3163 03 9572 8900 www.cableman.com.au Carlton Audio Visual 164 - 172 Lygon St, Carlton, VIC 3053 03 9639 2737 www.carltonaudiovisual.com.au

AVARNTI 1/ 325 Harborne St Osborne Park, WA 6017 08 9443 1288 www.avarnti.com

Custom Home Theatre PO Box 963 Berwick VIC 3806 03 9796 2617 www.customhometheatre.com.au

Digital Interiors 319 Hay Street Subiaco, WA 6008 0417 921 223 www.digitalinteriors.com.au

Encel Stereo - Richmond 84 Bridge Road, Richmond, VIC 3121 03 9428 3761 www.encelstereo com.au

Douglas Hi Fi Enterprises Pty Ltd 401 Murray Street Perth, WA 6000 08 9322 3466 www.douglashifi.com.au

ALETRO Ltd PO Box 9680 Newmarket, Auckland +64 9 307 1238 www.aletro.com

Frankston Hi Fi 450 Nepean Highway Frankston, VIC 3199 03 9781 1111 www.frankstonhifi.com.au

Electronic Interiors WA 125 Burswood Road Burswood, WA 6100 08 9472 4800 www.einteriors.com.au

Automation Associates PO Box 109722 Newmarket - Auckland +64 9 377 3778 www.aa.net.nz

Sound Advice First PO Box 12-145 Christchurch 8002 +64 3 379 9416 www.soundadvicefirst.com Soundline Audio Ltd Box 2650, Christchurch 8002 +64 3 379 5695 www.soundline.co.nz Soundline Audio Ltd Capital Gateway Centre, 56 Thorndon Quay Wellington +64 4 471 0542 www.soundline.co.nz The Listening Post 657 Victoria Street Hamilton +64 7 839 0135 www.listening.co.nz Strawberry Sound 90 Falsgrove Street Christchurch +64 3 379 8477 www.strawberrysound.co.nz Strawberry Sound 21 Bath Street Dunedin +64 3 477 7742 www.strawberrysound.co.nz

Vince Ross Audio World 162 Stirling Highway Nedlands, WA 6009 08 9386 8144 www.vinceross.com.au

GEAR LOG ASUS BAMBOO

Grass with gigabyte

Think high tech, and bamboo isn’t the ﬁrst thing that comes to mind, but that’s exactly what Asus has wrapped its latest notebook in. The “light, durable, renewable” exterior is intended to highlight the eco-credentials of the laptop’s interior workings, prime among them being an LED-backlit LCD monitor and Asus’s Super Hybrid Engine which monitors and adjusts power according to operation needs. The bamboo treatment is also meant as something of a fashion statement – and would be excellent camouﬂage should you ever want to hide your computer in a sunroom of cane furniture. Looks aside, the Bamboo Series (U6V-2P048G) notebook offers a 12 inch WXGA screen, Intel Centrino 2 with 802.11 wireless, 320GB hard drive, Windows Vista Ultimate, a web camera for video chat, 3 x USB ports, plus HDMI. Pricing starts at starts at $3500

ASUS

WEB www.asus.com.au

PANASONIC DMC-G1

Mirror, mirror

Panasonic’s 12. 1 megapixel DMC-G1 is so good it’s just won a Gold Award from DIWA, a worldwide organisation of collaborating websites that tests cameras according to more than 200 criteria. As the world’s ﬁrst Micro Four Thirds camera, it eliminates the internal mirror that deﬁnes SLR shooters, reducing size and weight by half while still offering the advantage of interchangeable lenses. Adding to the camera’s appeal are Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto mode, whereby the the camera automatically optimises any setting according to the situation, MEGA Optical Image Stabilisation, which automatically compensates for every shake or bump, and Face Detection, whereby optimal focus and exposure settings are for up to 15 faces in a picture — even if they’re moving. Available in red, black or blue, the DMC-G1 costs $1699 for the single lens kit and $2199 for the twin lens kit.

