Home Entertainment Buyers Guide - Winter

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A D V I C E

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ISSUE 29

B U Y S $8.95

BUILD A

SYSTEM 3D TV What’s it like?

Samsung UA55C7000

HOW TO:

Pick the perfect projector Audition like an expert Accessorise your iPad Watch the web on TV

BUDGET TV SHOOT-OUT

REVIEWED

• PHILIPS CINEMA 21:9 • TOPFIELD TRF-7160 • AKTIMATE MINI • SONY BRAVIA KDL-52NX800

SPECIAL POWERS 9 fancy-pants amps

Why you need a subwoofer

• YAMAHA YSP-5100 • ONKYO TX-SR608 • MITSUBISHI HC6800 • PIONEER VSX-1020

Used in some of the world’s best studios including Pixar, AIR Studios and Skywalker Sound, the breakthrough technology developed for Pioneer’s professional speakers (TAD) has now been integrated into the Pioneer Premium Home Audio range.

Whether you choose to use the strength and beauty of the speakers as a showpiece to any room, or select the subtlety of an in wall option that blends seamlessly into your environment, the range is as aesthetically flexible as it is powerful.

With Air Studio collaboration on Pioneer’s premium Blu-ray Players and AV Receivers and our on-going association with THX, Pioneer’s new Premium Home Audio range will create a sound stage of incredible proportions and style.

pioneer.com.au

We’ve combined everything we know from all of our engineering groups to take our professional audio range into the home.

Andrew Jones

Director of Speaker Engineering (Pioneer)

FLASHPIOH744

See how the industry has reviewed and rated the Pioneer Premium Home Audio range at pioneer.com.au/industryreviews

FAST FOREWORD

What was, and what will be

S

INCE OUR LAST ISSUE, 3D HAS CAPTURED THE hearts and minds of broadcasters and TV makers, if not the wallets of consumers. The first sets to hit store shelves bore Samsung badges and swing tags with figures far smaller than we were expecting. The brand hooked up with Channel 9 and key electronics retailer Harvey Norman to deliver the world’s first free-to-air broadcast, game one of the State of Origin series in May, beating Korea’s first 3D transmission by a couple of hours.

As for the first 3D video transmission per se in Australia, bragging rights go to Foxtel, which provided to subscribers a 3D broadcast of the friendly between the Socceroos and New Zealand three days before Channel 9’s maiden delivery.

In the same week, SBS announced it had been granted a special allocation of digital spectrum to broadcast select World Cup games in 3D. Viewers with 3D-ready TVs will have plenty of opportunities to see the games because, in addition to it being broadcast live on SBS’s dedicated channel (CH 40), the games will also play on an extended loop, which will run until the next 3D broadcast is available.

The front cover image of Tim Cahill is courtesy of adidas. Tim Cahill will be wearing the new adidas Predator X World Cup boots at the 2010 FIFA World Cup

ACTION BY THE CONTENT PROVIDERS GAVE IMPETUS TO other hardware makers, with LG and Sony fast-tracking their televisions and Blu-ray televisions to market in the last three weeks. Viewsonic and Sharp have released 3D-ready projectors, and in associated developments, SRSLabs, announced SRS CircleCinema 3D. Designed for integration into 3D televisions, it claims to provide “an immersive three-dimensional soundstage” for 3D video. We’re can’t help but be cynical about this though, especially as this is exactly what the company – along with Dolby Digital and DTS – claim to have been achieving for years with their existing ‘2D’ surround systems.

We are, however, looking forward the arrival of universal LCD shutter glasses. Currently, 3D glasses cost around $100 and work only with sets from the same manufacturer, meaning you can’t take your Sony glasses to a mate’s place to watch 3D on his LG telly. It’s a disincentive to buy that is being overcome in the US by XpanD and Nvidia, which are developing and marketing glasses that claim to work with any PC or TV with 3D. It’s a welcome development, but with one caveat: like other universal devices, these may not provide an experience equivalent to the manufacturer’s eyewear.

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

THEN THERE’S THAT MUCH HYPED MOBILE ENTERTAINMENT device from the company that changed the way we access and use our music, revolutionised the phone and kick-started downloads as a way to consume movies – the Apple iPad. With shipments delayed a month from its scheduled April arrival, we’ve only been enjoying our 3G iPad at magazine HQ for a couple of weeks and, while impressed enough by what it is now, are more excited about what it will be.

For mobile music and movie consumption it’s right on the money, and more comfortable to interact with than an iPod Touch.

It promises 10 hours of movie watching, music listening and web surfing, provides an excellent screen for viewing (album covers are especially satisfying – just like the old days), and a wide range of format compatibility.

The onboard speakers don’t win accolades, but you can adding quality cans and/or a power multimedia speaker system to fix this – the latter prefect if your new toy is to have a permanent ‘home’ position.

Connected to a home theatre system by an AV receiver it works like a jumbo-sized iPod Touch, feeding music and video to your ‘good’ speakers and flat screen TV. It is cheeky, though, that Apple makes you pay extra for the dock, which you need to charge the iPad and to have it ‘perch’ nicely for viewing.

We also don’t like that it doesn’t stream movies from your iTunes library. Considering the number of far dumber devices that can, the absence of this feature is, well, plain dumb. We expect Apple to make it available as a software upgrade.

The iPad’s potential as an interface for home automation systems is enormous too, and there are already apps that empower it with tens of thousands of codes for operating audio and video equipment in a home cinema setup. It is far cheaper than touch panels from companies like Crestron and AMX, and as these companies move programming of their systems into simple downloadable apps, home automation will become cheap.

Maybe not cheap enough for the Every Man, but certainly more affordable than it is now.

So the iPad is good, and versatile and fun and, like, so hot right now. And best of all, we can see that it will get only better.

Cheers

Anika Hillery

Australian Home Entertainment Buyers Guide is published quarterly by The Gadget Group Pty Ltd, 120 Cathedral Street, Woolloomooloo, New South Wales, Australia 2011. Australian Home Entertainment Buyers Guide is available for licensing overseas.

For further information, please contact The Gadget Group on +61 2 9356 7400 or email info@gadgetgroup.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

2 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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CONTENTS WINTER 2010

38

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20

HOW TO:

BUYING, SHOPPING AND SETUP GUIDES

Bass desires

38

Multichannel muscle

44

Audition with expertise

72

All you need to know about selecting the best subwoofer for your system, and getting the most out of it once you get it home.

There’s nothing dainty about multichannel amplifiers. They supply power and lots of it, which is just what any serious surround system needs, reports Anika Hillery.

28

Simple ways to test that your short-listed equipment looks and sounds like good AV gear should.

Digital Shack: Enlightenment 76 Light switches turn bulbs on and off, but they can also operate your home entertainment, security and air conditioning systems. Thomas Bartlett outlines how a lighting control system can automate your home.

Modern literature: The e-reader guide

83

An overview of today’s e-book readers, from simple monochrome devices to high resolution web-connected multimedia entertainment tablets.

By Alex Kidman.

72

FEATURES Internet TV

20

Big screen play: Building a Great World Cup system

28

On-demand, a la carte viewing from thousands of channels around the world. That’s the promise of IPTV, but right now we’re just at the starting line, explains Max Everingham.

The month-long World Cup invites us all to enjoy big screen sports, and when it comes to truly eye-stretching pictures, projectors are the only game in town worth watching.

REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE

REGULARS Random Play

Home entertainment news and product highlights.

6

Tech Corner

17

Gear log

88

Ears, eyes, thumbs

91

Time Warp

96

The iPad shows that computers and consumer electronics can ‘make nice’ with each other, writes Anthony Fordham.

GadgetGuy, Peter Blasina, presents a showcase of accessories for the iPad.

Watch, listen, play. Max Everingham’s roundup of the best movies, music and games.

A retrospective of milestone entertainment products and technologies. This issue: Digital Audio Tape.

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

Group test: Budget TVs 50 Hisense HLS106T18PZL Kogan 1080P42 Palsonic TFTV4200FHD Soniq QASA QSL460XT Tyagi 42-1080P

52 54 56 57 58

Box Fresh Onkyo TX-SR608 Yamaha YSP-5100 Pioneer VSX-1020 Samsung UA55C7000 AktiMate Mini Philips Cinema 21:9 56PFL9954H Mitsubishi HC6800 Topfield TRF-7160 Sony Bravia KDL-52NX800

59 60 61 62 65 66 68 69 70

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 5

RANDOM PLAY

Oh, Solo neo The latest in Arcam’s successful Solo family, the Solo neo is an audiophile-grade integrated music system with Internet radio, music streaming, CD playback and DAB+ capabilities. According to the company, it “delivers superb performance” from music stored on networked PCs and NAS drives, with support for a wide variety of file formats. It provides access to global Internet radio stations and you can play DISTRIBUTOR

music from flash drives and hard drives via its USB port. With the optional irDock, you can also enjoy playback and control of iPods using its duplex RS232 connector.

Power output is rated at 2 x 50 watts internal and local distributor, Absolute Audio Vision, recommends pairing it with the brand’s matching Muso loudspeakers.

It costs $2498.

Absolute Audio Vision PHONE (02) 9764 5092 WEB www.absoluteaudiovision.com.au

Sony 3D comes early Sony has fast-tracked shipment of 3D televisions by a month, with its Bravia HX800 range to be on sale for the World Cup this June.

The three models in the HX800 range include a 40, 46 and 55 inch model for $2800, $3499 and $5299 respectively. These are the company’s ‘optional’ 3D models, and deliver 3D effects only with the addition of a transmitter valued at $99. This will be provided as a bonus with purchase, along with two pairs of Sony 3D glasses, the 3D capable PlayStation 3 and four 3D stereoscopic PS3 games via the PlayStation Network. These include WipEout HD (full game), PAIN (three 3D episodes plus a 2D tutorial), SuperStardust HD (full game) and MotorStorm Pacific Rift (single level demo).

The HX800 series televisions integrate Motion Pro 200Hz and the free IPTV channels provided by the Bravia Internet Video service. These can be streamed wirelessly to the TVs via an optional dongle. Sony will deliver more 3D equipment in July, including five 3D Blu-ray players and home theatre systems, an unnamed 3D Blu-ray title from Sony Pictures (most likely Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and PS3 games titles.

DISTRIBUTOR

Sony Australia PHONE 1800 01 SONY (7669) WEB www.sony.com.au

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 7

RANDOM PLAY

Bowers & Wilkins’ first headphone The first headphone from British speaker marque, Bowers & Wilkins, the P-5 benefits from 45 years of audio research by the company into how to bring the listener as close as possible to the sound intended by the recoding engineers. With the working brief to create a “headphone with a natural, unfatiguing performance”, B&W developed ultra-linear neodymium magnets and highly optimised Mylar diaphragms to help deliver best possible sound, and packaged them in a closed-back design with a rigid metal faceplate and sealed sealed-leather ear pads. The DISTRIBUTOR

materials and construction provide not just high levels of comfort for prolonged listening, but excellent isolation from external noise, without the need for full electronic noise cancellation.

The P-5 is supplied with a Made For iPod approved cable, which allows for speech and device control, plus a standard audio cable with gold-plated plugs. The magnetically attached ear pads easily pop off to allow access to the cable, making it easy to switch between the two connection methods. The P-5 headphones cost $500.

Convoy International PHONE 02 9700 0111 WEB www.e-hifi.com.au

Tivo to record and download 3D Like most high definition PVRs, the Tivo set-top box is able to record free-to-air 3D broadcasts, but the media device distinguishes itself by being the first to offer downloadable 3D content via its CASPA DISTRIBUTOR

on-demand IPTV service. Expected to be available from later this month, content will include movie trailers and short animations, with movies and documentaries shot in 3D to follow.

Hybrid Television Services WEB www.tivo.com.au

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B&O goes pretty low The BeoLab 11 eschews the squat-box design of most subwoofers for a tulip shape. Made from aluminium, a material with which the company has recognised expertise, the sub also sports the characteristic luxe finish of the Danish stylemeisters. So it’s very pretty, meaning that – unlike conventional subwoofers which are recommended for positioning out of sight in a cupboard or under a couch – it is made to be seen.

Because any subwoofer has to move a lot of air to create deep bass, they typically have a big driver (or drivers) and a powerful amplifier. Combined, the energy created often causes a lot of vibration. In acoustic terms, vibration is

distortion, and distortion is bad. ‘Bad’ because it means the sound you hear is not an accurate reproduction of the original recording. Subwoofers that vibrate a lot are not only inaccurate, but can produce so much physical energy that they will literally walk across the floor.

B&O tells us the BeoLab 11 cancels out most vibrations by using two 6.5 inch drivers positioned facing opposite each other within the enclosure alongside a 200 watt Class D ICEpower amplifier. It vibrates so little, in fact, that B&O reckons you can mount it on a wall. It’s available for $2500, and in an anodised finish for $2800.

DISTRIBUTOR Bang & Olufsen WEB www.bang-olufsen.com

Rotel improves 06 Series, keeps same pricing Rotel says its 06 series is the standard by which entrylevel audiophile stereo components are judged, but that its four Special Edition (SE) versions of the range set new benchmarks for performance and quality. The models update the classic 06 CD player and three stereo amplifiers with key sonic components drawn from the company’s flagship 15 series (see page 72) to provide better performance, but all will sell for the same price as the standard models they replace.

Replacing the RCD-06 CD player, the RCD-06 SE forgoes the Burr Brown DAC of old with a new model from Wolfson, which is supported by updgraded components and circuitry, including filter and buffer stages, and selected input and output coupling capacitors. The RA-06 SE stereo benefits from an DISTRIBUTOR

upgraded phono stage, switching components and decoupling of the power supply.

The RCD-06 SE costs $799, and the RZ-04 SE, 05 SE and 06 SE stereo amplifiers cost $599, $699 and 899 respectively.

International Dynamics PHONE (03) 9429 0822 WEB www.internationaldynamics.com.au

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 9

RANDOM PLAY

Samsung makes 3D cheap Samsung was first to market with 3D televisions in April, with prices starting at $2500 for a full HD 50 inch plasma and $3299 for a 50 inch full HD LED LCD television. In 2009, a full HD 50 inch plasma from the company cost $2999, making it $500 more expensive than this year’s 3D model.

Samsung’s 3D TV offering includes the LED Series 7, 8 and 9, as well as the Series 7 LCD televisions and plasma Series 7 televisions. TV prices range from $2499 to $4799, and while the 7 Series has been available from April, Series 8 and 9 models will become available from July and August respectively.

Depending on the model, Samsung’s new 3D range provides 200Hz processing, IPTV via the company’s Internet@TV service, access to the Samsung app store DISTRIBUTOR

for direct access to games and sites such as YouTube and Picasa, wireless DLNA video streaming and Skype capability. Samsung will expand its IPTV offerings during the year with video-on-demand programming from Tivo’s IPTV service, CASPA, as well as movies from Telstra’s BigPond Movies service.

Every Samsung 3D TV purchase will come with two pairs of active shutter glasses and, while stocks last, a copy of Monsters vs Aliens from Dreamworks. Additional pairs of glasses can be purchased from $129, and there are two types to choose from: a battery-type model plus a rechargeable model, which is available in two sizes. The glasses work only with Samsung 3D televisions and – tit for tat - 3D glasses from other brands will not work with Samsung’s 3D televisions.

Samsung Electronics PHONE 1300 362 603 WEB www.samsung.com.au

Nice rack

Most entertainment units are ho-hum affairs, but not those from French band, NorStone Design. Its S-shaped shelving array allows for flexible placement of your equipment, and will house your electronics with “elegance and sobriety”, according to the company. Robust enough to hold an 80 kilo television on its top shelf, the Esse comes in a range of finishes, from conservative black on black to funky orange, green, white and red combinations. It costs $499.

DISTRIBUTOR

International Dynamics PHONE (03) 9429 0822 WEB www.internationaldynamics.com.au

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 11

RANDOM PLAY

LG Infinia 3D LG is providing 3D in its LED and plasma – not LCD – televisions, with prices starting at $4100, including a single sets of 3D glasses. Additional pairs cost $99.

The company’s 55 inch LED LX9500 provides TruMotion 400Hz processing and is described as Full LED, by virtue of it providing more LED lights behind the screen than conventional LED panels. It comes with the company’s version of IPTV, with the most notable channel being Telstra’s BigPond Movies. For Telstra BigPond subscribers, movies downloaded from this service are unmetered, meaning they won’t count towards your data quota. From June, the LX series televisions will offer access to Skype.

DISTRIBUTOR

This LX9500 costs $5199, with the similar – but smaller - 47 inch 47LX9500 costing $4099. LG will market two other full LED 3D televisions in the same sizes, but these provide TruMotion 200Hz rather than 400Hz. In plasma, LG will offer 50 and 60 inch models, each with the company’s NetCast WebTV feature and, therefore, access to more than 1000 movies from the BigPond Movies catalogue. The company will also market a 3D Blu-ray player, the BX580, and this, too, comes with NetCast WebTV.

LG Electronics PHONE 1300 LG CARE (1300 54 2273) WEB www.lge.com.au

Telstra brings HD, IPTV PVR More than a year after it was first mooted, Telstra’s networked high definition PVR has arrived. Described as a “new and exciting Internet entertainment and TV experience”, the T-Box comes with twin HD tuners, a seven-day EPG and 320GB for recording broadcast television and storing content downloaded from Telstra’s BigPond Movies and BigPond TV channels. Using a wired or wireless connection to your home network, these provide on-demand access to around 1000 pay-per-view movies, plus Sport, AFL, NRL, V8 Supercars, Horse Racing, Music and News from BigPond TV. The box also provided access to YouTube videos.

DISTRIBUTOR

The T-Box is available only to Telstra Broadband customers, and downloads from Telstra portals do not count towards monthly download quotas. It costs $299 outright, or can be paid for over 24 months on a plan.

Telstra WEB www.telstra.com.au

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So easy, it’s laughable.

The whole family will get a kick out of the simplicity that is Nevo. With this intuitive house companion, you can control not only your home entertainment system, but almost any IR device you want. Dim the lights, close the curtains, sprinkle the lawn or check who’s at the door.

The NevoS70 and NevoQ50 can be easily personalised for every individual in the home, are infinitely upgradeable and offer a range of accessories making the possibilities truly limitless.

Get the most out of your world.....Get Nevo.

Member

1800 251 367 | (02) 9452 8600 | www.ambertech.com.au Australian distributor Amber Technology Ltd.

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 13

RANDOM PLAY

Foxtel on the Xbox 360

Up to 30 Foxtel Pay TV channels will be available for streaming over the Xbox Live service to Xbox 360 consoles by the end of the year, delivering video-ondemand sports, movies and television programming.

While exact pricing, channel and package details were not revealed, Foxtel CEO, Kim Williams described the forthcoming service as being “magnificently affordable”.

The arrangement makes Foxtel available to households that might currently be out of a Foxtel service area, and for potentially less cost. Foxtel subscribers should not, for example, have to pay for installation or ongoing rental of a Foxtel set-top box if they receive Pay TV exclusively

DISTRIBUTOR

through the Xbox 360 console. These currently cost around $470. They will, however, need to become Gold members of the Xbox Live services, which costs around eight dollars a month.

These subscribers, however, will be unable to download or record programming, as the Xbox provides a streaming only service. For recording and downloading video-on demand programming, subscribers will need a Foxtel IQ or IQ2 set-top box.

The initial service offering will be standard definition only, with HD to follow. Technically, the system will be also able to support 3D programming, though there are no current plans to implement it.

Broadband speed requirements for the Foxtel/Xbox 360 streaming service are recommended at a minium of 1.5 Mbps, with 2 Mbps being ideal.

Foxtel WEB www.foxtel.com.au

Full HD 3D plasma Panasonic will sell four full HD 3D plasma television models and a 3D Blu-ray player from July, with pricing starting at $3200 for a 50 inch TV and $599 for the Blu-ray player.

The company will offer full HD NeoPlasma in 50, 54, 58 and 65 inch sizes, with pricing yet to be announced for the last three models. Each 3D Panasonic television will be bundled with a Blu-ray copy of Coraline and Ice Age 3 in 3D, as well as a single set of active shutter glasses valued at $199.

Panasonic’s 3D plans are supported by the release of 51 new audio-visual entertainment products during 2010, including 31 televisions. These include the company’s first LED LCD models, its first plasma televisions to DISTRIBUTOR

receive a five star energy rating, LCD models capable of recording to attached hard drives, plus Skype and wireless DLNA equipped televisions. Wireless DLNA, via an attached dongle, will also be offered on select Blu-ray players and recorders.

Panasonic Australia PHONE 132600 WEB www.panasonic.com.au

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AktiMate

The AktiMate Mini was originally designed not only to capture a share of the ever growing iPod market, but first and foremost to provide a pair of active hi-fi speakers that would hold their own in the best of company.

To that end, Australian company Epoz licensed technology from two highly regarded British companies - Creek, experts in the field of electronics and Epos, equally proficient when it comes to loudspeaker design. Released in December 2007, the Mini was an instant success and attracted immediate interest from all corners of the world.

Within months global reviews were singing its praises from Australia to the U.S.A., Germany and the U.K. Its award record speaks for itself and highlights the versatility of the AktiMate Mini.

2008 Lifestyle Product of the Year 2009 Best iPod Dock of the Year 2010 Desktop Speaker of the Year Talk of the AktiMate Maxi has been around ever since the Mini took the world by storm.However to complement the Mini, the Maxi needed to be something very special indeed.

And special it is! The Maxi is a complete entertainment system in itself - first and foremost a pair of extraordinarily dynamic active hi-fi speakers but with a vast array of amazing extras. It is also the heart of a brilliant hi-fi system with ample connections for any source product.

The system includes a Reciva media module which brings the wonders of direct access to internet radio, together with the ability to stream from any Windows or UPnP shared network on your computer. To access the network you either connect via the Ethernet RJ45 on the rear panel, or wirelessly using the AktiMate Maxi’s internal Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g.

There is an FM radio as well (with a string antenna supplied).

The USB host socket on the Maxi allows replay of music files from memory sticks or MP3 players. The iPod dock situated on the top of the active speaker has an elegant cover flap.

The enhanced functionality is easy to use thanks to the addition of an illuminated LCD screen on the front of the more powerful active speaker.

The Maxi also has a versatile alarm function where a number of alarms can be set - apart from that morning wake-up to your music of choice, you can set different alarm times for weekends, reminders - whatever you want. They can be held in memory or be a once only. All options have been covered!

Both Mini and Maxi are simple to use and come complete with everything you need right in the box, including connecting speaker wire. Both can be operated either by remote or from the control on the front of the speaker.

AktiMate Simplicity

Heritage

Performance

Brought to you by

EPOZ www.aktimate.com

Tel: 02 9450 0789 info@epoz.com.au

www.epoz.com.au

TECH CORNER

The iPad:

Two worlds collide

T

he iPad sure is a “magical and revolutionary” piece of kit, to quote Apple’s Steve Jobs, but for me what it really does is highlight how many actually magical and truly revolutionary standards and technologies it – and by extension, all our home entertainment kit – relies on.

Consider what the iPad would look like to a person from a past as recent as the 1990s. A slim shard of technology with a couple of buttons and one tiny slot on the bottom.

What makes it run? Who knows. How does it store its data?

It’s a mystery. Where are the wires? There aren’t any. Yet, it somehow gets onto the Internet and displays all this content on a clear, bright screen. Which responds to multiple, feather-light touches.

What’s interesting about the relationship between Apple and iPad customers is how much Apple is able to assume about the people who buy this toy. To start with, the company can assume they have WiFi at home, because without WiFi, it’s a real pain to get any content onto the iPad. But having WiFi implies something else, it implies you have a router. Less than a decade ago, the routers you could find in a residential home were entire other dedicated PCs with multiple network adaptors: expensive and very technical to set up.

As so many of its critics have been quick to crow, the iPad has no inputs at all except its custom Apple adaptor, which both charges the device and allows you to squirt on data like music, movies and photos.

It’s essentially a USB cable, which seems perfectly mundane today, but again, at the turn of the millennium the idea of a high-speed, standardised data link from PC to device was, if not unheard of, then certainly a long way from commonplace.

Yet Apple can assume its customers have all these things: wireless router, USB, a whole other PC (or Mac, of course) to manage the iPad’s data. It can assume its customers have broadband Internet, so embedded apps like YouTube can work properly.

The easy-peasy computer

Crossing over Traditionally, IT gear was always hard to use, did a lot of stuff, but probably 80 percent of it badly. Consumer electronics – entertainment kit – only really did one specific thing, but with 100 percent reliability and dependability.

Today, there’s a crossover in process. As TVs get their own YouTube apps and web functionality, we start to read reviews complaining of “crashing” and “awkward interfaces”. That’s the kind of talk that used to be reserved for computers.

Ten years ago, the only people who did “firmware upgrades” were deep hardcore PC enthusiasts looking to almost literally hot-rod their motherboards. “Firmware” belonged to the same group of concepts as “soldering iron” and “doubtful personal hygiene”.

That’s not to say that people upgrading their PVR’s firmware today understand what the heck it is they’re doing.

Mostly we just press the button and trust in the automated systems behind what is actually a pretty damn complicated bit of electronic jiggery-pokery.

Entertainment complex The point I’m driving at here is that today’s technology, far from simplifying our lives, actually places greater demands on us than ever. You just want to blast aliens for ten minutes on your PlayStation3? Prepare to sweat actual blood as you jump through half a dozen “upgrade” hoops, depending on whether the manufacturer of the console and/or the developer of the game has chosen to release a patch that week.

Apple’s iPad might be a wonderfully (if not magically) streamlined mini-PC, but it’s still way more complicated than pressing the ‘on’ button, selecting a channel and vegging out. The problem is, your PVR-equipped TV is just the same.

There’s a middle ground somewhere, and I’m not sure we’ve reached it yet. At the moment, the IT geeks have the upper hand. This stuff is second-nature (maybe even first-nature) to them. Don’t let them get away with it.

Demand dumber tech. Or at least a cool robot to run everything for you.

Anthony Fordham

This kind of confidence in the user’s ability to operate the device to its full potential has previously been restricted to the consumer electronics sector. TVs are so universal because the only bit of extra kit you need is an antenna. Audio setups are entirely self-contained, as long as you have electricity.

Computers, on the other hand, have always been nightmarish. Designers and manufacturers have had to work with the “lowest common denominator” to ensure the device will give some kind of utility, even to those users who refuse to buy any accessories, put the thing online, or indeed purchase any additional software.

