Home Entertainment Buyers Guide - Spring by The Gadget Group

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FAST FOREWORD

Performance Anxiety?

he concept of auditioning high-end audiovisual gear should be a familiar one to any person who has ever contemplated spending car money on a serious pile of AV kit. Going to a dedicated showroom and listening to a whole bunch of different $5000 speaker sets makes very good sense: at this price point and higher, quality tends to even out and your final choice will be made on personal listening taste. Expensive equipment has a subjective quality to it that you don’t necessarily find in the mass-market space. Yet the times are changing. As digital technology enters its third or fourth generation, it’s less about the shock of the new and more about the maturing of the old. A $2000 home-theatre-in-abox can give you amazing results, where in times past you would have needed to spend maybe four times as much. So auditioning has moved further into the upper echelons, and is now the domain of the true enthusiast. Even many large department stores no longer have “home theatre rooms” where you can sit and watch Spider-Man surrounded by speakers from mass-market brands. Part of this may have to do with the nature of the content we consume. Unless you’re a dedicated music aficionado, your AV system will mostly be tasked with reproducing a limited number of things: Hollywood soundtracks which — even if they support all the latest HD formats — are still ultimately pretty artless, compressed digital TV signals, or compressed audio from an iPod or similar player. This kind of content is wasted on super high-end kit. And if that’s all you do consume, then you can buy any decent AV product straight off the shelf with a fair degree of confidence. You can judge whether a system meets your needs by looking at how many HDMI ports it has on the back and whether it’s 3D ready. But if you’re the kind of person who understands that not all CDs are created equal, and who checks the back of the Blu-ray

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, Ella Legg, Thomas Bartlett, Max Everingham, Nathan Taylor, Colin Hinton Production Shout Media www.shoutmedia.com.au Distributed by Gordon & Gotch www.gordongotch.com.au

case for Dolby TrueHD support, then visiting a specialist retailer is always going to be worth your while. It’s obvious really: would you spend $10,000 on even a second-hand car without test-driving it first? You’re paying this kind of money to be impressed, and there’s nothing worse than anticipating a purchase, laying down the cash, going through all the rigmarole of installation and then only thinking “the mid-range is a bit fuller... I guess”. The role of the salesperson in the audition remains extremely valuable, too. They’re there to explain the nuances and tricks of your new purchase. Do the speakers not sound their best until they’re “broken in”? Are there particular settings for the AV receiver that suit your style of viewing and listening better? Good sales staff at big-box retailers should aspire to this kind of knowledge too, of course, but the demands of their typical customer are less... intensely detailed. To those who say the age of auditioning is past, we say why limit this part of the purchasing experience? In fact, why not make this purchase an experience. Take the time to listen. Go back twice. Change your mind a few times. Buying AV gear because there’s a sale on and you save $500 can only bring so much pleasure. Getting the absolute perfect kit for your taste, that’s something else entirely. 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 | SPRING 2010

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CONTENTS SPRING 2010

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HOW TO:

BUYING, SHOPPING AND SETUP GUIDES

How to buy 3D: The FAQs

LED lights

Power stations

Well hung TV

Which is better for 3D - LCD or plasma? And do you need a new Blu-ray player or not? Thomas Bartlett answers your most frequently asked questions.

LED TVs are where the smart money is: the latest tech, the slimmest form factor, and in most cases the best picture too. Anthony Fordham selects ten standouts for your short-list.

3D has introduced a video standard that requires new capabilities from a home theatre receiver. Colin Hinton puts five 3D-ready AV amps on the bench.

Simple steps for mounting your flat panel securely to a wall.

Buying green peace of mind 86 Easy ways to make smart choices when buying ‘greener’ electronics gear.

FEATURES Your home for 3D

Good sports

Digital radio: One year on

The first in a special series on all things 3D, from TVs to movies to cameras and camcorders.

Whether it’s the footy finals or the Commonwealth Games, your entertainment setup needs to be games-ready. Justin Worthy provides four options for assembling a sports-centric system. Digital radio transmissions began a year ago, and today’s top models are making the most of Australia’s advanced DAB+ technology.

REVIEWED IN THIS ISSUE

REGULARS Random play

Home entertainment news and product highlights.

Tech corner

You wish

Digital shack: CEDIA 2010 Award Winners

Gear log

HDBaseT promises to make high definition connections easier and cheaper, writes Anthony Fordham.

Loewe’s Reference System does everything a black-n-boring pile of kit will do, but looks roughly one thousand times better while doing it. A pictorial showcase of Australia’s best smart homes and theatre rooms.

GadgetGuy, Peter Blasina, presents a showcase of standout electronica.

Ears, eyes, thumbs

Time warp

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

A retrospective of milestone entertainment products and technologies. This issue: Video CD.

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

Box Fresh

Pioneer XW-NAV1-K Aktimate Maxi Telstra T-Box Mitsubishi HC3900 Samsung UA55C9000 Panasonic TH-P50VT20A Panasonic DMP-BDT300 Yamaha RX-V667 Roberts Stream 202 Epson TW5500 Hybrid TV CASPA

52 54 56 57 58

60 61 62 63 64 66 67 69 70 71 72

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RANDOM PLAY

Metz Axio Pros with PVR German TV maestros Metz have released details on three new ‘Axio pro’ LCD televisions, all sporting the company’s trademark clean design and minimalist lines. All three models are available now at $2999, $3499 and $3999 for the 32 inch, 37 inch and 42 inch respectively, bringing you full HD resolution, MPEG4 HD TV tuners, 100Hz motion technology and SRS Wow surround audio. An additional novel feature in the form of an integrated timeshifting capability can be initiated by a single button press on the TV’s remote, caching the program for up to two hours via an attached external USB or hard drive. Metz also offers its customers the option of ‘retrofitting’ a 500GB or 250GB digital recorder to get a fully-integrated PVR for a PC connection and can in your TV, a second HD TV tuner or even be experienced at specialist a DVB-S2 tuner for FTA digital satellite. All dealers nationwide. models have three HDMI inputs, one DVI-I DISTRIBUTOR

International Dynamics PHONE 1800 456 393 WEB www.internationaldynamics.com.au

Sennheiser headsets for iPhone Offering iPhone and iPad users eight new models from its portable entertainment series, headphone specialist Sennheisser is even making purchasing identification easy, introducing an ‘i’ in the product name to designate Apple-friendly models. Like the official Apple headset that comes with the iPhone, the Sennheisser products pause the music on an incoming call and can be operated via controls on the cable. The microphone on the cable works with Apple voice control too, allowing users to call a friend or call up a tune with voice commands. DISTRIBUTOR

The high-end ‘ear canal’ MM 80i Travel is designed for people on the move; the two PX –lli closed ‘on-ear’ models (pictured) can be folded to be stuffed into a pocket and the MM 70i and CX 880i ear bud ‘phones place the emphasis on style and fit, coming with six silicone ear adaptors that should fit the ears of any new owner. All models are finished in classy black and silver, available in Apple stores as well as regular Sennheisser dealers. Prices range from $139.95 to $759.95.

Syntec PHONE 02 9910 6700 WEB www.syntec.com.au, www.sennheiser.com.au

6 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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RANDOM PLAY

Panasonic LED LCD TVs

Benefitting from the horizontal liquid crystal alignment of ‘In-Plane Switching’ (or ‘IPS’ technology) to increase effective viewing angles, are Panasonic’s first-ever ‘LED’ LCD panels. The D25 and D20 series TVs combine an IPS panel with edge LED backlighting for a clearer, sharper picture. Moving away from the omnipresent black edge, DISTRIBUTOR

the thin, 1.5 inch bezels of the D25 TVs are lilac, while the bezels of the nearly identical D20 series (lacking Viera Cast and WiFi options) are midnight blue. The new S25 series LCD models are not IPS panels but incorporate the 100Hz Motion Picture Pro system for image smoothing, and all the other features of the D25 flagship range. Rounding out the LCD range are the low-cost full high definition 50Hz U20 series and regular HD X25 and X20 series; the X25s adding a dock for your iPod or iPhone.

Panasonic Australia PHONE 132 600 WEB www.panasonic.com.au

Edifier Breathe Chinese audio equipment manufacturer Edifier International has added an MP3 player docking station shaped like a dome to its repertoire, called simply the ‘Breathe’. Incorporating stereo channels with midrange and tweeter speakers, plus a downward-pointing subwoofer, the Breathe’s digital amplifier puts out 18 watts per channel plus 56 watts from the sub, with a rated frequency response of 40Hz to 200Hz. An auxilliary input allows the connection of a second device and there are onboard controls to navigate and operate your iPod, along with a separate, full-function remote control. The Breathe joins several other MP3 docking stations boasting innovative, eye-catching design, including the acclaimed Luna5 Encore and retro ‘alarm clock’ iF200Plus. DISTRIBUTOR

Edifier International WEB www.edifier-international.com

8 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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RANDOM PLAY

TEAC SBO3i Sound Bar Merging 5.1 virtual surround sound with a multi-format DVD player, radio and iPod dock, TEAC offers consumers the convenience of a one-box solution with its new SB03iDV Sound Bar. At $699, it’s a fraction of the cost of competing products, and it will also charge your iPod. Thanks to a built-in clock radio, the SB03iDV can help DISTRIBUTOR

rouse you out of bed in the morning too, providing a ‘snooze’ function if it all proves too hard and you need a few extra minutes. Output power is 15 watts through each of the five channels plus 40 watts from the built-in subwoofer. It also includes a TV mount to suit an LCD panel sized from 37 to 42 inches.

TEAC PHONE 130 769 824 WEB www.teac.com.au

Olive 4HD high-res audio server Upping the ante for the playback of digital music, Olive Media Inc has announced its first HD audio server, the Olive 4HD. Aiming for the lofty, professional audio heights of playing back your digital audio at 24-bit sound with a 192 kHz sample rate, the 4HD’s Burr-Brown digital-analog converter (DAC) reproduces music stored on its 2 terabyte hard drive at up to the target 192khz/24-bit lossless DISTRIBUTOR

format. Navigation through that massive hard drive is simple using the 4.3 inch touchscreen on the unit or up on a TV screen via the HDMI port – and yes, there’s a free iPhone/iPod Touch controller application available too. With wired and wireless network capability and a built-in slot CD player, owners can transfer up to 20,000 high resolution audio files to the 4HD server unit, and it even ships with an hour’s worth of tracks courtesy of high-res audio experts Chesky Records to give you a head start. Available in a black or silver finish, the 4HD costs $3999.

International Dynamics PHONE 1800 456 393 WEB www.internationaldynamics.com.au

10 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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RANDOM PLAY

Pioneer AV receivers Pioneer’s VSX520 ($499), VSX820 ($699), VSX920 ($1099) and VSX1020 ($1299) AV receivers integrate HDMI version 1.4 for use with 3D Blu-ray players and televisions; decoding for Blu-ray’s high resolution high definition sound formats; the company’s MCACC automatic calibration and setup system; dedicated digital cables for connecting an iPod or iPhone, and Bluetooth streaming via an optional dongle. The VSX920 and VSX1020 add multi-zone capabilities for listening through speakers in another room, Internet radio with 24 presets, Sound Retriever Air for improving Bluetooth audio quality, plus a colour view of your iTunes library on a connected TV, and iControlAV. When connected over a home wi-fi network, this allows your iPod or iPhone to adjust the main volume, mute, DISTRIBUTOR

select and switch inputs, including multi-zones, and display audio-video status information by tapping the screen of an iPod or iPhone. Use a roll and hold motion with your iPod and the iControl AV feature will turn two proprietary sound enhancements on or off. Use a tilt and hold motion and you can adjust the balance of your speakers for 360 degree sound levelling to match your present listening position. You can also adjust dialogue and bass levels of the centre speaker and subwoofer with the same manoeuvre. Pioneer’s “everyman” receivers will be joined in September by models suitable for use in premium level custom installation systems. These will have RS232 for integration with home automation and control systems such as Crestron and AMX, 12 volt triggers for use with projection systems, and THX Certification, including the new THX Loudness Plus for more audible rear effects. The new models will include the VSXLX53 ($1999), VSXLX73 ($2499), VSXLX83 ($2999). Pricing at the time of going to press is indicative only.

Pioneer Electronics PHONE 1800 988 268 WEB www.pioneer.com.au

Sanyo home theatre projectors Big screen TVs may be all the rage but there’s still nothing like a full high definition projector for a true ‘cinema in the home’ experience. Sanyo’s PLV-Z800 and PLV-Z4000 boast brightness of 1200 ANSI lumens, a variable iris lens, 2x zoom, two HDMI and two component inputs, lens shift (up to three screens high and two across) and an automatic lens cover. Importantly, the projectors are whisper-quiet, the Z800 putting out 21dB, and 19dB on the more expensive Z4000. At $3299, the Z800 has a contrast ratio of 10,000:1 while its bigger brother weighs in at $4499 with a contrast ratio of 10,000:1, 5-5 pulldown and a 100Hz mode that makes it a great choice for sports and fast action movies. Sanyo is also offering replacement lamps for $446. DISTRIBUTOR

Sanyo Oceania PHONE 1300 360 230 WEB www.sanyo.com.au

12 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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Pioneer iPod/ iPhone docks

While Pioneer’s current NAS3 ($699) and NAS5 ($899) iPod docks sit at the premium end of the price scale, the XWNAV1 is, at $399, sure to find a wider audience, especially towards Xmas. Described as a “home theatre in a dock”, this looks just the business beneath a 26 inch flat screen and has USB ports for playing back digital music, DivX and JPG files, plus a slot-loading DVD player with 1080p upscaling via HDMI. Video from connected iPods/iPhone is handled by composite DISTRIBUTOR

plugs, and you can copy a CD directly into a USB stick at 2x speed. (See the full review on page 60.) The XWNAC3 ($599, pictured) has dual docks that allow you to simultaneously charge an iPod and iPhone, as well as shuffle a playlist from the combined libraries of the two. The unit networks with a PC via DLNA version 1.5, which allows streaming music and internet radio to be controlled via an iPod or iPhone. It also provides Bluetooth music streaming.

Pioneer Electronics PHONE 1800 988 268 WEB www.pioneer.com.au

IPTV via FetchTV The FetchTV2 from ISP provider iinet offers three HD tuners, a terabyte hard drive for recording, plus 20 broadband channels (five of which are available on-demand), 30 free movies a month and a pay-per-view movie service. Movies cost from $3.95, with new releases costing $5.95 (SD) and $6.95 (HD). Unique to FetchTV2 is push VOD (video on demand), whereby on-demand TV channels and movies are sent automatically to the box by iinet. With content already residing on the HDD, there is none of the delay of ‘pull VOD’ systems as content downloads – playback of selected programming is, instead, instant. The FetchTV2 box costs $399 outright, or $10 a month on top of the $20 a month subscription fee. You also have to have iinet’s BoB home phone/internet solution, which DISTRIBUTOR

can be purchased outright or billed at $10 a month to your account. All broadband content delivered to the box is unmetered for iinet customers, which you must be because FetchTV is currently exclusive to the ISP’s 300,000 subscribers. Expect the FetchTV IPTV service to become available to other non-Telstra ISPs, including Optus and internode, in 2011.

iinet WEB www.iinet.com.au

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RANDOM PLAY

Sony BD home theatre systems If you’re interested in ‘on-demand’ Internet television (IPTV) but your new TV set doesn’t have the functionality built-in, Sony’s new home entertainment range could be the thing for you. Incorporating Bravia Internet Video, the company’s new Blu-ray players and BD home theatre systems offer access to 19 live channels of IPTV, starting at $229 for the BDPS370 Blu-ray player. Two other models, the 470 and 570, complete the new USB-equipped Blu-ray player line-up; both are full HD 3D DISTRIBUTOR

capable, with the latter also featuring built-in WiFi. They all boot up in three seconds, and can be controlled via iPod or iPhone using the free Blu-ray remote app from the iTunes store. On the home theatre front, Sony’s three new full HD 3D-ready systems arrive with DLNA, USB and wireless compatibility starting at $599, with the top-end BDVE970W model (pictured) offering wireless rear tallboy speakers for a system cost of $999.