PANASONIC

VIEWSONIC SLIM SERIES

Slim pickings

Viewsonic’s got three digital frames measuring 18, 20.5 and 25cm (7, 8 and 10 inches) respectively. The ‘Slim Series’ frames measure less than 2.5cm deep and sport a sleek and stylish white design, perfect for that desktop, coffee table or bench where there isn’t much space. Resolution is 800 x 480 pixels and 128MB of built-in memory provides the initial storage space. The most common memory cards are supported – including CF(Type I/II), SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, MS Pro and XD types – as is MP4 video and MP3 audio ﬁles taken on digital cameras and camcorders. Pop one on your bedside table and the built-in alarm will wake you up; there’s even a calendar function in case you forget what day it is.

PRICE $129 (18cm DPX704WH) $149 (20.5cm DPX803WH) $199 (25cm DPX1003WH) VIEWSONIC AUSTRALIA WEB www.viewsonic.com.au

WEB www.panasonic.com.au

The GadgetGuy™ presents great gear and top tech for your digital life SAMSUNG VP-MX20

Director’s cut

Samsung’s VP-MX20 camcorder is purpose-designed for quick and carefree shooting and sharing, creating video that’s ideal for viewing on the Net or the small screens of portable media devices such as phones and MP3 players. Uploading video to websites such as YouTube, blogs and social networking sites is a doddle, with Web and Mobile modes that automatically adjust the video resolution to 640 x 480 pixels. And with no need to transcode ﬁles, video can be imported directly to compatible MP3 players too. The battery is good for three hours shooting, according to Samsung, with 8GB, 16GB and 32GB memory cards capable of storing up to four, eight and 16 hours of video respectively. A 2.7 inch screen for editing on the ﬂy, swivel hand-grip for capturing hard-to-reach low angle shots, and Face Detection technology for automatically detecting and adjusting exposure for up to 12 faces within a frame, add to camcorder’s appeal. Available in black or red, it costs $379.

SAMSUNG AUSTRALIA

WEB www.samsung.com.au

VAIO P SERIES POCKET STYLE PC

Small substance

Netbook sales are predicted to increase by up to 300 percent this year and Sony is looking to snare some of the action with its Vaio P Series Pocket Style PC. Offering instant email and net access in a notebook the size of a business envelope and weighing just 594 grams with ﬂash memory (around 20 grams more with hard disk drive), the ultra-portable offers an 8 inch 1600 x 768, LED backlit widescreen display that allows two full web pages to be viewed side by side. There’s also an extended version of a QWERTY keyboard to help minimise the typing errors typical to smaller form factors. Two models will be released by mid-2009, and with the ability browse several web pages at once, play HD video and watch stutter-free YouTube video the unit with the faster processor is the one to get. Don’t expect characteristic sub-$500 netbook pricing though; these teeny high-spec notebooks will set you back between $1500 and $2500.

Sony Australia

WEB www.sony.com.au

PALM PRE

Beforehand

Another potential ‘iPhone killer’, Palm’s Pre has a similar touchscreen interface which can be controlled by ﬁngertip gestures, but trumps the king of superphones through the welcome provision of a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, three megapixel camera with LED ﬂash function and copy-and-paste MMS functions. A 3.1 inch display, GPS, Wi-Fi, 8GB storage, Bluetooth and accelerometer are standard, but it’s the Pre’s Web OS interface which is garnering most interest from smartphone watchers. Preview reports from its January launch at CES say its web browsing and seamless applications integration outclasses all-comers to date. Look out for it in Oz around mid-year.

Palm Australia WEB www.palm.com.au

EARS & EYES & THUMBS

Entertainment for wherever you are — from movie room to laptop to mobile phone, and from HDTV to podcasts, DVDs and downloads. Compiled by Max Everingham.

HIGH DEFINTION MOVIES Wanted Rated MA15+ Distributor Universal Based on the Mark Millar comic book of the same name and entirely reversing aspects of the central premise, relative newcomer James McAvoy convincingly ﬁlls the boots of Wesley Gibson, son of the greatest assassin of all time and heir to the title. After his sleepy, unfulﬁlled life is overturned by the gorgeously dangerous Fox (Angelina Jolie), Wesley learns the secrets of his new trade under the rather silly and bizarre tutelage of assassin leader Sloan (Morgan Freeman). Somewhat spoiled by the stupidly unquestioning behaviour of the members of ‘The Fraternity’ who, incredibly, take their orders from a weaving loom, the action in Wanted is nevertheless exciting, fun and relentless. With a nice plot twist and a surprising late turn of events occasioned by Jolie’s character, this is great