The iPad, despite its extremely streamlined interface and despite Apple’s protestations, is very much a computer. It does computery things. But it’s a new kind of computer, one where its manufacturer has said “stuff it, we will assume the best, and our sales will support that assumption”.

With more than a million units already shipped in the US, the assumption appears to have paid off. What the iPad’s success has shown is that people really do want an Internet device that gives them the bulk of their PC’s functionality, all wrapped in a package that’s as easy to operate as, say, a television. Or, more accurately perhaps, a PVR.

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 17

Enjoy the Cinematic experience in the comfort of your home.

Watch your movies exactly as the director intended...

Introducing Cinema 21:9. . .

For a long time, picture proportions on TVs and cinema screens have been different from each other; the former being a regular 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen format, and the latter a broader 21:9 format.This means that when you’re watching a typically filmed for 21:9 format movie on a regular TV, chances are you could be missing up to 25% of the bigger details.

Distributed in Australia by

www.qualifi.com.au

VIC CAMBERWELL The Bose Store, 250 Camberwell Rd 9882 6997 CARLTON Carlton AV, 164 Lygon St 9639 2737 CHELTENHAM Big Picture People, 10 Park Rd 9584 6900 EPPING Maxwells, 12 / 560 High St 9401 4666 FRANKSTON Frankston Hi-Fi, 450 Nepean Hwy 9781 1111 HAWTHORN Evolved Living, 617 Burwood Rd 9818 3260

Now with Philips first Cinema 21:9 high definition display, that’s all set to change.

For the first time ever, you can now immerse yourself in every big-screen detail of that multi-million dollar blockbuster at home – reproduced size for size on your display in the exact way that the directors, actors and crew would want you to experience it at the cinema.

NORTHCOTE Hitek, 539 High St 9482 1744 WANTIRNA Big Picture People, Knox City Ozone, 425 Burwood Hwy 9801 5700 GEELONG Automated Living Systems, Bellevue Arcade 75 Barrabool Rd, Highton 1300 731 136 SHEPPARTON Sounds Around, 393 Wyndham St 5821 0006

World’s first Cinema proportion Flat Panel Display.

No more black bars around the picture, no more cropped off details; just the movie filling up your entire screen perfectly in its original cinematic glory.Together with Ambilight, an intensely different viewing experience is created for your enjoyment, enveloping and enthralling your senses with scenes appearing 33% bigger, compared to a letterboxed 16:9 TV, with the same height screen.

On bestowing the prestigious EISA (European Imaging and Sound Association) award, the jury’s verdict was, ‘‘Philips is the first to offer a truly cinematic widescreen experience …’’. Cinema 21:9 eliminates black bars and is ‘‘the first set that gets close to offering the widescreen impact intended by the director.”

NSW DRUMMOYNE Audio Connection, 137 Victoria Rd 9561 0788 LANE COVE Len Wallis Audio, 64 Burns Bay Rd 9427 6755 MARRICKVILLE Apollo Hi-Fi, 283 Victoria Rd 9560 9019 ROSEVILLE Hempel Sound, 455 Penshurst St 9417 4069 NEWCASTLE Audio Junction, 74 Tudor St 4962 1490 WAGGA Wagga Car Radio & Hi-Fi, 79 Edward St 6925 6111

QLD CAIRNS Cairns Hi-Fi 127 Anderson St 4053 5722 CAPALABA Aussie Hi-Fi

By Appointment Only 3823 1111 MAROOCHYDORE Complete Audio, 3 Rose St 5443 6721

Escape into the sensational realms of cinematic thrills, with the Philips Cinema 21:9 high definition display, at participating stockists list below.

WA MYAREE Audiocraft, U2/93 Norma Rd 9329 9070 NEDLANDS Surround Sounds 3 / 83 Stirling Hwy Rd 9389 6900

ACT PHILIP Duratone Hi-FI, Cnr Botany St & Altree Crt 6282 1388

SA ADELAIDE Challenge Hi-Fi 88 Prospect Rd 8269 7333 QLF495

Free TV, Pay TV and now web TV. New equipment is bringing the entertainment riches of the Internet right into the living room, writes Max Everingham, and it promises exciting viewing.

T

here’s nothing we like better here at Home Entertainment Buyers Guide than to regale you with tales of the advent of a new technology or service that is going to immeasurably improve the quality of your life, put a bounce in your step, a song in your heart and make you look good in front of all your mates.

You’re no doubt already across ‘3D TV’ and the delights that await you if you stump up the cash for one of the sparkly, new 3D-compatible televisions making their way into stores right now, but you may not know that these new televisions, and some of their regular old-2D counterparts, already carry another convenient entertainment service on board – namely, IPTV.

WHAT IS IPTV

IPTV stands for ‘Internet Protocol Television’ but is just the army-speak way of saying that content – by which we mean movies, music videos, games and what have you – is sent to you using the same method that the Internet uses, rather than over the airwaves, as with regular, freeto-air (FTA) broadcasts, or via satellites and cable.

It isn’t simply television broadcast over the Internet, but rather a more comprehensive suite of products

20 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

managed and distributed directly to you by the content providers, such as ABC, Foxtel and Yahoo, using the same technology. So you don’t just open up a browser and see it; this is a ‘closed’, managed system, which has its own advantages.

IPTV BENEFITS

Now, you might think you need Internet on your TV about as much as you need another interest rate rise on your home loan, but there are some cunning advantages to delivering entertainment over the Internet rather than in the old-fashioned style, and they include bundling with other services like highspeed Internet access, more program variety or choice, picture-in-picture ability, onscreen guides and information, on-demand videos and games, onscreen chat, email, messaging and all sorts of other interactive internet services.

In Germany, for example, subscribers can view football match highlights, such as goals, red cards and strikes hitting the crossbar from the Bundesliga at the touch of a button. Another benefit of IPTV is that it won’t be affected by bad weather, unlike the satellite services provided in some areas by Foxtel and Austar.

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Just to throw another acronym into the mix, you may have seen or heard the term ‘VOD’ (or video on-demand) being chucked about. VOD is really just a subset of IPTV (non-geeks, please read that last statement as video on-demand is part of Internet television) and has actually been around for some time, with services such as BigPond or Apple TV allowing users to choose from fancy listings of movies and ‘stream’ them into their computers or TVs. This doesn’t necessarily involve the Internet at all.

IPTV V TV – WHAT’S THE DIFF?

I once went on a ‘Gite’ holiday in France, which ended up being a small cottage in a seemingly deserted village in the back end of nowhere. There were no shops, one church and more cows than people in the neighbouring field to the cottage. Every morning at about 6am, a tiny baker’s van would tootle around the square and you’d have to leg it down and stop them if you wanted to buy something.

They only really had croissants, a few bread rolls and some baguettes. If I got into the car and drove into the nearby larger town, however, I could go to the supermarket and was presented with a much larger choice of bakery items, which I could select from and take home with me. That’s pretty much how IPTV differs from conventionally broadcast TV. With regular TV and satellite broadcasts, the end-user (that’s you) can only see what the content providers can

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‘fit’ into the physical ‘pipes’ that supply your home. They send everything they’ve got to you, basically, and you choose which of it you want to see by switching between channels using your TV or set top box. This takes up a lot of bandwidth and so the choice is necessarily limited (the baker’s van).

But with IPTV, all that content stays floating mysteriously about in the ether, and only what you finally choose to watch is actually sent down to you (the supermarket). US IPTV providers like AT&T and SureWest are currently offering anything from 200 to 300 channels, for instance.

IPTV PROS AND CONS Potentially vast content choice of programming Free content Video on demand Potential bundling of VoIP and broadband services Needs fast broadband speed High costs for exceeding data caps from ISP Limited content choice Search and navigation features currently limited

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 21

INTERNET TV

WHAT YOU NEED FOR IPTV

IPTV CONTENT

WIRED WIRELESS IPTV WIRELESS WIRED

OR

IPTV STB + TV

IPTV (WIFI/DLNA)

WIRELESS DLNA IPTV STB + TV

An early design for the Telstra T-Box interface.

Scheduled for release mid-2010, the T-Box is a high definition PVR capable of delivering ondemand programming over broadband from the BigPond Movies portal.

GET A GENEROUS BROADBAND PLAN

Now if you’ve been following all this you’ll probably already have hit on the major stumbling block in the Australian IPTV landscape, and that’s the dreaded download quota.

Unlike in most other developed countries, broadband Internet services come with a mostly-laughable download limit in Australia, so you pay, say, three times what you would for a comparable service in the US,

then you’re only allowed to download up to 20GB before they charge more, or ‘throttle’ your service down to the kind of speed that makes weaving cobwebs look giddily fast. On the telly ads, they’ll dress up their Draconian limits by saying stuff like “a MASSIVE 20GB, which is all you’ll ever need”, but that’s a statement that, 20 years from now, will be as risible as the famous Bill Gates one (allegedly) of “64kB ought to be enough for anybody”.

20GB is not enough. Not when you consider that most movies will likely weigh in a between 1.5 and 3GB, with the smallest around the 2GB mark. You better be good at digital housekeeping. But there are a few good deals out there, with limits around 90GB that include peak and off-peak limitations, so long as you don’t mind signing one of those dreadful two-year contracts if you’re not already with the provider in question.

So get yourself a good Internet plan with a generous download limit (there’s another exception to this which we’ll mention shortly) and, preferably, the flexibility to chop and change plans at any time if you discover you need more, or don’t need what you have, as you get accustomed to using the services. But beware: going up is much easier than going down, as I’ve recently discovered on my Telstra mobile phone plan.

GET SOME IPTV GEAR

Obviously, you’ll need a TV that either has IPTV gadgetry built in, or connect it to another IPTV-capable device with Ethernet. Such devices include the Xbox

22 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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360, PlayStation 3, Fetch TV from iiNet, Tivo, the forthcoming T-Box from Telstra, Apple TV and select Bluray home theatre systems and Blu-ray players.

It’s not sufficient just to have something that can browse the web – remember, IPTV isn’t simply television from a browser over the Internet – so you need to make sure the device is actually IPTV enabled itself, such as the newest plasma and LED televisions from the likes of Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Sony. Most of these have both an Ethernet port and will accept an optional wireless network adapter.

The only other way is via DLNA, or Digital Living Network Alliance-compliant devices (not all are), which links your gear together and can channel content from your PC, say, to your home entertainment rig, rather than use a direct connection.

NEED FOR SPEED

The last factor you need to account for is broadband speed. When we discuss some of the current options from manufacturers and providers, you’ll notice, if you read the small print, that you need a pretty decent download speed as well as a high download limit.

One culprit, the ‘Xbox Live Party’ service from Microsoft using ‘Zune Movies on Demand’, that allows you, quite bizarrely and uselessly in my opinion, to gather your friends together virtually online to watch a movie together, requires a stonking 4Mbps connection speed.

Most users are going to be very lucky to achieve connections with anything like this kind of throughput.

AAPT has just launched an unlimited broadband plan with no download cap and no throttling of speed – contrast that with the Optus Yes service, for instance, which throttles your service to 256kbps once you hit your limit, but still dresses the offer up to consumers as “unlimited broadband”.

IPTV scene overseas Australia, you will be astonished to hear, is somewhat behind the curve when it comes to IPTV compared with other countries. France leads the pack, with service provider Illiad bundling IPTV, ADSL broadband and VoIP phone services in a ‘triple play’ bundle for only $45 US a month. Compare that with the best Optus Yes! Fusion package here in Australia that costs $150 ($140 US) for a broadband and home phone bundle, which doesn’t include VoIP, IPTV and still limits downloads to 30GB before they make it unuseably slow.

The US is struggling with installing the coverage infrastructure required for full IPTV services (so you can imagine the problems Australia is facing) with only AT&T and Verizon seriously battling the entrenched cable and satellite operators, although AT&T’s new high-definition ‘U-Verse’ service is a powerful argument to make the switch.

In Europe, all the major phone giants are in on the act: British Telecom (BT Vision), Deutsche Telekom (Entertain) and France Telecom (Orange) all offer IPTV packages via a set-top box on payment of a monthly subscription. Do they have anything we want? Sure – France’s Illiad has made 20 channels from its ‘Freebox’ IPTV service available for download onto the Apple iPhone, iPad or iTouch.

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WHAT YOU GET

Still, once you have the broadband connection and the gear, you should be good to go. You’ll benefit immediately from more content to browse through, as we’ve mentioned, including some types of programming that you probably won’t see anywhere else, such as Bollywood shows thanks to Sony’s music videoon-demand service, ‘Vidzone’, a new service to the PlayStation 3, or Xtreme sports-style transmissions on Sony’s compatible Bravia TV sets on ‘Bravia Internet Video’ service. Sony has 15 channels currently on offer and its service also highlights one of the other great benefits of some of the IPTV offerings – they’re totally free.

IPTV SERVICE

EQUIPMENT

DELIVERY

COST

CASPA

Tivo media device, Select Samsung TVs by end 2010

Download SD

Free, Pay per view

Foxtel

Xbox 360

Streaming SD

Subscription

Telstra Bigpond movies

Select Samsung and LG televisions and Blu-ray players, Tesltra T-Box

Streaming, download SD

Pay per view

Sony Bravia Internet TV

Select Sony televisions and Bluray players

Streaming SD and HD

Free

LG Netcast

Select LG televisions and Blu-ray players

Streaming

Free, Pay per view

Samsung Internet@TV

Samsung televisions and Blu-ray players

Streaming SD

Free, Pay per view

Panasonic Viera Cast

Select Panasonic TVs and Blu-ray players

Streaming SD

Free

ABC iView

Playstation 3 Select Sony televisions and Bluray players

Streaming SD

Free

Yahoo Plus7

Select Sony Panasonic televisions and Bluray players

Streaming SD

Free

Catch-up TV from 7 network

iTunes

Apple TV

Streaming, download SD and HD

Pay per view

Playstation Network

Playstation 3

Streaming, download SD and HD

Pay per view, Free, Purchase to own

Xbox Live

XBOX 360

Streaming, download SD, HD

Subscription, Pay per view

iiNet

Fetch set-top box

Streaming, download SD

Subscription, Pay per view

(30 pay TV channels by end 2010)

(1000+ movies and TV shows)

SBS, iView, Yahoo7, Billabong TV, You Tube, Wired, Golflike, eHow, Video Detective, Livestrong, Ford Models, Epicurious, blip, Style.com.

TeLstra BigPond Movies, YouTube

YouTube, BigPond movies by end 2010

YouTube, Yahoo

Unique programming and catch-up TV from ABC

iTunes Movies and TV catalogue

Games, Vidzone music videos, iView, Movies on demand Zune movies, games, Foxtel Pay TV channels (End of 2010) (Launch date to be announced) Freezone TV, movie rentals, select Pay-TV channels

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 23

INTERNET TV

Telstra content will be available via several devices, including Samsung and LG televisions, as well as the company’s own T-Box.

IPTV downloads made via iiNet’s Fetch TV box will be unmetered for iiNet subscribers.

Select Panasonic televisions provide clickable widgets that take you directly to entertainment and social networking websites (overseas model shown).

All the providers choose their own snappy names for the services: the ABC has a great ‘catch-up’ and video on-demand service available on computers and the PlayStation 3 and Bravia Internet Video televisions called iView and it’s also free. Watch an episode of Spicks and Specks that you missed when you were out looking for your cat, or check out Astro Boy or such gems as The Man Who Stole My Mother’s Face on the ‘iView Exclusives’ channel, only available through this service, obviously. iView includes content from ABC1, 2 and 3 as well as the exclusive stuff, covering genres as diverse as comedy, arts and culture, kids and panel and discussion.

Xbox 360 has Zune, as mentioned, and will provide around 30 Foxtel Pay TV channels by the end of the year. It’s a move that will introduce Foxtel to households that may not be in the Pay TV company’s service area and, for Microsoft, potentially boost sales of its gaming console and membership revenues from its Live service, which subscribers to the Foxtel via Xbox 360 will have to join.

Sony Computer Entertainment has VidZone TV on PlayStation 3, iView and, by the end of the year, a video on-demand movie service comprising titles from Hollywood’s biggest studios. You can rent or buy from the service using the PlayStation Network.

The ‘CASPA’ service is available via the Tivo media device and is likely to turn up in IPTV-enabled televisions from Samsung by the end of the year. Tivo recommends a connection speed of 1.5Mbps and the good news is

24 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

that they have unmetered arrangements with iiNet, Internode, iPrimus, Adam and a few others, so if you get broadband through one of those providers, the Tivo is a great choice. iiNet itself is also girding its binary loins to bring IPTV to the masses itself, however, with its own service it’s whimsically calling ‘fetchTV’. ‘fetch TV’ uses your Internet connection – so you need to be signed up for one of their broadband plans and their ‘BoB’ thingy, but downloads are unmetered so won’t use your up your monthly download quota – and requires the company’s set-top box.

Just like Foxtel’s IQ2, you can pause and rewind, record two channels and be watching a third, store 110 hours of SD stuff on the hard drive and view the regular, free-to-air (FTA) TV channels. iiNet has stuffed 10 basic games onto their set-top box too.

As for the TV manufacturers, Samsung is working with Telstra Media’s BigPond TV and BigPond Movies video on-demand service, as is LG with its ‘Netcast Entertainment Access’ service that embeds a Telstra BigPond Movies icon, or ‘widget’ on the actual screen.

When you click on the widget, you’re presented with a menu of what’s on offer over the BigPond servers.

BigPond services on these devices will be free of data charges to Telstra subscribers.

Google TV Internet heavyweight Google weighed into the IPTV arena in May, announcing that Google TV would be available to US households by Christmas. Google TV will operate similar to Google’s website, but it would search the web, recordings on home PVRs, and live broadcast TV schedules to compile a list of programs that meet the search criteria. The viewer would then make their selection via remote control.

Google says its system, which uses Android software and the Chrome web browser, would expand the number of channels available from hundreds to millions, and that the transition from web to TV is “seamless”. Consumers will need a compatible Sony television or Blu-ray player, or a Logitech set-top box. These are powered by the Intel Atom chips uses in many netbook computers.

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Match Quality Soccer Ball

You Tube

INTERNET TV

In overseas markets, LG has partnered with traditional content providers, such as rental stores, to deliver online entertainment directly to televisions and Bluray players. Locally, LG is delivering BigPond movies as an IPTV service.

“LG’s partnership with Telstra to deliver BigPond movies exclusively to a range of over 20 LG TVs will give users absolute freedom in accessing Internet content without the need for subscriptions or PCs” Warren Kim, Product Manager, Home Entertainment Business Unit, LG Electronics Australia told us.

“Not only will services such as YouTube be directly streamed onto LG TVs, further BigPond services such as news, sport, music and games are to be made available in the near future.”

To complete the roundup, Panasonic has ‘Vera Cast’ for widget stuff and in April announced a collaboration to get full programs from Yahoo!7’s PLUS7 service delivered to TVs such as its Viera VT20 and V20 Series Plasma TVs and the Viera D25 and S25 Series LED LCD TVs later this year.

The BigPond service has some attractive features – such as being unmetered for BigPond customers - but for non-Telstra customers the large file sizes and the fact that you’re only permitted 7 days within which to view your selection, and only 24 or 48 hours after you first view it to watch it again, there may be less enthusiasm.

And you have to pay.

IPTV – NOT QUITE THERE

The interface to Tivo’s CASPA on-demand video service, where downloaded content is either free, ad-funded or pay per view.

But of course IPTV isn’t without its problems – whether they’re teething problems or prove to be insurmountable obstacles, at least in the short term, remains to be seen.

ABC’s iView highlights at least two of the main stumbling blocks, and they are connection speed and image quality. iView needs a 1.1Mbps connection, which isn’t too far-fetched, but often operates sluggishly on anything up to 2.2Mbps, which is the speed I tested it on.

26 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

Select Sony Bravia televisions provide more than 15 IPTV channels - for free.

Far worse, though, is the quality – streaming a recent Doctor Who program from the service looked more like a really dodgy video from YouTube than anything a professional broadcaster should be making public, with an erratic, patchy frame rate and a very high level of artefacts. This isn’t really so much of an issue with fully downloading programs, of course, or shouldn’t be.

On the PlayStation 3, iView also demands you use the game controller rather than remote, which is fiddly and inconvenient.

Another issue I see with IPTV is really the flip-side of its principal advantage: all that extra content. With very-similar-but-slightly-different arrays of content from each provider, it’s easy to get a bit overwhelmed and, more importantly, confused by what’s being offered. Like attempting to compare mobile phone plans or private medical insurance from different providers, what IPTV is screaming out for is some sort of online aggregator website that shows consumers what differentiates each service and what they each charge – and perhaps an integrated channel guide (EPG), too. And if you build that website, I own the IP, OK?

THE LONG ROAD AHEAD

The future of IPTV rests on whether the interested service and content providers can rally themselves to provide a cheap, simple and fast system at very high quality. Until it does so, IPTV will remain yet one of the gimmicks that TV manufacturers use to convince a wary public to ‘upgrade’ from their perfectly serviceable flatscreen TVs and it will still be easier and way cheaper to turn back to Torrents.

Key to this infrastructure will be the broadband providers who, frankly, until now have behaved like that snotty, wild-haired youth behind the counter at McDonalds who acts like she’s doing you a huge favour just by deigning to serve you. Broadband needs to be faster, cheaper and the download limits increased, or IPTV usage pegged as unmetered. Which, in turn, means we need a much more robust infrastructure overall, otherwise any degree of success will probably crash the entire system.

We already have great video on-demand or postal DVD services, Blockbuster is just down the road and Foxtel has more movies than you can eat in a decade. If you want our money, oh mighty big-enterprise, you need to make it worth our while. n

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HIGH DEFINITION HAS NEVER BEEN THIS BIG. THE EPSON TW3500 PROJECTOR. MASSIVE 120" IMAGE. FULL 1080p HD. 36,000:1 CONTRAST RATIO. Epson, the world’s number one in projectors, brings you a huge new home cinema experience – with an image that’s an unbelievable 3 times bigger than the average flat screen TV. It uses less power than Plasma or LCD TVs and features a wide range of connectivity options (including twin HDMI inputs). So with the TW3500, your High Definition viewing experience will now be even larger than life.

For information on our 1080p HD projectors call 1300 130 194 or visit epson.com.au

TW4500

TW5500

PR JECTORS

28 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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BUILDING A GREAT WORLD CUP PROJECTOR SYSTEM Make the best of the globe’s biggest football tournament by putting a projector at the centre of your Great Big World Cup system. By Max Everingham

F

or one glorious month this winter, the cockles of all sports fans’ hearts are going to be warmed by the greatest football competition in the world: the World Cup. The World Cup will be coming to you from nine different cities in South Africa in 10 different venues, but the best place for you to experience the spectacle of the world’s best footballers at work is in your own home.

The whole shebang is nearly upon us, so there’s not much time to get the right home entertainment system together to amaze and entertain your mates – this guide, therefore, is going to focus on the biggest (and best) way to hit the ground running for the kick-off on 12 June – a projection system.

WHERE TO GET IT

SBS is the pick of the TV bunch for your footy fix – the only place for Aussies to watch the 2010 World Cup on TV – securing exclusive rights to all of the fixtures in the competition and broadcasting them live at an ungodly hour as they happen, live on SBS One and their digital SBS Two channel (including overlap for non-digital viewers), so anything shown on SBS Two will also appear on SBS One).

The digital TV channels will broadcast in digital stereo audio, and some matches will also be screened live on the SBS ‘World Game’ website.

SBS HD will show the same matches in 720p high definition (with stereo sound) and SBS’s participation also extends to 3D, partnering with Sony and Harvey Norman to show at least 12 to 15 of the 64 fixtures in three dimensions on a dedicated channel (Channel 40, available in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth), with plans to include the semis and World Cup final.

Live games, of course, mean a lot of sleepless nights for football fans, so put your bulk order in for Red Bull right now. The upshot for pre-dawn viewers, though, is that a projection system works best in a darkened room, meaning you’ll experience the best image your system can muster, and without having to fuss about how to control light levels in your stadium-at-home.

WHERE TO START: THE ROOM First, don’t buy what you think you should have; buy what you need. That’s an important difference that can not only save you a lot of time when you go looking for your system, but a lot of money too.

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Watch the Socceroos play in the 2010 World Cup on SBS One and SBS Two; in high definition on SBS HD and in 3D on Channel 40.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 29

PR JECTORS

Many mid-priced LCD projectors now employ three LCD imaging chips - each with 1920 x 1080 resolution. This provides better colour accuracy, brightness and contrast than single-LCD projectors.

A single chip DLP projector, Benq’s W1000 has 2000 ANSI lumens, 3000:1 contrast ratio and sells for a dollar shy of $2000.

A competent AV salesperson won’t just sell you the stuff he or she sees most profit on, but will take the time to fit your budget with your actual needs. They will ask questions about your viewing habits and preferences, the room you’re putting the equipment in (physical characteristics, lighting conditions, etc) and your budget, at minimum.

Of these, the ability to control ambient light is probably the most important consideration for your viewing room. You might be committed to watching every game as it airs during non-daylight hours, but will that commitment last the month the tournament

PROJECTOR TECHNOLOGY: CHOOSE YOUR FLAVOUR The single most important point when buying a projector for your World Cup system is not to make price your only consideration and accidentally buy a data projector in your excitement. These are really only good for presenting text and graphics – not video – so forget them.

Cinema projectors use a number of imaging technologies to generate a picture, each with its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages. For each flavour, the pros are enhanced – and the cons diminished – as you progress upwards in price.

You need to choose the machine that suits you, so it’s worth talking to someone in the know, which is where a specialist AV dealer can come in. Make sure you audition your short-listed models so you can check operating noise, picture detail and colour accuracy; how inky the blacks are and how bright the whites.

LCD projectors work by shining a light through one of three coloured (RGB) panels, are very bright with really saturated colours and have a lot of extra features. The cheaper models don’t produce deep inky blacks, but this is largely addressed in models that offer a ‘dynamic iris’ feature (see opposite). The better models integrate some form of 100Hz processing to improve performance on fast action scenes – just like LCD televisions.

Full HD models can be picked up for around $1600, with highly spec’d models costing up to $4000.

A DLP (Digital Light Processing) projector uses millions of microscopic mirrors to reflect light through ‘colour-wheel’ filters. They’re usually quiet, have superb colour accuracy and uniformity and need virtually no maintenance.