Sony Australia PHONE 1300 720 071 WEB www.sony.com.au/bluray

BeoVision 10-46 LED LCD Edge-lit LED technology has arrived at the classy end of the market, with B&O announcing the arrival of its BeoVision 10-46 LCD TV; a big brother to the previously-released 40 inch BeoVision 10-40 model. Arriving with plenty of time for proud new owners to incorporate the slim, 46 inch, aluminium-framed television as the focal point into their Commonwealth Games-watching home entertainment system, the BeoVision 10-46 has an active two-way stereo loudspeaker system DISTRIBUTOR

with centre bass located directly beneath the screen to produce hi-fi audio that really puts you among the watching crowds. Adaptive filmjudder compensation technology and the 200Hz refresh rate assure smooth reproduction of fast-moving action and, for a personal touch, the magnetic speaker cover can be specified in blue, dark grey, silver, orange, white or the standard black colour, with additional tones obtained at extra cost. The B&O BeoVision 10-46 costs $13,950.

Bang & Olufsen WEB www.bang-olufsen.com

14 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

TECH CORNER

HDBaseT 100Gbps ADSL Cat5 5Play HDMI Cat’s out of the bag

here’s a new digital cable standard for your AV kit, and like all the best inventions it uses old, cheap, readily available materials to make it work. In the same way that ADSL over 50-year-old copper wiring has given us a decade of broadband internet without all that tedious laying of new pipes, so too HDBaseT will allow us to watch uncompressed HD on our TVs without having to shell out for HDMI cables. HDBaseT – now supported by an alliance that includes Sony Pictures, Samsung and LG – uses distinctly oldfashioned Cat5 or Ethernet cabling to squirt five kinds of ‘stuff’ to your display and speakers. Valens Semiconductor, the inventors of HDBaseT, call it 5Play. That’s because you can send HD video, HD audio, internet, power and system control over a single, cheap Cat5 cable. What’s more, the system works to a maximum distance of 100 metres – compare that to HDMI’s paltry 10 metre maximum (both systems can be boosted further by use of repeater boxes). HDMI is not a bad standard, but it is an expensive standard. It’s maximum bandwidth is 10.2 gigabits per second – enough for HD video, audio and control. But it uses these highly customised cables that have no other application. Because of that, retailers can charge truly insane prices for them. Some stores still charge $50 for a three metre cable. Twenty metres of factory-built, top quality Cat5 will cost $15. Or you can make the stuff yourself with a $3 crimping tool. Cat5 – Category 5 – is the cable standard used in every wired computer network. It’s ubiquitous and that makes it cheap. This is the genius of HDBaseT. The specification – only finalised in June 2010 – takes existing cable and works that ol’ signal processing magic to mash an HDMI-matching 10.2Gbps of data up the pipe. Watching HDBaseT in action is kind of unnerving. There’s this huge coil of ugly old network cable sitting on a desk, a Blu-ray player on one side of the room, and on the other is an AV rack showing 1080p video and speakers pumping 7.1 uncompressed HD audio. The cable itself is 100 metres long. That’s something HDMI can only dream about. Just spent all your money on HDMI-equipped AV gear? Don’t worry. You’ll be able to buy converter boxes, rather inelegantly called dongles, that will convert the HDBaseT signal to HDMI. What’s more, because the standard transmits power too (up to 100 watts), the receiving dongle

won’t need a power brick. It will just be powered by the dongle at the other end. The people who will benefit from 5Play first and foremost will be projector users. It’s always been painful trying to position an HD projector behind your head, but still have all your gear in front of you so your remote can operate it. With HDBaseT, you’ll just run a Cat5 cable up through your roof, around the chimney, down through the drywall, out to the back toilet, down to the mailbox, wherever you like, up to 100m, to your projector. Older projectors will need a dongle (powered by the cable, as mentioned) but devices sold late this year and from early 2011 will start to include HDBaseT support. Of course HDBaseT and the 5Play system has its critics. The first complaint is that it only matches the bandwidth of HDMI (10.2Gbps) so what’s the point of making the change? Well the quick answer to that is cable length – 100m out of the box. The system also supports eight ‘hops’ for a total max distance of 800m. That’s the length of a freaking hotel. Meanwhile, futurists point to Intel’s Light Peak standard. It’s primarily designed for PCs to replace the variety of transmission systems or ‘buses’ currently inside the average computer. It starts at an HDMI-like 10Gbps but goes all the way up to 100Gbps. What’s more, because it consists of two optical fibres, it can send data at full bandwidth in both directions at the same time. But like our own optical-based porposed NBN, Light Peak is still in its early stages. It also needs to be integrated with a copper wire to transport power. And most significantly, optical cables are still relatively expensive. We keep coming back to HDBaseT, not just because it can carry so much data and do so many things, but because its cables are so cheap. Of course, once it’s in the market, you’ll be able to spend $100 on a ‘specially shielded’ or ‘audiophile grade’ Cat5 cable, but this is one instance where we can say with absolute certainty that the $5 cable you buy from your local computer store will be every bit as good. We know HDBaseT will work because real PC wonks already use it to transport HD content to specialist devices. What Valens Semiconducter is really doing is establishing a standard and securing investment in turning book-sized dongles into miniature chips that go inside your next TV and Blu-ray player. Don’t believe the detractors, and don’t wait around for optical. HDBaseT is the future of HD content transport. You read it here first. Anthony Fordham

“HDMI is not a bad standard, but it is an expensive standard… Twenty metres of factorybuilt, top quality Cat5 will cost $15. Or you can make the stuff yourself with a $3 crimping tool.”

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3D comes home – TVs galore! 3D is still an extremely new format for the home. The surprising thing is that despite this, there is already a large range of 3D TVs available, and more on the way. In fact, there are many more 3D TVs available than actual 3D movies to watch on Blu-ray 3D! The four brands into the market so far are Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and LG. Sony and LG models are all LCD. Panasonic models are all plasma and Samsung offers both technologies. All four brands also have matching Blu-ray players and home theatre systems which support Blu-ray 3D. All four brands support the new Bluray 3D video format, of course. And all support broadcast 3D in the side-by-side and up-down formats. Consequently, they will also work with material you have PVR’d, or recorded from a Foxtel 3D broadcast. The Sony and Samsung models also have a kind of pseudo-3D mode, in which they convert regular 2D material to 3D on the fly. The results with these can be effective, but are rather variable. Neither the LG nor Panasonic TVs have this function, although in the US, Panasonic markets two Viera GT25

series 3D plasma televisions (in 42 and 50 inch sizes) that integrate 2D-to-3D conversion circuitry. Samsung has six LED 3D TVs in its 7, 8 and 9 Series, ranging from 40 inch (102cm) to 55 inch (140cm) in size, and it also has three plasma models from its 7 Series, ranging from 50 inch (127cm) to a massive 63 inches (160cm). Sony is all LCD, of course. Its two fully 3D models are in the LX900 series and are both large at 52 inches (132cm) and 60 inches (152cm), but it has two other Series – the HX800 and HX900 Series – that are upgradeable to 3D with optional glasses and 3D transmitter. These have a total of five models from 40 inches (102cm) to 55 inches (140cm). LG has two series (LX6500 and LX9500) with a total of five models ranging from 42 inches (107cm) to 55 inches (140cm).

Panasonic has one 50 inch (127cm) plasma model out now, to be followed in October and November by three more: 54 inches (137cm), 58 inches (147cm), and the mother of them all at 65 inches (165cm). This was displayed at an industry expo in Sydney in August. You may be lucky to find some Panasonic and Samsung TVs with free Bluray 3D discs bundled (Coraline and Ice Age 3 for the Panasonic, and Monsters vs Aliens for the Samsung), but these promotions have essentially finished. Sony’s promotion is by redemption for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D and Deep Sea 3D, and requires online registration by 30 September this year. Smaller TV brands such as Hisense and Soniq have said they expect to market 3D models by the end of the year or early-2011.

THX has developed a certifcation standard for Blu-ray 3D discs, with approved discs able to display the below logo on packaging. Created in partnership with BluFocus, one of the Bluray Disc Association’s official testing labs, certification indicates that sound and images on a 3D Blu-ray disc maintain the quality and detail of the original master elements; that the 3D elements in a movie or TV show (including subtitles, menus, graphics) are faithful to the director’s intent, and that that the disc will play seamlessly on 2D and 3D Blu-ray players from major consumer electronics brands.

Just months after the arrival of the first 3D products, LCD, plasma and LED-type televisions, Blu-ray players and home theatre in box systems are available to support 3D.

www.gadgetguy.com.au/3d HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 17

Broadcast sports such as the recent State of Origin football series appear as a side-by-side picture, with both halves merging into a complete picture when viewed through 3D eyewear on a 3D TV.

Record now – watch when you get that 3D telly Although you may not yet have a 3D TV, you can record any 3D broadcasts and store them on your PVR until you do. You don’t need any special equipment to do this - a standard hard-drive PVR like a Tivo will do the job just fine. The reason is simple: while Blu-ray 3D is at a technical level an entirely new video format, 3D TV is broadcast using identical standards to regular full high definition TV. That is, it is simply a 1080i HD

broadcast. Even 720 can be used. As with all effective 3D, it needs to deliver separate left and right eye images. But instead of transmitting them one after the other, like Blu-ray 3D, it simply divides the normal picture in half, putting one eye’s view on the left and the other on the right (see the example above, taken from the 3D broadcast of one of the State of Origin football matches in June).

Aussie Rules fans ought to be able to catch the big game of the match, the Grand Final on 25 September, in 3D. And given that there is little 3D on, even if you’re going to watch it live, set the PVR to record it. When you play it back, you do nothing different with the PVR. Just hit ‘Play’, and then set your TV to 3D ‘Side by Side’ mode, put on your 3D shutter glasses, and enjoy football in depth.

Don’t forget the YouTube There are essentially two types of 3D offerings on YouTube. There are those 3D videos which are based on the standard YouTube format, and typically need to be watched using red/cyan coloured glasses.

Unfortunately, none of the options are suitable for the side-by-side 3D mode available from 3D TVs, meaning you can’t hook up your computer to a 3D TV to view them.

Then there’s the other type of video, which is based on a new player for 3D content provided by its uploaders with discrete left and right eye video. That allows the player to deliver it reformatted into all kinds of different 3D styles (yes, including red/cyan coloured!).

This is all pretty experimental, and most of the content is either for testing or to show off. Still, it shows that 3D is expanding, and the ways of expansion may well be quite unpredictable.

One way to find these clips is to go to YouTube (www.youtube.com) and enter yt3d:enable=true into the search box. This is that tag that people uploading video attach to invoke the 3D player. The 3D player looks pretty much the same as the standard one, except that there is a ‘3D’ pop-up menu (see picture). Click on this and you get 14 different ways in which the underlying left and right eye images can be presented. This is designed to allow some form of 3D experience for most of the different 3D viewing technologies which are available. For example, several of them work with standard monitors, using only coloured glasses (red/cyan, amber/blue, green/magenta). In addition you can see the leftonly and right-only eye views. But if you have a special 3D video card and compatible computer monitor and glasses, or a 3D video headsets, you can get full colour 3D from some of the modes.

www.gadgetguy.com.au/3d 18 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

The HDC-SDT750 comes with an interchangeable lens that captures two side-by-side video images. It costs just under $2000.

Make home 3D movies and photos

For those who like to do more than watch, the arrival of 3D-capable camcorders and cameras foretells the creation of unique content to feed to today’s 3D displays. Panasonic’s HDC-SDT750 video camera comes with a ‘3D conversion lens’ that integrates one lens for each eye and allows you to shoot two side-by-side videos, each with a resolution of 960 x 1080. Sent back to a compatible TV over HDMI or via an SD card, the videos are reconstructed into a home movie that gives weddings, parties (anything!) more depth and realism when viewed on a 3D telly. Naturally, you can detach the conversion lens and shoot in plain ’ole 2D if you want, but you can’t add the lens to any other Panasonic camcorder and achieve 3D results. While the HDC-SDT750 will also capture stills in 3D, you’ll get better results from the company’s Lumix G Series Micro Four Thirds models when paired with the world’s first interchangeable 3D lens. Scheduled to arrive towards the end of the year it, like the camcorder attachment, essentially incorporates two lenses into the one design to capture still images that will display in 3D on a compatible telly. Sony takes a different approach to integrating 3D capture into its digital cameras. Implemented on its mirrorless NEX-5 and NEX-3 cameras, the ‘3D Sweep Panorama’ mode captures a burst of images and slices two slivers, an eye distance apart, out of each image. It then stitches the two sets of images together to produce a 3D picture, bypassing the need to shoot on two cameras (or an attachment with two lenses). The images can be viewed in 3D only on a 3D television, and while both models can capture moving video, the 3D mode is implemented only for stills. Sony’s 3D Sweep Panorama mode will soon will appear in the company’s compact Cyber-Shot TX9 and WX5 too, along with a new feature called ‘Sweep Multi View’. This lets users see ‘3D-like images’ on the camera’s LCD screen – so no need for a 3D-capable telly. Sony’s NEX-3 and NEX-5 (pictured) mirrorless cameras feature a Sweep Panorama mode for creating 3D photos This sounds a lot like for viewing on a 3D compatible telly. the 3D panel technology shown by Sharp in April, and which is expected to appear in Japan on a smartphone from the brand by the end of the year. 3D displays that don’t require eyewear are possible only in the small screens of personal devices, largely because viewing is generally done from a fixed distance and angle, which makes it easier to achieve a 3D effect.

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3D has always had an uncertain existence. Early filmmakers experimented with it as early as the closing decade of the 19th Century. By the early 1920s some movies were being exhibited in 3D format and several rival systems were developed. But it wasn’t until the early 1950s that 3D took off. Television was threatening film, so moviemakers experimented with ways of offering an experience not available from television. This was the genesis of widescreen and colour. And also of 3D. But 3D didn’t last. About forty 3D films are known to have been released prior to 1952, and most of them appeared to be shorts and curiosities. Then came the feature Bwana Devil in 1952. This was a financial success, and resulted in more than 90 3D films appearing in 1953, many of them feature films. Yet already the steam was going out of the phenomenon, in large part because much of the material was all about the 3D experience, and very little about the traditional film virtues of acting, plot and the like. Only 25 or so 3D films were produced for 1954, some of them released only in 2D versions. And they fell away to a trickle after that. A brief resurgence in the 1970s in exploitation and porn didn’t really do much for 3D. But then 3D found its feet. In 2004 The Polar Express was released. This wasn’t just a 3D movie. This was a $US150 million 3D movie. And it turned a profit! It appeared on the big, big screen in IMAX theatres (an association that IMAX has continued with various 3D productions). It is reputed to have made one quarter of its total box office at IMAX 3D venues. Since then some 50 3D titles have been released, and time and time again a substantial part of the box office receipts have been for the 3D versions, thanks in large part to the higher margins charged for attendance. Some critics say that the 3D component of receipts has fallen away somewhat in the last year or so, but other commentators note that in large part this is because the number of 3D releases means greater competition for the theatres equipped with 3D facilities. Last year Pixar re-rendered the first two Toy Story movies into 3D versions, and made over $US30 million with them at the US box office. See the story on page 38 for a highlight reel of movies being released in 3D over the next two years. We reckon 3D isn’t going away any time soon.

www.gadgetguy.com.au/3d VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 19

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What’s to watch Don’t get confused with Blu-ray discs that say ‘2D and 3D’ versions. Especially if they say ‘3D glasses included!’. These are so-called anaglyph 3D movies, in which coloured filters are used to give a 3D effect. This can work well, but you don’t get much colour. Proper Blu-ray 3D titles come in a Bluray style box, except that it is transparent instead of blue coloured, and has the Blu-ray logo at the top in shiny blue, instead of silver. So from Sony Pictures you can now purchase Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in Blu-ray 3D, and from 15 September you can purchase Monster House 3D. In November, Sony Pictures expects to release Open Season in 3D. Paramount doesn’t have any Blu-ray 3D releases planned at this point. While Monsters vs Aliens, recently available bundled with Samsung 3D TVs, is distributed by Paramount in Australia in the 2D version, it says that it doesn’t handle the 3D versions of Dreamworks titles. Universal says that the highly regarded animated feature Despicable Me is slated for Blu-ray 3D release in early January 2011. Nothing much is available from 20th Century Fox, including Avatar (it was rumoured for November, but this has been denied by Fox). Disney at this stage plans Toy Story 3 for late next year and Warner is mum on the subject.