entertainment with tons of brilliant stunts and decent acting, once you’ve switched your brain to ‘sleep’ mode. Special Features: Uncut Version - too hot for cinemas • BD-Live - My Wanted Commentary, My Scenes Sharing, My Chat, Behind the Scenes vignettes, Avatars, Trailers • Blu-ray Exclusive U-Control - Assassin Proﬁles, Picture in Picture, Wanted: Motion Comics, Scene Explorer • Alternate Opening • Extended Scene • Cast and Characters • Stunts on the L Train • Special Effects: The Art of the Impossible • Groundbreaking Visual Effects: From Imagination to Execution • The Origins of Wanted: Bringing the Graphic Novel to Life • Through the Eyes of Visionary Director Timur Bekmambetov • The Making of Wanted: The Game • 8 Videogame Codes

Kung Fu Panda Rated PG Distributor Paramount

Oddly, this caper is far more enjoyable the second time around – the first time of watching, Kung Fu Panda initially feels like a generic, painting-by-numbers, anthropomorphic animation resting on its star-cast laurels. But, headed up by the manic, inconsistent Jack Black who, in this film at least is hilarious, and as perfect a fit for a role as you’ll ever see, the impressive star power is far from the main attraction. Affectionately parodying many a kung-fu movie before it, the script in Kung Fu Panda is very funny, allowing for subtle spoken as well as the more slapstick, visual laughs.

It also looks utterly superb, with beautiful colours and animation. Special features: Filmmakers’ Commentary • Meet the Cast • Pushing the Boundaries • DreamWorks Animation Video Jukebox • Bee Movie Trailer • Shrek The Third Trailer • Be a Kung Fu Master: Animals of Kung Fu Panda, What Fighting Style Are You? • Do You Kung Fu? • ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ Music Video by Cee-Lo • Learn the Panda Dance • Po Around the World • Po’s Power Play (DVD ROM): HP Printables, Kung Fu Panda Activision Video Game Demo

Tropic Thunder Rated MA 15+ Distributor Paramount

A head-scratching mess of a ﬁlm from the outset, Tropic Thunder maybe tries too hard to satirise a subject long put to rest, to emerge as strong entertainment. Maybe it would have more relevance if it’d come out in 1988 after Rambo III. Not even the incredibly talented Robert Downey Jr can save Tropic Thunder’s descent into tedium, reducing the intended satire of big budget action movies to inconsistency and ﬂat gags. Ben Stiller directs and takes a starring role, surrounding himself with enough established comedic talent that you’d think it’d be impossible not to be

funny, but for most of its duration it’s clearly catering to a taste that we have yet to acquire. Downey is good, but Tom Cruise steals the show with a genuinely hilarious turn as a maniac studio head. Special features: cast Commentary with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr • Blowing Shit Up • The Hot LZ • The Cast of Tropic Thunder • Make-Up Test with Tom Cruise with Optional Intro • Full Mags with Optional Intro • Rain of Madness Trailer • MTV Movie Awards - Tropic Thunder.

MUSIC SHORTS Only by the night

Twilight Soundtrack

Blowing their load a little early in the piece with the ﬁrst three tracks, the rest of the follow-up to Because of the Times sounds a lot more manufactured than inspired. Allegedly ﬁred up on medication while writing many of the songs, that might explain the truly horrible ’17’, which sounds like the meds weren’t quite strong enough to stop Caleb’s frequent screeching with pain. ‘Use Somebody’ suffers a little from the wailing ‘woah oh, woah oh’ backing vocals but is nonetheless suitably yearning, although others, like ‘Revelry’ and ‘Cold Desert’ don’t have even that emotion, being just too aimless and drawn out to truly engage.

Including tracks from Muse, Paramore, Linkin Park and Rob Pattinson, the Twilight Soundtrack would make a good post-Christmas or early Easter present for the angst-ridden teenager in your home, if you have one. It probably helps to have seen the movie ﬁrst, cementing the psychological link between the choice of tracks and the prevalent, dark mood. Plenty of high-energy, guitar rock balladeering is on offer, with standout performances from Paramore and strong inclusions such as ‘Supermassive Black Hole’ by Muse, the MoodyBluesish ‘Full Moon’ by the Black Ghosts (must be quite happy ghosts), ‘Leave Out All the Rest’ by Linkin Park and Pattinson’s ‘Never Think’.