They’re not as bright as an LCD projector, and while budget models start at around $1600, the average price is $2500. Expect to pay over $5000 for a really good one. These will use three DLP chips and no colour wheel, meaning it won’t produce the distracting ‘rainbow effect’ (flashes of colour in the corner of your eye) that single chip models with colour wheels can. If this type of artefacting is visible to you during your auditions, scratch single-chip DLP as an option.

LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) projectors tend to be more expensive than LCD and DLP models, which are an older technology and easier to manufacture. Prices start at around $3500 for a full HD model.

LED projectors are based on LCD or DLP technology but use LEDs as a light source. While this approach has been common for some time in micro-sized data projectors, LEDs are now working their way into home theatre projectors. Like LCD televisions backlit by LEDs, the projectors offer a very bright picture with high contrast. They use less power and, with some lamps rated at 30,000 hours, offer vastly reduced operating costs.

30 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

runs? And can you say that you’ll never want to watch a time-shifted Wednesday game on Saturday afternoon?

Then, of course, there’s how you’ll use your projector investment in the post-World Cup world.

To be able to use a projection system any time of the day, it’s best that you be able to block light from any windows and doors in the room you want to use it in. If you can’t do this, you’ll be restricted to firing up your projection system after hours… or, better still, should consider a flat screen TV instead.

SETUP: PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY?

That sorted, you should give some thought to where in the room you will position your projector and the screen.

You need to be about three metres back from a one metre high screen, so get the right equipment for the size and shape of the room. Be sure ask for advice regarding this and buy from the store that gives you proper guidance.

This is especially important if you’re looking to permanently mount the projector in your room, either on the ceiling, a wall or inside a cabinet. Many stores provide design and installation services that will seamlessly integrate any projector system (the screen is the other half of the setup!) into your living space.

Until you’re ready to invest in a properly installed system, however, a good projector on a table in your selected screening room is a worthy introduction to the cinematic, eye-stretching images a projection system can deliver. The operative word here, though, is ‘good’, and we’ll get to what this means below.

SURFACE CONCERNS: THE SCREEN

When it comes to screens, a blank wall may be the most convenient option, but it’s also the worst. The surface has none of the reflective properties that a screen’s specialised fabric offers and will only diminish the quality of the image from your brand-spankers projector.

Make sure you audition your short-listed models so you can check operating noise, picture detail and colour accuracy; how inky the blacks are and how bright the whites” VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

A good quality, motorised screen will run you about $2000, or around half that for a decent ‘pull down’ one on a stand. Buying a cheap screen is a truly false economy, as it’ll ruin the whole experience, so get advice from expert suppliers.

THE PROJECTOR: FEATURES THAT COUNT

Once you’ve got your imaging technology sorted (see box text opposite), take note of the feature sets of your short-listed projectors. Here’s a quick run-down of important aspects to consider and the most common terms you’ll encounter.

Resolution: This refers to the number of individual picture elements (pixels) the projector can display, in terms of both horizontal and vertical dots. The higher the resolution, the greater the detail in the projected image. There are several common resolutions, but for

The Mitsubishi HC3900 is a full HD DLP projector with a rated lamp life of 5000 hours (in low mode) and a throw ratio of 1.5, making it ideal for rooms where the projector needs to be placed close to the screen. Price: $4999.

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the World Cup (and beyond) 1024 x 768 (aka XGA) or 1920 x 1080 pixels are best.

Contrast ratio: This refers to the difference between the brightest white and the darkest black when the projector’s lamp is at a constant intensity. Higher contrast ratios typically indicate better black levels, brightness and image detail.

Dynamic contrast: This measures the difference between blacks and whites when the lamp is at its most intense – usually when a dynamic iris function is active (see p39). Dynamic contrast ratings are much higher than static contrast ratios, giving the impression of better performance.

Brightness: This measures the light output of the lamp and, more than anything, indicates how well a projector will perform in a room with high ambient light. As such, brightness ratings aren’t that relevant to home cinema projectors, which are typically used in dim rooms.

For most purposes, a rating of 2000 ANSI lumens is fine, but if you have a screen larger than 200cm (100 inches), consider something brighter. This

From a tabletop or dedicated mount, Epson’s TW3500 delivers full high definition pictures, quiet operation and true-tolife colours courtesy of the company’s High Performance Cinema Filter. Price: $2999.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 31

PR JECTORS

The high performance Runco Q750 combines DLP imaging technology with LED lighting. There is no lamp to replace, power consumption is low and switch-on is instant, with no standby or warm-up period). It costs from $27,000 (excluding installation).

Based on DLP technology, the ViewSonic PJD6531 is 3D capable, so will connect to and display 3D broadcasts (at 100Hz) from a HD set-top box.

It will also convert 2D vision to 3D, according to the company. Price: $1199.

Serious about the soccer? Epson’s TW4500 employs three LCD panels for enhanced colour accuracy, 1080 pixel resolution, Auto Iris for improved contrast, plus Refined Frame Interpolation for smooth, fast-moving action scenes. It costs $4999.

is because the bigger the image you project, the less concentrated the projector’s brightness is going to be on each square centimeter of the screen.

100Hz: This goes by various names depending on the brand of projector you buy, and increases (usually by a factor of two) the number of times an image is displayed each second. This creates a smoother, more film-like picture and is especially beneficial for fast-moving action sequences, like sport.

Dynamic Iris: A feature that greatly increases contrast ratio by reducing the amount of light produced to best suit the video material on the screen. For example, light levels would be reduced for dark scenes to allow good detail to be visible against darker backgrounds; light levels would be boosted in bright scenes to allow for maximum brightness.

Throw ratio: This tells you how far away from the projection surface you can locate a projector in order to achieve a picture of a given screen width. For example, if the ratio is 2, then for each metre of screen size, the projector has to be two metres away from the projection surface. Most projectors suitable for home use have a throw ratio of between 1 and 2.2, with the lower ratios being most suitable for smaller rooms, where you don’t have the luxury of locating the projector a long way back from the screen.

Projectors with zoom lenses allow you to adjust the throw ratio (ie. the size of the picture), giving you more flexible placement options in different room situations.

Keystone correction or lens shift. Keystoning is the effect you get when the projector is off-centre to the screen. Shining down at an angle from the ceiling for example, will make the bottom of the screen wider than the top, resulting in ‘trapezoidal’ distortion. Keystone correction and lens shift settings correct this, allowing you to project an image that is ‘square’. The better models allow for adjustments on the vertical and horizontal axis, meaning you can place it far to the left and down low, for example, and still achieve and undistorted picture.

Keystone correction is found on less expensive projectors, and lens shift on higher-end projectors. They

32 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

both serve the same function, but whereas the former is a digital process and sacrifices some picture resolution to correct the distortion caused by shining the projector at an angle to the wall, the latter is an optical process and doesn’t lose image quality or resolution.

Lamp life: The rated number of hours – usually between 2000 and 4000 – a projector’s lamp will last before brightness is diminished and it needs to be replaced.

Investigate the price of replacement lamps at the time of purchase, and factor it into the running costs of your projector.

EcoMode: An increasingly common feature, this is a mode that reduces brightness in order to save power and extend the life of the projector’s lamp. The reduction in brightness can, however, effect image quality.

3D: While SBS will broadcast the World Cup in 3D in Australia, there are only a handful of projectors capable of displaying it. Most of these are data projectors or do not provide full high definition resolution. They also have a low-ish frame rate for presenting 3D: whereas 3D television are operate at 200 or 400Hz (presenting each eye with 100 or 200 frames every second) many of the available projectors operate at 100Hz, and provide only 50 frames a second to each eye. At this frequency, the illusion of 3D depth tends to fall apart, with the eye seeing two distinct pictures rather than a single seamless image.

If the World Cup in 3D is what you want, then you should choose from the 3D flat screen TVs from Samsung and LG, Sony and Panasonic.

INJECTING SOUND

The World Cup will be broadcast by SBS with high definition vision with stereo sound, and this needs to be delivered to your projector – either directly or via additional equipment – by a high definition set-top box and some kind of speakers.

Sony’s LCoS models start at around $4000 for the VPLHW15. For premium-grade performance, the VPLVW200 pictured employs a (pricey to replace) 400 watt Xenon lamp for extra brightness, claims a contrast ratio of 35,000:1 and employs MotionFlow technology for smooth fast-action sequences. Price: $17,999.

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Projection screens are half the projection story, and 100 percent of the visual focus in any system, so don’t think you can do without one. Screens can be permanently mounted to a wall, or be rolled up into a housing that can be positioned on a wall - or over a window or door – when the system is not in use. Pull down screens on a stand are ideal for temporary installations.

WORLD CUP ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE AND PC

PRESS ‘RECORD’ The HD set-top box can connect over HDMI to deliver picture and sound, but as most home theatre projectors don’t have speakers, you won’t actually hear anything.

For this, you’ll need to route World Cup commentary and team anthems to an outboard sound system.

The quick and dirty solution here is to use the projector’s audio out socket – if it has one – to attach a pair of multimedia speakers. Just don’t expect to feel like you’re in the arena with 80,000 other fans.

An AV receiver and multichannel sound system is a better solution. You’d connect the set-top box to the receiver, which would then pass the video out to your projector and the audio out to the five or so speakers.

What’s more, the receiver can be set to create surround effects from the stereo broadcast and, with the speakers correctly positioned, make you feel like you’re in the stadium, if not quite on the field.

Front surround systems can deliver this kind of audio jiggery pokery as well, but be aware that they’re not quite as successful as the proper ‘separates’ setups.

Epson’s EH-DM3 makes projection super-convenient: it integrates a DVD player, speakers with virtual sound and comes with an easy to set up screen. The trade-off is resolution – at 540 pixels, it’s less than standard definition quality. Price: $1249.

Lastly, unless you’re a factory worker on nightshift, have just had a baby or are at University studying some soft subject like law, you’re going to need to a recording device, because a lot of the live World Cup matches are being broadcast at midnight and 4.30 am here in Australia, including the 4.30 am World Cup Final on 12 July.

A high definition PVR (personal video recorder) will allow you to time-shift any games you can’t watch live or which you want to re-live (over and over) at a later date, paying special attention to the referee and his red cards.

Models with twin HD tuners will allow you to record the game in HD and, where available, in 3D. You can save the 3D recording for when you have a 3D TV to watch it on.

As always with storage devices, choose the model with the largest hard drive capacity you can afford. If you’re considering one of the budget models that allow the attachment of an external hard drive, check carefully that they provide an EPG which allows for the automatic scheduling of recording. Many don’t, requiring you to activate recording manually.

And heck, if you’re up at that time you may as well grab a blanket and watch the game. n

An AV receiver will convert the stereo broadcasts from the World Cup to surround, and send it out to speakers around the room to create enveloping arena effects. Look for DSP modes, such as Stadium, that look to create the ambience of a big sporting venue.

Denon AVR789 pictured.

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Being able to watch all the World Cup games for free is great for fans, but we can’t help feeling sorry for Foxtel subscribers, particularly those who’ve paid for the expensive sports packages. No World Cup games will be available on the Foxtel cable or satellite services (except on the SBS channel, obviously), but you might be able to tune in to Foxtel on your mobile.

A Telstra spokesman suggested that “it is likely that we will rebroadcast SBS (ie. all matches) within our ‘Mobile Foxtel from Telstra’ product,” although that possibility would be dependent on reaching an agreement with SBS, presumably.

If that’s not satisfactory, there is another option. If you’re already a BigPond customer, BigPond TV is your home on the web for all the World Cup action. That’s great, but because Optus has snagged the tournament rights (see below), BigPond is not allowed to show actual match footage, so instead will cover the competition by providing all the news, developments, interviews and colour commentary in video format at H264 resolution via their BigPond TV football channel.

Both SBS and Fox Sports websites have excellent live ‘match trackers’ of the World Cup, with Fox Sports’ ‘World Cup 2010 interactive guide’ already looking like a real gem, displaying highly-visual and easy to use representations of match timetables, group results, the teams and league table stats on goal scorers, best attacking and defending teams and even who got the red and yellow cards.

What’s more, because the service is ‘unmetered’, meaning that streaming video of the World Cup doesn’t count towards whatever monthly download limit you normally have.

Now to Optus. As the ‘2010 FIFA World Cup Mobile Broadcaster’, Optus will provide free streaming of all the matches live and optimised for 3G mobile to their customers. There’ll be news, scores, highlights and other information updated throughout the competition, as well as hundreds of hours of archived video available to watch on your phone, partly thanks to a partnership deal Optus has struck with SBS.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 33

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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, buying and setup tips will help put you in the know before you venture onto the shop floor.

38

HOW TO BUY How to buy 3D: The FAQs 38 The options and how to choose between them: get the facts before bending the plastic on 3D gear.

LED lights

44

Prince or pauper, there’s an LED backlit LCD television among this round-up to suit most any purse.

Power stations

50

From entry-level to flagship, AV receivers are making 3D accessible to all budgets.

Well hung TV

75

A step-by-step guide for getting the TV off the credenza and onto the wall.

44

Buying green peace of mind

86

Some electronics are ‘greener’ than others – learn how to spot them with these tips.

REVIEWS Group test: 3D-ready AV receivers Denon AVR-1911 Harman Kardon AVR 660 Onkyo TX-NR1008 Pioneer VSX-920-K Yamaha RX-V767

52 54 56 57 58

Box Fresh

84

Pioneer Epoz Aktimate Telstra T-Box Mitsubishi HC3900 Samsung UA55C9000 Panasonic TH-P50VT20A Panasonic DMP-BDT300 Yamaha RX-V667 Roberts Stream 202 Epson Hybrid TV CASPA

60 61 62 63 64 66 67 69 70 71 72

OUR RATINGS

The Home Entertainment Buyers Guide star rating systemindicates 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 WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 37

HOW TO BUY

Unlike most subwoofers, the BeoLab 11 from Bang & Olufsen is designed to be seen. Its aluminium cabinet houses a 200 watt digital amplifier and two 16.5cm drivers in separate sealed enclosures. Price: $2800.

38 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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Specially designed to handle the bass in movie soundtracks, the subwoofer is essential for re-creating true home theatre effects.

Thomas Bartlett takes you on a tour of woofy town.

O

ften you see such silly statements, published by people who should know better, as “the sound system provides 70 percent (or insert your own figure here!) of the movie experience”. This is meaningless. Sure, without a sound system a movie wouldn’t be much fun.

But neither would it be without a TV to view the picture.

Instead, the most important characteristic of your home theatre system should be that all the parts are in balance. And that applies to one of the most problematic parts of the home theatre system: the subwoofer.

Here we will explain all you need to know about how to select the best subwoofer for your system, and how to get the best out of it once you get it home.

What a subwoofer does

The subwoofer has one seemingly simple job: it produces bass. Those deep musical notes, those thuds from movie explosions, they are its province.

But producing bass is not at all easy. The deeper it goes, and the louder it goes, the harder it is.

Our hearing system is said to have a range of ten octaves from 20 hertz (or cycles per second) up to 20,000 hertz. The subwoofer is intended to handle the frequencies below 80 hertz in some systems, but others may require it to go all the way up to 200 hertz.

Even though we can only hear down to around 20 hertz, a great subwoofer will produce even lower notes.

Why? Because even though you may not be able to hear 16 or 12 hertz, you can certainly feel it on your skin and in your stomach. But there are few subwoofers that will deliver such extremely deep sounds.

In a home theatre system the subwoofer can get its bass from two different sources. Most modern movies have a 5.1 (or 6.1 or 7.1) channel soundtrack (whether Dolby Digital or DTS doesn’t matter). The main purpose for the subwoofer is to handle the ‘.1’ part of that.

The other name for that is the Low Frequency Effects channel. When the engineers are mixing the sound on a movie, they typically put the really loud bass into that special LFE channel. A good movie theatre will have its own subwoofer.

The LFE channel is designed to carry sounds up to a maximum of 120 hertz, but it can, at least according to the technical documents, extend all the way down to just 3 hertz!

A home theatre receiver will deliver the LFE channel to the subwoofer output, so that your subwoofer can handle that bass.

But many home theatre systems also use the subwoofer for another purpose: to handle bass for the small speakers in your system. You see, all five (or six)

SUBWOOFERS Most modern movies have a low frequency effects track - no sub means inadequate performance on this track.

Almost none of us have full range loudspeakers in all positions. But if you send the bass from the small speakers to your front stereo pair, you risk overloading them. A subwoofer will take on all the bass in a system and save your speakers.

Many subs have built-in output protection, so you can use them confident that they won’t blow up!

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If your sub produces significant distortion, you may be able to hear where it is. That’s a definite no-no.

Some audiophiles poo-poo the idea of a subwoofers, swearing that systems sound better with full range loudspeakers in all five (or seven) positions.

A large subwoofer can consume quite a chunk of your room.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 39

HOW TO BUY

Controls help blend the subwoofer’s output with that of the rest of the speakers in a surround sound or hifi system, with satellites and bookshelf models in a system, for example, taking up where the subwoofer leaves off. Bowers & Wilkin XT 8 system pictured. of the other channels of the surround sound movie track can also, theoretically, carry bass down to just 3 hertz.

More realistically, from time to time moviemakers put significant, but actually audible, bass into all five channels.

If, like most of us, you have small surround and centre speakers, you simply won’t hear that bass. Worse, it could even damage those small speakers. So your home theatre receiver will also send that bass to the subwoofer. That’s why, in its setup menu, it has provision for indicating whether each of your loudspeakers is ‘Small’ or ‘Large’. If you set a speaker to ‘Small’, its bass will be sent off to the subwoofer, allowing you to hear it and protecting the small speakers from damage.

Fortunately, our ear is not very good at detecting the direction from which bass is coming, so in a properly set up system, it doesn’t sound as though it’s coming from the subwoofer. Instead, the bass tends to tie in with the rest of the sound coming from a particular loudspeaker and seems to come from that direction.

To get the best bass, you need huge drivers in a huge enclosure. I’m talking about a box a couple of metres tall, and proportionately large in the other dimensions.

But such subwoofers would rarely sell. Few people have either the room or the dollars to surrender for such a device. Instead, the challenge for subwoofer designers is to get reasonable performance into a relatively compact and affordable unit. Still, this ‘best of all worlds’ design does give us one important pointer: in general, the bigger the subwoofer and the bigger its driver, the better.

However, subwoofer designers really are clever, and by pulling various tricks they can partially overcome the disadvantages of a compact subwoofer. The main trick is to supply heaps and heaps of power. With lots of power you can make the cone on a relatively small driver move a long way. The level of bass is determined by the amount of air that gets pushed by the vibrating speaker

How a subwoofer works

Producing super deep and loud bass is relatively easy if the subwoofer designer is permitted lots of space.

The Supercube I, II and III from Definitive Technology are, by subwoofer standards, extremely small bass makers, and claim to deliver better performance than models with drivers 5080 percent larger.

40 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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MAKING IT WORK To get the best out of your subwoofer, you have to put in the right place and set it up correctly.

The ‘right place’ is almost always in a corner of the room, at the same end as the front two speakers. It doesn’t need to be directly visible, but it does need room to ‘breathe’. Don’t put anything close to its front, and certainly don’t put a vase of flowers on it. Subwoofers can make things rattle!

Some subwoofers have the driver on the front and a hole on the back, called the bass-reflex port. The port is an important part of the functioning of the whole unit, so it also needs a little space. With such a subwoofer, allow at least 100 mm between the rear of the subwoofer and the wall.

Otherwise, tuck it as closely into the corner as you can. Corner placement tends to even out the bass performance, and increases the effective output level.

Now, switch on your TV and bring up your home theatre receiver’s setup menu. Go to the speaker settings and select ‘Yes’ for the subwoofer.

Change the setting of the small speakers in your system to ‘Small’. If you have the option, and if your small speakers are really small, change the crossover frequency in the receiver to match the minimum frequency indicated in their manual (this may be 100 hertz or more), or even a couple of notches higher. Otherwise, leave the setting at 80 hertz.

Now adjust the balance. You can use the test tones built into your home theatre receiver, but for some reason these tend to leave the subwoofer volume rather too high. Better to use the THX Optimizer available on a number of movies DVDs, such as the ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ discs (there, you have an excuse to purchase them now!) This also has test tones that give better results, and onscreen instructions to talk you through the process.

After that, you can sit back and relax with some low life you’ll really enjoy.

cone. A large cone only needs to move in and out a little.

A small cone needs to move further for the same effect.

That’s why you see power ratings for subwoofers of 100, 200, 400 and even 1000 watts. That is what is required to overcome the limitations of a small enclosure and small driver.

Subwoofers with built in amplifiers are called ‘active subwoofers’. ‘Passive’ subwoofers require an external amplifier. These are seen mostly in very inexpensive home-theatre-in-a-box systems, where the amplifier is built into the DVD player/receiver combo, or in extremely expensive systems where a special-purpose amplifier costing many thousands of dollars will be dedicated to driving the subwoofer.

Other tricks are performed by tailoring the bass performance electronically. Many subwoofers boost the bass the deeper it gets, so as to offset the restrictions imposed by the cabinet. Some even have knobs on the back to allow you to make your own settings.

These connections are not necessary for home theatre use. In fact, all you need is one input, usually labelled ‘LFE’. You use a cable with RCA plugs on each end to connect this to the subwoofer output of your home theatre receiver. Some TVs also have a subwoofer output, allowing you to beef up the sound from your set’s tiny internal speakers without having to invest in a full home theatre system.

You should spend a bit extra and buy a well-built cable. These tend to be reasonably long, and cheap ones can pick up 50 hertz mains hum, which your subwoofer will faithfully reproduce. Ick! Also on the back of a subwoofer will be various controls. The main ones are the level control, which you do need, the frequency control and a phase control.

There may also be an on/off/auto switch. The ‘auto’

Connections and controls

Most subwoofers come with more connections than many of us need. This is left over from the days when subwoofers were used with stereo systems.

You might have had a nice stereo amplifier and a lovely pair of compact loudspeakers, but wanted to add the bass that the compacts couldn’t produce. So you would buy a subwoofer with speaker-level inputs and outputs. These look pretty much like the speaker connections on the back of a home theatre receiver.

You would connect the speaker outputs of your amp to the inputs on the sub, and then its outputs on to your regular speakers. The subwoofer would extract the bass from the signal and send the rest of the sound to those smaller speakers. It would then handle the bass.

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European designed, the Jamo A 70SUB subwoofer has a 25.4cm driver and 450 watts of digital amplification. A blue illuminated volume control on the top means you can quickly and easily adjust levels.

Price: $1590

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 41

HOW TO BUY

The third iteration of Australian company, Krix’s, popular subwoofer, the Seismix 3 integrates a 27.5cm driver, 200 watts of power and a frequency response of 22Hz-200Hz. It claims a maximum volume level of 122 dB. the main loudspeakers. These can interfere with each other destructively, causing the upper bass to diminish.

Flicking or turning the phase control will usually overcome this. To use it, play some bassy material and then try the control. See which setting produces the strongest bass at your usual listening seat. That’s the setting that you want.

Specifications and choice

Velodyne makes only subwoofers, so is something of a expert in the field. Its high-end Digital Drive series tops out at $25,000 with the 1812Signature model (above), and the company’s Impact series – from $600-800 – satisfies more modest budgets.

setting is the one to use. This will allow the subwoofer to ‘listen’ for any incoming signal and switch itself on as required, and then switch itself off again when there has been no signal for several minutes.

The frequency control is primarily for determining the highest tones the subwoofer will reproduce. In general, it is best to put this on the maximum setting, because the home theatre receiver already does all this, only sending appropriate frequencies to the subwoofer.

Some subwoofers even have a ‘bypass’ switch, a special input that bypasses this control. If so, use it.

The phase control can adjust the timing of the bass. In most systems, some frequencies in the upper bass will be reproduced both by the subwoofer and

About the only actual performance specification that most subwoofer manufacturers publish is the frequency response or range. Even though we can hear down to 20 hertz, and can enjoy even deeper bass through our skin, many subwoofers indicate minimum frequencies of somewhat above 20 hertz. The important thing is to have a subwoofer reproduce down to at least 30 hertz for larger systems, and 40 hertz for compact systems.

Also important is the upper frequency response. If you are using very small, or even satellite, speakers, then the subwoofer will need to be able to handle up to around 200 hertz, otherwise there will be a ‘hole’ in the system’s coverage.

It would be nice if manufacturers also published distortion and loudness figures, but they very rarely do.

So it will be up to your ears to determine this. Take a few DVDs with you when auditioning. The animated movie Titan A.E. is one of the best for really deep bass. Use this to compare different subwoofers. Some of the best can make your whole body pulse with acoustic energy!

And try the gun battle scene in Heat. Here you want to see if the subwoofer bites hard and fast, and then cuts off equally fast with each gun shot, as it should. If it sounds sloppy and uncontrolled, look elsewhere.

Pricing

A subwoofer receives all the bass in a music or movie soundtrack via the subwoofer, or low frequency effects (LFE), output on the AV receiver.

42 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

With subwoofers, you get what you pay for. Big drivers and big amplifiers cost lots. For that reason, many systems have subwoofers that are most decidedly not in balance with the rest of the sound system.

As a general rule of thumb, a balanced sound system will have around one-third of the total speaker budget spent on the subwoofer, and the rest on the other five loudspeakers. That will give you an idea of where to start looking. If bass is really, really important to you, or your other speakers are satellites, then you may want to consider spending an even higher proportion on the subwoofer. n

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ROUND UP

44 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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For a surround system to play loudly, cleanly and without distortion it needs power, and the best way to get it is with a multichannel amplifier.

By Anika Hillery

T

he heart of any multichannel surround system is power, and lots of it. With power on tap, your sound system will rock hard and perform well for low-volume critical listening. It will allow your system to maintain constant volume levels in the face of demanding and complex musical passages, and sudden peaks in movie soundtracks.

Now AV receivers do a good enough job of filling most rooms with good volume levels, but for very large rooms, or fussy and insensitive speakers, only dedicated power amplifiers can provide the multichannel muscle you need.

And delivering power to your speakers is all they do.

Unlike the garden variety AV receiver, power amplifiers do not integrate audio-video processing and switching functions. This is handled by a separate preamplifier/ processor, and you need one to pair with your power amplifier.

The preamplifier/processor provides all the connections for hooking up your music and movie sources and prepares the audio signal for passage to the power amps. It is this unit where all the shiny buttons, cool knobs, blinking lights and cool displays reside. It also owns the volume knob.

The power amplifier presents a much plainer face to the world, and generally features only a power button.