Monster House and Open Season will be available on 3D Blu-ray by Christmas.

Play time In June Sony Computer Entertainment released a firmware upgrade for the Playstation 3 to allow it to play 3D games, and at the same time released a number of free downloadable games and a demo via its online store, with a promise of 20 games by Christmas. This is proper 3D – not just the two-coloured version – and requires a proper 3D TV to work. Any brand will do the job. Sony also promises another firmware upgrade in September which will allow the PS3 to play back 3D Blu-ray discs. Some 3D games are available for the Xbox 360 as well, but at this stage they use a side-by-side format like broadcast 3D TV. Microsoft has been happy to be

a follower so far on the 3D front, but industry sources suggest that the Xbox 360 hardware is more than capable of delivering a full 3D gaming experience, just like the PS3.

Some of the free downloadable 3D games from the Playstation Store, with more promised by Christmas. To play, you need a PS3 console and a 3D television set with shutter glasses.

Third dimension for Nintendo While still in the prototype stages, the next iteration of Nintendo’s DS portable games console is set to provide 3D gaming without the need for special eyewear. Like the current-model DSi and DSi XL consoles, the forthcoming 3DS will comprise one touchscreen and one regular screen in a clamshell design. Adjacent to the top screen - a 3.53-inch widescreen LCD - will be slider switch for adjusting the depth of the 3D effect, plus Nintendo is also said to be integrating a ‘slide pad’ above the directional pad for providing analog control similar to that of the Nintendo Wii’s nunchuk controller. The inclusion of gyro and motion sensors means you can

expect to experience some Wiilike movement from forthcoming games (both 3D and 2D) too, and in an upgrade to existing camera functions on the DS consoles, the 3DS will allow 3D image capture. Though at 640 x 480 pixel resolution, the images won’t be great. Expected to market during the first half of 2011, the 3DS will be supported by a plethora of titles at launch, according to Nintendo. The company is currently developing a 3D version of Nintendogs (which features cats), Star Fox 3D, and Mario Kart, and we’re expecting to also

see 3D versions of Super Street Fighter IV, The Sims 3, FIFA, Resident Evil, DJ Hero, Assassin’s Creed, Kung Fu Panda, a LEGO title, and even a game made in Australia - de Blob 2.

www.gadgetguy.com.au/3d 20 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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GOOD SPORTS

GOOD SPORTS For lovers of bat, balls, tracks, laps and lanes, Justin Worthy’s sports-worthy systems help put you at the game.

f you’re a fan of sporting activity – and hey, you’re Australian so that’s pretty much a given, right? – you already know that the next Commonwealth Games is being held in Delhi from 3–14 October. For the last one, we had the luxury of watching the athletes performing on home ground, in Melbourne, and with a dominating medal count from last time – double that of

the nearest rivals, England (boo! hiss!) – Australia’s got a reputation to maintain. But unless you’ve booked a seat on an Air India flight already, chances are you’re looking to enjoy experiencing the games from home. Which is good, because that’s where this article comes in. What should you get, why and what’s it going to cost you? Good questions, glad you asked!

WHERE TO WATCH THE XIX COMMONWEALTH GAMES Happily for us in Australia, Channel Ten and Foxtel have both joined Coca Cola – but, frankly, not a whole lot of others – as official sponsors of the event, which is more than they did for the recent World Cup. This time, at least, your pay TV subscription isn’t entirely useless, because Foxtel will have six dedicated high definition channels covering the Delhi games showing live footage of all 17 disciplines.

22 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Network Ten will broadcast coverage on channel 10 and One. This should please fans of the less glamorous sports like squash and lawn bowls but, most pleasingly of all, the excellent game of Kabaddi (see opposite page) will feature as a demonstration sport: “Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi!”

TV manufacturers in particular plan their annual marketing activities to coincide with big sporting or holiday events, so look out for a slew of bonus giveaways or special deals to fire up as we head into the summer. You can rely on the big guys – Sony, Panasonic, LG, Epson and all – to stage their own 100 metre dash to the finish line that is the start of the Commonwealth games, hoping that consumers will see this as the perfect time to buy that flatscreen TV, get a Blu-ray recorder or PVR, or even upgrade their 32 incher to a stadium-sized 50 inch crowd-pleaser. So particularly if your personal passion is lawn bowls or rugby sevens, now’s the time to get your house in order for the 3 October kickoff to the XIX Commonwealth Games. Check out the following options for assembling a sports-centric system and, if you get setup early enough, you can trial your system with the September AFL and ARL football grand finals.

And remember, if you enjoy a good burger with your beer in front of the telly, rigging up a great home entertainment setup in your living room is the only way you’re going to be able to watch the Commonwealth Games and worship the cow in your own special way, because of course the Delhi Organising Committee have resolved not to serve ‘cow meat’ at the event itself. We say save the money you were going to spend on the airfare, hotel and spends, and nip down to the local AV store instead to get your dream system at home!

KABADDI In the traditional Indian game of Kabaddi two teams of seven take turns in sending a single “raider” into the other half of the field. The raider tries to tag or pin down an opponent before returning to his own side while holding his breath and chanting “kabaddi”, which means “holding of a breath” in Hindi. The recent Kabaddi World Cup was held in the Indian state of Punjab, and attracted competitors from the US, Spain, Italy, Iran and Australia.

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 23

GOOD SPORTS

… Bigger is better, and the ability to replace or add new (external) hard drives better still”

SYSTEM 1

The quick-fix The path of least resistance, if you already have a decent telly, is to beef up the sound and recording capabilities. New Delhi is four-and-a-half hours behind EST time, so there shouldn’t be any need to get up at 3am to catch an event like you had to with the soccer. But if you’re a shift worker or like to get to bed early, you might need to set some of the evening stuff to record to view later. Enter the PVR. You’ll need at least a 250GB hard drive on the recording device, more (way more) if you want to capture it from the high-def broadcasts. So bigger is better, and the ability to replace or add new (external) hard drives better still. Essential features on a PVR include ‘true’ twin HD tuners, which allow you to record two programs while watching something you’ve recorded earlier (many manufacturers misrepresent this in their blurb, so be sure to ask), a skip function for the ads, the ability to record from the onscreen Electronic Program Guide (or EPG) and a simple user interface; check that in-store, if possible. As long as you’re paying around $500 or up for the PVR, and you’ve heard of the brand, you should be fine. There are several options for getting good sound. An HTiB (home theatre in a box) is a great solution, giving you an amplifier/receiver or playback device like a DVD player, along with at least six speakers. Choose what you need: if you already have an amp, there are some recent entrants that offer a Blu-ray player instead, which means you’re building a system that’ll serve

24 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

you way beyond the Commonwealth Games and set the stage for fun family movie nights. Check for HDMI inputs, DLNA compatibility (for ease of use with other devices) and support for the various AV formats you might need, including 1080p HD playback, 12-bit colour, the Dolby and DTS high-def sound formats, iPhone/iPod, DivX and the key audio formats such as WMA, MP3 and AAC. For a really neat and compact solution, have a look at the ‘soundbar’ style of product as a one-stop-shop for surround sound that doesn’t fill the joint with black boxes, and even matches the look of your flat screen. Sound and recording should only set you back around $1500 for both, factoring in a couple of cables, surge protection and the like.

Pioneer HTZ-606BD An integrated Blu-ray /receiver component with 5 satellite speakers and a subwoofer $599

Yamaha YHT-294 A compact subwoofer/satellite surround system mated to Yamaha’s HTR-3060 AV receiver. $649

SYSTEM 2

The value ‘keeper’ Moving up a notch – and for those of you who need to buy a new television – there’s some excellent value to be had if you have a keen eye. The price of flat screen TVs has been in freefall for a couple of years, and with the introduction of so-called ‘LED’ LCD televisions and the more recent arrival of 3D products, the now bog-standard ‘HD’ panels are practically being given away. That means the savvy sports enthusiast could pick up a high def, 42 inch TV – still capable of showing the Games in all its HD glory via Channel One or Foxtel HD – for way under a grand. You’ll still get up to 1080i there, but even the full high definition (1080p) LCD sets are priced to move. Having said that, our advice is to put your minimum stake in the ground at full high definition and see what you can get for your money, because then you have a TV that can handle the current maximum resolution and it’ll be many years before there’ll be a need to upgrade. With televisions under 50 inches, you’re still really in LCD territory, so the most important feature you need to look for is a fast response time, which means a low figure. This figure isn’t the same thing as refresh rate, although increasing the refresh rate can help compensate for lower response times. Regardless, make sure your new TV has a response time lower than 8ms and then whatever refresh rate bells and whistles are added on, such as a 100Hz refresh rate, will only make it better, or at least make you feel better. If, which is likely the case, your salesperson or the website refuses to disclose the tech specs or just doesn’t

know, judge with your own eyes. Visit a store in person, ask to see fast-moving sports or movie footage, and decide for yourself if it’s good enough. Ignore the now-absurd manufacturer claims regarding contrast ratios, because the marketing folk have reduced the numbers to meaningless drivel in their efforts to outbrag one another. Go for a TV set with at least three HDMI inputs, capable of full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution and a good warranty. You’ll probably still want to grab a PVR, or perhaps even consider a DVD recorder with integrated hard drive, and some sound. The better TVs have an ‘audio out’ connection that allows you to add external powered speakers for a bit more audio oomph. You should be able to collect all three for a little over $2300; a bit more if you go for a full-blown surround sound system and need to buy cables.

Sony Bravia KDL40EX500 40 inch LED backlit LCD with 100Hz and 24fps compatbility $1400

Beyonwiz DP-Lite 500GB storage, networking and multimedia playback $549

The most important feature you need to look for is a fast response time, which means a low figure”

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 25

GOOD SPORTS

SYSTEM 3

Star performer Be sure to couple your new TV with a proper surround sound system”

To avoid the response time debate altogether, go for a plasma screen, where the technology itself renders the issue redundant. Plasma TVs may not be as popular these days as LCD, but they still offer the best fidelity with fast-moving imagery, so if you’re more about the hockey and rugby sevens than the swimming, you’re better off with a plasma. Plasmas still have the edge on overall picture quality, the reproduction of true blacks and, perhaps most importantly to you, are available for less cash for a top-name brand. You can’t ignore the advances in LCD either, naturally, and the most exciting of those are probably the introduction of ‘LED’ and 3D technology. ‘LED’ refers to a method of lighting LCD television and is not a new form of TV at all, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that many believe LED TVs, as they’re called, produce a better picture than the regularly-backlit versions. (See page 44 for a round up of current-model LED LCD televisions - Ed.) 3D, or the ‘Next Big Spin’, as I like to call it, still relies on the use of dorky 3D glasses but, when it grows beyond that,

will very likely become much more attractive. The more practical of you should ignore 3D for your TV now, as the Commonwealth Games will not be broadcast in 3D anyway. But if ‘future-proofing’ is important, there’s no harm in treading the 3D path because the function can be disabled and you’ll have the feature for when it becomes more mainstream. Be sure to couple your new TV with a proper surround sound system – some stores like to present their products ‘bundled’ as a complete home entertainment system, complete with mid- to high-end speakers and they are worth checking out. If you’re intent on building your own, bespoke, system, be sure to go to a retailer that is capable, and willing, to demo a range of AV receiver and speaker options to you. Beyond sound reproduction quality, the most critical things to look for are compatibility with the HD sound formats, HDMI 1.4 repeating with at least four HDMI inputs, an ‘auto calibration’ function for hassle-free speaker setup and perhaps a good selection of DSP settings (such as ‘stadium’, to really get the benefit of the atmosphere of the games). For the twin-tuner PVR, make sure you’re in terabyte territory where the storage space is concerned, there’s USB 2.0 input/output and Ethernet connectivity for ‘on-demand’ content – some PVR makers have agreements with ISP partners and offer ‘unmetered’ video on demand services, so downloads don’t count towards your monthly quota. Most PVRs will also record 3D broadcasts. Look at paying between $6000 and $7000 for the whole setup.

Jamo A402HCS5 speaker package 5.1 sound with style $900

Panasonic TH-P50VT20A 50 inch full HD 3D plasma TV $3299

Topfield TRF-2400 Masterpiece HD Plus PVR Twin tuner with 500GB and networking features $1099

26 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

SYSTEM 4

Super-size me If you can entirely black out your viewing room, get a projector. Even as a complement to the large flatscreen you already have, there’s nothing like a projector for producing a massive, envy-inducing cinema-sized picture in your own home. To be all set up in time for the Commonwealth Games, don’t worry about fully installing it on the ceiling and hiding the speakers in your walls – if you want, you can do that later. For right now, consider a projector that is full HD capable with 16:9 aspect ratio and boasts long lamp life – 2000 hours is a good level, but some manufacturers claim up to 5000 hours, meaning you won’t have the expensive job of looking for a replacement bulb any time soon. A good projector will also have 24p output for Bluray, adjustable overscan and keystone correction, and be well-rated for contrast and (low) noise levels. Just in case you do consider opening the blinds, look for a high ‘ANSI lumens’ number too; preferably over 1300 and, in this case, the higher the better. If you’re thinking of doing that full installation later, a ‘short throw’ lens will give the installer more flexibility in projector placement too, allowing for the biggest possible screen size from the shortest distance.

A good move is to pair it with an AV receiver with two HDMI outputs, so you can hook up your flat panel display and projector at the same time (also allowing you to consider projectors with a single HDMI input). Beyond the costs outlined in the previous system, assuming you want that kit too, adding around $3000 will get you the projector, plus $1000 for a good screen, and bring you into the big leagues.

Epson TW5500 DLP projector Full HD DLP projector with 1600 ANSI lumens brightness $3550

Integra DTR-50.1 AV receiver Two HDMI outputs for running HD video to a projector and a flat screen simultaneously $2600 Mounts easily to a wall and retracts when not in use Around $1000

Pair it with an AV receiver with two HDMI outputs, so you can hook up your flat panel display and projector at the same time”

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 27

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.

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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.

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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.”

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

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

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

OBJECTS OF DESIRE

Loewe Reference System T

his isn’t home-theatre-in-a-box. It’s something else entirely. Loewe’s Reference System is a matched set of speakers, AV receiver and TV – which also includes a 500GB HDD and PVR functionality.

You can use it while receiving your in-home massage from the hot masseuse who’s every bit as German as your amazing Reference System”

30 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Often when you drop serious money on AV gear that’s as much about style as it is about power, you have to make compromises – if not sacrifices – in various aspects of functionality. Not so here. The Reference System does everything a black-n-boring pile of kit will do, but looks roughly one thousand times better while it’s doing it. The key building material here is aluminium. It gives the Reference System an exclusive feel, as if it was born in a wind-tunnel out at a secret aerospace research facility. Let’s start with audio. Output is sensibly beefy for the stylish pad you’ll install this in: total system power is 800 watts, with six individual D-class amps pushing 100 watts to each of the five speakers and 300 watts to the subwoofer. The speakers are super-thin, thanks to electrostatic drivers. Instead of a cone, a thin membrane is suspended in an electrostatic field. Changes in the field vibrate the membrane, creating sound. The result is a thin speaker with big, big audio. The subwoofer? Well, it needs to be a bit chunkier, that’s physics, so Loewe has encased it in an almost featureless block of aluminium. It’s still square, but it’s very, very minimalist. Now the TV. It’s a 200Hz, 1080p LCD that’s just six centimetres thick. Static contrast is 5000:1 and

dynamic is 30,000:1. The size? A massive 52 inches (132cm). The photograph on this page actually makes it a little hard to show exactly how big this thing is: consider the TV is designed to sit on the ground, not up on a cabinet of any kind. So it’s at perfect couch-eye-level, just as it is. What’s more, the TV houses a 500GB hard disk drive and dual HD TV tuners, so it’s also a PVR. So far so good. But there’s even more to this system. The Reference Mediacenter manages all your content. It’s designed to be either wall-mounted, tabletop mounted or – our favourite – placed on a floor stand that makes it reminiscent of an orchestra conductor’s podium. Or you can get a Floor Panel Medium that holds both the TV and Reference Mediacenter, unifying them into one doublestemmed device. A motorised optical drive loads your CDs and downloads album art and track names from the Net, and archives them. DVDs are automatically upscaled to 1080p, natch. No Blu-ray, but you can grab a matching Loewe BD player and plop it on a little alumium slab called the Cube R. Naturally the Reference System also has multiroom functionality. Add in several Individual Multiroom Receivers and Individual Sound Universal Speakers and you can wander the many, many rooms (well, up to seven) of your mansion creating different ‘chill zones’ for your cocktail party – all using the one Assist Media remote. The remote combines the best elements of your favourite universal remote with the kind of design and build quality you’d expect at this price-point. It has a 2.4 inch OLED display at the top that lets you tweak individual speaker settings – and because it’s Wi-Fi enabled, you don’t actually need to point it at anything to get the Reference System to respond. So you can use it while receiving your in-home massage from the hot masseuse who’s every bit as German as your amazing Reference System. The only question at the end of the day is this: after you spend your money on a Loewe Reference System, will you have enough left over for a deposit on the empty art gallery, converted warehouse or aircraft hangar you need to really do its style justice?