Kings of Leon (Sony BMG)

Various Artists (Atlantic)

GAMES Left 4 Dead EA/ Valve Platform Xbox 360 Proof, if anyone still needs it, that a successful videogame doesn’t need to get everything right, but just focus on a couple of things and do them superlatively well, Left 4 Dead has no plot to speak of, no amazing weapons, no upgrading, and won’t impress graphically but it does deliver fast-paced, chaotic action with excellent controls based on one, single premise: kill all the zombies. A series of set-pieces, in effect, that simply chucks you into the middle of the action and sees if you come out the other side alive, the game is best played in its intended co-operative multiplayer form. When you do this, it’s a riot. ‘AI Director’ technology ensures that replaying the levels is always interesting and different, upping the ante as you become more able, and the gameplay is so moreish that you’ll never have trouble ﬁnding someone online who’s up for a bit of zombie mashing.

Quantum of Solace EA Platform Xbox 360 Games based on the James Bond movies are never as good as you hope they’ll be, and Quantum of Solace doesn’t buck that trend, unfortunately. Gadget-less and with a very mundane assortment of weapons, the new Bond game plays out as morosely and mechanically as the new film (not that you’ll retread the film by playing this game). It’s not bad, just not very good either, entirely bereft of the sense of adventure, fun and daring-do that you might expect from Britain’s no. 1 fictional superspy. Most of the time, you’re running, ducking and shooting, which is certainly in the best tradition of its first-person shooter genre, but definitely not in any way as distinctive as it could, or should, have been.

Call of Duty: World at War Activision Platform Xbox 360 Short, and not nearly as engrossing as the previous Call of Duty outing in Modern Warfare, it’s back to the Second World War for Activision as it gives developer Treyarch its shot at the franchise again while the Modern Warfare boys over at Inﬁnity Ward take a little R&R. Brilliantly realised despite the return to such familiar gaming territory, there are also a few (worryingly) entertaining surprises, including devising effective defences against suicidal Japanese infantry attacks. It looks great, the controls are perfectly suited and there are some genuine attempts at interspersing the carnage with good dramatic moments. It pales slightly in comparison to the previous game, but that’s all good for Activision, because it leaves us all eager for the next instalment!

Fable II Microsoft Platform Xbox 360

Taking anything game-guru Peter Molyneux says seriously invariably proves to be a mistake, and so it is with the damn dog in Fable II. You don’t have to look too hard online to find the developer chief waxing lyrical about how the dog in Fable is a continual source of delight and amazement, but play the game and you’ll all but ignore the hound after the first few interactions. But never mind – all is otherwise well in Albion, the game’s fictional universe, with Fable II achieving a very high level of adventuring pleasure. Now, for the next one, we’d really appreciate a “what happened last time you played” recap feature, so we don’t have to spend the first 20 minutes of every play session trying to remember.