Round the back, it provides connections for all your speakers.

Benefits of multichannel amps

There are numerous types of multichannel amps, with models designed to drive three, five, seven, eight and more speakers. There are some tube-type multichannel amplifiers, but most models are solid state and use traditional Class A or A/B designs. Call D amplification is becoming more common, too, and while these are poo-

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pooed by audiophiles they typically provide more power, and are quieter and cooler to run.

Many multichannel models are also adopting a customised design approach, meaning you only pay for the number of amplifiers you need, and can add more as your system grows.

As you’d expect from a component dedicated to a single task, power output for multichannel amplifiers is high, and official ratings in the spec sheet are usually conservative. One hundreds watts per channel will be a minium, with 200 watts more likely.

Producing this much power is hot work, and multichannel amps are equipped with various means – heat dissipating fins and fans and electronic circuit protection – to prevent damage from overheating. The warmth these beasties generate and the weight of the internal components also means that construction is characteristically (and necessarily) massive.

Loads of power and last-a-lifetime build quality, however, come at a high cost; up to ten times more than you’d pay for a flagship AV receiver from one of the big-name consumer brands. But buyers of multichannel amps are more concerned with perfection than price, and with many models qualifying as gorgeous items of audio jewellery, it’s a concept reflected as much in design as performance.

Many of the multichannel amplifiers presented on the following pages are from the engineering labs of specialist audio marques, which have applied their stereo expertise to surround sound equipment. You won’t find these products at your local electronics retailer, but at specialist dealer stores. Find the expert in your area and have a poke around. We know you will discover more equipment to aspire to as you undertake that climb up the audio-visual ladder to your destination system.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 45

ROUND UP

ARCAM P777 Sitting pretty at the high end of the audio performance scale, the seven-channel P777 amplifier from Arcam is destined for serious home theatre installations. Employing all the expertise garnered over three award-winning decades, Arcam has made 1600 watts of total power available to drive even the most demanding speakers.

The all-aluminium build keeps operating temperatures low, and heat sinks and twin fans are designed into the chassis to assist in cooling this massive amp. Twin 1500 VA (ie. super-large) toroidal power transformers feed juice to the amplifier channels, and the modular construction of the P777 helps ensure good channel separation. An ideal partner for Arcam’s AV888 processor, the P777

comes in black or silver finishes and, at 31kg, weighs more than your tweenage child.

PRICE $8998 WEBSITE www.arcam.co.uk www.absoluteaudiovision.com.au

AYRE v6x In the tradition of high-end electronics, Ayre gets behind the argument that superior sound (“which precisely reconstructs the original sound stage”) is delivered by amplifier designs that integrate zero feedback and fully balanced discrete circuity. It certainly works for the specs of its v6x, with the 36 kilo lovely capable of driving up to six channels with 150 watts (into 8 ohms) continuously. Like several models in this sample, the v6x takes a modular approach, providing you with a chassis into which you add the number of amplifier plug-ins you want. Each of these adds 2.5 kilos to the body, which is almost as much as most mainstream AV receivers weigh.

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Ayre is somewhat obsessed with filtering interference from mains power, believing that noisefree current helps protect the integrity to the audio signal. To this end, the v6x is equipped with I-E transformers, which the company believes are better at rejecting AC line noise than more conventional toroidal designs. Then there’s ‘AyreConditioner’, a feature that works to dissipate mains power noise as heat, so that

the v6x’s sensitive audio circuity receives only pure, clean current, that is free of interference.

PRICE $13,695 (chassis only) $1995 per module WEBSITE www.advanceaudio.com.au

BRYSTON 9BSST C-SERIES Bryston is pretty confident about the quality of its amplifiers and backs up this self-belief with a 20 year guarantee on each of them.

This cocksureness comes from supplying the pro industry, where its amps are run all day, every day – and without fail. All of which means that the 28 kilo C-Series 9B SST will probably function longer than you will.

This amp utilises a modular construction and can be ordered in three, four or five channel versions, meaning you can start by inserting three modules into the 9B SST’s chassis, then expand with more channels as your system grows.

Each module has its own audio circuitry, connectors, and an independent power supply, and delivers 140 watts into 8 ohm speakers.

Hand built in Bryston’s Canadian facility, each 9B SST is run-in for 100 hours before passing quality control, meaning that any

46 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

potential for faults is found before it leaves the factory and, like a fine cheese, it arrives at the store nicely matured and ready for work in your home.

PRICE $11,999 (5 channel) WEBSITE www.syntec.com.au

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CLASSE AUDIO DELTA CA 5200 Used in Abbey Road studios, Classe Audio employs audiophile-preferred Class A amplifiers in its 55 kilo Delta 5200 multichannel amp. This puts 200 watts (8 ohms) through each of its five channels, all the while producing total harmonic distortion of just 0.0003 percent, which is barely measurable, let alone apparent to human ears. Achieving this, however, means chewing up a fair bit of power itself – the 5200 consumes 1056 watts in action and 348 watts while idle. Unsurprisingly, then, this lovely is loaded with thermal protection, with internal sensors on every heatsink to monitor operating temperatures and switch the amplifier off should things start looking like spontaneously combusting.

Class A amps are complemented in the 5200 by the balanced circuit design also favoured by many of the more traditional high end electronics makers. Fans of this approach – which essentially gives the amp’s internal electronics a symmetrical layout – say it

results in reduced noise, improved power, and sound that is more three dimensional, with more life and energy.

PRICE $16,999 WEBSITE www.e-hifi.com.au

DENON POA-A1HD Monobloc designs separate each amplifier to enhance audio performance, and Denon’s POA-A1HD takes this approach with each of its ten channels. Yes, ten. Each of these delivers 150 watts into 8 ohm speakers and 500 watts when driving 4 ohm speakers. If that ain’t enough zing for your super-insensitive speakers, you can bridge two channels to double power output to each pair: that’s 300 watts and 500 watts into 8 and 4 ohm speakers respectively. Denon integrates high current diodes and capacitors to support this, a new amplifier circuit to shorten signal paths (and minimise the opportunity for distortion), plus what it calls Direct Mechanical Ground to reduce mechanical vibrations that can occur between the amp’s transformer and radiator.

Wrapped in an appealing metal casing, the POA-A1HD’s tanks can be used to drive ten speakers in one room, or you can take advantage of its multi-zone capabilities to drive sets of speakers in

different rooms. Pair it with Denon’s AVP-A1HD preamplifier.

PRICE $12,999 WEBSITE www.audioproducts.com.au

KRELL S-1500 Krell is synonymous with power, and its amplifiers have been something of a benchmarch for stereoholics for almost 30 years. Compared with the company’s massive Evolution series amplifiers, though, the S-1500 – with its standard component size and machined metal face – looks almost dainty. On the inside, though, it’s all business, with Class A circuitry satisfying the ‘ear’ of those who shop at this end of the market, and a modular approach that appeals to those who prefer to stagger their spending. The amp supports up to seven channels of 150 watts (into 8 ohms speakers), the power supply for which is a 1500 VA toroidal transformer designed for massive current delivery. This allows the S-1500 to drive the most fussy of speakers, even when demanding soundtracks cause them to present more resistance, making the amp work harder to sustain volume

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levels. The S-1500 has enough stonk under the hood to make it appear effortless.

Available in silver or black, the S-1500 is a natural mate for Krell’s S-1000 processor/preamp.

PRICE $12,500 (7 channel) WEBSITE www.audiomarketing.com.au

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 47

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ROTEL RMB-1575 At 11 kilos, Rotel’s RMB-1575 is positively lithe in comparison to most power amplifiers. This is largely a function of its use of Class D amplifier technology, which is often erroneously referred to digital amplifier technology. Class D amps use ICE power modules - which were developed by Bang & Olufsen for its powered speakers – and are characterised by high power output, quiet running and very little heat generation. These amplifiers more efficiently turn current from mains power into sound, without losing a lot of that energy as heat in the process. Less heat also means cheaper running costs and internal components that will last longer.

Some multichannel amplifier specs claim 250 watts a channel, with the fine print revealing that this is into 6 ohm speakers, or when less than all channels are in operation. Rotel is very specific about the RMB-1575’s ability to squirt 250 watts (8

ohms) into each of its five channels when all channels are driven, which on a dollar per watt ratio, is extremely good value.

Make it a Rotel full meal deal with RSP-1570 premaplifier/ surround sound processor.

PRICE $3999 WEBSITE www.internationaldynamics.com.au

NAD T975 Since inception, NAD (New Acoustic Dimension) has eschewed pretty faceplates, investing the monies that other companies spend on showroom bells and whistles into no-nonsense internal componentry. And so its T975 is something of a Plain Jane, but within with its charcoal grey fascia are seven 140 watts channels (8 ohms or 4 ohms, all channels driven) sharing a massive Holmgren toroidal mains transformer power supply. Patented PowerDrive technology is to the T975 what a nitrous-oxide injection is to a street speed racer, nearly doubling its continuous power output for short periods to allow it to cope effortlessly with sudden spikes in music and movie soundtracks.

Unlike a nitrous-oxide burst, though, PowerDrive kicks in automatically.

Other unique features include Soft Clipping, which helps reduce the chance of speaker damage when you – in party mode – work

the amp too hard, and a nifty little circuit that monitors the temperature of the heat sinks and the level of the input signal to ensure that the fan can’t be heard during quiet, laid back passages.

Mate it with NAD’s T175HD AV tuner preamplifier.

PRICE $3499 WEBSITE www.audioproducts.com.au

THETA DREADNOUGHT III Born in the USA, Theta Digital’s Deadnought III is a substantial and alluring piece of audio bling, and at 45 kilos tops our list of beautiful mutilchannel thugs. Designed to mate with the company’s equally gorgeous Casablanca Controller, it features a modular design that allows the single chassis to power up to ten channels, which should satisfy the multiroom amplification needs of most mansions. Power comes in the form of 1 x 225 watt or 2 x 100 watt plug-in modules, which can be assembled in any combination into the five bays at the unit’s rear.

The Dreadnought, which has seen various iterations since its birth more than a

48 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

decade ago, now features what Theta calls Thermal Track technology for reducing distortion of the audio signal as it zings around the amp’s internal circuity, and a topology that enables “zero global feedback”. The explanation of this is complex (Theta uses the analogy of a snail biting its tail to help clear things up – not) but the claimed benefit underscores its appeal to adherents of audio esoterica: it eliminates the destructive distortion that isn’t actually detected by conventional measurements… and therefore might not exist.

PRICE $5200 (chassis only) $1800 for 1 x 225 watts power module $2200 for 2 x 100 watt power module WEBSITE www.advanceaudio.com.au

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GROUP TEST

50 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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Cheap and nasty or just cheap? Five budget LCD televisions show how good the view can be from the cheap seats, writes Thomas Bartlett.

R

ather than re-inventing the wheel, for this mini-test of entry level TVs from budget brands I opened up an earlier comparison from late 2007 to use as a template. This was called ‘Cheap TVs’, and these LCD TVs ranged in price from $2150 to $3500, even though some of them were mere 1366 by 768 pixel models rather than full high definition, and one was only 80cm in size!

What we did here was ignore all those well-known brands: the LGs, Sonys, Panasonics, Samsungs. Instead we chose five brands that you see around the retailers, but which rarely find their way into magazines dealing with issues of interest to home theatre fans.

So we contacted the five selected brands: Hisense, Kogan, Palsonic, Soniq and Tyagi, and asked them to suppy their choice of TV that: . Used LCD technology . Was at least 40 inches (101cm) in size . Employed a full HD display (ie. 1920 by 1080 pixels resolution) . Was the best the brand had to offer (eg. LED backlighting if available, etc).

We ended up with an interesting split: three TVs selling for less than one thousand dollars, and two for more than two thousand.

Some of these units – most, perhaps – come out of Chinese factories. For example, the Kogan and Tyagi

THE GOOD

THE LESS GOOD

• Good size picture • Lack of support at very reasonable for unscaled high prices definition video • HDMI inputs • universal, providing Lack of support for 1080p24 the best picture video quality • No significant • All these TVs are dynamic contrast uniformly bright processing and colourful • Good digital TV reception, including HDTV

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WHAT TO LOOK FOR

• Good and even black levels • Screen-size that fits your room • HDMI inputs – the more the better • Good warranty models both clearly used the same ‘chassis’, with most of the connections laid out identically and menus and operational controls pretty much the same. However they had both clearly been engineered with their own specific feature sets, and had quite different styling, so there were clear differences as well.

All five were excellent when it came to simply plugging them in and scanning for digital TV stations (I didn’t bother looking at analog: there’s no point any more).

ACHILLES HEEL

But there were two performance aspects that were similar across the board that were, really, quite regrettable.

The first was none of the five had any kind of ‘exact’ aspect ratio for high definition video. One of the nice things about Blu-ray in particular, and HDTV in some cases, is that that the 1920 by 1080 pixels of the signal match these TVs’ 1920 by 1080 pixel displays. Ideally each pixel of the signal would simply be poked into the appropriate pixel of the screen, eliminating scaling and similar unnecessary processing. But not one of these TVs was capable of that.

All imposed some ‘overscan’, scaling up the picture by between two and five percent so that its edges overflowed the visible face of the screen. While this ensures a satisfyingly full screen most of the time, it also causes a slight, but visible, unnecessary softening of the image from time to time.

The other oversight was the lack of support for the native format for most Blu-ray movies: 1080p at 24 frames per second. In some cases this didn’t work at all, while in others it caused distortion. None of the TVs was intended to accept this signal.

Still, some of these TVs are so inexpensive, they should be praised for existing at all!

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 51

GROUP TEST

BUDGET BIG TIMERS

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $2499 Warranty: 3 years Contact: Hisense Australia 1800 447 367 www.hisense.com.au Image: LCD; 106.8cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness 450cd/sq m; 1300:1 contrast ratio; panel response time 5ms Inputs: 1 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 3 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15, 4 x stereo audio, 1 x USB Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x 3.5mm headphone Audio: stereo, two speakers, 2 x 9 watts Features: analog TV tuner, HD Digital TV tuner, 100Hz Vivid Motion, edge lit LED for thin panel, touch panel controls Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand (attached) Dimensions (WHD): 1031 x 662 x 39mm (without stand) Weight: 21kg (incl. stand)

PROS AND CONS

True high definition display Excellent broadcast TV picture Very good smooth motion with 100Hz video processing Multimedia features with USB Excellent 3 year warranty Bumping up against the big brands price-wise Black levels could be better Can’t defeat overscan even on Blu-ray Won’t accept 1080p24 input

HISENSE HLS106T18PZL T

he Hisense HLS106T18PZL is obviously different from all the other TVs here in at least one respect: it is really thin. It isn’t the thinnest panel available, but you’re going to have to be really picky to complain about its 39mm depth, or about one-third of the thickness of the others.

The thin panel is courtesy of edge LED backlighting, which also contributes to making this TV the most economical to run. It scores an impressive 4.5 star energy rating (both on the sticker and by my measurement) and a consumptioin rating of 460kWh/ year (sticker, my figure came in 5% lower).

RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

The thin panel is courtesy of edge LED backlighting, which also contributes to making this TV the most economical to run ”

52 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

It also has a set of ‘touch’ controls on the right edge for managing what the TV is up to, although of course there is also a remote. And there is a USB socket for the playback of music (MP3 only), photos (JPEG) and video (MPEG2 and AVI worked, but my standard DivX file wouldn’t play).

As delivered, the picture settings were really far too ‘hot’, even in Standard mode. For example, the ‘Sharpness’ control was set to 50 out of 100. But when I put on my test Blu-ray, it was obvious that this was adding a huge amount of ‘ringing’ (white lines around the edges of black objects in order to emphasise them), explaining why the picture lacked smoothness. It took turning it down to 8 or 9 to fix this.

But fixable it was. With the colour turned down a bit as well, the picture was very nicely watchable.

DVDs fed at 576i via HDMI were surprisingly soft, but switching the player’s output to progressive scan fixed that. At first glance the TV seemed to support 1080p24, but this made the TV’s menus virtually unreadable, and the motion smoothing mechanism (called ‘MEMC’) didn’t work properly. Blu-ray worked best at 1080p60. MEMC smoothed this out and handled the most complicated high definition scenes, with only the smallest amount of edge distortion.

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Member

GROUP TEST

BUDGET BIG TIMERS

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $879 Warranty: one year Contact: Kogan Technologies 1300 304 292 www.kogan.com.au Image: LCD; 106.8cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness 500cd/sq m; 1300:1 contrast ratio (10,000:1 Dyanamic); panel response time 6ms Inputs: 3 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 2 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15, 4 x stereo audio, 1 x USB Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x coaxial digital audio Audio: stereo, two speakers, 2 x 10 watts Features: analog TV tuner, HD Digital TV tuner, 120 Hertz video processing, USB video, photo and music support Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand (attached) Dimensions (WHD): 1030 x 669 x 116mm (without stand) Weight: 23kg (incl. stand)

PROS AND CONS

Excellent value for money True high definition display Good broadcast TV picture Smooth motion from 120Hz video processing Multimedia features with USB Black levels could be better Can’t defeat motion smoothing Can’t defeat overscan even on Blu-ray Won’t accept 1080p24 input RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

KOGAN 1080P42 LCD TV L

ess than $900, this Kogan TV still manages to include a motion smoothing frame interpolation system of the kind once seen only the most expensive of TVs. Plus it has a USB socket on the side.

The motion interpolation was a mixed blessing. It worked quite well with PAL DVDs, and managed to avoid imposing a glossy sheen over the image like many such circuits do. But it also produced a noticeable ‘heat haze’ around moving objects.

The net result was positive in terms of overall enjoyment of picture viewing, assisted by a very naturalistic colour balance that steered quite clear of excessive saturation.

The TV reception was strong on digital TV, with both SDTV and HDTV producing good quality results.

With Blu-ray, things weren’t quite so good. With 1080p24 signals from Blu-ray, it offset the image about half a screen width to the right and about one eighth of a screen height up from the bottom.

But it accepted 1080p60 fine, and it clearly used the 120 hertz video processing to ‘reclock’ the video so that it ran smoothly on the screen. Presumably the output was at 120 hertz, but the characteristic jerkiness of 1080p60 was completely eliminated. So, for that matter, was the more subtle 1080p24 jerkiness,

54 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

thanks to the motion smoothing system. Unfortunately, when the image was sharp, detailed and complicated, this processing sometimes became confusing, waving elements of the image around in a disconcerting way.

Again, this is nothing new, but the TV lacks an ability to switch off the frame interpolation, so you can’t do anything about it.

The USB functionality worked rather nicely. It played my test JPEG photos (with the colours a trifle overblown), MP3 (but not WMA or WAV) music files, and DivX, AVI and MPEG2 videos.

The review TV didn’t come with an energy star sticker, but my measurements suggested that it would be good for 2.5 stars and a 712kWh/year rating.

The TV reception was strong on digital TV, with both SDTV and HDTV producing good quality results” VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

GROUP TEST

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $2199 Warranty: one year Contact: Palsonic 1300 992 354 www.palsonic.com.au Image: LCD; 106.8cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness 500cd/sq m; 4000:1 contrast ratio; panel response time 4ms Inputs: 1 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 3 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15, 4 x stereo audio Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x 3.5mm headphone Audio: stereo, two speakers, 2 x 10 watts Features: analog TV tuner, HD digital TV tuner, 100 Hz technology Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand (attached) Dimensions (WHD): 1045 x 684 x 117mm (without stand) Weight: 22kg (incl. stand)

PROS AND CONS

True high definition display High quality LCD panel Good black levels Excellent broadcast TV picture quality Good motion smoothing processing Reasonable black levels Can’t defeat overscan even on Blu-ray Doesn’t support 1080p24 well No side AV inputs RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

PALSONIC TFTV4200FHD LCD TV U

nlike the others, Palsonic has been operating in Australia (it’s actually a local, family-owned business) for over half a century. The TV it supplied is one of the two more expensive models in this collection, and it offers at least one high-end feature: 100 hertz motion smoothing.

It also seems to offer a more highly specified panel than the less expensive TVs, with a 4 millisecond response time specified for the panel and a claimed contrast ratio of 4000:1. This seemed to be the native contrast ratio because if there was any dynamic backlight control, it was very subtle in operation and made little difference in power consumption between a full black and a full white screen.

The TV reception from the built-in digital TV tuner was excellent, thanks in large part to the high quality video signal processing the TV applied. It did an excellent job with handling interlaced video and in scaling it up to the panel’s own resolution, except that once again the TV imposed some overscan that could not be defeated, even with Blu-ray.

56 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

In fact, the Blu-ray handling was a little strange. The TV accepted 1080p24 signals, preferred for Blu-ray, but with complex and sharp content the motion smoothing circuit would break down every few seconds for several frames, producing really obvious judder. Switching this off (setting the ‘Judder Adjustment’ to Level 1), it became obvious that the TV was converting the 24 frames per second to 60 internally, making the judder much worse than it should be.

But when I set the Blu-ray player to deliver 1080p60 instead, the motion smoothing worked like a dream.

The only adverse effect of its operation was a little heat haze effect around some moving objects.

According to the Energy Rating sticker attached to the TV, it scores 3 stars and 620kWh per year. My own measurements came in within one percent of that result.

It did an excellent job with handling interlaced video and in scaling it up to the panel’s own resolution” VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

BUDGET BIG TIMERS

SONIQ QASA QSL460XT LCD TV W

ith a 117cm diagonal for its full high definition LCD panel, this Soniq TV still managed to come in under a thousand dollars.

Not surprisingly, it comes with some significant limitations, but it also has a couple of rather impressive aspects of performance.

The main limitation was a complete lack of support for 1080p24, the natural and best format for Bluray. I used a Blu-ray player capable of forcing this output, regardless of the information the TV was communicating back to it via the HDMI cable, and the result was the bottom half of the screen entirely covered in static-like lines.

Consequently all Blu-ray viewing was at 1080p60, which made much of the action rather jerky. This was all the more apparent because the screen was so large.

PAL DVDs and especially SDTV from the built-in digital TV tuner failed to impress initially, thanks to a kind of speckledy noise over much of the finer detail.

But a bit of investigation revealed that the ‘Sharpness’ control was by default set way, way to high. It was on 4 out of 7. Turning it down to its proper place at 0

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produced a very attractive picture. Especially as the automatic picture processing – deinterlacing and scaling – was significantly better than the other two very low cost TVs. I was quite happy to run my DVDs into the TV with the output set to standard interlaced video.

The TV features three HDMI inputs, providing some flexibility for connections, but lacks any easily accessible AV inputs. It will deliver digital audio from its internal tuner via an optical output. The internal speakers were adequate, but the review sample produced an irritating low-level buzz through them at all times except when the volume was set to zero. This was clearly a malfunction of the review unit.

According to my measurements, this TV would make an energy star rating of 2 (very nearly 2.5), and 860kWh per year.

The TV features three HDMI inputs, providing some flexibility for connections, but lacks any easily accessible AV inputs”

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $999 Warranty: one year Contact: Soniq AV 1300 765 663 www.soniq.com.au Image: LCD; 117.0cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness 500cd/sq m; 2000:1 contrast ratio; panel response time 15ms Inputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 3 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15, 4 x stereo audio Outputs: 1 x optical digital audio Audio: stereo, two speakers, 2 x 8 watts Features: analog TV tuner, HD digital TV tuner, digital audio amplifier Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand (attached) Dimensions (WHD): 1140 x 745 x 115mm (without stand) Weight: 39.5kg (incl. stand)

PROS AND CONS

Large screen makes this excellent value for money True high definition display Good broadcast TV picture Can’t defeat overscan even on Blu-ray Black levels could be better Doesn’t support 1080p24 No side AV inputs RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 57

GROUP TEST

BUDGET BIG TIMERS

SPECIFICATIONS Price: $995 Warranty: one year Contact: Tyagi Australia Pty Ltd 1300 992 354 www.tyagi.com.au Image: LCD; 106.8cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness 600cd/sq m; 1000:1 contrast ratio; panel response time 6.5ms Inputs: 2 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 2 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15, 3 x stereo audio Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x coaxial digital audio Audio: stereo, two speakers, 2 x 9 watts Features: analog TV tuner, HD digital TV tuner, 3D comb filter Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand (attached) Dimensions (WHD): 1067 x 726 x 125mm (without stand) Weight: 25kg (incl. stand)

PROS AND CONS

True high definition display Good quality broadcast TV picture Reasonable quality DVD picture Can’t defeat overscan even on Blu-ray Black levels could be better Poor 1080p24 performance No side AV inputs RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

TYAGI 42-1080P LCD TV A

s the name implies, the Tyagi 42-1080p is a 107cm (42 inch) model. It looks quite neat, on a pre-attached oval stand and a shiny black, slightly curved bezel.

It has two HDMI inputs plus the usual analog video and audio ones, including support for a computer. It also has both analog and high definition digital TV tuners built in, and the TV knows that it is in Australia

The electronic program guide worked well, showing as many days as were available, and it retained the EPG information for each channel even after you changed to a different one”

CONCLUSION

About ten years ago, a prominent critic complained of the Australian government’s mandate requiring HDTV to come in. He suggested that TVs suitable for this would cost $20,000.

He was right for a while, but he can’t be criticised for failing to anticipate that they would soon sell for less than one-twentieth of his estimate. Who could have guessed?

The great thing is that as far as SDTV and HDTV went, none of these TVs merely limped along, barely managing to do the job. All produced eminently satisfactory TV performance, albeit usually after some tweaking of their picture quality controls to eliminate

58 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

(in setting the time zone, you get a choice of Australian capital cities).

The digital TV performance was very strong, producing a clean, bright and colourful image. The sound from the speakers was disappointing, though, sounding quite pinched, even when I tried adjusting the bass and treble controls. Still, for watching the news it was okay. The TV has a coaxial digital audio output (and stereo analog), so if you have a sound system it would be worth connecting it to that.

The electronic program guide worked well, showing as many days as were available, and it retained the EPG information for each channel even after you changed to a different one, so that you could see what was on without necessarily having to change stations.

Black levels were not especially strong, to the point where I preferred to leave the room lights on, making the blacks seem stronger by comparison. But they were even. PAL DVD performance was fine, although the picture looked a little cleaner when fed in progressive scan format. Blu-ray performance was restricted a bit because the TV appeared to convert the 24 frames per second output to 60 fps internally, making some onscreen movement look a little jerky.

By my measurement, the TV was frugal in operation, scoring 3.5 stars and about 536kWh per year (there was no label attached to the sample).