Loewe Reference System

$42,000

Audio Products Group www.audioproducts.com.au (02) 9669 3477

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DIGITAL RADIO

32 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

We mark the first year anniversary of digital radio in Australia by naming our top ten DAB+ devices. By Nathan Taylor.

t’s been just over a year now since digital radio first launched in Australia, and what a year it has been. If you live in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra or Perth, there’s really no excuse anymore to avoid getting a DAB+ radio (especially given that most digital radios also support FM). Every major FM radio broadcaster is on board, and there is also a host of unique stations available exclusively on digital radio. In Sydney and Melbourne, there are over 30 stations broadcasting right now, and there are nearly as many in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Canberra currently has a trial that includes 10 stations, and Darwin is commencing trials as well. All those stations are now broadcasting in proper DAB+ quality, meaning that the audio is

richer and clearer than FM radio, without fuzz or interference. The radios themselves have evolved too, from the early British retreads to unique products that make the most of Australia’s more advanced digital broadcasting technology. We’ve seen the introduction of portable players, no larger than MP3 players – and even a few MP3 players with support for DAB+ reception built right in. We’ve also seen more fusion of Internet and digital radio, with products like Pure’s Sensia and Revo’s Domino offering network audio streaming on top of DAB+ reception. There are far too many funky products in the arena to cover here, but in this issue we’ve taken a look at some of our favourites.

What stations can I get? If you want to know what digital stations are available in your area, we’d suggest checking out www. digitalradioplus.com.au. You can just enter your postcode and it will give you a complete list of stations available right now. It also has a great database of current digital radios, so it’s worth checking out if you’re in the market.

Bush BR10DAB DAB+ Kitchen Radio A compact, mains-powered, two-line kitchen radio from Bush, the BR10DAB is clear evidence that digital radios have gone from ‘exotic’ to mainstream. It can be purchased for less than $100 on Bush Australia’s website – and despite the low cost can still program 20 stations (10 FM and 10 DAB+) and output to stereo earphones. Price: $99 Contact: Bush Australia 1300 131 072 www.bushaustralia.com.au

Cowon iAudio D2+ DAB+ It’s not uncommon for portable MP3 players to support FM radio, but Cowon has gone one better with the D2+: it now supports DAB+ as well. A midlife refresh of this iPod-alike has given it the ability to listen in on DAB+ on the go – as well as listen to MP3s and watch movies on its 2.5 inch touchscreen. You will need to be in a good reception area for DAB+, however. Price: $215 (4GB; larger models also available) Contact: Haldex Direct (02) 9553 8399 www.haldexdirect.com.au

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DIGITAL RADIO

Grundig Handheld DAB+ Radio GPR800DAB When digital radios first appeared in Australia over a year ago, you simply couldn’t get portable products. All that has changed. Like Cowon and Sangean, Grundig now offers an FM/ DAB+ that you can carry in your pocket and listen to for up to eight hours between recharges. Thanks to its retractable antenna, it can pick up stations even in low-reception zones (unlike the Cowon, for example). Price: $179 Contact: Grundig/Bush Australia 1300 131 072 www.grundig.net.au

Kaiser Baas Portable Digital Radio Like Bush, Kaiser Baas has proven that you don’t have to spend a fortune to get quality digital radio. The battery or mains-powered Portable Digital Radio comes with 10 presets and a useful carry handle, all for less than $100. It supports FM radio when you’re in regions that don’t have DAB+ reception. Price: $99.95 Contact: Kaiser Baas/Lako Pacific 1800 657 601 www.kaiserbaas.com.au

Pure Sensia There’s no product quite like the Sensia. In addition to its unique retro-futuristic ‘football’ design, it has unrivalled Internet connectivity. You can listen to more than just FM or DAB+ radio on the Sensia – you can get Internet radio from thousands of online stations, listen to music stored on your portable MP3 player or stream audio direct from your PC. You can also access Facebook, Twitter and Picasa on its beautiful touchscreen, check the weather, set an alarm and even take it on the road with you thanks to an optional charge pack. Price: $749 Contact: Pure Australasia 1800 781 114 www.pure.com/au/

Revo Domino The Domino’s funky ’60s styling belies how advanced a product it is. It doesn’t just tune DAB+ radio: it also serves as a capable iPod dock and audio streaming tool. Like Pure’s Sensia, it’s Internet-connected, capable of streaming music from your PC or from thousands of Internet radio stations around the world – so even if you find there’s nothing on broadcast radio that interests you, you’ll never be bored. Price: $399 Contact: Bush Australia 1300 131 072 www.revo.net.au

34 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Roberts Revival Nobody does retro-styling like Roberts Radio, and they don’t come more retro than the Revival, a throwback to the radio design of the ’50s. Don’t let the design fool you, however – it has it where it counts, supporting a two-line display, a very healthy battery life (over 100 hours), presets and considerable speaker power. Price: $449 Contact: Glen Dimplex Australia 1300 556 816 www.robertsradio.com.au

Sangean DPR-25+ Portable Digital Radio Sangean’s DPR-25+ produces audio of a rare quality for a desktop radio thanks to both high-quality speakers and a built in tone control system for different types of audio. It’s also a product that bridges the usability gap between FM radios and digital, with controls that will take you no time at all to become accustomed to. It’s portable, so it can be powered by either mains or batteries (and it can also charge any rechargeable batteries put into it). Price: $299 Contact: Canohm 1800 636 026 www.sangean.com.au

Sangean DPR-34+ Hand Held/ Pocket Digital Radio Like Grundig and Cowon, Sangean has proven that DAB+ is not just for home radios anymore. The DPR-34+ is just 10cm and 5.6cm wide – about the size of a portable MP3 player – but it supports full FM and DAB+ reception with a two-line LCD display and 20 channel presets. Price: $189 Contact: Canohm 1800 636 026 www.sangean.com.au

Tangent Cinque DAB+ A table radio with remote control, the Cinque is really designed to be a one-stop-shop for audio. In addition to tuning digital and FM radio, it plays audio CDs, MP3 CDs and has an auxilliary audio input for when you want to hook your portable MP3 player up. And for a compact radio, it can really belt out some serious sound. Price: $599 Contact: International Dynamics (03) 9429 0822 www.internationaldynamics.com.au

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The speaker system that has it all.......

AktiMate Maxi from

Epoz Active hi-fi speakers with 60 wpc amplifier â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Recivaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; media module Internal wi-fi 802.11b/g Ethernet connection Internet radio 3 auxiliary inputs Audio outputs FM radio

Epoz Pty Ltd

USB host socket (plays media files) Concealed iPod dock Illuminated LCD screen Remote control Alarm Clock (5 settings) 3 colour options Technology licensed from legendary UK hi-fi companies, Creek & Epos

02 9450 0789

info@epoz.com.au

www.aktimate.com

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.

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

Prince or pauper, there’s an LED backlit LCD television to suit most any purse.

Power stations

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

Well hung TV

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

Buying green peace of mind

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

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Box Fresh

Pioneer Aktimate Maxi Telstra T-Box Mitsubishi HC3900 Samsung UA55C9000 Panasonic TH-P50VT20A Panasonic DMP-BDT300 Yamaha RX-V667 Roberts Stream 202 Epson TW5500 Hybrid TV CASPA

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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 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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HOW TO BUY

BUYING 3D GEA THE FAQS 3D is set to provide a whole new experience in the home, but to enjoy that experience yourself, you will need new equipment, new software, and new understanding. Colin Hinton provides answers to the most common questions.

How does 3D work? The key to 3D is to give your two eyes slightly different points of view on a scene. That’s how things look three dimensional to you in real life, because your two eyes are a little apart from each other. Of course, there are other things in real life that give you a sense of depth, but these don’t translate too well to TVs. These two separate pictures are why you have to wear 3D glasses: they work with the TV to make sure that each eye only gets the part of the picture that it is supposed to get. You can see that in old-fashioned 3D movies, as sometimes delivered on DVD. These display both the left and right pictures at the same time, but with different colours. Using two different ‘complementary’ colours on the cardboard glasses, each eyes gets only the half of the picture that it is supposed to get. Today, 3D TVs work by flashing rapidly between the two pictures. The LCD glasses you wear also flash, blocking the light from each eye in turn. This is locked to the picture on the screen so that your left eye sees only the left eye view, and the right eye its own view. Your brain does the rest.

Manufacturers use figures like 100, 200 and 400 Hz to describe their TVs. What do these mean and which is better? In theory these figures are supposed to describe how rapidly the picture frames are shown on the TV. For 3D purposes they are pretty meaningless, at least for the moment. TVs that smooth motion by creating additional frames switch off this feature when showing 3D. That doesn’t mean 100Hz, 2000Hz and 400Hz processing is useless, as these technologies certainly have picture benefits for 2D viewing. For 3D, though, the actual figure that counts depends on the source, and this is constant for TV broadcasts and

Blu-ray, regardless of what the electronics in the television claims to do. 3D means showing twice as many frames as the underlying 2D video standard requires. Australian TV when it appears in 3D, for instance, is shown at 100 hertz –

38 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

A 3D setup comprises a chain of equipment: 3D content, 3D player, 3D-capable cables, 3D display and 3D eyewear.

NG EAR

TV brands are integrating 3D across all display platforms, meaning you can enjoy life-like depth in plasma, LED LCD and LCD flat panel models.

100 frames per second. Fifty of those are for the left eye and 50 for the right. Counter-intuitive though it is, movie frame rates are less than half that of TV frame rates for much TV content. Most Blu-ray movies, for example, are presented at the same frame rates as movies in the cinema, which is 24 frames per second. Blu-ray 3D has to double this in order to show both eye images, meaning that the rate is 48 hertz, or 48 frames per second (24 for one eye and 24 for the other). Where TV manufacturers use a higher number for their TVs when referring to 3D, they may be referring to some system for flashing frames on and off, inserting blank frames and such, all intended to improve 3D performance. Showing more frames won’t increase the 3D effect, however, because the actual picture-content frames remain the same. Will Blu-ray 3D movies work in my non-3D Blu-ray player? Thankfully, the answer to this ‘Yes’. Most likely and mostly. There is no requirement for this. Indeed, some of the early 2D Blu-ray discs have some 3D-only trailers. But at a fundamental level, Blu-ray 3D works by having its ‘left eye’ video in normal Blu-ray format, and adding on the ‘right eye’ stuff. The Blu-ray 3D discs we’ve checked out so far have all given an option to watch in 2D or 3D, even when played in a 3D player. Companies would be pretty silly not to allow this. But long experience shows us that if something can be done, even if it’s silly it eventually will be. So we can’t promise that 3D Blu-ray discs will always come with a 2D version of the film. Which is the best 3D TV technology, LCD or plasma? So far we’ve had a close look at five different models of 3D television from four different brands. Four have been LCD and one was plasma. We liked the plasma a little more than the best of the LCDs, but there really wasn’t much in it, and the slightly more precise image we liked in the plasma came at a cost: it was noticeably darker in 3D mode. Importantly, the quality difference between the LCDs was much greater than that between the best of them and the plasma. So, really, we’d say don’t choose on this basis.

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HOW TO BUY

“THE FACT IS, WE FOUND THAT THE 3D PLASMA TV WORKED QUITE A BIT BETTER WITH THE LIGHTS DIMMED” Do I have be dead centre in front of the TV to get the 3D effect? Perhaps surprisingly, the 3D effect for TVs is amazingly resilient when it comes to angles. Look, if you’re going to be at such an extreme angle that regular 2D TV looks distorted, then 3D won’t work very well either, but would you expect otherwise? But it is important that the 3D glasses are facing the TV, because the TV is transmitting an infrared signal, picked up by the glasses, that keeps the picture and the glasses locked together. If they drift apart the 3D effect will collapse.

Some sports lend themselves better to the 3D treatment than others, with close-up ground-level coverage generally appearing more life-like than wide-shot action sequences.

Some TVs are ‘3D ready’ and can be turned to full 3D by adding a kit. Can I upgrade my TV to 3D using one of these? No. 3D ready TVs have special sockets for attaching an infrared transmitter. The timing of the liquid crystal shutters in the glasses has to be precise within a thousandth of a second or less, to match what the display is showing, so the special connection is critical.

The 100, 200 and 400Hz figures you see on many 3D TV sets are not relevant to 3D performance.

Do I need to watch 3D TV in the dark? No, but for just watching regular movies, dim lighting can enhance the experience. We found that 3D plasma TV worked quite a bit better with the lights dimmed, mostly because its 3D image (viewed through the glasses of course) seemed rather dull in normal lighting. The LCD models were much brighter, but still benefited a little by being in a darker environment.

What’s the biggest problem with the picture quality 3D TVs right now? Crosstalk or ghosting. 3D TV and Blu-ray depend upon making each of your eyes see different things to each other. If you look at some 3D content without the glasses on, you will see much of it has soft outlines, or ghosts, because you are seeing both eyes’ images. Unfortunately, no home 3D technology keeps the left eye images completely away from the right eye, and vice versa. This leakage of picture from one eye to the other is called crosstalk. In some cases you will see ghosts around onscreen objects. How much depends on how good the TV (and its matching eyewear) is, and the content of the picture being shown. Generally, high contrast material tends to show more ghosting. A good example is the Golden Gate Bridge scene on Monsters vs Aliens 3D. All 3D TVs that we’ve seen allow some of the orange/pink of the bridge structure to be visible in the incorrect eyes against the blue sky. With some this is barely perceptible, while with others it is quite marked and detracts from the 3D experience.

3D BLU-RAY COMING SOON How to Train Your Dragon Alice in Wonderland Toy Story 3

40 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Shrek Forever After Tron Legacy 3D Avatar

“REGULAR BLU-RAY PLAYERS WILL PLAY 3D BLURAY DISCS … BUT ONLY IN 2D, EVEN IF YOU HAVE A 3D TV” I like laying down with my head on the arm of the sofa when I watch movies. Can I do that with 3D? Basically, no. Some 3D TVs use technology that requires the glasses to be very close to horizontal or they simply fail to work. When that happens each of your eyes sees both the left and right eye images, and you get what looks like a fuzzy picture without any sense of depth. Others simply become dark as you tilt your head to extreme angles. And those that continue to work tend to lose the 3D effect anyway since the left and right eye images are no long side by side, when your head is resting sideways, but kind of up and down as far as your mind is concerned. What problems with the 3D glasses should I consider when choosing a 3D TV? The number one thing to look for is fit. Will your kids be watching the TV? Remember, almost all the 3D material presently available is family orientated. If so, will the glasses sit on them without slipping off? Are they too tight on your head? Or do they feel uncomfortable on your nose? If you wear prescription glasses, will they fit over the top all right? Some 3D glasses are designed to look svelte, while others seem cumbersome and most definitely unfashionable. The latter generally work better with prescription glasses. 3D glasses need power to make the LCD shutters work. Some brands use replaceable button-style batteries, while others use rechargeable ones. These last come with USB cables for plugging into the TV’s USB socket, and this is what charges them. We prefer the ones with replaceable batteries (they last from 75 to 100 hours of use) simply to avoid mucking around with cables.

Can glasses work on 3D TVs from other brands? No. You can’t take your glasses over to your mate’s place for a shared 3D evening unless you also share the same TV brands. The exacting requirements with regard to the opening and closing of the LCD shutters over each eye, and the precise matching to the design choices in the display panel, eliminate the possibility of glasses working across brands. That’s not to say that there won’t one day be high quality third-party specialist eyewear that can be switched to work with a number of brands.

3D Blu-ray players will play back current collections of high definition Blu-ray discs and DVDs.