Apps They’re a canny marketing operation for sure, and with the crazy Christmas holiday well behind us, you’re likely to see a lot more fruits of Apple’s labour out and about on the streets. We’re talking, of course, of the Apple iPhone (and even iPod touch), everyone’s favourite object to plonk down on the dinner table when you’re out with friends to show them just how fashionable you are. But there’s no disputing the appeal, and pure genius, of the iPhone control interface, which makes downloading new stuff for the gadget a snap. Once you’re over the official Apple Store offerings and have learned their new language (‘the funnest iPod ever’, and ‘accessorise your iPhone’ being just two horrible offenders), it’ll be time to fill up some of that memory space with some choice applications, or ‘iPhone apps’. To help you get started in your quest for functional or aesthetic satisfaction, we’ve gathered together a suggestion list of the very best apps currently being paraded around among the Apple cognoscenti. Start with the wonder that is Google Earth, now available for iPhone and stunning, as you can ‘twirl’ the view by using the phone’s tilt functionality. And it’s free! Next, given the vagaries of iTunes permissions, you may soon find yourself in need of a substitute program to handle transferring your libraries from iPhone to PC, backing up, managing and so on. ‘Copy Trans’ is the program you’re looking for. Budding DJ’s should check out Intua’s ‘BeatMaker’, an amazing package for a mobile, and creative types need to check out ‘Sketches’ for image editing fun. For the more studious, if you’re an actual med student or just want an inside track when you’re watching ER, get ‘Netter’s Anatomy’. A little more utilitarian but totally invaluable is ‘SplashID’, allowing you to plug in all your ‘sensitive’ data (credit card details, passwords and so on), all safeguarded and in one handily accessible place. And you probably won’t be astounded to hear that the biggest impact the iPhone could have is on the gaming scene. Partly, this is thanks to the big, bright screen and clever ‘accelerometer’ but also because they’re just such great value – you’ll be paying only a few dollars for an iPhone game, compared to up to 60 bucks for a similar offering on the Nintendo DS handheld gaming system. Seasoned heavyweight videogame publishers such as Ubisoft, Sega and EA have already vowed allegiance to the iPhone, producing both ‘ports’ (games that came out on other machines first, then were made for the iPhone) as well as original titles designed for the iPhone from the ground up. Of these, it’s hard to go past Sega’s charming ‘Super Monkey Ball’ and there are classic games like ‘Tetris’ for the more traditional taste. But ‘X-plane 9.05’ for flight sim fans, ‘Rolando’, a terrifically innovative game, and the simple but superb ‘Line Rider iRide’ are our top picks right now. Apple App store http://www.apple.com/iphone/appstore Applications Copy Trans http://www.copytrans.net/index.php Splash ID http://www.splashdata.com/splashid/index.asp BeatMaker http://www.intua.net/products.html Google Earth http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/ MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=293622097&mt=8 Sketches http://www.sketchesapp.com/ Netter’s Anatomy http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=282143480&mt=8

TIME WARP Most people today have either seen or listened to standalone bass-reflex speakers. They’re also used in other devices, including mobile phones, portable radios and televisions. Unlike the sealed speaker design, which consists of one or a number of drivers enclosed in an airtight box, all bass-reflex speakers have a hole – or port – in them. Positioned at the front or back of the enclosure, the port enables air to move in and out. But what’s the point? Compared to a similarly sized ‘sealed’ speaker enclosure design, a bass-reflex unit produces extended low frequency response and increased low frequency output. In other words, bass-reflex designs can produce deeper and louder bass. Also, from a size point of view, the bass-reflex approach means you can get more ‘punch’ from a smaller cabinet.

By its nature, the bass-reﬂex design is more efﬁcient because it moves more air, and is ideally suited to replicating low frequency sounds created by instruments that also move a lot of air

The hole story P

utting a hole in your average container doesn’t usually make it better. Normally, it means that something will spill out, or something else will get in. In the case of audio speakers, however, a little hole made things a whole lot better. If you’re still wondering what I’m on about, I’m referring to the notable bass-reﬂex speaker design, introduced in late 1950s.

So how does the design work? First, for those who might have been dozing in physics class, here’s a quick backgrounder: Essentially, speakers turn the electrical signals from audio recordings into sound. They employ air as the transmission medium, and sound is created when electrically driven speaker cones vibrate air particles. The air particles travel in ‘waves’. Your eardrum can detect these air pressure fluctuations, and your brain interprets these as sounds. Different sounds are produced depending on a wave’s amplitude (volume) and frequency (pitch). Amplitude is also a measure of how much air is moved, and frequency relates to the number of ‘fluctuations’ of waves per second. So when a driver housed in a bass-reflex enclosure vibrates, it moves air both in front of the speaker cone, and behind it as well. If the enclosure was a sealed design, the air behind the cone would have nowhere to go, and the opposing air pressure would draw the cone back to its neutral position. As a bass-reflex enclosure has a hole in it, this enables the displacement of air particles caused by movement of the speaker cone. For example, when the speaker cone pushes outwards, it draws air particles in, and pushes air out when the speaker returns inward. In effect, the bass-reflex design creates two sound waves, one from the driver cone and one from the bass-reflex port, rather than a single wave as in a sealed box design. By its nature, the bass-reflex design is more efficient because it moves more air, and is ideally suited to replicating low frequency sounds created by instruments that also move a lot of air, such as drums. However, bass-reflex is not as precise as sealed enclosure designs and suffers from lower transient response, meaning you probably wouldn’t choose one for a recording studio. However, Valens Quinn most of us probably wouldn’t notice.

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