Still, this was a respectable 107cm TV at a very good price.

excessive sharpness and colour levels.

The clear division of these TVs into two categories – truly budget orientated, or nipping at the heels of the big TV brands – makes proper comparisons difficult. Assuming that the buzz of the Soniq TV was a bug in the review sample only, this is probably the best of the low cost ones thanks to its greater competence in handling Blu-ray.

It’s a hard chose between the Palsonic and the Hisense, since much of the difference has to do with styling. Peformance-wise, either is a good choice. n

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BOX FRESH

ONKYO TX-SR608 I

n recent years Onkyo has been one of the quickest to introduce new home theatre receiver features to the Australian market. It was very early with decoding high resolution audio formats from Bluray, and the first with the new Dolby Pro Logic IIz ‘front height’ channels.

And now the Onkyo TX-SR608 home theatre receiver arrives with the latest feature of all: support for 3D video!

FEATURES

In general, home theatre receivers supporting HDMI version 1.3 won’t necessarily pass through 3DTV signals.

The new HDMI version 1.4 provides support for this (although, confusingly, it is up to the equipment suppliers to decide to implement it). The TX-SR608 has six HDMI 1.4 inputs!

You also get a few analog video and audio inputs, including a useful 3.5mm socket on the front for convenient use with an MP3 player. The unit also has an interface for Onkyo’s iPod dock. Missing is S-Video. If you have a source device, such as a VCR, from which this is the best video standard, it’s probably time to retire it.

The receiver has facilities to convert analog video to digital, so you only need a single HDMI cable to your TV. It can also scale up all inputs to 1080p24 and uses high quality Faroudja DCDi processing for the purpose.

It has a Zone 2 capability and you can apply two of the unit’s seven 100 watt amplifiers to drive the second zone if you want. Or you can use them to drive the ‘height’ speakers for Dolby Pro Logic IIz sound, if you want, or to bi-amplify the front stereo loudspeakers.

PERFORMANCE

With the new things to cover, I’m not going to talk about the audio performance of this receiver, except to note that it was up to Onkyo’s usual high standards, and that the Audyssey auto setup feature worked nicely, as always.

Now let’s talk new features. Obviously it was

The advantage of this is that the receiver can extract high resolution audio from the HDMI cable, then allow the 3D video to go on to the TV” VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

important to see if the receiver would pass through 3DTV. So I plugged in the Samsung 3D Blu-ray player and TV and started them up. When I put on a 3D Blu-ray disc, the player popped up a message asking whether I wanted to see the content in 3D or 2D, something it didn’t ask when plugged directly into the TV. I chose 3D, and all worked perfectly.

The advantage of this is that the receiver can extract high resolution audio from the HDMI cable, then allow the 3D video to go on to the TV. Other receivers won’t, so to watch 3D with them you may need to connect the Blu-ray player directly to the TV and make do with lesser audio provided over a regular digital audio connection from the player.

The 3D picture was identical whether viewed with a direct connection from the player to the TV, or via the Onkyo receiver.

The receiver itself is hobbled just a little with 3D, because it could pop up messages (eg. if you press the ‘Display’ key on the remote) over 2D video, but wouldn’t do this with 3D. Another feature that can be implemented with HDMI 1.4 is ‘Return Audio’. That is, the HDMI cable that passes video from your receiver to the TV can also feed audio back from the TV to the receiver. So where you’re watching TV using the TV’s own internal digital TV tuner, you can have the sound delivered by your real sound system rather than the TV’s internal speakers.

Of course, you could always do that using an analog audio connection from the TV outputs to the receiver, or using a digital audio connection the same way.

But with this system, the cable that you have in place anyway to take video to the TV does the job for you.

The Onkyo TX-SR608 receiver implements that as well, as does the Samsung TV. Once plugged in that way, with the appropriate setting switched on in the receiver’s setup menu, all I had to do was select ‘TV’ as the input, and the TV station’s sound started coming out of the receiver’s loudspeakers instead of the TV’s.

This receiver truly does provide a one-cable connection to a (HDMI 1.4) TV.

CONCLUSION

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this receiver is that all these new features simply worked without any hint of drama. I plugged in everything and worked through the setup. And immediately all worked perfectly.

The Onkyo TX-ST608 receiver offers very good home theatre receiver performance, but adds all the cuttingedge features without any of the ‘bleeding-edge’ aspects that usually accompany them.

Thomas Bartlett

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $1399 Warranty: three years Contact: Amber Technology 1800 251 367 www.ambertech.com.au Power: 7 x 100 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.08% THD Inputs: 5 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 1 x D-SUB15 (PC), 8 x analog stereo audio, 2 x optical digital audio, 2 x coaxial digital audio, 6 x HDMI, 1 x ‘Universal Port’, 1 x calibration microphone Outputs: 2 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 2 x subwoofer pre-out, 1 x HDMI, 1 x analog stereo audio for Zone 2, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: Onkyo R1 Surround Standards: Dolby Digital EX, Plus and TrueHD; DTS ES and 96/24; DTS-HD Master Audio and High Resolution; Dolby Pro Logic IIz, DTS Neo:6 Features: HDMI 1.4 with 3D and Audio Return support; THX Select2 Plus certified; Dolby Pro Logic IIz ‘height’ support; Audyssey automatic calibration and audio processing; 192kHz/24 bit D/A converter; Jitter Cleaning Technology; Zone 2 capability; surround back amplifiers may be configured to bi-amplification, height or Zone 2 support; Video conversion (composite, component to HDMI) and upscaling; on screen display; front panel A/V input (composite video, stereo audio, HDMI, 3.5mm stereo audio) Supplied Accessories: remote control; calibration microphone; AM aerial; FM aerial Dimensions (WHD): 435 x 176 x 329mm Weight: 11.5kg

PROS AND CONS

Supports 3DTV Supports ‘Return Audio from TV’ Very good all round audio performance Good video upscaling No S-Video support RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 59

BOX FRESH

YSP-5100 SPECIFICATIONS Category: Front surround system Price: $2999 (YSP-5100 soundbar) Warranty: 12 months Contact: Yamaha Music Australia 1300 739 390 www.yamahamusic.com.au/ Power: 120 watts (max) Speakers: 40 x 4cm beam drivers, 2 x 2.5cm tweeters Frequency response: 75Hz to 20kHz (–10 dB, stereo mode) Audio formats supported: Dolby TrueHD / Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital EX, Dolby Pro Logic, Dolby Pro Logic II / x (Movie, Music, Game), DTS-HD Master Audio / High Resolution, DTS, DTS Neo:6 (Cinema, Music), DTS ES (Discrete, Matrix), Multi-ch LPCM, 2ch-PCM, AAC DSP modes: Music (Music video, Concert Hall, and Jazz Club), Movie (SFX, Spectacle and Adventure); Entertainment (Sports, Drama, Talk Show, Game, and Multi Channel Stereo) Inputs: 2x analog audio, 2x optical audio, 1x coaxial audio, 1x composite video, 1x component video, 4x HDMI Outputs: 1x subwoofer, 1x composite video, 1x HDMI Features: FM tuner, iPod compatibility via wireless transmitter, UniVolume, IntelliBeam, onscreen display, RS232C system connector, IR-in/ out Accessories: wireless connectivity; subwoofer; iPod/ iPhone Dimensions (WHD): 1200 x 212 x 90 mm Weight: 11 kg

YST-SW225 SPECIFICATIONS Category: Subwoofer Price: $749 Warranty: 12 months Contact: Yamaha Music Australia Amplifier output: 120W (100 Hz, 5 Ω, 10% THD) Driver: 20cm cone woofer Frequency response: 28Hz–200Hz Dimensions (WHD): 290 x 350 x 349 mm Weight: 11.5 kg

PROS AND CONS

Room-filling sound, particularly with additional subwoofer Straightforward setup Good looking; designed to match your flatscreen TV Good HD connectivity Surround effect very room dependent; more ‘front’ than ‘surround’ in large rooms Some stuttering with wireless iPod playback RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

YAMAHA YSP-5100 AND YST-SW225 T

he Yamaha YSP-5100 is promoted as an allin-one surround sound system for your big, flatscreen TV, with high-def sound capability, the option to be paired with a separate subwoofer, and an eye on convenience and aesthetics. It essentially looks like one long and hefty speaker, which can be wall mounted or simply placed on a TV stand or counter somewhere below the screen.

Soundbars of any hue are clearly marketed at consumers who want good sound but either aren’t all that interested in getting their hands dirty with the nuts and bolts of building a separates system themselves, have kids, or can’t persuade their partner that a new black-box edifice in the living room is a Good Thing.

They’re never going to be as good as a proper 7.1 or even 5.1 separates sound system, obviously, but they’re a much cleaner and less fussy choice.

SETTING UP

We’ve never seen so many taped-up, tied-down and fiddly individual bits and bobs in a box. Like one of those damned Transformer toys from Toys R Us, packaged by people in fear of litigation from the mother of some dumb kid who swallowed a tiny piece of plastic and have consigned the rest of the world’s parents to teethgrinding frustration every time a Christmas or birthday rolls around.

Once it’s finally out of the box, though, the YSP-5100 is impressive in its sleek, weightiness, making you feel happy you’ve bought something substantial.

Auto calibration with the supplied microphone initially failed, but second time round worked a treat. I’d describe the onscreen setup menus as functional but not attractive.

The YSP-5100 also offers an optional wireless widget for connectivity to an iPhone or iPod – setup being a simple matter of plugging in the AC adaptor for the widget and slotting in your music player, then selecting the right input on the YSP-5100.

PERFORMANCE

Like similar products, the Yamaha Sound Projector (YSP) creates surround effects by ‘bouncing’ sound off the walls of the very room you’ve placed it in. As such, the room has a significant influence on the level of surround you’ll experience. Large open-plan spaces tend not to provide many adjacent wall surfaces from which to reflect sound, while smaller, more enclosed rooms do. Front surround systems, then, tend to deliver better results in the latter.

60 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

This may explain why, in the room I initially set it up in, the soundbar was not as convincing as expected, despite also using the YST-SW225 subwoofer with the SWK-W10 wireless kit. The room was very large (about 40m2) with a ‘wall’ of French doors, lots of glass and two open areas leading off the room. With movies, most of the sound was clearly being projected from the central, front speaker in the unit and the surround sound effects were variable.

Strangely, surround sound was achieved with the soundtrack from Skate 3, an Xbox 360 skateboarding videogame. Clearly defined and separated channels reproduced the sounds of boarders skating up behind or across you, traffic coming in from the side, and so forth, affording a very clear spatial awareness of the environment.

So, just to check, we relocated the system to a much smaller, closed-off room, but with the same result – excellent, room-filling volume, great bass but variable levels of enveloping sound. For the most part, however, surround sound effects were good, with best results achieved on the ‘Concert Hall’ DSP setting, regardless of input source.

The down-firing YST-SW225 sub was tremendously powerful, making my wall-mounted DVD cabinets shake and rattle at half volume.

We experienced some signal drop-out using the wireless iPod function, but for the most part the feature provided fantastic vocal clarity and separation, although the mid-range could be slightly indistinct. This was clearly more a function of the compressed nature of the iPod tracks, with the YSP-5100 showing up the inferiority of the AAC and MP3 formats and proving too good for the source material.

CONCLUSION

For $3750 you can buy a whole lot of surround sound, including Yamaha’s own YHT-892AU 7.1 home theatre package – also with 1080p support, four HDMI inputs, iPod playback and even up-conversion for your input sources – for only $1999, which is nearly half the cost of the YSP-5100.

But the YSP-5100 isn’t playing in the same field as a component home theatre package. Its prospective owners appreciate simple setup, a cosmetic match for their flat screen, and a room full of sound rather than speakers. Yamaha’s soundbar ticks all these boxes, of course, but it’s fussy about the room it operates in, so check your retailer’s exchange policy before breaking out the plastic.

Max Everingham

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PIONEER VSX-1020 P

ioneer’s VSX-1020 has beaten most of the competition in dealing with the newest feature to hit home theatre: 3D. But it also migrates several high-end features down to a mid-priced home theatre receiver, and adds one very new one.

FEATURES

This is a full 7.1 channel receiver. Pioneer has highlighted some weird power output specifications into low impedance speakers at unacceptable distortion levels.

I figure the 65 watt figure shown in the specs is a good comparison number.

The channels nominally intended for surround back can instead be used to drive Zone 2 (composite video is also provided to support a video source in this zone), or to bi-amplify the front speakers, or to drive front height speakers for the built-in Dolby Pro Logic IIz. The receiver actually provides a separate set of spring clip speaker terminals for some of these uses (the rest are real binding posts), so that you don’t have to rewire the speakers to change to a different mode.

Of course, it also handles all audio standards offered by Blu-ray, and all the video standards as well, as delivered to one of its six HDMI inputs (one on the front panel).

More surprisingly, out of the box it supports iPods, thanks to a bundled adaptor cable. This plugs into a composite video input and USB socket on the front panel of the receiver. With this in place you have full control over the iPod via the receiver’s remote control.

The unit displays menus on an attached display, and also cover art. It would not play videos from a 5G iPod, but it would from a current model iPod Touch (the same video in both cases). It doesn’t support photos.

Also provided is Internet radio, and the new feature: remote control via an iPhone or iPod Touch.

PERFORMANCE

There is a lot to cover, so let me start by briefly covering the real purpose of a home theatre receiver: providing great movie and music sound. Once I’d run Pioneer’s Auto MCACC automatic calibration system – a quick process – the receiver had my speaker system operating optimally.

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SPECIFICATIONS

With the high quality speaker system I was using, the receiver provided plenty of clean power for high volumes and very good sound, despite the weird power output specifications. The receiver also did a particularly good job on handling video, using high quality Anchor Bay Technology processing to perform progressive scan conversion.

Internet radio had a quite unusual implementation.

Generally these work via an Internet radio station aggregator that provides named access to the thousands of stations. But this one requires you choose from a preset list of 24 stations, or edit them to your preferred stations by entering names and URLs. A little time with Google can find the required information, and you can edit using the remote (yuck!), a keyboard plugged to the front panel USB port (better), or via your Web browser (the best, since you can copy and paste). Indeed, the only access to the receiver from the Web browser is the edit screen for these radio stations.

The iPod Touch/iPhone remote control function requires the receiver to be plugged into your network and for the network to have WiFi. You will have to download a small application for the devices, but this provides access to an eclectic range of control functions. That’s a polite way of saying that the bits that are provided work so well, it would be very nice if a full range of functions were provided.

For example, I could select ‘Internet radio’ as an input, but I couldn’t select the particular one of the 24 available stations I wanted to listen to. I could adjust the balance of the sound between left and right, and front and back, simply by turning the iPod touch around. But there was no way to invoke the onscreen menu.

CONCLUSION

But it is early days after all. I imagine there’s no reason why the control features can’t be extended to do everything that can be done via the receiver’s front panel or remote or menus.

Meanwhile, this is a receiver ready for 2010 and its 3D high resolution video.

Thomas Bartlett

Category: AV receiver Price: $1299 Warranty: three years Contact: Pioneer Electronics Australia 1800 060 852 www.pioneer.com.au Power: 7 x 65 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, 0.2% THD Inputs: 6 x HDMI, 5 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 6 x analog stereo audio, 0 x phono, 0 x 7.1 analogue audio, 2 x optical digital audio, 2 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x calibration microphone, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, 1 x Pioneer adaptor port, 1 x AM antenna, 1 x FM antenna Outputs: 1 x HDMI, 2 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 2 x analog stereo audio, 1 x subwoofer, 1 x analog stereo audio + composite video for Zone 2, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Other: IR In/Out, Control In/Out Surround Standards: Dolby Digital EX, Plus and TrueHD; DTS ES and 96/24; DTS-HD Master Audio and High Resolution; Dolby Pro Logic IIx & IIz, DTS Neo:6 Features: HDMI 1.4 inputs with 3D support; Internet radio; Dolby Pro Logic IIz processing; Pioneer Advanced MCACC automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 AV capability including iPod content; surround back amplifiers may be configured for bi-amplification, Zone 2 or Dolby Pro Logic IIz front height support; high quality ABT Video conversion and scaling; GUI; front panel iPod input (composite, USB, HDMI) Supplied Accessories: remote control; calibration microphone; aerials Dimensions (WHD): 420 x 158 x 379mm Weight: 10.2kg

PROS AND CONS

Supports 3D video signals Supports iPod All digital audio standards supported Zone 2 Internet radio No 7.1 channel analog out (for upgrading amplifier) RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 61

BOX FRESH

SAMSUNG UA55C7000 AND BD-C6900 3D T

he hottest new home entertainment technology to appear since the introduction of Blu-ray has got to be 3D. Most of the major brands have their own systems on the verge of launch, but Samsung was the first to make it into Australian retail electronics stores.

For 3D to work properly you need not just a TV, but 3D source material. That can be live-action material captured with a two-camera rig of some sort, or computer animation. The latter is probably the most common at the moment in the cinemas, and so is likely to be the most common in the home as well.

Up to two pairs of shutter glasses are provided with purchase. Extra pairs cost arount $100.

62 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

So let’s look at Samsung’s UA55C7000 3D LCD TV and BD-C6900 3D Blu-ray player, and see how they go with both 3D and other material.

FEATURES

The TV is one of Samsung’s gloriously slim models, measuring well under 30mm thick. It is so slim that while the USB and HDMI cables can plug directly into the unit, adaptor cables are provided for all the other inputs to allow small connection sockets to be used. It comes with a swivel desktop stand.

It is a full high definition TV of course, offering 1920 by 1080 pixels, and uses edge LEDs for backlighting.

The screen is a very generous 140cm (55 inches) in the diagonal.

Quite aside from the whole 3D thing, the TV is packed with just about every feature you can think of.

The screen has Samsung’s Motion Plus 200Hz motion interpolation system, its motion smoothing system. It has two USB sockets, and you can plug a hard disk drive into one of them, creating a PVR! With one of these in place (formatted by the TV to something incompatible with Windows) you can time shift live TV, or set up recordings for later playback.

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SAMSUNG BD-C6900 3D SPECIFICATIONS

The TV supports wireless networking, but only with the addition of a USB WiFi dongle. But the Bluray player has much the same networking facilities, including access to DLNA media on a home network and Internet TV, YouTube video and Picasa web albums, and has the convenience of having wireless networking built in.

Quite aside from the whole 3D thing, the TV is packed with just about every feature you can think of.”

The Blu-ray player also offers BD-Live and BonusView, full decoding of all the new audio standards and 7.1 channel analog audio outputs to feed high definition audio to older home theatre receivers.

It has a single HDMI output. Since current home theatre receivers generally won’t reliably handle 3D video (to be confident about this, you will need HDMI version 1.4 on your receiver, and this is only coming to market right now), two HDMI would be better.

At least one other maker we know of is introducing a two-HDMI player, with one output used to feed 3D video to the display, and the other for passing high definition audio to a home theatre receiver.

Samsung’s Blu-ray player is networked to deliver IPTV content.

With Samsung’s player, you may therefore need to plug it directly into the 3D TV, and use optical digital audio or an analog connection to the receiver for the sound.

The shutter glasses look neat enough, though you won’t win any style prizes with them on your face. They have a little press button on the top (a quick press switches them on, holding it down for several seconds switches them off). The built-in rechargeable battery is charged by USB using the supplied cables. The USB sockets on the TV seemed to do the job nicely.

PERFORMANCE

Let’s get right to the special stuff: 3D. To make this work, different images need to be presented to your left and right eyes. Samsung’s system works by employing liquid crystal ‘shutters’ in eyewear. These are synchronised with the left and right eye images flashing alternately up on the screen at 100 or more times per second. If all works well, your right eye will see only the picture intended for it, and likewise for the left eye.

This TV has two ways to deliver 3D. One way is to apply some pretty nifty processes to produce a 3D effect with 2D material, which I will return to later.

The most important way is with authentic 3D material, delivered on Blu-ray (and ultimately broadcast). I didn’t have very much material for this at all: specifically, all Samsung could provide was a little over ten minutes of the 3D version of Monsters vs Aliens on shop demo Blu-ray disc.

Category: 3D Blu-ray player Price: $559 Warranty: one year Contact: Samsung Electronics Australia 1300 369 600 www.samsung.com.au Outputs: 1 x HDMI, 1 x component video, 1 x composite video, 1 x stereo analog audio, 1 x 7.1 channel analog audio, 1 x optical digital audio HDMI output resolution: 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576p, 480p @ 50 or 60 hertz, 1080p @ 24 hertz; 3D @ 1080p, 720p Component output resolution: 1080i, 720p, 576p, 480p, 576i, 480i @ 50 or 60 hertz Dimensions (WHD): 430 x 43 x 205mm Weight: 1.8kg

PROS AND CONS

Supports 3D Very fast operation Built-in WiFi Built-in support for Internet TV Seamless layer changes on DVDs No reverse frame stepping or slow motion Only one HDMI output limits support for older equipment RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

An edge-lit LED television, the UA55C7000 is only 30mm thick.

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 63

BOX FRESH Generally there was more effect with Blu-ray than DVD, and with DVD than much broadcast TV. The sharper the image, the more 3D. The TV seemed to select sharp objects near the centre of the screen as foreground objects.

Because of the variability, I couldn’t image anyone watching in this mode for a lengthy period, impressive as it was at times.

Of course, most of what we watch isn’t in 3D mode at all, but in regular 2D. With all of this the TV performed with Samsung’s customary high LCD quality.

Black levels were generally very good, although darker scenes with bright areas on the picture left the dark sections a little too bright. Colour was extremely accurate. Initially the picture was a trifle sharp on recent Blu-ray movies, even a little edgy. But it turned out that the ‘Standard’ picture mode had quite a bit of ‘Sharpness’ applied (it was set at 50 on a scale of 100), plus Edge Enhancement as well. Reducing the former to about 20 and switching off EE fixed that.

3D BLU-RAY SAMSUNG UA55C7000 SPECIFICATIONS Category: 3D LED LCD TV Price: $4799 Warranty: one year Contact: Samsung Electronics Australia 1300 369 600 www.samsung.com.au Image: LCD; 140cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness not stated; contrast ratio not stated; response time not stated; edge LED backlight Inputs: 2 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 4 x HDMI, 3 x stereo audio, 2 x USB, 1 x Ethernet Outputs: 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x stereo audio out (3.5mm), 1 x 3.5mm headphone Audio: stereo, 2 x 15 watts, woofer Features: 3D display, edge LED backlight, Teletext, analog and HD digital tuners built-in, four HDMI inputs, 1 tuner PIP, Samsung 3D HyperReal Engine, Motion Plus 200Hz processing, 2 x USB for multimedia playback/WiFi dongle, DLNA certification for Ethernet for multimedia playback, Internet TV, Timeshift/recording with USB device Supplied Accessories: remote control; simplified ‘pebble’ remote control; manual; desktop stand; While stocks last: 2 x 3D glasses; Monsters vs Aliens 3D Blu-ray Energy Rating Label: 6 stars, 526kWh per year Dimensions (WHD): 1284 x 834 x 27mm (without stand) Weight: 22.2kg (without stand)

PROS AND CONS

3DTV display Excellent connectivity and media support Timeshift/recording function Very good picture quality Blacks not as deep as some LED models No S-Video input RATINGS PERFORMANCE

In general, the effect was very impressive.

There was a clear sense of foreground objects hovering in front of the background ones. At times it was positively eerie. Even when I paused a scene, the Blu-ray player and the TV continued to alternate the left eye and right eye images, producing a static 3D effect.

Perhaps surprisingly, the effect was better with slower motion and lower contrast scenes. The first scene on the disc involved a battle with flying ordinance and aircraft and wreckage. I thought that these fast moving objects – their onscreen trajectories clearly optimised for dramatic 3D effect – were often too fast for the eye to resolve the 3D information sufficiently well.

The next scene took place in front of a bright blue sky, with the foreground objects contrasting sharply against this background. But this tended to allow some ghosting to be visible. This might be called ‘crosstalk’ or ‘leakage’ of the information from one eye to the other, and was more apparent if I closed one eye.

This had the effect of reducing the sense of depth significantly, and also tended to smear and obscure detail. For this scene I preferred to switch the TV to 2D mode for the razor sharp detail this provided.

However the next scene – a quite long one – was inside an enclosed space and there weren’t the extremes of contrast. From time to time as massed characters marched in formation, this delivered a thrillingly deep sense of 3D space.

2D TO 3D AND PLAIN OLE 2D

The TV’s own 2D to 3D processing was variable. At times it was so startlingly good that it seemed to be truly replicating the effect of a full 3D capture at the time of filming. At other times there was virtually no effect. And at still other times, it was confusing to the eye.

The Blu-ray player was a little beauty, quite aside from the whole 3D thing. It was the fastest I’ve used: fast to start up, and fast to read discs – typically about 15 seconds to get the picture up on the screen. It did a respectable job of scaling PAL DVDs up to 1080p and worked reliably with all the many Blu-ray discs I used on it.

The player supports a wide range of multimedia, both over a computer network and directly from the Internet, as does the TV. But the wireless connectivity of the Blu-ray player could in many situations make it the more useful source for these things.

…As massed characters marched in formation, this [scene] delivered a thrillingly deep sense of 3D space” CONCLUSION

As I write, if you want to get into 3D TV, there is only one brand in town: Samsung. It is not perfect, but with the right movies it could be pretty exciting.

Of course, there is virtually no software available at the moment. For the time being, if you purchase a Samsung 3DTV you also get a couple of sets of 3D glasses and a proper copy of the 3D version of Monsters vs Aliens on Blu-ray. To watch this you will also need to buy the Samsung Blu-ray player.

In the second half of the year, though, there should be more choices, both of hardware and software. The Blu-ray 3D specification is not proprietary, so all 3D equipment should work with each other, and the large number of 3D movies shown in recent years in the cinema should make it fairly rapidly to 3D Blu-ray, so the future for this enhanced form of viewing looks very promising indeed.

Thomas Bartlett

FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

The BD-C6900 takes only 15 seconds to get a picture to the screen.

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AKTIMATE MINI T

here are some truly incredible high fidelity iPod/iPhone docks around, with glorious speakers built in. But most of them suffer from one enormous problem: they simply aren’t very good at stereo.

This is where the Aktimate Mini comes in.

FEATURES

It would be rude to call the Aktimate Mini, without qualification, an iPod dock. More appropriately, it should be regarded as a pair of high quality compact loudspeakers with a built-in iPod interface and amplifiers.