Are there any 3D TVs that don’t require glasses? Nothing that is available to you or us. The eyewear-free methods for delivering 3D involve special polarising filters on screens and very precisely located viewers. The problems may one day be solved, but that day is certainly a long way off. Can a 3D TV convert regular 2D discs or broadcast TV to 3D? Indeed some models can do this and, much to our surprise, it can be quite effective from time to time. But any system like this needs to make assumptions about what shapes on the screen are supposed to be at the front, and which are supposed to be at the back, and errors are easily made. We’d prefer to see 2D as it was created and certainly wouldn’t let whether or not the TV has a pseudo-3D mode influence our purchasing decision. Can a 3D TV convert 3D material back to 2D? And why would you want it to do this anyway? All 3D TVs that we’ve seen can do this with Blu-ray 3D, and we expect all future models will allow this. After all, it isn’t hard. All it has to do is show only the left eye material instead of both eyes. For 3D broadcast TV, things aren’t so clear. Generally 3D TV is broadcast using a side-by-side format, where the

LCD and plasma are fairly evenly matched as a platform for 3D, with LCD having a slight edge for picture brightness. Samsung PS63C7000 plasma and LG Infinia LCD pictured.

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HOW TO BUY

LCD shutter glasses are powered by removable batteries or recharged via USB cables. TVs and eyewear are not compatible across brands, meaning you can’t use, say, Samsung glasses to watch a Sony 3D television.

left and right images are next to each other. The TV splits them up and shows them one after the other instead. Going back to 2D can leave you looking at the original side-by-side pictures again. But you can expect 3D sports events and the like to be simulcast on a regular 2D channel. Now, what about why you’d want to convert 3D back to 2D? Well, you might have friends over for a movie, and just don’t have enough 3D glasses to go around. Do I need special cables? Blu-ray 3D only works with HDMI. In theory it only works with the latest version of the HDMI standard, version 1.4. But that is belied by the fact that Sony promises to have an upgrade out for the Playstation 3 in a couple of months to provide full support for Blu-ray 3D. The PS3 has version 1.3 HDMI. Still, as a rule you should use high quality HDMI cables. Those marked version 1.4 will generally do the trick, but then so will most existing high quality HDMI cables. If buying new, buy the latest version. But if you already have cables, try them first.

Do I need a Blu-ray player? Well, yes, if you want to enjoy your choice of 3D material rather than the smidgeon that our TV stations may permit us to view from time to time. But to be more precise, you need a Blu-ray player that supports the new Blu-ray 3D format. Regular Blu-ray players will play 3D Blu-ray discs … but only in 2D, even if you have a 3D TV.

3D FILMS IN PRODUCTION 2010-11 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2 Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Trader Tron: Legacy Cars 2 Happy Feet in 3D

Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom Of Doom The Three Musketeers 3D The Green Hornet Spider-Man 4 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Dreamworks Animation for one indicated a year or so ago that it intends to make all future movies in both 2D and 3D versions. Most computer-generated animation should be able to be re-jigged into impressive 3D versions. 3D video camera assemblies are only now becoming readily available off-the-shelf, rather than as custom creations. As these start to be deployed, we can expect increasing amounts of 3D broadcasts. Most likely sports will be the major beneficiary of this. In short, the future of 3D is looking very bright indeed. n

What about the health risks? A number of the TV makers have issued stern warnings about the possibility of health problems from lengthy exposure to 3D material. On the one hand, this may well be excessive caution on the part of makers who sell products in more litigious nations than ours. On the other, it is easy to see that some problems could result. Most 3D TVs seem to have a slight flickery effect, at least when you first start some 3D material and put on the glasses. We tend to forget about this after a while. Some of the 3D glasses can also cause flickering with other room lighting. Either of these could be problematical for those who suffer from some forms of epilepsy. In such cases caution should be exercised.

How much 3D content is there to watch or is being developed? There has been a wealth of 3D cinema content released over the past five or so years. This is likely to continue for at least a while longer for a very good reason: movie companies have discovered that a very big chunk of their revenue has been coming from the 3D versions of their movies when both 2D and 3D is available in the cinema. It isn’t so much attendances, as the significant premium that is charged for patrons to attend the latter.

42 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Based on LCD technology, televisions such as Sony’s HX 800 series (pictured) are 3D ready with the addition of a transmitter and active shutter glasses.

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ROUND UP

44 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

When it comes to television, LED is the new black. Anthony Fordham assembles a collection of today’s best-dressed models.

he battle between plasma and LCD is over. Nowadays, people ask “Should I get an LED?”. It’s a bit confusing actually, because an LED TV is actually an LCD TV – the LED part refers only to the way light is generated by the TV, not the technology that is used to create the actual image. As we know, LCD TVs use a grid of liquid crystal pixels to create an image, mixing and matching colour and darkness (white is all-off, black is all-on) to create millions of colours. But LCDs don’t actually emit light, they just block or absorb light. To see an LCD TV’s image, it need a backlight. Traditionally this backlight was a compact fluorescent, essentially a specialised fluoro tube (or more commonly, two of them with a diffuser to spread the light evenly). Compact fluorescents, or CF lights, allow for TVs that are much thinner than a traditional CRT. Traditional LCD TVs are between 10 and 30cm thick. Pretty thin, you might think, but these days thinner is always better. A light emitting diode, or LED, is a much more compact lighting system than even CF. An LED needs far less specialised current-control circuitry. This means that TVs with LED backlights can be much thinner again. An LED TV that’s only 8 centimetres thick will be considered portly. In fact, LED thicknesses are usually spoken of in millimetres.

An LED TV tends to be very, very thin around the top and sides of the unit, but may have a bulge toward the stand to accommodate a power supply, mainboard and of course analog inputs such as component or composite plugs. When you buy LED backlit TVs, you’re not just getting a different backlighting system, however. Because LED is considered the future of LCD panels, manufacturers are packing all their latest features into LED-backlit TVs. Better colour reproduction (sometimes with the use of red, green and blue LEDs as well as basic white backlighting), 200Hz motion-smoothing technology, more HDMI inputs for your growing stack of kit, internet connectivity with YouTube, Flickr and other apps on board, better black levels, lower power consumption, and of course 3D. The difference between ‘old’ LCD and new LED-backlit LCD is one of the more subtle distinctions in the AV market. But as a general rule, LED TVs are where the smart money is: the latest tech, the slimmest form-factor, and in most cases the best picture too. Here are ten LED-backlit TVs we’ve had our eye on, and think you should consider too. Just remember: each of these is still an LCD TV, that’s the technology that really counts. LED is the backlighting system. Maybe one day we’ll have just one kind of TV again. But until then, we’re here to help!

LOEWE INDIVIDUAL 46 COMPOSE FULL-HD+ DR+ This premium Euro brand combines svelte styling with a high-end spec list to command a suitably premium price. Image reproduction is excellent, but using this as the hub of a network-connected system throughout the home is what you’re ultimately paying for. With only two HDMI ports, you’d better put a matching AV receiver on the shopping list, too. Available from October.

Price: $8699 Website: www.audioproducts.com.au

The extremely sexy style, the home network hub features, image quality Specs could be higher for this premium price. More sophisticated colour-control too please!

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ROUND UP

METZ PRIMUS 55 FHDTV-200 TWIN R If this model looks fat for an LED TV, it’s because the LED backlight includes more sophisticated control circuitry to allow dynamic contrast and brightness adjustments across the image. Black levels are off-the-chart excellent, and the TV includes a built-in PVR. Made of glass, steel and MDF it’s very heavy too: 60kg. A very serious television, for serious enthusiasts, at a serious price.

Price: $10,999 Website: www.internationaldynamics.com.au

Build-quality, picture-quality, connectivity and PVR functionality Remote rather basic for a TV with this many features

TEAC LE4688FHD And edge-lit LED design means this TV screen is only 20mm thick at the border. Built-in PVR functionality allows seven-day recording to a thumb drive or hard drive via USB port, and there’s a generous four HDMI ports for connecting other kit. Image quality is good, but the slim design means some of the more clever processing features aren’t available. It will decode H.264/MPEG4 direct from USB.

Price: $2499 Website: www.teac.com.au

Super-thin and super-light. PVR functionality is handy No internal hard drive, image reproduction good but lacks sophistication

PANASONIC VIERA TH-L42D25A One of the first LED models from Panasonic, the 42 inch TH-L42D25A features a super-slim chassis thanks to edge-positioned LEDs. It includes internet apps for YouTube and Plus7, and also supports Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) products. PVR functionality is to be had when you connect either a thumb drive or hard drive via USB, plus there’s Skype support with optional an extra camera.

Price: $2499 Website: www.panasonic.com.au

YouTube and Plus7 apps built in, DLNA and 2x USB ports Would getting Panasonic’s Skype camera thrown in be too much to ask?

46 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

GRUNDIG VANTO GLED2207HD Only 35mm thick, the 22 inch Vanto comes with detailed instructions for wall-mounting which is ideal for this smaller display. The features are basic, but this is intended as a second or third TV for a cramped space. Overall, there’s good image quality and colour on offer, but the picture could be brighter. It plays MP3 audio via USB input, but provides no support for video. There’s only one HDMI input.

Price: $529 Website: www.grundig.com.au

Compact size, good image quality, PC connectivity Some quality LED PC monitors are cheaper than this

KOGAN ELITE 100HZ LED46 Impressively, this Kogan has most of the features of a big-brand display costing up to $1000 more. It uses a Samsung panel, so there are few worries with image quality, plus there’s the potential for PVR functionality when you add a USB thumb drive or hard drive. Measuring between 29mm and 42mm, it’s as compact as the more expensive competition too, although the remote is pretty cheap-looking.

Price: $1599 Website: www.kogan.com.au

46 inches of TV for less than $2000! Doesn’t feel premium, but you expected that, right?

SONY KDL46NX700 Beautiful build quality and a user interface that matches the PlayStation3’s Cross-Media Bar makes the Sony KDL46NX700 feel like a premium TV. It supports Sony’s Bravia Internet Video (streaming TV feed) and a range of apps and widgets, plus there are four HDMI ports and DLNA support to round out the set’s high level of connectivity. Larger models (52 inches and up) include 200Hz MotionFlow and 3D.

Price: $3699 Website: www.sony.com.au

Image quality, user interface, optional stand Web features we’re unlikely to use bump up the price

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 47

ROUND UP

LG 47LE7500 LG’s NetCast connectivity supports BigPond movies on demand, YouTube, weather and other apps. The edge-lit display incorporates some local dimming to improve black levels and, overall, the set handles motion well. There’s also good wired connectivity with 4x HDMI, 2x USB, and 3x component inputs. Its swiveling stand is better than some.

Price: $3199 Website: www.lge.com.au

The extra inch, BigPond movies-on-demand, image quality Gloss finish is very reflective

SAMSUNG SERIES 6 UA46C6900 This set’s light dimming feature claims to reduce halo and ghosting effects in low-light viewing conditions, and its connectivity options are exhaustive: built-in WiFi and wider than usual range of internet apps. There’s a special coating on the display to reduce reflectivity, and a very good remote… which it needs to be for all the fiddly extra features. It comes with four HDMI ports.

Price: $2999 Website: www.samsung.com.au

Features, style and build quality. Excellent picture Internet@TV tries to do too much: we have other devices for internet!

SANYO LED46XR10FH Like the phone that “just makes calls”, the Sanyo LED 46XR10FH eschews many of the more fiddly web features other models include, but still packs in PVR functionality. As usual, there’s no internal hard drive but it can record 15 minutes of HDTV per gigabyte of USB storage (thumb drive or hard drive). Styling is pretty neutral, but this is a good price-point for 46 inches.

Price: $1999 Website: www.sanyo.com.au

Budget price with PVR, 3x HDMI and USB Styling is a bit old-school

48 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

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GROUP TEST

REVIEWED ON THE FOLLOWING PAGES • Denon AVR-1911 • Harman Kardon AVR 660 • Onkyo TX-NR1008

50 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

• Pioneer VSX-920-K • Yamaha RX-V767

POWER STATIONS The latest 3D entertainment technology has spawned a new breed of home theatre receiver. Colin Hinton examines five of them.

pparently the technological demands on home theatre receivers will never end. Just as we were getting used to the incorporation of decoding for the excellent lossless audio standards – Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio – and wondering whether Dolby Pro Logic IIz was worth the trouble, everything has been upset again. 3D is the cause. A new video standard – which is what Blu-ray 3D delivers – requires new capabilities from a receiver. Or does it? In fact, a home theatre receiver doesn’t have to do anything to the 3D video signal, other than just let it pass through to the TV. All it needs to do is extract the audio from the signal. And the Blu-ray 3D video signal itself isn’t all that special. It is simply the same as a regular 3D video signal, except that there are twice as many frames. Instead of the 24 frames per second, there are 48 because there are separate images for each eye. So in theory, all recent home theatre receivers should be fine. Blu-ray 3D actually requires less bandwidth than progressive scan 1080p at 50 or 60 frames per second, which receivers can happily deal with. But as is so often the case, theory is trumped by reality. Rumour has it that some older receivers are, in fact, fine with 3D signals. But most simply don’t expect that particular format and timing, and so either won’t pass through the video, won’t decode the sound, or both.

3D-READY AV RECEIVERS THE GOOD • These receivers provide classy home theatre sound to go with 3D movies • All offer plenty of HDMI inputs and at least seven channels • All support a second zone

THE LESS GOOD • Not the most attractive devices on your shelf • Can be complicated to set up

WHAT TO LOOK FOR • Blu-ray 3D signal support • Plenty of HDMI connections • Plenty of power • Audio Return Channel support • Good warranty

THE REVIEW SAMPLE

Four of the receivers we are looking at here implement HDMI version 1.4. The main impetus behind this new standard was 3D TV. The other receiver has only HDMI version 1.3, but a firmware upgrade to be provided in the near future will allow it to dea l properly with 3D TV, which is why we have included it here. So, as far as 3D goes, there’s nothing magical about HDMI 1.4. But with that new standard has come some additional features. By far the most useful is called the ‘Audio Return Channel’, or ARC. This turns HDMI into a two-way communications standard. Normally your home theatre receiver will feed video to your TV. But with ARC, your TV can feed its audio back to the receiver via the HDMI cable. Of course, you’ve always been able to do that by running an optical digital audio cable from the TV to the receiver, but now there is far less fiddling around. If the receiver is running, then when you select the ‘TV’ function of the television, the receiver will automatically switch to the relevant input. When you change the volume using the TV’s remote, the receiver’s volume will be the one that changes. Since this requires real hardware changes, HDMI 1.3 receivers probably can’t be retrofitted with this capability by means of a firmware upgrade. So to examine these new technologies and to see what else has changed in home theatre receivers, we have here five 3D capable home theatre receivers (one of them soon to be), with several models just a little above the entry level in pricing, along with two no-compromise flagship receivers.

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 51

GROUP TEST

PROS AND CONS

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

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $1099 Warranty: three years Contact: Audio Products Group 1300 134 400 www.audioproducts.com.au Power: 7 x 90 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.08% THD Inputs: 5 x HDMI, 3 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 6 x analog stereo audio, 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x calibration microphone, 1 x USB, 1 x AM antenna, 1 x FM antenna Outputs: 1 x HDMI, 1 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 0 x component video, 0 x analogue stereo audio, 1 x subwoofer out, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: 1 x Dock Control Features: HDMI 1.4 inputs with 3D support and Audio Return; iPod and MP3 player support with USB; Dolby Pro Logic IIz processing; Audyssey automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 audio; Surround back amplifiers may be configured for bi-amplification, Dolby Pro Logic IIz front height or Zone 2 support; Video conversion and scaling; GUI Supplied Accessories: Remote control; calibration microphone Dimensions (WHD): 434 x 181 x 381mm Weight: 10.2kg

DENON AVR-1911 O ver the last couple of years there has been a general trend in receivers – particularly at the lower price points – to reducing the number of old-fashioned connections, and increasing the number of HDMI sockets. With its AVR-1911, Denon has certainly adopted this philosophy, producing a receiver with perhaps the least cluttered back panel I’ve ever seen. There are five HDMI inputs (one on the front), but only one component video input (and one S-Video). But no component or S-Video outputs. The receiver converts to HDMI output. There is a composite video output, but who cares? On the other side of the coin – advanced features – it supports all audio standards, including Dolby Pro Logic IIz, and of course it passes through 3D video, while still making use of whatever Blu-ray audio standard is included in the signal. It has a menu system, but with a rather utilitarian style that displaces the onscreen video content, rather than overlaying it.