The Aktimate Mini is in two main parts, each of which looks like an attractively finished bookshelf speaker. They are available in a glossy black, red or white finish.

The right-hand speaker is a 4 ohm loudspeaker with a 25mm metal dome tweeter and a 130mm polypropylene bass/midrange driver in a bass reflex enclosure (the port is at the back). There is no speaker grille, so the larger driver is exposed. A metal mesh protects the face of the tweeter.

The left speaker is the same, except that it is also full of electronics. It has a 40 watt per channel stereo Class A/B amplifier built in. The left speaker connects to the right through a length of regular speaker cable, included with the unit.

On the top under a pop-up panel is an iPod connector.

You get a full set of plastic cradle adaptors with the unit so any iPod Classic, Nano, Touch or iPhone should fit.

Also at the back is a 3.5mm stereo input, suitable for use with any portable music player, a pair of stereo RCA inputs, a pair of stereo RCA outputs and a composite video output. The audio outputs can be used to drive another set of Aktimates (or any other speakers) or a subwoofer, while the composite video output is for displaying video from the iPod (but not menus).

A thoughtful touch is the USB socket. This is provided simply to power USB devices for charging their batteries or whatever. As long as your MP3 player can operate normally while being charged via USB, you can have the same freedom from battery-life considerations as you have with an iPod. A volume control is on the front, but generally you will operate the unit with the credit-card sized remote control

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The iPod dock is concealed beneath a flip-up panel.

PERFORMANCE

My first impression was of fine, balanced and extremely well controlled music, and for the most part that remained my judgement. Especially on sparser recordings, the separating out of instruments from the mix so that they could be enjoyed on their own terms, while still remaining part of the musical whole, was reminiscent of speakers selling for a thousand or more dollars.

The speakers were also extremely well balanced tonally. Bass was more controlled than powerful, but it also remained balanced and beautifully tight, and enough of a rock kit’s kick drum was reproduced in a clean, distortion-free way as to make the speakers sound even more convincing.

The one limitation was volume level. The speakers seemed perfectly happy to produce short-term peaks without limitation or distortion, but when the average level of densely mixed music became high, they became confused and a bit harsh, as though the amplifier ran out of power. That was in my big room at quite high levels. In a modest room and without striving for party levels, they were fine.

I used a current model iPod Classic, a fifth generation iPod and a current model iPod Touch. The first and last worked perfectly, but the 5G iPod didn’t seem at all happy in the dock, rebooting several times, and then producing no sound through the speakers for five minutes before finally kicking into operation. When it did work, selecting another track to play made it reboot back to the Apple logo again.

I was still able use it, charging it from the USB port and running a cable to the 3.5mm input, but the skip and pause facilities of the remote were lost.

If you have an older iPod to which you remain devoted, it’s probably worth checking out compatibility in the shop.

CONCLUSION

But you probably have a newer iPod anyway, and those worked perfectly. You are unlike to find any other ‘iPod dock’ with anywhere near the sophistication in sound quality and excellent stereo performance offered by the AktiMate Mini.

Thomas Bartlett

SPECIFICATIONS Category: iPod speakers/dock Price: $650 Warranty: one year Contact: Epoz Pty Ltd (02) 9450 0789 www.aktimate.com Drivers (for each speaker): 1 x 130mm mid/bass driver with polypropylene cone, 1 x 25mm metal dome tweeter with neodymium magnet Cabinet design: bass reflex Frequency response: 50 hertz to 22,000 hertz, +/-1.5dB Power output: 2 x 40 watts continuous Inputs: iPod/iPhone dock, 1 x analog stereo audio (RCA sockets), 1 x analog stereo audio (3.5mm socket) Outputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x stereo audio (RCA sockets), 1 x USB (for power only) Dimensions (each WHD): 185 x 300 x 210mm Weight (total): 12kg

PROS AND CONS

True high fidelity sound Great stereo performance Strong and musical bass iPhone compatible Remote control Some limitations to volume levels Possibly some incompatibilities with old iPods RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 65

BOX FRESH

PHILIPS CINEMA 21:9 I

t’s not often that one can say this, but the Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD panel is unique, and you can tell that it’s unique at a glance. That’s because instead of having the usual widescreen 16:9 display, it has a super widescreen 21:9 picture.

FEATURES

Why? This size of screen is to optimise the picture when you’re watching a really widescreen movie. These typically have aspect ratios of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, and there are really a lot of them. Just about every commercial cinema release film, in fact. On a regular widescreen display they appear with a black bar at the top of the picture, plus one at the bottom.

With this display, the picture can expand to fill the whole screen, eliminating the black bars, and giving a much bigger picture.

And since the screen itself is quite large, with a 142cm diagonal (56 inches), that really is a very big

picture. In order to provide full 1080p performance, the LCD panel actually has more than the normal number of pixels horizontally: 2560 compared to the usual 1920.

Note that I keep writing ‘display’ rather than ‘TV’.

While there are TV tuners in the unit, these have not been rejigged to work fully in Australia because the distributor’s opinion is that this display is for the connoisseur who would supply suitable HD sources, such as a PS3, Blu-ray player and high definition PVR or Foxtel IQ2. But aside from that it has all the high end features you’d expect from a top of the line television.

No-one does video processing better than Philips, and that was clear with this display” It supports multimedia playback from a USB device, and from networked devices. It not only has an Ethernet port but offers built-in WiFi. This network multimedia support is Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certified, so it will work with Windows Media Player, and a host of other software products, as the server.

It also supports European NetTV, a collection of more than 1000 Internet TV stations from around the world, but continued support for this will depend upon whatever regional control controls the NetTV providers place on their feeds.

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The display has decent built in two-way speakers and Philips’ Ambilight feature. This provides three bars of light at the rear of the display at the top and sides, and these produce backlighting of the display designed to enhance the onscreen appearance.

making the people on screen a little fat), or have it fill the screen as much as possible while keeping everything in proportion.

I preferred the latter, but it’s your choice. It was initially a little odd watching a regular 1.85:1 widescreen movie with black bars down either side of the picture, but it didn’t take long to get used to it.

The ‘Auto’ aspect ratio setting seems to work by examining the picture for black bars and then resizing the picture to eliminate them. With some movies – higher quality ones with good black levels – this led to a problem. The display would sometimes become confused about where the picture ended and the black bars started, making it unexpectedly zoom in and out significantly when there were large areas of black near an edge of the picture.

A simple press on the dedicated Aspect Ratio key on the remote, followed by a manual selection, promptly fixed this.

No-one does video processing better than Philips, and that was clear with this display. A 2.35:1 widescreen movie on Blu-ray was gobsmackingly gorgeous to look at, but even regular DVDs looked exceptionally good.

Philips motion smoothing process (called ‘Perfect Natural Motion’) is one of the best around, and produced extremely smooth motion even on very sharp Blu-ray discs, with virtually no artefacts, and even without adding much of the artificial sheen to the picture that most such circuits manage.

But do beware: this display is slow. It takes a long time – about one fifth of a second – for the video processing to do all its stuff and get the picture up on the screen. If you have your sources plugged into it and use its own speakers for sound, all will be fine. But if you use an external sound system, you will need one that has lip sync adjustment (one with auto lip sync works fine). Otherwise, the picture will be so far behind sound, it will look like the people on screen are speaking a different language and have had the English dubbed.

PERFORMANCE

CONCLUSION

The unit has a wealth of aspect ratio options, including an ‘Auto’ one that does most of the work for you. You can have it blow the picture up to fill the screen entirely, even if it means distorting the geometry slightly (eg.

The Philips Cinema 21:9 56PFL9954H LCD is a genuinely exciting product. It’s expensive, but I’m not aware of any other product that will do what it does, and I doubt that any would do it as well.

Thomas Bartlett

16:9 1.85:1 2.40:1 Most movies have aspect ratios of 1.85:1 or 2.35:1 or 2.40:1, and these display with bars at the top and bottom on conventional 16:9 widescreen televisions.

The Philips Cinema 21:9 eliminates these bars so that the film fills the screen SPECIFICATIONS Category: LCD TV Price: $8990 Warranty: two years Contact: QualiFi Pty Ltd 1800 242 426 www.qualifi.com.au Image: LCD; 142cm diagonal; 21:9 aspect, 2560 x 1,080 pixels; 500cd/ square metre brightness; 80,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio Inputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 2 x SCART (supporting stereo audio, composite video and RGB), 5 x HDMI, 2 x stereo audio, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, WiFi Outputs: 1 x stereo audio, 1 x coaxial digital, 1 x headphone Audio: 4 speakers, 2 x woofers, 2 x dome tweeters, stereo, 2 x 15 watts Features: 21:9 movie aspect ratio; multimedia display and playback from network (wired or WiFi, using DLNA) and USB; Pixel Perfect HD Engine; Perfect Natural Motion; 3 sided Ambilight; 1ms panel response (grey to grey); 17 bit colour processing for over two quadrillion colours Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; wall bracket Energy Rating: 3 stars, 912 kWh/ year Dimensions (WHD): 1418 x 691 x 105mm (without stand) Weight: 31.9kg (without stand)

PROS AND CONS

Unique picture when it comes to very widescreen movies Full high definition picture Superb picture quality Very complicated Must have lip sync adjustment in audio equipment due to delayed video processing No effective TV tuner RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 67

BOX FRESH

MITSUBISHI HC7000 E

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: Projector Price: $5299 Warranty: two years (lamp: 500 hours or one year, whichever comes first) Contact: Mitsubishi Electric Australia 1800 652 216 www.mitsubishielectric.com.au Image: 16:9 native, 3 x 1920 x 1080 18.8mm LCD panels; Brightness: 1000 lumens; 72,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio Lamp: 2000 hours in regular (160 watts) mode, 5,000 hours in low output (128 watts) mode Inputs: 1 x composite, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component, 2 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15 computer Features: powered zoom, focus, vertical and horizontal lens shift; 17dBa noise in low output mode; Reon-VX HQV video processing; Deep Colour support; Anamorphic Lens support; RS-232C control port; 12V trigger port Supplied accessories: remote control Dimensions (WHD): 427 x 159 x 440mm Weight: 7.5kg

PROS AND CONS

Excellent picture quality Brilliant Reon-VX/HQV video processing Easy setup with powered controls Very good black levels Lacks some leading edge features, such as frame-interpolation motion smoothing RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

ven though the Mitsubishi HC7000 is the highest cost unit from that company’s three model line-up, it still comes in at only a little over $5000. Yet for that you receive performance that would have cost you eight times that amount five years ago.

FEATURES The projector is based on LCD technology, which has come a long way in recent years. The three LCD panels offer the full high definition resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and quite respectable levels of black ‘natively’. However that is enhanced enormously by the use of what Mitsubishi calls its ‘Diamond Black Iris’. This is a technique for clamping down on the levels of light produced by the projector by physically blocking it, limiting it to the momentary requirements of the picture. In Mitsubishi’s system, this can operate at up to 1/60th of a second, so no matter what the format – from DVD to Blu-ray – each individual frame of the video receives the optimum amount of light for its contents. The company says that the dynamic contrast ratio of the projector is an impressive 72,000:1.

The projector also sports powered adjustments, so you can use the remote control to set the focus and the zoom (1.6x), plus apply left and right, and up and down lens shift. That allows considerable placement flexibility for the projector.

You get the usual range of analog video inputs, plus two HDMI ones. There is also an RS-232C port so installers can wire it into a control system, and a 12 volt trigger output allows the unit to fire up a projection screen to be automatically deployed.

PERFORMANCE Setting up this projector was very easy, thanks to the good range of adjustments and the ability to use the remote control to make the adjustments. Some powered adjustments on other projectors can be hard to get right because the control adjustments are too course, but this projector has two speed settings, so you can get things very precise. A menu item allows these adjustments to be locked in place so they won’t be upset by an accidental press on a remote control key.

Once this was done, I was able to enjoy a massive 100 inch picture of extremely high quality. I used the default reduced power mode which more than doubles the lamp

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life and found that it produced plenty of brightness in my room, while also delivering strong blacks. The default colour settings were pretty good, although I made some small improvements with a little tweaking of the colour settings using a calibration disc.

One of the major problems with large display screens is that any instability in fine detail, or artefacts generated by poor quality video processing, is extremely obvious.

But this projector uses the Reon-VX processor to do all progressive scan conversion and scaling. This is one of the best video processors in the business, so even in automatic mode the results were very nearly perfect. There are ‘mode’ settings also available (‘Film’ and ‘Video’) that can be used to override the automatic processing should even this prove unequal to the task. Even the most troublesome DVDs, fed to the projector in native 576i format via HDMI, were rendered absolutely perfectly when ‘Film’ was selected.

So I just set my Blu-ray player to output the ‘Native’ video format, whether 576i from PAL DVDs or 1080i or 1080p from Blu-ray discs. And the results were as good as it’s possible to get.

CONCLUSION Perhaps the only significant omission from this projector is that it does not incorporate any form of motion smoothing, judder reducing technology that generates intermediate frames between the real ones.

But if you’re primarily interested in seeing a faithful rendition of whatever source you are feeding your display, this projector comes closer to that faithfulness than most.

Thomas Bartlett

The default colour settings were pretty good, although I made some small improvements with a little tweaking of the colour settings using a calibration disc” VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

TOPFIELD TRF-7160 H ave PVRs become just another necessary brick in your wall of AV gear? Topfield certainly seems to think so with the TRF-7160. It’s a quality unit, so it would be unfair to call it “no frills”, and if your main priority is reliable and dependable recording of your shows, this might not be a bad thing.

FEATURES This is a PVR that ticks all the boxes... even if it doesn’t raise any eyebrows. A 500GB hard drive will hold hundreds of hours of recording, and you can add a further terabyte via an external drive if you’re keen. While you can transfer recordings between the Topfield’s internal drive and the external HDD, recordings stored on the HDD are encoded so that they cannot be accessed by another device, such as a PC or USB-equipped TV. Meanwhile, dual receivers mean you can record two channels at once – and a firmware upgrade will let you record four (but with a catch – see below).

The included remote isn’t exactly premium grade, and its grid of tiny buttons can be confusing, especially when it comes to basic commands like playing and fast-forwarding.

There’s HDMI output of course, and the maximum supported resolution is 1080i. Don’t be alarmed that it’s not 1080p – none of the networks broadcast in this standard and, if you have a good quality recent-model television, it will upconvert video from the Topfield to the higher quality 1080p anyway.

Network connectivity allows you to enable remote recording via the Internet, play an forgettable game online and manage some very basic media serving capabilities that are so arcane to set up it’s barely worth the trouble.

The unit will also playback MP3, JPEG and Divx HD files from devices connected via its USB port.

SETUP Straightforward installation is a blessing these days.

Plug your PVR into the antenna, attach to your TV or AV receiver via HDMI, and the system will automatically select the highest resolution your TV can support – although, only up to 1080i.

Scanning for stations is standard, and you can then arrange the list into favourites or drop unwanted stations entirely.

The seven-day EPG is sucked down off the air as well, so there’s no set-up required. As soon as your stations are scanned and locked in, you’re ready to record!

That said, there is a new firmware available from the Topfield website, that enables Quad Recording. You need

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to download the firmware to a USB stick, stick that in the back of the PVR, and then select ‘firmware upgrade’ from the setup menu.

PERFORMANCE

Again, the TRF-7160 is a decent, standard, no-fuss PVR. Seven-day EPG lets you schedule your recordings: you simply highlight the desired program and push the okay button.

Two physical HD tuners means you can either record two channels at once, or record and watch, or record one channel while pausing another. The firmware update mentioned above enables Quad recording (this is promoted heavily on the box) but there’s a bit of a trick here.

In the whacky world of digital TV, services (ABC, Seven, Nine etc) are split into sub-channels: ABC2, ABC3, 7TWO et al. When you enable Quad Recording, you can record two sub-channels at the same time from one service, and then another two sub-channels from another.

So you could record ABC HD, ABC2, 7HD, and then be watching 7TWO. Sounds confusing? The remote helpfully blacks out all channels that can’t be viewed because of current recording.

Even without the firmware upgrade, you can record two channels and watch a third as long as its on one of the services being recorded.

CONCLUSION Quad Recording is a handy feature for the person who really can’t stand to miss a single moment on their favourite network, though we’ll resist the urge to make some crack about whether or not there’s actually that much worth recording on TV these days... The ability to record four channels is also, to our knowledge (and with the exception of Foxtel’s IQ Pay-TV box) unique in the marketplace at the time of writing.

Also in the TRF-7160’s favour is the lack of Freeview certification. This means it has a skip function, for, well, skipping all those ads you’ve recorded.

Anthony Fordham

The unit will also playback MP3, JPEG and Divx HD files from devices connected via its USB port”

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Personal Video Recorder Price: $699 Warranty: 12 months Contact: www.topfield.com.au 1300 766 440 Tuners: 2 x high definition digital Hard drive: 500GB (supplied, 1TB max) Inputs: RF antenna, USB, Ethernet Outputs: HDMI, component, composite, optical digital audio, coax digital audio Resolution: 1080i max Dimensions: 60 x 340 x 265mm Weight: 3.1kg

PROS AND CONS

Quad Recording expands recording options Ad skipping Expandable capacity Quad Recording doesn’t allow recording of four channels from separate networks Ho-hum networking and media serving features RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 69

BOX FRESH

SONY BRAVIA KDL-52NX800 LCD TV W

ith Sony’s new TV launch a couple of months ago it focused primarily on two things. The first was the forthcoming 3D models, and, no, the model under review here is not one of them. The other was the company’s decision to add a bit of a tilt to its TVs. It strongly believes that TV viewing is more enjoyable if the TV is a little below eye level, and tilted slightly up to present an undistorted face to the viewer.

Its regular desktop stand came in the box, I was also supplied the SU-52NX1 aluminium stand (a $349 option). This is a full width unit with a slot to hold the base of the TV. It defaults to allow the TV to rest canted back by six degrees, but can be adjusted to make it upright. It is completely passive, but curved sound guides capture the audio from the TV’s downwards firing speakers and redirect it forwards through a grille. The regular stand also defaults to the lean-back posture.

FEATURES

The NX800 series is Sony’s top end (aside from the forthcoming 3D models) range. The KDL-52NX800 is, of course, a full high definition model with a nicely large (132cm) screen. But it also has a very thin body.

Even though I’ve put 64mm in the specifications box, as specified by Sony, it looks a great deal thinner than that. That width is for the bottom part of the display, where some of the electronics protrude and provision is made for attaching the stand. Looked at casually, the display looks no thicker than the rest of the panel, which is only 25mm deep.

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BRAVIA IPTV CHANNELS Accessed via Sony’s cross media bar interface, Internet video channels available via the NX series of Bravia televsions include a mix of unique programming, video on demand and catch-up TV from : ABC iView, Yahoo 7, SBS, Billabong, You Tube, Wired, Golflike, eHow, Video Detective, Livestrong, Ford Models, Epicurious, blip and Style.com.

The TV’s face is covered in an unbroken sheet of glass from top to bottom, side to side, making it look quite attractive.

As for features, think ‘everything’. There is networking via a cabled Ethernet connection or Wi-Fi, and USB to play back multimedia. And also direct connection to a number of video portals over the Internet, something else that Sony sees as growing rapidly. The convenience of the networking capability is assisted immensely by the built-in WiFi support, although setup for this is a little more complicated than via Ethernet (you have to enter a password).

PERFORMANCE

All those cool features seemed to work nicely. My only complaint would be that if you pick one of the IPTV video portals and choose one of the thumbnails to start a video playing, when it gets to the end the TV goes immediately to the next one. And so on. If you happen to wander off without paying proper attention, it is possible you could inadvertently wipe out your month’s bandwidth allowance.

Still, the quality was generally quite good. For Internet video, very good. You can zoom the picture up to four times its native resolution, so you get a choice of small, sharp pictures, or larger softer ones.

As for core functionality, this TV was truly lovely.

Easily the best done by Sony yet, the clarity of the TV seemed to offer a window straight through to the source.

It was revealing, and while the best DVDs looked magnificent, the many with excessive sharpening or edge enhancement suffered from the TV’s transparency. The MPEG noise reduction circuit in the TV could only do so much.

SDTV actually looked as good as the better DVDs for the most part, but it was with HDTV and Blu-ray that this TV truly shone.

The black levels were very good in this LED-lid panel, despite the use of edge-LED technology (which is designed to keep the panel thin) rather than a grid of LEDs behind the display. That provided a solid basis for deep, rich colours.

I would have liked an extra setting on the Motionflow 200Hz processor. By default it was on ‘Standard’, and this tended to allow a little judder to creep through, rather than providing totally smooth picture movement.

The ‘High’ setting overdid things, producing some heat haze around moving objects and, worse, making some fine objects twist and warp weirdly. Somewhere in between the two might have struck just the right balance.

CONCLUSION

But those are minor complaints. This is an excellent TV, with a very large screen, at a great price. Whether you want it tilted back or not, you will enjoy what it can produce.

Thomas Bartlett

SPECIFICATIONS Category: LCD TV Price: $4999 Warranty: one year Contact: Sony Australia Limited 1300 137 669 www.sony.com.au Image: LCD; 132cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels; brightness not stated; contrast ratio not stated; panel response time not stated Inputs: 2 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 4 x HDMI, 3 x stereo audio, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, 1 x WiFi Outputs: 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x headphone Audio: stereo, speakers not stated, 2 x 10 watts Features: slim panel, analog TV tuner, HD digital TV tuner, Bravia Engine 3, 24p True Cinema, Motionflow 200Hz, USB/DLNA JPEG, MP3, LPCM, MPEG2 & AVCHD playback, picture and picture mode Supplied Accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand Dimensions (WHD): 1261 x 787 x 64mm (without stand) Weight: 30.2kg (without stand)

PROS AND CONS

Slim panel Full high definition display Excellent picture Excellent multimedia support via USB, network and WiFi Supports Internet TV No S-Video An intermediate option on the Motionflow 200Hz circuit would be useful RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 71

HOW TO AUDITION

You’ve decided to buy an entertainment system, but how do you know that what you’re looking at and listening to is any good? Here’s the heads-up on how to audition like a pro.

W

hen you visit the store to choose your new HDTV, you’ll be faced with a gigantic wall of sets in a wide range of sizes, and at a wide range of pricepoints. Figuring out which one is right for you can be tricky.

Some stores have all TVs showing the same signal, so you can get some idea of picture quality by comparing like with like. But you can’t blame the sales team for wanting to make the TVs look their best: they’ll typically show movies that were shot on digital cameras, or even animated movies with large areas of block colour which are easy for the TV’s circuitry to handle.

You can ask to try out your own content on your preferred TV, and a good saleman will provide a DVD or Blu-ray player for you.

Choosing the right content will make all the difference in the audition process.

Typically, you want to check the TV’s ability to show colour, fine detail, fast movement and contrast. Let’s examine each.

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COLOUR

Bring along a nature documentary for realistic colours, and a kid’s animated movie for bright, oversaturated tones. Look especially at reds and greens: some TVs don’t handle these colours as well as others.

FINE DETAIL

Again, nature documentaries on Blu-ray are an excellent way to check the TV’s ability to render fine detail. Wide panoramas and close-ups on animals such as birds will show up any oddities in the way the display handles repeated patterns.

CONTRAST

You might not be a horror film fan, but scary movies love the dark and are a great source to see how a TV handles extremes of light and shade. Can you see the killer lurking in the shadows or does a poor contrast ratio wash out this subtle detail?

HD AND SD

FAST MOVEMENT

The best source here is a sports broadcast, especially football or soccer. Can you follow the ball as it’s belted down the field? Action movies are also a good place to look for blurring.

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You should try out both HD and standard definition content. SD is any DVD, just bring your favourite movie. Does it look hopelessly grainy?

Or is the TV doing a good job of handling this comparatively low-res content?

Make sure the player you’re using isn’t set to upscale SD content.

Bring a Blu-ray movie too, or ask to see one running.

Since BD uses 1080p, it’s the highest resolution content you’ll be able to see in-store.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 73

HOW TO AUDITION

SAMPLE WIDELY

Audio turns a good HDTV experience into a sublime one, so spending time with your speakers is vital.

Don’t be afraid to tell the salesperson that despite all your research, you just don’t like the way speakers sound.

There’s always another set in the storeroom!

BASS

Determining the speaker system that is most likely to impress your ear is assisted by first looking at some key speaker characteristics.

For music, speakers with bigger drivers that push more air tend to provide better bass performance. For movies, where deep bass is important for generating mood, a dedicated subwoofer is often the better choice.

74 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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L

ike a display, it’s important to try your audio system before you buy. In many ways, audio is much more personal and nuanced than vision – a high end HDTV with an excellent video processing engine will produce a picture that the vast majority of people will agree is good. But two speaker systems of equal quality will appeal to very different listeners.

It’s because audio can be ‘biased’ toward a particular kind of music, or movie sound.

Some systems excel at the crisp and fairly uncompromising sound of electronica or albums that have been recorded exclusively with digital equipment. Other speakers are better at bringing across the subtleties of an analog recording, even if it’s been since transferred to CD. Choosing a speaker system is 80 percent about features, power and quality, but there’s that vital 20 percent of your personal enjoyment.

KNOW YOUR OWN EAR

The proof of any speaker is in the listening. Only you know if you like the sound that comes out of your prospective speakers. Do you prefer sharp treble, or lots of boomy bass? A complete flat, balanced sound? Or something on the almost limitless spectrum in between?

Listen for elements of the audio that could irritate you. When characters in a movie pronounce ‘s’ or ‘t’ sounds, is the system very harsh, almost staticky? When they say ‘b’ or ‘p’, is the bass level too extreme?

VOLUME

The ability for a speaker to play loud doesn’t just mean volume levels that will deafen the neighbours. A speaker capable of putting out high decibel levels (89-93 dBSPL or higher) often reproduces sound with depth and detail as well.

REALISM

When you listen to music, does it just sound like a CD player?

Or does it sound like you’re really there, in the concert hall?

Can you close your eyes and picture where the musicians and instruments are on the stage in front of you? Can you locate which surround sound effects are coming from where when watching a movie? Are the sounds close or far away?

Are they coming from the correct place, and supporting the action on the screen?

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WHAT TO TAKE

Auditioning an audio system? Here is some handy content to take along: • a DVD or Blu-ray of a very recent, action heavy movie • a DVD or Blu-ray of a movie with lots of dialogue • a CD of your favourite music • a digital music player such as an iPod The action movie will give the system a thorough workout, the dialogue-heavy movie will let you see how clear speech is, your favourite CD will let you hear how the speakers deal with your preferred music, and a digital music player will let you test compressed audio.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 75

DIGITAL SHACK Lighting control systems don’t just turn the house lights on and off to a schedule, they permit a range of moods to be created throughout the house, and within individual rooms.

ENLIGHT How lighting control systems bring your home out of the Dark Age. By Thomas Bartlett

F

rom a science fiction Blog: “2010. Two thousand and (bleep)ing ten. Dude.

It’s the future! Where are my space habitats? Where is my flying car?

Where is my robot maid? I made it to 2010 and all I got from the sci-fi books of my youth is the lousy dystopian government.”

Also missing is the robot house, the silicon Jeeves which, in a mannered English accent, asks for your daily schedule. Without anything further, this electronic butler would have the (electric) fires stoked for your return that evening, switching on the driveway’s lights moments before you arrive home, while having previously drawn the curtains.

You may want a system that emphasises green concerns, minimising power consumption without unduly lowering your living conditions” 76 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

All that would be left, upon it unlocking the door, would be for its cultured, disembodied welcome: “Good evening, sir.”

In fact, most of that picture is achievable today.

What has not been achieved is the human-like interface, and the anticipation of your wishes. All else can be done right now.

2010’s attempt at an electronic Jeeves

Lighting control is something rarely offered in isolation these days. Instead it forms part of home automation systems.

Of course, home automation falls short of the ideal science fiction Jeeves, because it will not make you a nice cup of tea – nor mix a martini – nor turn down your bed, nor even draw your bath.

But it will switch on your lights, and switch them off, and provide security from intruders, and wake you up in the morning – gently or rudely, to your taste – and feed you video of the world outside from beyond your walls (sometimes even beyond your property).

It will manage the complexities of your home entertainment system, and since curtains control light as much as light bulbs, it will even tell them to open and close.

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ENMENT And it can do all of these to command, or to timer, according to your preference.

The system may be a hyper alarm clock, switching on lights and music in the morning to get you up for work. Or it may be a simple assistant, dimming the lights, turning on your home theatre system, lowering a projection screen, closing curtains, and selecting the Blu-ray player … all with the single solitary touch of an icon on the wallmounted LCD panel.

There are three elements to this. First, there is the greasy machinery and the steaming boiler room of operation: the technical stuff that allows this to happen.

Then there is the hard part: the interface. The means by which your desires are translated into actions.

Finally, and more prosaically, there is the act of installing a system into your home. Let us go through these.

More important is the issue of control. This is the underlying system that takes a command from the press of your finger on a virtual button on the touch sensitive LCD, and turns it into an action of your lighting system.

There are several ‘protocols’ and communication systems for this. Some setups use powerlines, but a system can also work wirelessly, or via a proprietary wired system, such as Cat 5, or by an IP (Internet Protocol) compatible network.

Lighting control systems allow you to operate more than just lights – you can manage music, temperature, security systems, appliances and more from interfaces positioned just about anywhere in your home.

Under the bonnet

So, how does it all work? The actual control of devices is relatively simple, with a multitude of solid state or electro-mechanical devices to either control the voltage that will be delivered, or alternatively to switch on and off devices. In our present case, those devices will be lights, but they could equally be any other mains controllable gadget.

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 77

DIGITAL SHACK

The important point is that you tell the system to switch on the entry hall light at 5:30pm, or right now, and it happens as requested. Or you tell the system to dim light bank ‘C’ to 30 percent (and perhaps bring up a couple of spots on your artworks at the same time) with a simple touch of a key, and that also happens.

There are a range of systems, catering to a range of desires. Your main interest may be in convenience, with you exercising manual control over everything, but easily from one central location.

Or you may want the system to do nearly everything automatically, turning on lights and controlling curtains according to a schedule and the time of year.

Or you may want a system that emphasises green concerns, minimising power consumption without unduly lowering your living conditions.

All these, and more, are available.

So how do you tell all this to happen?

Any control system needs to be easy to access and use. The Control 4 interface is available as a downloadable app for mobile devices, such as the iPad/iPone/Touch, as wall-mountable plates with LCD screens (see bright), and as tabletop touchscreen tablet devices (see above).

A handsome butler

Of course, the screen interfaces come in a number of different flavours, depending on the brand. Some are wall mounted, while others sit as a kind of tilted panel on your coffee table. Most have the option for multiple locations, sometimes with a master controller and then one or more smaller units.

These days, they have colour screens, clear layouts, and are highly programmable. We discuss this programmability – do you want to do it yourself, or have it done for you? – in the next section.

Finally, while we generally don’t mention brands in guides such as this, Apple’s products are as much industry standards as branded items. And already both the iPhone and the iTouch have applets available for them which can interface with some of the leading brands of controller, allowing you incredible mobility without having to carry anything extra with you (you do always have your iTouch in your pocket, don’t you?).

And you can be sure these same apps will find a home in Apple’s newly released iPad.

Jeeves may be mute and responsive only to pushes of his touch screen controller, but he can look damned good.

The days of plasticky and clunky controls are long gone.

In fact, quite aside from anything else, the light switches and controllers provided with many of these systems are far nicer looking than the standard switches available from your local hardware store or electrician.

And the controllers have clearly had aesthetics firmly at the front of the minds of their designers, with some available even with decorator surrounds, or bezels capable of accepting any custom finish.

78 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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One day, eventually, just about all homes will have automation systems for controlling not just their lights, but their appliances” How do you do it?

Let us cut to the chase very quickly: you don’t. That’s all there is to it. You will need to get someone in to do it for you.

Sure, most of us who are not technophobes have occasionally changed a power point in our home, or installed a dimmer or a new light fitting, regardless of what our local laws and regulations may say.

But a full control system for your lighting is a huge leap up in complexity, and consequently for the chance for things to go wrong. And if things go wrong with power wiring, then you don’t just have broken equipment, you end up with smouldering ruins where your home used to be.

In addition, programming the controllers isn’t really for the fainthearted. Surely some readers will want to get into this, because for those of us who truly love our gadgets, this can be fun. But it’s good, even for us, to have a working platform from which to start.

Your installer – often called a ‘systems integrator’ – will help you select a system that will meet your needs.

Most of the various competing systems will perform most, or all, of the functions one should sensibly demand of it. But there are several marked points of differentiation between them.

For example, there are the underlying control protocols and communications systems. Some are proprietary – developed by a particular manufacturer

to do what it believes to be a better job than offthe-shelf standards – while others conform to those standards. The latter sometimes allow some mixing and matching.

The most obvious difference of all is the look and feel of the control system.

Allow your choice to be influenced by how intuitive the control system feels to you, and if you are so inclined, how easily you can further customise it for your personal needs.

For your installer will include a pre-programmed system, based on a standard template that the installer’s company has developed through experience with many customers. And he (it’s almost always a he) will tune it somewhat to match the specific capabilities and devices in your home. But he will go away eventually.

After a little practice, most people will find the controlling functions he has left behind wonderfully usable. But those of us who are uncontrollable tweakers really should be happy that we understand how to make changes so that we can fiddle the system into a more highly personalised device.

As for the actual installation, as with all these things the best time to plan is while your home is still on the drawing board. That way all options will be open to you, including the laying of cables in otherwise inaccessible places.

Many automation systems use the electrical wiring that powers the home’s lights to send command signals to connected systems, such as security, temperature and theatres.

HOME AUTOMATION CONTROL INTERFACE

SIGNAL PATH

CONTROLLABLE SYSTEMS

Tabletop controller

Lights wiring

Air conditioning

Wall mount controller

Powerlines

Curtains, blinds

Data cable

Lighting moods

Proprietary cable

Security cameras and alarms

Wireless (WiFi, Zigbee)

AV systems

Portable handset Mobile device (iPod, iPad, iPhone)

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Garage doors

Appliances (washing machines, sprinklers)

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 79

DIGITAL SHACK The future

Control over power lines?

WiFi and similar wireless technologies are all the rage, but for lighting control, they’re not always necessary. If you can be certain of one thing, it is that all your lights are wired together. They must be, for they must be supplied with power.

Well, since everything is connected together with wire, is there any way of sending control signals down the power cable?

Indeed there is, and that is the core of the X10 communications standard. Well, actually, there are two cores. One is the means of sending signals down the wire, and the other is the set of signals themselves.

Power cable in Australia carries a high voltage: alternating current at 240 volts RMS approximately. But it is fairly precisely constrained to a 50 hertz frequency. All the control information can be run down the same cable at a much lower voltage simply by using a different frequency. X10 uses 120,000 hertz as the ‘carrier’. This carrier is switched on and off in short bursts to give four ‘bit’ digital signals. Each signal has a meaning: for example, ‘reduce the brightness of this device’, ‘switch on that device’. And so on.

Introduced back in prehistoric times – actually, 1975 – it has been enhanced with support for wireless communications as well.

Of course, X10 isn’t the only standard. There is an international standard (IEC 61334) designed for longer range communications, and a more robust version called Universal Powerline Bus, but while the technical details vary, the overall concept is the same.

Of course, this is impractical for most of us, so installers have a range of systems that can accommodate themselves to existing homes.

Which installer? Avoid fly-by-night operations because this stuff can be complicated. It is essential that the installer be highly experienced. We always suggest you contact CEDIA – the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association – at www.cedia.com. au, or on (02) 9666 1677. It maintains high standards amongst its members.

We hesitate to even talk about the future here. After all, one thing we know for certain is that whatever piece of technology you buy today, in five years time you will almost certainly be able to get something more powerful, more capable, lower in cost and, probably, even easier to use.

That’s the case with computers, with home entertainment equipment – especially TVs – and with home automation equipment.

But we can’t defer all purchases because tomorrow’s products will be better, because we will have the same dilemma when tomorrow comes, since we will know that the next day’s product will be better still.

Instead the judgement needs to be: does today’s product do what I want it to? Does it do it well enough to meet my needs? Will its automating functions make my life easer, and will the other members of my family be able to use it easily. And, can I afford it?

Answer those questions in the affirmative and it’s time to buy.

But if you – or the technology – aren’t quite there yet, we’ll tell you that we see improvements primarily in two areas.

The first will be more control over a wider range of gadgets. More products will have controllability built in, so that instead of simply being able to be switched on and off by your home automation system (and dimmed in the case of lighting), they will also be able to be programmed and have their full range of capabilities made available to the control system. This may be via simple remote control functionality (whether IR, Bluetooth, Zigbee, WiFi or some other RF system), or by them adopting one of the standard sets of commands internally so that they can be controlled over the power network, Powerline and X10-like.

The other, and most challenging, will be the interface. Don’t expect a revolutionary change tomorrow, but they will continue to be improved, and made easier to use, incrementally, as time passes.

While they are getting better, we won’t be truly satisfied until the ultimate in intuitive interfaces finally becomes practicable: “Jeeves, I’m not sure quite when I shall be home this evening, but I will be eating there.”

“Of course, sir. I shall have dinner on the table and the fire set as you walk in the door.” n

Control for a greener future One day, eventually, just about all homes will have automation systems for controlling not just their lights, but their appliances.

It’s likely that this will become necessary if only in response to increasing government requirements regarding energy efficiency.

The government is in the process of rolling out energy-use standards to be conformed to by all appliances, but the ultimate power reduction comes from switching appliances – and lights – off when they are not needed.

This is something that can be done today by any home automation system.

Obviously you don’t want the freezer switched off! But those concerned with the trickle current drawn by the household devices in standby mode can have them all shut down when no-one’s around … automatically. Likewise, there is no reason for any lights to be one when no-one is home.

80 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

Looking further into the future, the ‘smart grid’ will become a reality.

Presently this is in the early stages of experimentation and exploration, but it will be a way for your electricity company’s computers to communicate, over the powerlines most likely, with your home and its appliances.

One use of this will be for the company to electronically and instantly notify your home of power issues, including the rates being charged for electricity from moment to moment (variable charges are a potent way of shifting electrical consumption to more efficient production times).

When this comes to pass, we can expect to see suitable interfaces so that your intelligent home automation system can shift the electrical demands of your appliances and lighting to those periods where the costs are lowest, saving you money.

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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

NSW 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 (Drummoyne) 137 Victoria Road Drummoyne NSW 2047 02 9561 0788 www.audioconnection.com.au Audio Solutions 1133 Botany Road, Mascot, NSW 2020 02 9317 3330 www.audiosolutions.net.au Audiovisual Unlimited 5/686 New South Head Road Rose Bay, NSW 2029 02 9371 2052 www.audiovisualunlimited.com.au Audio Visual Lifestyle 86 Merewether Street Merewether NSW 2291 02 49 635304 avlifestyle@exemail.com.au Automated Innovation Unit 2, 51 Pacific Highway Bennetts Green NSW 2290 02 49 484812 www.automatedinnovation.com.au AVD Australia Pty Ltd 55 Atchison Street St Leonards NSW 2065 02 9906 2424 www.avd.com.au BJM Integration PO Box 2344 Redhead NSW 2290 02 4944 9333 www.bjmelectrical.com.au Castle Integrated Media 372 B Military Road Cremorne NSW 2090 02 9953 8037 www.castleintegrated.com.au

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CHM Electronics 138 / 2 - 18 Buchanan Street Balmain NSW 2041 02 9566 2570 www.chmelectronics.com CONNEXIONS (NSW) Pty Ltd 19C Grace Ave Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086 02 9453 2766 connexions@cnxns.com.au Control Freq Suite 422, 29 Smith Street Parramatta NSW 2150 02 9632 5999 www.controlfreq.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 E.C.S. Services Pty Ltd 22 Forestwood Cr West Pennant Hills, NSW 2125 02 9871 4061 www.ecss.com.au EBM Systems PO Box 1865 Hornsby Westfield, NSW 1635 02 9029 9245 www.ebmsystems.com.au Electronic Environments 1 Lansdowne Parade Oatley, NSW 2223 02 9585 1233 www.electronicenvironments.com.au Eris McCarthy Home Technology PO Box 8099 Tumbi Umbi, NSW 2261 02 4389 1990 www.erismccarthy.com.au Harvey Norman Commercial Home Automation Systems 15 - 21 Atkinson Rd Taren Point, NSW 2229 02 9710 4321 www.hncommercial.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

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

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

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

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

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

JFK Audio Visual L3, 18/81-91 Military Road Neutral Bay NSW 2089 0414 434 535 www.jfk.com.au

TJA Communications PO Box 300 Seven Hills, NSW 2147 02 9838 4622 www.tjacom.com.au

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

The Silent Butler 57 Himalaya Crescent Seven Hills NSW 2147 0416 153 433 www.thesilentbutler.com.au

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

Tomorrows Home & Business 430 New South Head Road Double Bay NSW 2028 1300 880 840 www.tomorrows.com.au

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

Wavetrain Cinemas 10, 1 - 13 Atkinson Road Taren Point NSW 2229 02 9526 5497 www.wavetrain.com.au

LovemyTV PO Box 3320 Sutherland, NSW 2234 0439 888 113 www.lovemytv.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 New Fidelity Pty Ltd 392 Darling Street Balmain, NSW 2041 02 9818 2333 www.newfidelity.com.au Nova Comm Pty Ltd 8 / 280 New Line Road Dural, NSW 2158 02 9651 6430 www.novacomm.com.au Onetouch PO Box 3002 Balgownie, NSW 2519 0437 649634 mick@onetouch.net.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 Smart Home Solutions Unit 21 56 O’Riordan Street Alexandria, NSW 2015 02 9304 4700 www.smarthomes.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 Digital Brilliance PO Box 981 Buderim QLD 4556 07 5445 2180 www.digitalbrilliance.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 Harvey Norman Home Automation PO Box 5935 GCMC Bundall, QLD 4217 07 5584 3128 joe.blair@au.harveynorman.com HomeTech Systems Pty Ltd PO Box 979 Nerang QLD 4211 07 5502 0760 info@hometechsystems.com.au

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 81

CEDIA

Hoopers Sound Centre 97 Sorensen Road Gympie NSW 4570 07 5482 3409 www.hooperssound.com

Cableman Pty Ltd Level 1/1227 Glen Huntly Road Glen Huntly, VIC 3163 03 9572 8900 www.cableman.com.au

Home Theatrix Unit 11 Nautilus Business Park 210 Queensport Rd Murarrie, QLD 4172 1 300 555 270 www.hometheatrix.com.au

Carlton Audio Visual 164 - 172 Lygon St, Carlton, VIC 3053 03 9639 2737 www.carltonaudiovisual.com.au

In Sight & Sound Pty Ltd 125 Shamley Heath Road Kureelpa, QLD 4560 07 5445 7799 www.in-sight.com.au Look & Listen 6 Ascot Street Murarrie QLD 4172 1300 765 322 www.lookandlisten.com.au Power Integration 9 Senden Crescent Manly West QLD 4179 1300 797 468 www.powerintegration.com.au The Big Picture 14/96 Gardens Drive Willawong QLD 4110 1300 799 734 mskehan@thebigpictureav.com.au Todds Hi Fi 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 Visiontronics Unit 1/7 Endeavor Drive Kunda Park QLD 4556 1300 306 893 www.visiontronics.com.au Visual Focus 16 Clifford Street Toowoomba QLD 4350 617 4632 0402 www.visualfocus.com.au

SA 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

TAS Nation Technology Level 1, 2 Trotters Lane Prospect, TAS 7250 03 6343 0655 www.nationtechnology.com

VIC Advanced Lifestyle Solutions Pty Ltd PO Box 360, Niddrie, VIC 3042 03 8307 5618 www.advancedlifestylesolutions.com.au

Custom Home Theatre PO Box 963 Berwick VIC 3806 03 9796 2617 www.customhometheatre.com.au Encel Stereo - Richmond 84 Bridge Road, Richmond, VIC 3121 03 9428 3761 www.encelstereo com.au Frankston Hi Fi 450 Nepean Highway Frankston, VIC 3199 03 9781 1111 www.frankstonhifi.com.au Hidden Technology P.O. Box 1084 Altona Meadows 3028 03 8685 8544 www.hiddentechnology.com.au howdoi.com pty ltd 6a / 4 Rocklea Drive Port Melbourne, VIC 3207 03 9646 9116 www.howdoi.com.au IBS Audio Visual Pty Ltd 43 Dalgety Street Oakleigh VIC 3166 03 9568 2800 www.ibsav.com.au Impact Electrics 3 England Street Bentleigh East, VIC 3165 03 9209 8140 impactelectrics@optusnet.com.au Insight Systems Group Factory 1, 256 Bolton Street Eltham VIC 8008 1300 369 451 www.insightsystems.com.au Integrated Technologies Australia PO Box 570, Kilsyth, VIC 3137 03 9761 8700 www.integratedtechnologiesaustralia.com.au Interior Sound and Vision PO Box 1093, Niddrie, VIC 3042 03 9336 7643 www.isvinfo.com.au Inteverge Pty Ltd PO Box 2501, Kew, VIC 3101 0409 178 076 www.inteverge.com Smart Systems Pty Ltd 0Church Street, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 03 9818 8006 www.smartsystems.com.au Tasman AV Pty Ltd 6 Hood St, Collingwood, VIC 3066 03 9416 2255 www.tasmanav.com.au

WA

NZ

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

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

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

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

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

iCue Ltd PO Box 11481, Elleslie Auckland +64 9 524 6620 www.icue.co.nz

ECA Systems Unit 2/13 Clark Street Dunsborough WA 6281 1300 858 897 www.ecasystems.com.au

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

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

Sandman Audio Video Unit 1, 69 Kaiwharawhara Road Wellington +64 4 499 2228 www.sandman.co.nz

Essential Cabling 1 / 6 Chullora Bend Jandakot WA 6164 08 94141961 mcairns@arach.net.au

Sound Advice First PO Box 12-145 Christchurch 8002 +64 3 379 9416 www.soundadvicefirst.com

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

Soundline Audio Ltd Box 2650, Christchurch 8002 +64 3 379 5695 www.soundline.co.nz

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

Soundline Audio Ltd Capital Gateway Centre, 56 Thorndon Quay Wellington +64 4 471 0542 www.soundline.co.nz

Home Cinema Systems 2 / 18 Port Kembla Drive Bibra Lake WA 6163 08 9434 5556 www.homecinemasystems.com.au Intelligent Home Automated Solutions 25 Wittenoom Street East Perth, WA 6004 08 9325 7775 www.intelligenthome.com.au Light Application Pty Ltd 78 Erindale Road Balcatta WA 6021 08 9240 6644 www.lightapplication.com.au

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 The Listening Post 657 Victoria Street Hamilton +64 7 839 0135 www.listening.co.nz

Lynx Integrated Systems Unit 5 / 74 Kent Way Malaga WA 6090 sales@lynxis.com.au Northam Home Cinema 5 Oliver Street Northam, WA 6401 08 9622 5198 bevanautopro@westnet.com.au Surround Sounds Unit 3, 83-85 Stirling Highway Nedlands, WA 6009 08 9389 6900 www.surroundsounds.com.au Ultimation 488 Scarborough Beach Rd Osborne Park WA 6017 1 300 880 544 www.ultimation.com.au

Zentec.com.au PO Box 438 Ocean Grove, VIC 3226 1300 362 972 www.zentec.com.au

Audio Trends 10 Argent Place Ringwood Vic 3135 03 9874 8233 www.audiotrends.com.au

82 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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GEAR GUIDES FOR DIGTAL LIVES

Modern Literature THE E-READER GUIDE

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 83

Page turners The idea of reading a book from a screen has gained traction with the recent release of the iPad, but Apple’s device is not the only game in town. Alex Kidman outlines how to be well-read in the digital age.

E

lectronic books have been around almost as long as electronic text in one form or another, but with the recent launch of Apple’s iPad, the category is undergoing something of a renaissance. With that in mind, we’ve cast a broad glance over the available ebook readers in the Australian marketplace to give you an overview of what’s possible.

The appeal of ebook readers comes down largely to convenience. Most ebook readers aren’t much larger than the average single tome, but can carry (and often download) thousands of titles, giving you plenty of choice. Book prices are competitive with print book costs, especially given the often inflated prices in Australian book stores, and even if you get your reader itself wet, you won’t destroy the electronic files themselves!

One format for all – not!

There is a number of competing electronic book formats, which can make picking devices tricky, as there is no “standard” for electronic books as yet. Instead, the ebook universe divides between Apple, which uses a DRM variant of the EPUB standard, and Amazon with its Kindle-DRM solution. An iPad essentially locks you into the Apple ebook ecosystem, while the Kindle format binds you to Amazon’s huge content offering. The bottom line is that you can’t buy ebooks from any source and expect universal compatibility any e-reader you choose.

Electronic publication isn’t just limited to books, either, with many devices supporting magazine and newspaper subscriptions and automatic downloads.

Most devices will require some kind of computer connection for transferring books, although the higher end units such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad

84 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

Feed your e-reader with books and magazines downloaded from the web. can handle that side of things via Wi-Fi or 3G networks, depending on available connections.

Ebook bummers

That said, there are some downsides to electronic books.

Most are protected with digital rights management (DRM) software, ensuring that you can’t just copy them endlessly and hand them around to your mates. This means that if you do want to lend your friend the latest blockbuster novel, you’ve got to lend them the entire e-reader, not just a file, and you can’t sell them on at all if you grow tired of them.

Paper-based books themselves don’t require power sources to speak of either.

Still, if you’re a voracious book reader tired of lugging around lots of volumes made from dead trees, ebook readers can be exceptionally good value.

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Apple iPad Wi-Fi Price: $629-879

Apple’s iPad range begins at $629 for the 8GB model and tops out at $879 for the 64GB model, making it a more expensive ebook reader option. That being said, it’s also a lot more functional than most, with support for both dedicated iPad apps and most existing iPhone/iPod Touch apps, making it capable of not only displaying the latest blockbuster novel but also movies, music and online applications. The basic model comes with Wi-Fi only and no inbuilt GPS. PROS AND CONS Stylish design Large range of applications Costly No inbuilt GPS

Hanlin eBook Reader Price: $399

Available through Dymocks online, the Hanlin eBook reader supports PDF, DOC, MOBI, HTML, CHM, FB2, EPUB and TXT file formats for ebooks, as well as MP3 for music and podcasts. Like the Kindle, it uses an e-ink solution for monochrome page display, which should be kinder to tired eyes and better in direct sunlight.

The downside is that Dymocks’ local choice of books is more slender than the comparable amount from Amazon, although the relatively open nature of the Hanlin eBook reader should open it up to other stores. At $399 online, discounted from $599 at the time of writing, it’s also comparatively expensive.

PROS AND CONS Use of e-ink Wide format support A bit expensive for the feature set

Amazon Kindle Price: $US259

Perhaps the best known non-Apple ebook reader, Amazon’s Kindle uses a 6 inch (15cm) e-ink display that’s very power savvy. It may appear when pages are visible that it’s on, but it only uses power to change the display, making it very power efficient indeed. The asking price also includes wireless access to download books, meaning you can browse for and buy books pretty much wherever you are, and have them delivered to your Kindle directly. The e-ink display is great under direct sunlight, but significantly less so at night – just like a real book. While Amazon sell the Kindle in US dollars only, there’s a disparity in US and Australian pricing for books, as they charge Aussie consumers more for the same titles.

PROS AND CONS e-ink display Wireless book delivery included in price e-ink poor at night Books in Australia more costly than US equivalents VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 85

Pioneer eBook Reader W95

Price: $149

At $149, Pioneer’s got the low-end ebook reader market pretty much sewn up with its simple 5 inch (13cm) colour screen ebook reader. Compatible with ANSI, UNICODE TXT, PDF, HTML, FB2, PDB and EPUB formats wins it marks, and it will also handle music, video and picture files as well. The lack of a keyboard might be a problem, and there’s no inbuilt store the way there is with the Kindle or the iPad, so you’ll have to source and copy books over yourself. If you’re after an absolute budget reader, it could be worthy of consideration PROS AND CONS Inexpensive price for a colour screen No touchscreen and limited physical controls No dedicated ebook store

Apple iPad Wi-Fi + 3G Price: $799-1049

Like its Wi-Fi only sibling, Apple’s 3G-enabled iPad range covers a range of prices: $799, $928 and $1049 for the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions. The price premium gets you 3G via a Micro-SIM slot, as well as embedded GPS for the applications that use it. Like the cheaper Wi-Fi only model, it’s a slim and appealing looking e-reader that supports full colour, although the downside of that is a lower battery life than many of the e-ink readers that only use power when you actually flip pages.