52 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

The Audyssey automatic calibration and EQ did its job nicely, getting the receiver tuned up quick-smart for optimising the performance of the connected loudspeakers. First you have to decide how you wish to deploy the loudspeakers, because the surround rear channels can be set to run the DPLIIz ‘height’ channels instead, or to biamplify the front speakers. Or, and this was a bit surprising, to power a pair of Zone 2 speakers. This was surprising because there are no line-level outputs for this function. Zone 2 is only available using the built in amplifiers. The video processing capabilities were strong. You can set the receiver to simply pass through the video unchanged (except, of course, converted to HDMI format in the case of analog inputs), or have it upscale to as much as full 1080p. The unit also supports iPods out of the box. Just plug your standard iPod cable into the front-panel USB.

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GROUP TEST

PROS AND CONS

Powerhouse Bulletproof audio performance Very good video performance iPod dock included Good connectivity Auto setup procedures quite intricate No HDMI audio return channel RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $3999 Warranty: Two years Contact: Convoy International (02) 9700 0111 www.e-hifi.com.au Power: 7 x 75 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.07% THD Inputs: 4 x HDMI, 4 x composite video, 4 x S-Video, 3 x component video, 6 x analog stereo audio, 1 x 7.1 analogue audio, 4 x optical digital audio, 4 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x calibration microphone, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet; 1 x HK ‘The Bridge’ iPod Dock, 1 x AM antenna, 1 x FM antenna Outputs: 1 x HDMI, 2 x composite video, 2 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 2 x analog stereo audio, 1 x 7.1 channel pre-out, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: 1 x RS-232C; 1 x A-Bus; 2 x Trigger Out; 1 x Zone 2 IR in, 1 x IR In/Out/Carrier Features: HDMI 1.3 inputs (3D support via firmware upgrade in September); iPod support with included iPod dock; Dolby Pro Logic IIx processing; Automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 audio; Surround back amplifiers may be configured for bi-amplification or Zone 2 support; High quality Faroudja DCDi video conversion and scaling; GUI Supplied accessories: remote control; Zone 2 remote control; calibration microphone with extension rod Dimensions (WHD): 444 x 165 x 435mm Weight: 19kg

HARMAN KARDON AVR 660 T he Harman Kardon AVR 660 does not support 3D video … as I write. But a firmware upgrade is promised for September 2010 to add this capability. Harman Kardon says that this will be as simple as downloading the firmware to a USB stick, putting it into the receiver, and running a routine to upgrade it. Which goes to show that 3D video isn’t as complicated as it sounds. And it also goes to show that Harman Kardon supports its products. What won’t come until next year’s new models – presumably because it requires hardware support – is the Audio Return Channel. This is a convenience, to be sure, but its absence shouldn’t really be a deal breaker. What you get instead is Harman Kardon’s bullet-proof audio performance. Yes, I know it claims a mere 75 watts for its channels, but unlike most brands, that is 75 watts from all seven channels at the same time. Generally brands

54 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

base their power figures on only two channels running. You are unlikely to find either a set of loudspeakers or a volume level that will trouble this receiver. The receiver is a little old-fashioned in not bothering with Dolby Pro Logic IIz and having only four HDMI inputs, with all of them on the rear panel (it has a wealth of other inputs on the front). But there are stacks of traditional home theatre inputs, and enough control connections to ensure that any installer will be able to make the unit fit into any automated system. The music-over-the-network feature worked well (you have to have Windows Media Player or some such installed to act as a DLNA-style server), as did the Internet radio station. The video worked well too, in the pre-upgrade version of the receiver I used. This allowed video scaling up to your display’s resolution. We shall have to wait to see how the 3D performance goes.

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Tune in to the digital radio revolution. DPR-25+ DPR-34+

DAB+ / FM / Portable Stereo Digital Radio with Aux-In for iPod™ Playback / Rechargeable Facility (Also in Black)

DAB+ / FM Personal Digital Pocket Radio Receiver with Stereo Headphones & Built-In Speaker / Rechargeable

iPod not included

DDR-33+ DAB+ / FM / iPod™ Dock / Stereo Table Top - Clock Radio with Remote

Y Your favourite f it AM and d FM radio di stations t ti are now b broadcasting d ti iin digital; enjoy all the beneﬁts digital radio has to offer, including: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

Clearer sound and interference-free reception Virtually CD quality digital stereo* sound Easier tuning using station name, not frequency Additional stations not available on standard radios Scrolling text with artist name / song title, weather, race results etc.

DPR-69+ DAB+ / FM Compact Portable Digital Radio Receiver / Rechargeable Facility

Don’t compromise your radio enjoyment – get the best with Sangean.

DCR-89+ DAB+ / FM Clock Radio with Aux-In for iPod™ Playback

WFR-1D+ Internet Radio / Network Music Player / DAB+ / FM / Stereo Digital Radio Receiver with Aux-In for iPod™ Playback

Enquiries call: 1800 636 026 www.sangean.com.au www.digitalradioplus.com.au Look for this Symbol

*Using stereo headphones on most models.

3/200 Turner Street, Port Melbourne Victoria 3207 Facsimile 03 9646 7366 Email sales@canohm.com.au

GROUP TEST

PROS AND CONS

Powerhouse support for 9.1 channel audio output Excellent multimedia support Excellent all round performance GUI is stuck at 576p and doesn’t overlay video material that’s playing RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $3699 Warranty: three years Contact: Amber Technology 1800 251 367 www.ambertech.com.au Power: 9 x 135 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.08% THD Inputs: 7 x HDMI, 5 x composite video, 4 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 1 x D-SUB15 PC video, 6 x analogue stereo audio, 1 x phono, 1 x 7.1 analog audio, 3 x optical digital audio, 3 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x calibration microphone, 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, 1 x Onkyo Universal port, 1 x AM antenna, 1 x FM antenna Outputs: 2 x HDMI, 2 x composite video, 2 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 1 x analog stereo audio, 1 x 9.2 channel pre-out, 1 x analog stereo audio each for Zone 2 & Zone 3, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: RS-232C, IR In/Out, 12V Trigger Out for Zones 2 & 3, Onkyo R1 control Features: HDMI 1.4 inputs with 3D support and Audio Return; Internet Radio; Multimedia support from USB and DLNA, Dolby Pro Logic IIz processing; Audyssey automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 & 3 audio; surround back amplifiers may be configured for bi-amplification, Zone 2 or Dolby Pro Logic IIz front height support; High quality Faroudja DCDi Cinema Video conversion and scaling; GUI; support for optional iPod dock, THX Select 2 Plus Certification Supplied accessories: remote control; calibration microphone; AM aerial; FM aerial Dimensions (WHD): 435 x 199 x 436mm Weight: 18.6kg

ONKYO TX-NR1008 O f all the receivers in this roundup, the Onkyo TX-NR1008 has the most complete set of features. It of course supports 3D TV and Audio Return from a TV over HDMI. Of course it supports playback of all kinds of audio from both network and USB sources, including a wealth of Internet radio stations and the music that you have on your computer network, using the DLNA communication standard. And of course it supports all the DVD and Blu-ray audio standards you can think of, including Dolby Pro Logic IIz with its front height stereo speakers. But unlike many home theatre receivers, it doesn’t just play lip-service to IIz, making you choose between it (5.1 plus height) and the more common 7.1 formats. It allows you to have a full 9.1 speakers of sound (7.1 plus height) at the same time. Should you not want to take advantage of this, then you can re-deploy the extra channels to other purposes,

56 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

such as bi-amping the front speakers or driving speakers in another zone. And it does all of this extremely well. The power amplifiers are highly rated (so you can give that second or third zone a real hit if you like). The Audyssey automatic setup facilities did their job, providing the correct balance between the various speakers and excellent room EQ as well (you can choose to switch this off if you prefer). The Faroudja DCDi video conversion circuitry produced a very nice upscaled picture from 576i sources. And the 3D video pass-through was solid. You get two HDMI outputs, which is always useful in home theatre setups where a projector is in use, so you can have a plasma or LCD also plugged for daily use, and never need to swap plugs. With excellent sound, high performance from its amplifiers and a complete feature set, the Onkyo TX-NR1008 has everything needed from a home theatre receiver.

PROS AND CONS

PIONEER VSX-920-K I n a recent edition we looked at this receiver’s big brother, and the fact is that is isn’t really any bigger than this one. The Pioneer VSX-920-K is surprisingly full-on with features. The main one of interest here is that it has full 3D video support, passing it through very nicely from Blu-ray player to TV, while pulling the sound out for its own purposes. Those purposes are extensive, since the unit supports the latest audio processing systems, including Dolby Pro Logic IIz. Perhaps surprisingly, there are no preamplifier outputs for the ‘front height’ speakers used for this. Instead you have to redefine the two amplifier channels which would normally power the surround rear channels. Despite the low cost, this receiver has an Ethernet port which serves two main purposes. One is to provide Internet radio (for some reason, playback of media from the attached network hasn’t been implemented), while the other is to

Supports 3D video signals Supports iPod All digital audio standards supported Zone 2 Internet radio No 7.1 channel analog out (for upgrading amplifier) No DLNA support RATINGS

support what is presently a Pioneer-only capability: remote control from an iPhone or iPod Touch. This works via those devices’ abilities to connect to a WiFi network. The iPhone app Pioneer has developed for this purpose provides fairly basic functions, but is kind of fun to use because it employs you tilting and twisting the iPhone (or whatever) to make the adjustments. In addition to the Blu-ray 3D support, the unit offers very good quality video thanks to the Anchor Bay Technology video processing. This can convert analog video to HDMI, and upscale both analog and HDMI video to full 1080p. Audio-wise, the receiver was competent in my mediumlarge listening room with average sensitivity speakers. I would have liked the addition of a set of 7.1 channel line outputs to allow an upgrade on the power front. That aside, the Pioneer VSX-920-K receiver is a fine unit, at a particularly good price.

PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $1099 Warranty: three years Contact: Pioneer Electronics Australia 1800 060 852 www.pioneer.com.au Power: 7 x 65 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.2% THD Inputs: 5 x HDMI, 5 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 7 x analog stereo audio, 0 x phono, 0 x 7.1 analogue audio, 2 x optical digital audio, 1 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 analogue stereo audio for Zone 2, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: IR In/Out, Control In/Out Features: HDMI 1.4 inputs with 3D support and Audio Return; Internet Radio; Dolby Pro Logic IIz processing; Pioneer Advanced MCACC automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 audio; 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; iPod input Supplied accessories: remote control; calibration microphone; iPod cable; AM aerial; FM aerial Dimensions (WHD): 420 x 158 x 379mm Weight: 10.1kg

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GROUP TEST

PROS AND CONS

Supports 3D video signals Excellent GUI that overlays program (including 3D video) All digital audio standards supported Zone 2 No S-Video no Ethernet or USB RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $1299 Warranty: two years Contact: Yamaha Music Australia 1300 739 411 www.yamahamusic.com.au Power: 7 x 95 watts, 20Hz-20kHz, 8 ohms, no more than 0.08% THD Inputs: 6 x HDMI, 5 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 2 x component video, 5 x analog stereo audio, 1 x phono, 1 x 7.1 analogue audio, 2 x optical digital audio, 2 x coaxial digital audio, 1 x calibration microphone, 1 x Yamaha iPod dock port, 1 x AM antenna, 1 x FM antenna Outputs: 2 x HDMI, 1 x composite video, 0 x S-Video, 1 x component video, 2 x analog stereo audio, 1 x 7.2 channel pre-out, 1 x analog stereo audio for Zone 2, 1 x 6.5mm headphone Control: IR In/Out, 1 x 12 trigger out Features: HDMI 1.4 inputs with 3D support and Audio Return; Yamaha YPAO automatic calibration and EQ; Decodes new Blu-ray audio formats; Zone 2 audio; surround back amplifiers may be configured for bi-amplification, Zone 2 or Yamaha ‘Presence’ support; Video conversion and scaling; GUI; support for optional iPod dock Supplied accessories: remote control; calibration microphone; AM aerial; FM aerial Dimensions (WHD): 435 x 171 x 368mm Weight: 11.2kg

YAMAHA RX-V767 I It is clear that with this receiver Yamaha focused on the essentials of home theatre, and left aside completely new digital media (aside from the iPod/ iPhone … it has a port for Yamaha’s dock). So there is no USB nor Ethernet. Instead you get six HDMI inputs. One of them is on the front panel (easy to plug in your digital camcorder). Aside from S-Video, it is well endowed with AV inputs. It has almost all the current audio processing standards. Of course it supports Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, but it doesn’t support Dolby Pro Logic IIz. The reason is that Yamaha has had its own front ‘height’ audio mode for years. So it can still power what it calls ‘presence’ channels, and they have a similar, very subtle, effect to DPLIIz height channels. Impressively, the unit not only has a nicely re-designed graphical onscreen display, this works by overlaying the onscreen video, showing even over the top of a Blu-ray 3D signal.

CONCLUSION

Choosing from among these receivers isn’t all that easy. Clearly we have two classes, and the three at the lower price point aren’t distinguished all that much by traditional home theatre performance. Instead the feature set that has been incorporated is probably the best way to choose. The Pioneer’s iPhone control, the Denon’s out-of-thebox iPod support, the Yamaha’s GUI overlay – weigh up these and their other unique features to decide which best meets your requirements.

58 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

The unit upscaled video from both analog and HDMI inputs and did a respectable job. The audio performance was very strong, with plenty of power and punch, and a good default sound provided after performing the automatic calibration. All the receivers here have CEC (Consumer Electronics Control) implemented to at least some extent, and this receiver was no different. But it seemed a touch smoother than some of the others. For example, the unit will pass through HDMI signals when switched off. That’s useful because late at night you might want to watch a movie using the TV’s own speakers, avoiding noise issues with the neighbours. Most receivers that pass through signals require you to select the relevant input prior to switching it off. But even though I had switched this receiver off with a different input in place, when I switched on a CECequipped Blu-ray player, it automatically routed its signal through to the TV.

At the top end, clearly the Onkyo receiver is fully loaded with every up-to-date feature presently available, including the rare addition of two more power amplifiers bringing it up to a total of nine. But the Harman Kardon receiver lives up to its brand’s well-deserved reputation for top quality audio performance with among the best power amplifiers in the business. The choice is yours, and there is plenty to choose from. n

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BOX FRESH

PROS AND CONS

Clean design, low footprint Excellent audio from CD or highquality sources DVD and FM are handy HDMI output simplifies connection to TV Heavily compressed audio sounds poor No iPod or iPhone video over HDMI Limited controls and display on the unit itself Top-loading DVD limits placement options RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: iPod dock with DVD Price: $399 Warranty: 12 months Contact: Pioneer Electronics www.pioneer.com.au 1800 988 268 Playback: CD, DVD, USB (WMA, MP3, DivX, JPEG), iPod, iPhone Speaker: 2 x 6.6cm fullrange, 2 x 7.7cm passive radiator Power output: 2 x 10 watts Inputs: iPod connector, coax FM antenna, 3.5mm aux Outputs: 1x HDMI, 1x composite video, 1x stereo RCA Supplied accessories: remote, FM antenna, composite video cable, stereo RCA cable Dimensions: 370 x 175 x 216mm Wieght: 3.5kg

PIONEER XW-NAV1-K I

n an admirable attempt to create more than just another iPod dock, Pioneer offers us this: the NAV1. Not only does it handle your iPod and iPhone (without having to put it in Airplane mode), it also plays CDs and DVDs, and connects to your TV via HDMI. There’s even an FM radio on board. All that and a decent set of speakers aim to justify the chunky price.

FEATURES As mentioned, the NAV1 intends to take care of all your AV requirements in a device only slightly larger than the average handbag. It comes in black or white, and the white is ideal for the kitchen or kids playroom. Essentially this is a ‘second point of entertainment’ device. Grab a smallish TV or even PC monitor and set them up together. Quick and easy! The NAV1 does need a screen nearby as it has a very limited LED display of its own. To fiddle with many of the more advanced features – such as ripping CDs directly to a USB stick – you’ll need to use the included remote and the onscreen display. The actual device itself has only limited controls, there’s no way to skip CD tracks without the remote, for instance. This obviously isn’t a problem if you’re using an iPod or iPhone as the source, since all your controls are on Apple’s device. Two 10 watt speakers and two passive radiators provide excellent audio quality for a device this size.