PROS AND CONS Stylish design Large range of applications Expensive WiFi+3G+GPS will drain batteries fast iPad takes a long time to recharge

Amazon Kindle DX Price: $US489

The Kindle DX is the regular Kindle’s big brother, with a 9.7 inch (25cm) e-ink display screen making it equal in size to Apple’s iPad, albeit in monochrome. Like the Kindle, it has the excellent inbuilt wireless delivery of books, meaning any data costs are Amazon’s problem, not yours. Also like the Kindle, books are more expensive in Australia than the US, which is annoying. While pricing for the iPad is yet to be finalised, the difference in US pricing between the DX and the entry-level iPad is only $US10, which does make the DX seem rather costly given it’s not as capable with other tasks. Still, if you want something that’s just an e-reader and need a larger screen for visibility reasons it’s worth considering.

PROS AND CONS e-ink display Large screen wireless book delivery included in price e-ink poor at night Comparatively expensive Books in Australia more costly than US equivalents

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BeBook Neo Price: $569

The BeBook Neo looks much like any other ebook reader, and with only a 6 inch (15cm) display, it’s on the slightly smaller side, although that could suit those who want a more portable, paperback-style format. What marks it out as interesting is the included Wi-Fi and claimed ability to surf multiple ebook stores from the Neo eBook Portal. File support is pretty extensive with EPUB, PDF, TXT, HTML, RTF, MOBI, CHM, PDB, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP and TIFF files available for reading or viewing. The most obvious downside to the Neo would have to be the price, as $569 for a 6 inch ebook reader is on the expensive side.

PROS AND CONS Use of multiple eBook stores direct from the BeBook Neo Expensive, small screen

Kindle for iPod/iPad/Mac/PC Price: FREE

Amazon’s pitch with the Kindle isn’t really to sell Kindle devices at all.

It’s all about flogging books, something that Amazon has a particular interest in. As such, the reach of the Kindle is extended with companion applications for PC, Mac, Blackberry, iPod Touch and iPhone. All of them support and automatically synchronise any Kindle purchases you’ve already made, right down to the last page you were reading. Our one caveat is that on the iPhone, it’s slightly beaten out by the free Stanza App, also owned by Amazon.

PROS AND CONS Seamless Kindle synchronisation Wide range of available ebooks Stanza is a better iPhone ebook reader, but they’re both free

Stanza

Price: FREE

If you’re not in the market for a dedicated e-reader device, you don’t have to buy one for consuming ebooks. Stanza’s application runs on iPod Touch, iPhone, PC or Mac, and allows you to read Mobipocket, Microsoft LIT, PalmDoc, Microsoft Word, Rich Text Format, HTML, and PDF, and unprotected EPUB and Kindle files from a variety of online e-reader stores. The parent company is now wholly owned by Amazon, so it’s odd to note that Stanza still doesn’t support DRM-protected Kindle books, or for that matter DRM-protected EPUB files.

PROS AND CONS Wide variety of supported platforms Smooth interface No Kindle or EPUB DRM file support

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 87

GEAR LOG The iPad is not just an e-reading, web surfing, music and movie plaything, it promises to redefine the way we control audio-video and home automation systems.

Simple downloadable apps will replace expensive programming and hardware, turning the iPad into a central interface for controlling everything from the AV rack to the house-wide audio system, the security system, curtains and lights.

Easy, affordable home control is within reach at last, and in preparation for your iPad purchase, we present accessories to help make it feel it home.

HOT POTATO FLPR

Hot Potato FLPR Universal learning remotes help make complicated home entertainment systems easy to drive, and with the FLPR infrared transmitter you can turn your iPad (iPhone or iPod Touch) into the one remote to rule them all. Just download the free app and you’ve got more than 14,000 remote control codes in the palm of your hand, meaning there’s unlikely to be a piece equipment the FLPR won’t work with it.

PRICE $89.95 COMPANY Hot Potato WEBSITE www.iworldaustralia.com.au

NATIVE UNION MOSHI MOSHI

Native Union Moshi Moshi

When you want to chat via VoiP, you can use the iPad’s built-in microphone and speakers or go stylishly hands on with the Moshi Moshi.

Japanese for ‘talk’, these classic telephone handsets plug into the headphone jack of the iPad or connect via Bluetooth for handsfree talk.

PRICE $50–200 COMPANY Native Union WEBSITE www.conexus.com.au

TWELVESOUTH BOOKARC

TwelveSouth BookArc Whether you’re controlling music, watching video, checking the news or working from an online recipe, your iPad will need some kind of perch. The BookArc is made from heavy gauge steel and comes with a soft silicon reversible insert for holding the iPad vertically or horizontally.

PRICE $79.95 COMPANY TwelveSouth WEBSITE www.tryandbyte.com.au

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GECKO SWAG BAG

Gecko Swag Bag Australian-designed, the Swag Bag’s quilted outer fabric offers cushioned protection for the iPad and, on the inside, elasticised corners to help keep the device in place.

Clearly a sleeping bag in a former life, the Swag Bag will presumably also provide a warm and cosy place for your iPad to rest.

PRICE $29.95 COMPANY Gecko WEBSITE www.gecko.com.au

SENNHEISER PX210BT

Sennheiser PX210BT Sennheiser’s PX210BT headphones take advantage of the iPad’s Bluetooth capablity, allowing you untethered enjoyment of your playlist within a range of 10 or so metres of the iPad. These provide the excellent Sennheiser quality we’ve come to love over the years and, when the rechargeable battery runs flat, a 3.5mm jack for listening via a wired connection.

PRICE $349.95 COMPANY Sennheiser WEBSITE www.syntec.com.au

ALTEC LANSING ORBIT M

Altec Lansing Orbit M When it comes to freeing the sound from your iPad, Altec Lansing’s approach is the small, portable can-shaped Orbit M. Mono only, the Orbit simply plugs in via the 3.5mm jack, with sound controlled via the iPad. It’s economically powered by three AAA batteries.

PRICE $69.95 COMPANY Altec Lansing WEBSITE www.alteclansing.com

iBALLZ

iBallz

Described as the “original universal tablet stabilising and shock absorbing harness”, the iBallz strap around the perimeter of the iPad to protect it from knocks and bumps. It’s weird, but fun, and removing a ball from one corner will present you with a comfortable tilted surface for typing or reading. Check out the video on the website – it’s a hoot.

PRICE $US20 COMPANY iBallz WEBSITE www.iballz.com

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 89

GEAR LOG iHOME IHM79

iHome iHM79 When it comes to freeing the tunes, the iHome iHM79 delivers in stereo. Each integrates a vacuum chamber that, with a quick twist, expands to deliver better bass.

A reverse-twist collapses the speakers for compact transport and, with magnets in the base of each, there’s a good chance they won’t become separated when you’re on the road.

PRICE $79.95 COMPANY iHome WEBSITE www.conexus.com.au

INVISIBLESHIELD

InvisibleShield While the iPad has fingerprint- and scratch-resistant glass, it is not impervious to smudges and scrapes. For extreme protection, apply InvisbleShield to the full body of your iPad, spray with the supplied solution and wait 24 hours. The hardened surface promises to be indestructible – you can even scrape a key over it.

PRICE Half body $37.95; Full body $49.95 COMPANY InvisibleShield WEBSITE www.simms.com.au

VERSAUDIO WOOD CASE

Versaudio Wood case Made using solid hardwood and bamboo from sustainable forests, this Versaudio case offers 4mm thick walls, reinforced with steel for extra rigidity. The iPad slips in from the top, and the internals are lined with soft fabric to prevent scratching. The optional wood prop inserts at the rear to stand the iPad upright, and gives your slideshows that authentic photo frame look.

PRICE $US80 COMPANY Versaudio WEBSITE www.versaudio.com

KENSINGTON POWERBOLT MICRO CHARGER

Kensington PowerBolt micro charger Any mobile device is only as good as its power source, and if you find yourself running short of juice while on the road with the iPad all you need do is plug the Kensington PowerBolt Micro Charger into you car’s cigarette lighter.

It’s very tiny, has an LED power indicator light and, with 2.1 amps, Kensington says it will charge the iPad in four hours.

PRICE $29.95 COMPANY Kensington WEBSITE www.smartmadesimple.com.au

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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.

EARS & EYES & THUMBS

HIGH DEFINITION MOVIES

AVATAR

STARRING SAM WORTHINGTON, ZOE SALDANA, SIGOURNEY WEAVER, STEPHEN LANG AND MICHELLE RODRIGUEZ DIRECTOR JAMES CAMERON RATED M SOUND DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO 5.1 + DOLBY DIGITAL 2.0 DISTRIBUTOR FOX

Ambitious, visionary and finally technically possible, Avatar hardly needs further introduction. Even your grandmother will have heard of this extraordinary film with its masterful direction, interwoven brilliance of animated and live-action actors and its (welcome) moralising tale of the dangers of blind hegemonistic ignorance and the imperative for indigenous respect. The story of the Na’vi clan is almost overwhelmingly beautiful, sad and ultimately uplifting, but the same most certainly cannot be said of this first Blu-ray release of the movie. We say ‘first’, because apparently an ultimate edition is planned, as well as the 3D version, and that smacks of pure greed, I’m sorry to say.

NOWHERE BOY

STARRING AARON JOHNSON, KRISTIN SCOTT THOMAS, DIRECTOR SAM TAYLOR WOOD RATED M SOUND DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO 5.1 + DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR ICON

Nowhere Boy follows the early life of John Lennon and tells the story of the creation of the Beatles but, more interestingly for real fans, his schooldays, the heart-wrenching relationships between him, his aunt as de-facto mother and his real birth mother; the last of which is often quite uncomfortable and bordering on inappropriate.

Lennon is played by 20-year old Aaron Johnson, now in his own interesting domestic situation, having become engaged to the film’s director, Sam Taylor-Wood (who is 23 years older than him) and acquired two stepchildren to add to the one he’s having with TaylorWood shortly. Johnson does a great job in the role and if we can presume it’s accurate, portrays an arrogant, cocksure, and basically utterly vile young Lennon who nevertheless goes on to found one of the most popular rock bands of all time. So all is forgiven – get famous, get a pass on being a nice human being.

The Blu-ray disc offers a healthy smorgasbord of additional viewing, from the entirely conventional ‘Making of Nowhere Boy Feature’ to the far more interesting ‘The re-creation of Lennon and the Quarrymen’ piece. This makes quite entertaining viewing, seeing how the youthful Aaron Johnson went about acquiring the Scouse accent, and how his co-star, Thomas Brodie Sangster, as Paul McCartney, trained to play the guitar left-handed (despite being right-handed himself). It also features Rod Davis and Colin Hanton, two of the original band members from

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Pick up the Blu-ray version of the film right now and you’ll be greeted with a nice, video backdrop to the menu and three solitary, woefully inadequate buttons labeled ‘Play’, ‘Setup’ and ‘Search’; that last giving you the option to select a scene or view bookmarks.

Whoopy Doo. It’s too late to tell you but I say wait for the proper, non-exploitative version around November.

the fledgling pre-Beatles group, who also make appearances in other extra segments.

In between, you have deleted scenes, an extended interview with Director Sam Taylor-Wood and a short film on ‘Lennon’s Liverpool’, starring the screenwriter talking about fidelity to the ‘source material’, standing outside Lennon’s auntie’s house, school, and so on for inspiration. The last extra is called ‘Anatomy of a Scene – That’s when I stole him’, which looks at how the pivotal confrontation scene between Lennon’s two ‘mothers’ was created, one of the most moving moments of the whole film. Kristin Scott-Thomas is a highlight as the aunt, Anne-Marie Duff equally good as the mother, looking even more waif-like and fragile in the extras than she did in her tragic role as Julia Lennon in the film itself, and the whole thing is convincing, entertaining and even instructive in its own way.

As Matt Delargy points out, Lennon “basically (he) used to get on everyone’s nerves”. But the film has “tears and snot and everything”, as Taylor-Wood puts it, and is well worth a look.

WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 91

EARS & EYES & THUMBS

Mobile phone apps It’s time to take another look at what’s great in the smartphone world – not necessarily what’s hot, or in the charts (because popularity never confers quality, right?), but rather gathering together a bunch of applications that we think are worth your time to check out, with a ‘utilities’ theme.

iPhone

The iPhone is up first and there’s no other app that combines sheer usefulness with a touch of magic than the Foxtel Guide application. Download this, enter your login details, find a program you want to record and you can near-miraculously send the booking directly over the airwaves to your IQ at home!

Something that requires you to get a bit closer is PhotoShare – it needs a direct connection via Bluetooth to another user’s iPhone but, if you can get that, it’s the simplest and fastest way to send them one, or several, of your photos.

Asking you to get a little closer still is World Card: a business-card reader that actually works very well, allowing you to take a picture of each card using your iPhone’s built-in camera, then transferring what it sees into your Contacts. You get the occasional mis-read but that’s easily fixed with a quick edit and, on the whole, it’s excellent.

If you’re on the market for new digs, the Domain app is a quicker and neater way to view properties in your chosen areas. The main screen magnifies the usual selection boxes for the search and the results it chucks out are formatted perfectly for the iPhone screen.

But if you decide to go and view a property, download ParkWatch to your phone first.

Taking advantage of the concept of ‘crowdsourcing’, this genius application relies on other users to report the whereabouts of parking officers (by pressing a big red button when they spot one!) and, once set on your phone when you’ve parked up, gives ‘push’ notifications of their location and movements using GPS and maps. It works even when the app is closed and is hugely satisfying to use!

If it’s dark when you’re finished viewing the house, use the iPhone app Flashlight. Not new, but fantastic nonetheless, Flashlight fills your phone screen with bright white light – actually with any one of several colours now – so you can find your way in the dark. It also features several ‘strobe’ lighting effects and is completely free.

Less useful but plain fun, try out the excellent Glyder 2 game; it does what it says on the tin, with a peaceful sense of tooling around in the sky and plenty of customised gear – including wings! – to collect.

And, lastly, relax with the oddly entertaining TalkingCarl. Available at the base application price of $1.19 is this kid-friendly app that basically repeats back anything you say to him in a funny voice. You can tickle and otherwise prod the onscreen blocky, goggle-eyed being to provoke him into other *hilarious* utterances and, much like those intensely annoying Tamagotchi digital pets, will moan if he feels neglected. Just what we all need.

Android

If Google’s Android is more your thing, you’ll probably want to get yourself organised first.

Besides the calendar, text message and weather ‘widgets’ that you can put on the main home screen of your Sense UI interface, if you have it, grab eBuddy for Android: an IM (instant messenger) application that will run in the background on your phone while you’re doing something else and will alert you with a sound or vibration when you receive a new message. eBuddy can run multiple chats, putting them on separate tabs, and can combine all the main IM programs, including MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk and Facebook, putting all your friends on a single, integrated list. It’ll even automatically try to reconnect if your connection is lost.

Then there’s Seesmic for Twitter, which organises all your Twitter timelines on a single screen, allows the sharing of photos, video and your location in your tweets and will even allow you to specify an alert tone or colour to notify you when you get messages from particular contacts.

Once you’re back in touch with all your mates, why not look up some scores and gloat: Footy Scoreboard for Android will track all the AFL, Rugby League, Union and real football results for free and if your team lost, download Air Control from Cyrket. It’s essentially the same as FlightControl on the iPhone and at US$0.97, a great way to de-stress…. er, perhaps… if trying to prevent planes from crashing into each other is your idea of a good time.

Finally, why not try Google Sky? It takes your position from the built-in GPS on your phone then shows you an accurate representation of the sky as it looks from where you are. Or you could just wait until night and look out of your window.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY STARRING KATIE FEATHERSTON DIRECTOR OREN PELI RATED M SOUND DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO 5.1 + DOLBY 2.0 STEREO DISTRIBUTOR ICON

Cleverly virally marketed to US colleges and allowed to unofficially gain credence as hand-cam video of a real-life sequence of events, Paranormal Activity has enjoyed enormous commercial success for a miniscule outlay.

Centering on the lives of a young couple, Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, Paranormal Activity is shot in the same low-budget vein of the seminal Blair Witch Project, relating an extremely pedestrian but progressively intriguing series of night-time video sequences as the couple record themselves going to bed and sleeping in an attempt to capture what Katie insists is ghostly activity on film.

On the big screen, an audience watching Paranormal Activity would tap into the collective, building quiet panic of the crowd for some entertaining results.

Also smartly used in their marketing (and subsequently parodied), but on the small screen, you find yourself straining to peer at the TV to try and spot what on earth it is you’re supposed to be seeing. Some, myself included, find this kind of ‘mockumentary’ movie-making to be a completely pointless exercise, as credulity is immediately dispensed with, but millions of cinema-goers clearly disagree.

The disc features the longer, alternate version of the film, which fills in a little more detail, but both Blu-ray and DVD versions carry the same minimal special features, disappointingly. The best of these is the alternate ending, which is considerably more grisly than the one shown in the full-length feature film.

THE BROKEN

STARRING LENA HEADEY, ULRICH THOMSEN, MELVIL POUPAUD DIRECTOR SEAN ELLIS RATED M SOUND DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO 5.1 + DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR ICON

Written and directed by Brit Sean Ellis of Cashback semi-fame, The Broken attempts to stage an absorbing, psychological thriller but doesn’t quite make it. Aiding and abetting the ponderous drama are a few anachronistic touches that help the baddie get the upper hand. No-one uses mobile phones, for instance, to warn each other, but instead use the most archaic-looking home telephones and street kiosks. The cars, however, are completely contemporary, so we have to put that down to one of the many things that doesn’t make any sense whatever in this 2008 film.

Instead of providing actual scares, The Broken uses a cheap and consistently annoying audio device of simply having all the orchestral strings come in at once , and at a crashingly-deafening volume several times higher than before, building to a crescendo that mimics, but is many times worse than, the THX sound-test. This conceit is employed throughout to attempt to unsettle the audience, usually during one of the very many lulls in the action, presumably to convey the false impression that something frightening is actually happening.

Added to that, there are rude screeches of sound that kick off all of a sudden when someone does something as mundane as walking through a doorway, again to give a gratuitous scare.

But langorous, over-long shots do not an art movie make – there’s a driving sequence towards the end that should carry an epilepsy warning – and the only real saving grace of the film is the presence of the quite lovely Lena Headey in the principal role.

Astonishingly, and increasingly so for the otherwise excellent releases from Icon, there are absolutely no extras whatever on the Blu-ray disc.

92 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

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WINTER 2010 | HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE 93

EARS & EYES & THUMBS

GAMES

JUST CAUSE 2

PLATFORM XBOX360 GENRE ACTION RATED MA 15+ DISTRIBUTOR ATARI

Owing so much to the game Mercenaries from the ill-fated Pandemic studios, the ‘Just Cause’ series is back with a much, much better follow-up, in the guise of Just Cause 2. This sequel is better in every other way, with tighter combat controls, decent weaponry and some great vehicles. The unique selling point in Just Cause 2 is the grappling hook wielded by your character, which achieves greatness

HEAVY RAIN

through its sheer versatility: not merely a way of pulling enemies off high perches, it’s also a useful melee weapon if you find yourself at close quarters with a bad guy and an empty clip and, most entertaining of all, an excellent method of locomotion, providing a way of swinging and ‘parachute climbing’ across hilly terrain to rival Spider-Man. The play area in Just Cause 2 is vast – playing for a period that would see you easily finishing other games will only get you 10 percent completion here – and, critically, that vast area is interesting. Unlike other ‘openworld’ games, such as the recent Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, exploration is neatly rewarded in Just Cause 2, throwing up oddities like the ‘Black Boxes’ and ‘Skulls’ for you to discover, or even whole islands like the one modelled on the TV series ‘Lost’, making investing time in the game a delight.

And a game whose entire raison d’être is to cause as much chaos, via wanton destruction, as possible, is always going to find a willing public. Kudos to the developer, Avalanche Studios, for making the journey so much damn fun.

PLATFORM PLAYSTATION 3 GENRE ADVENTURE RATED MA 15+ DISTRIBUTOR SONY

Sporting the most preposterous controls known to gaming-kind, the action-adventure Heavy Rain wins favour for its film-like staging and sense of drama but virtually tortures gamers with one of the most sluggish and over-engineered control schemes we’ve ever encountered. With a serial-killer theme that you see every day on regular, baby-formula TV, Heavy Rain’s lethargic pace and over-use of ‘quick time’ sequences for the sporadic action forces the player down a muddy path of discovery, trudging knee-deep in contrived emotion – the developer’s CEO, David Cage, has described it as not being a game but an ‘interactive movie’. If that’s the case, then most viewers will be bored within the first half an hour and go and do something more interesting instead, like hanging out the washing or racing snails.

Certainly, most gamers won’t have encountered anything quite like Heavy Rain before and the title is undoubtedly distinctive given its filmic treatment but, as gamers, they’ll probably prefer to return

it to the store and pick an actual game instead. However, if you do stick with it, the ‘action’ is very grown up, thankfully, and can be quite poignant, which is a welcome relief from the relentlessly juvenile fare of most videogames out there, where game creators still haven’t outgrown the ‘killing monsters with ridiculous weapons’ theme.

Technically, the game is very poor, with multiple system crashes and game freezes, patchy animation and those terrible cameras. Some of these can seriously impair enjoyment of the game; we experienced a system crash during the very last chapter, for instance, preventing finishing the game at all – that’s extremely poor on the developer’s part and unforgivable on the part of Sony Computer Entertainment.

SPLINTER CELL: CONVICTION

The latest military-themed third-person action shooter game from Ubisoft endorsed by esteemed geek-writer Tom Clancy, Splinter Cell: Conviction is not the best. Now a much more tightly-controlled sneakpeek-and-dispatch affair, you’ll still be most effective when creeping around in the dark and then springing out to surprise your opponents, but getting there isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be.

Graphically sharp, superbly animated and with reasonably credible AI (intelligence) from the enemy characters, Splinter Cell: Conviction wraps a fairly basic revenge story around some well-paced scenariobased conflicts featuring the flavour-of-the-times weapon, the EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) as the central fixture.

Recently also witnessed in Kiefer Sutherland’s ‘24’ TV show, the EMP knocks out electrical devices which, in this day and age, renders nearly everyone everywhere utterly helpless, it seems, given our overreliance on computers.

A new gameplay mechanic, ‘Mark & Execute’, has divided gamer

94 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

PLATFORM XBOX360 GENRE THIRD PERSON SHOOTER RATED MA 15+ DISTRIBUTOR ATARI

opinion, with many thinking it makes the game too easy, but in a clear effort to attract less experienced players, the single-button press to automatically dispatch multiple enemies feels very cool and at least gives the impression that Sam Fisher, the super spy under your control, is a highly-trained and effective killing combatant capable of such impressive dexterity and fluidity.

The game comes into its own in the separate co-operative two-player campaign – playable either in split-screen mode with a friend in your own house, or over Xbox Live – requiring a pretty high level of collaboration and coordinated behavior to reap the most satisfying results.

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TIME WARP

Don’t ’dis the DAT B

Most DAT recording decks, for example, made 16-bit 48kHz copies from original soundtracks, meaning sound quality was on par with CD”

ack in the day, the mixed tape was a ritual part of early courtship. You’d grab an audiocassette and, over days or weeks, make a compilation recording of favourite songs from the radio, vinyl LPs and other cassette tapes. Then you’d give it to that someone special and hope they’d like it; hope they’d like you.

It probably didn’t matter that such subtle declarations of amour were proffered in analog format, but as compact disc replaced vinyl as the de-facto standard for pre-recorded music in the 1980s, it followed that the world’s most successful consumer recording format would receive a digital makeover too.

DAT (Digital Audio Tape) debuted in 1987, with the running brief of replacing the ubiquitous analog audiocassette as the preferred format for home recording.

Developed by Sony, it looked to have the goods too.

Similar in appearance to an 8mm video cassette used in camcorders at the time, a DAT cartridge was only 4mm and around 73 X 54 X 10.5 mm. Most DAT tapes would record 60 minutes of stereo, although this would vary depending on the quality level chosen for recording.

Most DAT recording decks, for example, made 16-bit 48kHz copies from original soundtracks, meaning sound quality was on par with CD. Better, in fact, as some recorders were able to create higher resolution 24bit/96KHz copies.

(These machines, though, were generally used in semiprofessional recording studios, with the copies playable only the machines that produced them.)

What’s more, unlike MiniDisc and CD-R recording formats, DAT did not use lossy compression. Sure, it employed compression in order to store all musical data it recorded, but it did not throw away parts of the audio signal it thought human ears couldn’t hear in the process. It recorded everything faithfully form the source and, in doing so, was capable of creating a clone of the original recording; an exact copy of the digital master.

This freaked out record companies in the US, who foresaw huge revenue losses as the pre-recorded music

96 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | WINTER 2010

market was destroyed by cheap, easy-to-make, perfect digital copies of the very albums it was their raison d’être to sell. In 1992, the record industry was successful in pushing through a law that imposed taxes on the recorders and the blank media, making DAT more expensive for home recordists.

In the same year, Philips – which had collaborated with Sony on the development of CD – joined with Panasonic to introduce a competing digital magnetic tape format, DCC (Digital Compact Cassette). Although the format used lossy compression, the machines were cheaper and backwards compatible with analog tapes, which DAT recorders weren’t.

In response, Sony launched MiniDisc, and consumers now had four choices for home recording.

The fourth was the CD-R. While Sony and Philips squabbled over digital tape formats, the optical disc format they jointly developed with such success grew recording capabilities and took ownership of the home recording landscape.

People, it seemed, had ceased making mixed tapes, and now wooed each other with mixed discs.

Digital Compact Cassette ceased production in 1996, with Philips ceding that DAT had won. Sony quit DAT in 2005, and by that time the format had made a deep impression on the semi-pro market. Its recording credentials had made it a favourite for live taping sessions and backup recordings, and it’s only recently that hard drives have replaced DAT as the technology du jour for these applications.

Anika Hillery

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Toshiba HD: Pure Intensity

Regza ZV Series LCD TV

Explosive impact, Toshiba style Incoming! Toshiba’s 1080p Full HD series blasts natural colour and sound into your living room thanks to its ClearScanTM 200Hz, Resolution+ and a far-reaching range of visual and aural Toshiba features that can’t help but say ‘one giant leap’.

For more details drop in to www.mytoshiba.com.au Toshiba is a proud Partner of the 2010 Australian Commonwealth Games Team.