PERFORMANCE Audio quality from CD, DVD or source compressed at high quality (such as MP3 at 320kbps or higher or Apple Lossless) is simply excellent. The midrange isn’t spectacular, as you’d expect from smaller full-range speakers, but the treble is crisp and the bass punchy. However, the NAV1 doesn’t seem to like heavily compressed audio very much. Tracks at even 192kbps – which sound great through your favourite earbuds – are exposed as the lossy content they are. Heavily compressed midrange in particular can sound very fuzzy, though this depends on the genre.

60 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Generally, simpler music such as jazz does better than heavily layered electronic pieces or classical music that uses a full orchestra. The NAV1 just can’t separate the detail... especially if your MP3 compressor has already junked half that detail! There are a few oddities in the design of the NAV1. You can’t output iPhone or iPod video via HDMI, though this is more the fault of Apple’s output than Pioneer’s ability to encode it for HDMI. So while video from Apple sources needs to be exported over bad ole composite to a screen, DVDs will be upscaled to 1080p via the HDMI connection. Also, by positioning the slot-loading DVD on the top of the NAV1, it becomes impossible to place the device under a TV, or even on the average shelf. This is strictly a tabletop device. Thank goodness it looks so good.

Audio quality from CD, DVD or source compressed at high quality (such as MP3 at 320kbps or higher or Apple Lossless) is simply excellent” CONCLUSION The NAV1 is an excellent iPod dock, a very good compact CD player, and a slightly fiddly DVD player. In the right situation, it will provide you with a secondary entertainment zone – and if you’re really pushed for space, it could handle all your playback needs at a pinch. Really though, the NAV1 works best as a kitchen, study or playroom player. It doesn’t take up much space and it can push a decent wall of sound. We’d love it even more if it was $100 cheaper. Anthony Fordham

A fold-up door on the left speaker conceals the iPod dock.

AKTIMATE MAXI A couple of months ago we featured the Aktimate Mini stereo active speaker system with iPod dock. This provided true high fidelity stereo performance at a price not dissimilar to the many rather less capable docks around. The Aktimate Maxi is much the same, except better, more powerful, and more capable in every way.

FEATURES At its core you have two active loudspeakers of roughly bookshelf size. They are two-way models and employ drivers from the respected UK brand, Epos. The tweeters are 25mm metal dome units, while the woofers are 165mm in size. The cabinets are bass reflex-loaded. The left-hand unit contains all the electronics, including the two 60 watt amplifiers which drive both speakers. A set of binding posts on this speaker is used to feed the amplifier power to the other speaker (you get about three metres of speaker cable for this job). As delivered, the bass drivers are exposed while the tweeters have a sturdy metal grille over their surface. But round grilles for the larger drivers are included in the box. On the top of the left speaker is a fold-up door which contains an iPod dock. On the back of this speaker are two pairs of analog stereo RCA input sockets plus a 3.5mm stereo socket (a cable is supplied for this one), a USB socket, an Ethernet socket and a WiFi antenna. You reckon that might be enough inputs? Anyway, using these it can play your iPod or iPhone, of course, plus: analog sources, any MP3 player via the 3.5mm input, audio from USB devices, audio from home network shared resources (including DLNA-compatible servers), and Internet radio stations. The network-based content can be accessed via both wired and wireless networks. You get a small remote control and a four-line LCD on the front of the left speaker to allow you to navigate through everything.

PERFORMANCE

First things first: this system sounded great. Unless you had extreme space problems, why would you buy an inferior iPod dock? The system didn’t seem to have bass much more extended than the Aktimate Mini. But it sketched out enough of the deep stuff to sound respectable, while offering great levels and control of the mid-bass and up. Higher clean volume levels were clearly more available. Excellent room filling sound was the order of the day. It was nicely balanced for the most part, if perhaps a touch forward in the upper midrange. The results were beautifully dynamic, with drums punching nicely out through the music mix. There was no way to explore all the Internet radio stations on offer. Even when I went into the list through ‘Country, Australia’ the unit offered me 263 stations. Those I did check worked well, and even a classical radio station in WMA format at 64kbps sounded adequate, if not brilliant. But if you want brilliant sound, forget about the iPod (although this worked fine) and load up a USB device. I plugged my standard test multimedia USB memory stick into the back of the unit and checked out the usual MP3 and WMA files, and then noticed one music track I’d forgotten about. It was a track in FLAC, the free lossless codec. This played perfectly, a rare feat for consumer electronics devices. The only complaint I could level at this system was that the menu system and remote control was a trifle clunky, with the system being slow to respond to the remote.

CONCLUSION The Aktimate Maxi shows that high quality sound is compatible with reasonable compactness and enormously broad support for all digital audio sources. Truly this is an excellent system. Thomas Bartlett

PROS AND CONS

True high fidelity sound Great stereo performance Strong and musical bass Excellent connectivity including WiFi Remote control Menu navigation clunky RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: iPod speaker/dock Price: $995 Warranty: one year Contact: Epoz Pty Ltd (02) 9450 0789 www.aktimate.com Drivers (for each speaker): 1 x 165mm mid/bass driver with polypropylene cone and shielded magnet, 1 x 25mm metal dome tweeter with neodymium magnet Cabinet design: bass reflex Frequency response: 48 hertz to 28,000 hertz Power output: 2 x 60 watts continuous Inputs: iPod dock, 2 x analog stereo audio (RCA sockets), 1 x analog stereo audio (3.5mm socket), 1 x USB, 1 x Ethernet, 1 x WiFi Outputs: 1 x stereo audio (RCA sockets) Dimensions (WHD): 210 x 320 x 260mm (+ 35mm depth for heatsink on left speaker) Weight (total): 16kg

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BOX FRESH

PROS AND CONS

Good quality freeto-air TV picture Excellent online video on-demand material Unmetered access to much content for BigPond users Purchasable content a bit pricey Sub-DVD quality picture on VOD content Single TV tuner only RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: PVR/Internet Entertainment portal Price: $299 Warranty: two years Contact: Telstra 1300 136 841 www.bigpond.com/tv/tbox/ Outputs: 1 x component video (via adaptor cable), 1 x composite video (via adaptor cable), 1 x HDMI, 2 x stereo analog audio (1 via adaptor cable), 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x aerial out Other: 1 x Ethernet port, WiFi, 1 x USB, 1 x aerial Features: 200GB hard disk drive for recording and downloading movies; pause and rewind live TV; access via Ethernet or WiFi to BigPond Movies, BigPond TV, BigPond Videos, YouTube video Supplied accessories: remote control, manual, aerial cable, AV adapter cable; Ethernet cable Dimensions (WHD): 205 x 58 x 210mm Weight: 780g

TELSTRA T-BOX A few weeks ago I was sharing a ride with the Gadget Guy himself. “Have you seen the T-Box yet?” he asked. I hadn’t. The best user interface ever, he declared. Hard to believe that it came from Telstra. He insisted that I have a look at it. And I have to agree.

FEATURES But it’s more than just a cool user interface. What it is at core is a media player. Which media though? First, there is a built-in HDTV tuner for free to air content. You can watch this of course, or record it to the 200GB hard disk drive. Then there’s access to Internet content. This falls into what I’d call three categories: free but metered, free and unmetered, and paid and unmetered. By unmetered I mean that this content does not count towards your monthly data allowance. The catch is that you must be a Telstra BigPond subscriber – the T-Box does not work with other ISPs. So let’s look at this more closely.

PERFORMANCE First, the unit is well organised and has a lovely menu system, with panels that slide smoothly across the screen and are beautifully sharp. Particularly impressive was the EPG, with its graphic logos for each channel, and quite a few thumbnail images for specific programs. It looks to me as though BigPond maintains its own EPG online, and the unit accesses this rather than drawing the content from the TV transmissions themselves. I pulled the Internet connection to check, and indeed the T-Box informed me that it required an Internet connection for the EPG to stay up to date.

As a free-to-air PVR the T-Box is really quite good for a single tuner unit. It delivered excellent video quality from HDTV stations, and good quality from SDTV ones as well. The unit automatically ‘buffers’ whatever it is that you’re watching, so that you can rewind live TV without making any previous settings. Or you can just pause it as required. On the main menu you can choose from all the different content options. Content for which you have to pay, but which is unmetered, is under BigPond Movies. This included many, many dozens of movies (1500, we’re assured) while I had the unit, and lots of TV shows. There is also BigPond TV, which is free and also unmetered. It included one music channel, one news channel and five sports channels. And there is BigPond Video, most of which is both free and unmetered, and consists of lots of shortish clips in many different genres. Finally, you get YouTube which is free, but which is metered, so be careful with this. The unit shows you on the menu which content is unmetered, so you shouldn’t get caught out. Downloading a 90 minute movie (Gone Fishin if you must know) cost me $3.99 and took 25 minutes. Had I wanted to, I could have started watching it only a minute or two after I started the download. I thought the price was pretty steep. A movie like this (definitely B-grade, from 1997) would cost just $1.99 at the local video store, or 99 cents on cheap Tuesday. New release movies are $5.99. Episodes of good TV shows like Breaking Bad are $1.99 each. Convenient, yes, but still pretty pricey. The picture on the movie was below average DVD quality, with quite a bit of fine blocking apparent on sky backgrounds, and occasionally sharp jaggies on semigraphical material, and a slight sense of unsteady skin tones. The free video material, with the picture expanded to full screen, was actually of similar quality. Not as good as a decent quality DVD, and certainly not a patch on Blu-ray. Both were still quite watchable on a 55 inch LCD TV. Among the videos are a set of six how-to videos for using the T-Box itself. That alone adds half a star to our ease-of-use star rating above.

CONCLUSION

The T-Box home screen.

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The Telstra T-Box costs very little, and provided you’re happy to have BigPond as your broadband supplier, you can get lots of extra stuff for free, and access to a lot of movies (no doubt many more will be added over time) at a cost. I think Telstra is on a winner here. Thomas Bartlett

MITSUBISHI HC3900 T

PROS AND CONS

PERFORMANCE

he ideal home theatre has one characteristic above all else: it is entirely dark. We can talk all we like in our reviews about the black levels achieved by a home theatre projector, but even a few lumens of ambient light can wipe out dark detail. But if black levels are limited by ambient light, there is only one way to combat this: by moving the other end of the scale. That’s what the Mitsubishi HC3900 home theatre projector does. The company has other models that produce immaculate darkness. This one produces enormous brightness.

FEATURES Based on DLP technology, Mitsubishi rates this projector at an extraordinary 3000 lumens of brightness. Most home theatre projectors offer between 1000 and 1500 lumens. Despite this, its lamp is good for a lifespan of 3000 hours. If you are prepared to accept a little less brightness, the lamp life extends in the low (well, low-ish, for this projector) output mode to 5000 hours. The projector uses a 0.65 inch (16.5mm) Digital Micromirror Device which offers the full high definition resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. DMD projectors such as this require a colour wheel to allow the three (or more) colours to be delivered in sequence. This one uses a five panel wheel (that is, it has five tinted panels which are synchronised with the movement of the mirrors on the DMD) running at double speed. You have to install the projector fairly carefully because it does not include a lens shift feature (which allows some projectors to be offset from the screen), but it does have a generous 1.5:1 zoom range, allowing some flexibility in the distance at which it need be placed from the projection screen. It has inputs for all video standards including, of course, HDMI. It also has an RS-232C port for system integration, and a 12 volt trigger output.

At first, having set the projector up in my usual room, and having taken the usual precautions about light, I found the black levels somewhat less deep than the present state of the art. But the next day I discovered something else. With the twin fluorescent tubes blasting light out in my office, the picture produced by this projector remained extraordinarily clear and detailed. Normally under these conditions I have to peer very closely at the screen to make out what is happening. Lowering my leaky room blinds and turning out the light, there was still plenty of light in the room. But the image on the projection screen was bright and clean and engaging. That’s what you get from a high output projector: the ability to see a fine picture in sub-optimal conditions. To be fair, while the blacks in a dark room were by no means the darkest, they would have been a performance to die for only a few years ago. They still permitted plenty of dark detail to be shown on the screen. The image was nicely configurable. As with other Mitsubishi projectors, I found it necessary to switch off ‘Overscan’ manually, but once this was done all 1080p signals were handled perfectly, without any scaling at all. Blu-ray signals delivered at 24 frames per second – the best setting – were nicely handled as well. The projector did not include any frame interpolation motion ‘smoothing’ system, and with the extremely precise operation of the DLP technology, it tended to allow judder to be a little more apparent than LCD projectors. Sometimes the more accurate a projector, the more revealing it can be! On occasion, there was a small touch of the rainbow effect, to which I am especially sensitive. But it wasn’t particularly troublesome.

CONCLUSION If you want excellent blacks in an ideally darkened home theatre room, then it might be worth checking out Mitsubishi’s HC3800 projector – a bargain at under $3300 and optimised for this role. But if you find yourself needing to produce a good picture, even with a bit of light in the viewing room, the Mitsubishi HC3900 stands alone. Thomas Bartlett

Excellent picture quality Very good ReonVX/HQV video processing Easy and flexible setup with powered controls Blacks not as deep as dynamic models Some rainbow effect RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Projector Price: $4490 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, 1 x 1920 x 1080 16.5mm LCD panels; 3000 lumens Brightness; 2000:1 contrast ratio Lamp: 3000 hours in regular mode, 5000 hours in low output mode Inputs: 1 x composite, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component, 1 x HDMI, 1 x D-SUB15 computer Features: Powered zoom, focus, vertical and horizontal lens shift; 20dBa noise in low output mode; Reon-VX HQV video processing; anamorphic lens support; RS-232C control port; 12V trigger port Supplied accessories: remote control Dimensions (WHD): 345 x 129 x 270mm Weight: 3.6kg

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BOX FRESH

Samsung’s tilt at the premium home entertainment market is a 55 inch LED-style LCD set within a stainless steel chassis.

At is thinnest point, the 55 inch Series 9 is just 8mm.

SAMSUNG UA55C9000 3D LCD TV A

t $10,000, the Samsung UA55C9000 costs more than twice what an otherwise similarly specified, similarly sized, Samsung TV would sell for. So what’s so special about it? We reckon that several of the more extraordinary features justify that price.

FEATURES So what are regular features, and those that set it apart? The regular ones are that 139cm (55 inch) edge LED full high definition panel, the extreme connectivity (2 x USB plus Ethernet plus WiFi via a USB and the supplied dongle), plus Internet TV and multimedia access to network resources and USB content. Then there are the features that are rapidly becoming regular ones: support for recording and time shift, just by plugging an inexpensive USB HDD into the USB socket. And 3D TV. Yes, I think 3D is going to become a very common feature over the next year or so. To facilitate this, you get one pair of Samsung 3D glasses in the box. Unlike those with the last Samsung 3D TV we looked at here, this pair doesn’t use a built-in rechargeable battery, but an inexpensive button type cell. That makes it a touch more expensive to run (Samsung reckons they’re good for 50 hours) but easier to manage, since you don’t need to muck around with USB charging cables. Finally, there are the truly advanced features. The first is the panel thickness. Samsung says that the TV, without

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the stand, is 33.9mm thick, but that is only at the thickest point. Something like 80 percent of it is only 8mm thick. Let me repeat that: 8 millimetres. The back and bezel are finished in an attractive brushed aluminium, presumably in large part to give the TV sufficient structural strength. The stand is pre-attached, and can’t be removed because it has the TV’s speakers and tuner and

With a WiFi connection, the remote can display on its 75mm screen whatever you’re watching on the TV. Even Blu-ray” connections built in. It also has the limited set of direct panel controls. These are on a small panel that winds out from the bottom of the stand when you touch its front edge, and is drawn back in again after a few seconds. The other advanced feature is the TV’s remote control.

PERFORMANCE Actually, you get two remotes. One is an extremely simple ‘pebble’ remote, providing just volume, channel changing and power. The other is the best remote I’ve seen. It works via infrared or a WiFi connection. No, you don’t need a wireless network. Just use the WiFi dongle in one of the USB sockets (you get all kinds of angle benders and extension cables with the TV). Now ‘best remote’ is a big call. What makes it so special? Two things. The first is that if you switch on a device with HDMI CEC support (ie. a device that can control, or be controlled, via HDMI) that’s plugged into the TV – or into a CEC supporting home theatre receiver into which the TV is plugged – the remote will learn its functions automatically and give you excellent control over it. I plugged in an Onkyo home theatre receiver, and the remote gave me an icon automatically, with input selections and volume control, just like that. Likewise, the unit recognised a Blu-ray player plugged into the Onkyo, so I could call up its play, pause and other controls. The second thing: remote TV. With a WiFi connection, the remote can display on its 75mm screen whatever you’re watching on the TV. Even Blu-ray. If you have the player plugged directly into the TV so that it is playing the sound, the remote can deliver that too, via a tiny speaker, or through the built in 3.5mm headphone socket.

Furthermore, you can set the remote control to display a TV station that the TV isn’t even tuned into, even if the TV is showing a different station. As to the TV itself, it includes Samsung’s Motion Plus 200 hertz smoothing for 2D TV, and this does a nice job. Out of the box, the ‘Sharpness’ control was set too high, but dragging this down to about ‘10’ cleaned up the picture nicely. Otherwise, the default settings were pretty good. The blacks were a touch uneven when I was watching dark material in a dark room, with the picture being a little too light at the extreme left and right. Presumably that is because the Edge LED ‘backlight’ has to be packed into such a confined area. That they manage to even get the glass and LCD panel in is pretty amazing. The 3D performance actually seemed noticeably better than with the earlier 55 inch Samsung we reviewed (issue 29 / Winter 2010), with much less ghosting, even on the problematic Golden Gate Bridge scenes from Monsters vs Aliens 3D. The 2D to 3D conversion capability of the TV was surprisingly good on HD material, especially sports on One HD.

CONCLUSION This is a highly advanced TV, that offers a stack of premium features. I would prefer a slightly thicker panel, myself, if it were to give more even black levels. But that’s a trade-off that many would be prepared to make. And given the sheer elegance of this TV’s appearance, and the cleverness and power of its features, even for me the balance would be very close. Thomas Bartlett

The best remote control. Ever.

PROS AND CONS

Super thin panel Best ever remote control 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 FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: 3D LCD TV Price: $10,000 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 Audio: stereo, 2 x 15 watts, woofer Features: 3D display, Edge LED backlight, Teletext, analog and HD digital tuners built in, four HDMI inputs, Samsung 3D HyperReal Engine, Motion Plus 200Hz processing, 2 x USB for multimedia playback/WiFi dongle, DLNA certification for multimedia playback, Internet TV, Timeshift/ recording with USB hard disk drive Supplied accessories: colour LCD touchscreen remote control; simplified ‘pebble’ remote control; WiFi dongle; 1 x 3D glasses; manual; desktop stand; assorted adaptor cables, dust cloths and cable tidiers Dimensions (WHD): 1296 x 874 x 306 (including stand) Weight: 25.5kg (including stand) Energy rating label: 5 stars, 647kWh per year

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BOX FRESH

PANASONIC VIERA TH-P50VT20A AND DMP-BDT300 A s it happens, precisely one year before this review, I reviewed here Panasonic’s Viera TH-P50G10A Plasma TV. Now, a year later, the Viera TH-P50VT20A has the same sized screen, but it is cheaper, lighter, more versatile, and produces a better picture. Most importantly, it supports 3D TV and Blu-ray 3D. As for Blu-ray 3D, Panasonic has its new DMP-BDT300 Blu-ray player which supports that new standard.

FEATURES Of course, the main feature of interest for both devices is the 3D, which I examine closely in the following pages. But note that while the TV supports Blu-ray 3D signals, and broadcast 3D signals, it does not have a 2D to 3D conversion system, unlike some of the competition. This isn’t really a loss, since the results to be obtained from those are fairly unpredictable. Of course, the TV offers full HD resolution on its 127cm (50 inch) plasma display. Panasonic has let it be known

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that it has fully incorporated the ‘Kuro’ technology that it took over a couple of years ago from Pioneer, so the TV is basically one of the most advanced plasma models on the market, as suggested by its claimed dynamic contrast ratio of five million to one. It includes Panasonic’s traditional support for SD cards, but also adds an Ethernet port and two USB

Regular TV reception was excellent and the picture was clean. Black levels were great and colours were at least as good as Panasonic’s usual impressive standards”

Panasonic’s liquid crystal shutter glasses cost a dollar shy of $200. You receive only one pair with purchase.

It has the unusual feature of bearing two HDMI outputs, a ‘main’ and a ‘sub’ (as in subsidiary, not subwoofer). If you purchased a good quality home theatre receiver last year, the year before or, in some cases, even this year, it may well fully handle high definition audio via HDMI, but not the new 3D video. This player allows you to feed the video out directly to the TV via the main HDMI output, and use the other one to supply audio to a home theatre receiver. Of course if your receiver doesn’t support HDMI audio at all, you can just use the regular digital audio outputs for Dolby Digital or DTS audio. The Blu-ray player also supports Panasonic’s Viera Cast features – access to multimedia content on your computer, Picasa photos, YouTube videos and some online information from the Internet.

PERFORMANCE sockets. Multimedia playback is supported by these (via the Digital Living Network Alliance standard in the case of networking), plus you can plug into the USB a WiFi dongle (optional) for more convenient use of some home networks, or a hard disk drive to turn the TV into a PVR, or a Skype camera to turn it into a video phone. The DMP-BDT300 Blu-ray has all the usual premium Blu-ray player functions, including BonusView and BD-Live, except that unlike some of the competition, it doesn’t have flash memory built in to support the advanced functions. You will need to add your own SD card for that.

Unlike some of the competition, the TH-P50VT20A does not convert 2D video programming to 3D.

Let’s get right to the main selling point: 3D. I have heard complaints – and I think that they might be right – that the one set of 3D eyewear included with the TV is one set too few. Unless you are a pathological loner, expect to be forking out another $199 for a second set of eyewear. Rather than using a rechargeable battery, the eyewear uses disposable lithium batteries. These are the readily available and fairly inexpensive CR2032 type, and Panasonic says that they are good for 75 hours. As to 3D performance, I had available the two movies that Panasonic provides with the TV – Coraline 3D and Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D – and a Panasonic demo disc with a number of short clips in 1080p or 720p that was included with the Blu-ray player. I also had a chance to

PANASONIC TH-P50VT20A PROS AND CONS

3DTV display Excellent 2D picture quality Excellent connectivity and media support Timeshift/ recording function Only one set of 3D eyewear included RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Plasma 3D TV Price: $3299 Warranty: one year Contact: Panasonic Australia 132 600 www.panasonic.com.au Image: plasma; 127cm diagonal; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; brightness not stated; 5 million:1 dynamic contrast ratio Inputs: 4 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 2 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 1 x D-SUB15 RGB, 4 x HDMI, 4 x stereo audio, 2 x USB, 1 x SD card, 1 x Ethernet Outputs: 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x stereo audio out, 1 x composite video out, 1 x 3.5mm headphone Audio: stereo, 2 x 40mm x 160mm full range, 1 x 100mm woofer; 2 x 10 watts + 10 watts for woofer Features: 3D TV, Neo Plasma technology, THX Certified, analog and HD digital tuners built in, DLNA certification for Ethernet for multimedia playback, supports wireless LAN with optional dongle, desktop swivel stand, Intelligent Frame Creation, 2 x USB for multimedia playback/WiFi dongle/ Skype, Viera Cast Internet access (Picasa, YouTube, Bloomberg, Weather), Timeshift/recording with USB device Supplied accessories: remote control; manual; desktop stand; 1 x 3D eyewear; Coraline 3D and Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs Blu-ray 3D discs Dimensions (WHD): 1224 x 771 x 90mm (without stand) Weight: 27.5kg (without stand) Energy rating label: 4 stars, 705kWh per year

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BOX FRESH The two HDMI outputs on the DMP-BDT300 allow you to send video directly to a TV and HD audio to an AV receiver.

The crosstalk performance was the best I’ve seen yet” PANASONIC DMP-BDT300 PROS AND CONS

Supports Blu-ray 3D Excellent picture quality WiFi dongle supplied Second HDMI outputs provides support for high quality audio No reverse frame stepping or slow motion No time or chapter search No built-in persistent storage RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Blu-ray 3D player Price: $599 Warranty: one year Contact: Panasonic Australia 132 600 www.panasonic.com.au Outputs: 2 x HDMI, 1 x component video, 1 x composite video, 1 x 7.1 channel analog audio, 1 x optical digital audio, 1 x coaxial digital audio Other connections: 1 x Secure Digital, 1 x Ethernet, 2 x USB 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 66 x 245mm Weight: 2.6kg

see some of the 3D broadcasting of the World Cup soccer. With the discs, the results were generally very impressive. With the soccer, the results were variable depending pretty much on the camera angle.

3D BROADCASTS The latter works by broadcasting at 1080i on a HD station. If you watch this on a 2D TV you will see two images on the screen, one on the left and one on the right. They are virtually the same as each other, but with slightly different angles to represent the different views from each eye. The TV processes this into 3DTV by splitting the picture in two, scaling each to full screen size and then showing them one after the other. As with Blu-ray 3D, the rapid blanking and unblanking of the LCD shutter eyewear controls which image is seen by which eye. This TV has an infrared transmitter built in, and this sends a signal by which the eyewear can synchronise its actions to the flashing of the pictures on the screen. If you aren’t wearing the glasses, the flashing is so fast that you don’t see any flicker, but an overlaying of one picture by the other in a ghostly way. With the eyewear working, though, the football game’s score banner assumed a forward position, floating in the top left corner of the screen in front of the action. For the action itself, the 3D effect was minimal for the wide shots encompassing a quarter or more of the field, but the groundlevel video from boundaries was sometimes almost startling.

3D BLU-RAY That 3D stuff is produced on the fly. The Blu-ray discs had millions lavished on their 3D presentations, since that was carefully developed for the cinema. And it showed. They were richly layered almost all the time. There was the occasional ‘poke you in the eye’ effect of something appearing to burst forth from the screen, but these were thankfully rare. There are two potential downfalls on a technical level for 3D. The first is crosstalk, where one eye sees what only

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the other eye is supposed to see. In addition to looking bad, this can damage the 3D effect. This TV was very good – although not perfect – on this front. With dark objects in front of light backgrounds, just occasionally I could make out a little bit of ghosting, but it took effort on my part. In the credits of Coraline, though, there was some visible ghosting of animated characters that were chasing each other around the scrolling credits against a black background. Not intrusive, but noticeable. Still, the crosstalk performance was the best I’ve seen yet. As was clarity. There was no visible smearing of the image. Movement remained sharp and clean. I did find that the picture seemed less bright in 3D mode than the LCD TVs I’ve seen, and I found the best results were with the room lights turned low so as to allow my eyes to make better use of the available picture brightness. There was a touch of flicker when looking at fluorescent lights through the eyewear when they were in 3D mode, but it wasn’t particularly troubling. If you keep your eyes on the screen and not the room lights, this won’t be a problem. For 2D performance, this combination was gorgeous. Regular TV reception was excellent and the picture was clean. Black levels were great and colours were at least as good as Panasonic’s usual impressive standards. The glass screen didn’t appear to have an obvious anti-reflective surface, but it still seemed significantly less mirror-like than previous Panasonic models, making for better 2D viewing in a normally lit room since there were fewer reflections.

CONCLUSION The Panasonic Viera TH-P50VT20A TV is an impressive TV all round, that also does impressive 3D. The DMPBDT300 is Panasonic’s best Blu-ray player yet, at a pretty reasonable price. And since it has a WiFi dongle included, if you buy both as a package you won’t even need to plug either into your home network. All excellent stuff. Thomas Bartlett

YAMAHA RX-V667 A

successor to the RX-V567, the V667 is more than just a pretty (new) face. It has, in fact, had quite a cosmetic facelift, with the front panel now clearly delineated into an upper display and the lower part for most of the controls, including moving the main volume control downwards. Aesthetics aside, you get two more HDMI inputs in the new receiver and they’re version 1.4, so will support 3D playback and Audio Return Channel (ARC). This sends audio ‘upstream’ from the TV to the receiver so you don’t need to use a separate audio cable into the back of the amp any longer. The RX-V667 also returns to a discrete amplifier design (in place of op-amp stages in the previous model), aiming for better sound quality and better handling of low-impedance speakers. There’s also support for 3D transmissions from sources such as 3D Blu-ray players.

SETTING UP Getting the thing out of its box, the first thing you notice is the remote, which is absolutely hideous. The two-tone black and silver design wouldn’t be out of place on the set of Starsky & Hutch and is so out of step with the current black gloss of TVs, speakers and even its own receiver, that it smarts. It’s a multifunction remote but, really, the less you see of it the better. At the rear, the RX-V667 has nine speaker outputs, with binding posts for all except those for Zone 2, so you can use banana plugs for your main speaker setup. Yamaha has an easy speaker calibration feature called YPAO, involving plugging in a special microphone and selecting the auto setup option, and we found this adequate, so long as you keep very quiet while it works its magic and do a little tweaking afterwards. All video is upscaled and output over HDMI, regardless of input, although the button for switching video sources on the receiver’s fascia is labelled ‘input’, but on the remote the same function requires you to push the button labelled ‘source’ and then one of the HDMI buttons. That’s a little confusing. You have to buy an optional ‘YDS-12’ dock – or the YID-W10 wireless version – if you want to connect your Apple player to the receiver, but once connected you can select and play tunes from your iPhone and control the receiver’s volume level. The graphical display on the receiver itself shows plenty of useful info, including if ARC is employed and which speakers are connected and outputting a signal. The RX-V667 can also display a graphical user interface (GUI) on your TV screen over what’s already there, saving you having to look down at the receiver’s own built-in display but keeping what you were watching in view. This even works on 3D TV. One of the six HDMI ports can now be found on the front of the machine, which is certainly useful for testing, but also great for hooking up something temporarily in your living room, like a camcorder or the games console from the teenager’s room.

FEATURES AND PERFORMANCE

With movie and music DSP choices, along with several ‘scene’ buttons that will switch between preset CD, Blu-ray/ DVD, TV and radio settings, there’s plenty of ‘one-touch’ convenience. But you have to wonder at some of the DSP settings: there’s one for ‘Concert Hall Munich’ as well as ‘Concert Hall Vienna’, for instance. Do they really enhance the listening experience, creating such distinction that it’s imperative you select the right one for what you’re listening to or watching? We prefer the ‘Pure Direct’ function. This shuts down the video and other internal circuitry, as well as the front panel display, providing a shorter path to the power amp stage for the analog signal to limit any possible interference for a purer audio experience. More extreme than using one of the concert-hall DSP settings, this really does seem to produce cleaner reproduction. The RX-V667 generates 7.2-channels of output at a claimed 90 watts per channel, with 130 watts a channel available should you want to drive a channel individually. There are two separate power supplies in the box; analog for audio and another for digital circuitry, with a corresponding leap in power consumption over the RX-V567 of almost 50 percent – up to 400 watts. But while it’s not going to be cheaper to run than the last model, the company’s ‘ToP-ART’ (Total Purity Audio Reproduction Technology), an in-house commitment to using the best available components, pays off here. The 1080p video upscaling, again bettering the previous model by adding component upconversion, is brilliant. The sheer versatility of the RX-V667 – handling bass-heavy rap, to soaring classical scores, to Blu-ray epics like Avatar with equal fidelity – makes it a serious contender for music and movie fans on a budget. There’s even capacity for a second zone via two separate terminals, although we didn’t get to test that.

CONCLUSION The RX-V667 is a major improvement over the model it replaces; most significantly in the discrete amplification and power upgrades. For the full set, the YHT-994AU is Yamaha’s home theatre package that includes the RX-V667 and glossy black 7.1 ‘NS’-series surround sound speakers for an RRP of $2999. Yamaha’s ‘core apple’ support (sorry, had to do it!) isn’t as cool or convenient as that offered by some of the competition, and the company includes a USB cable for connecting and charging your iPhone in the comparablypriced VSX920. But the RX-V667 is a full two-zone, ninespeaker, six HDMI 1.4 receiver with some great additions such as ‘Pure Direct’, a 3D DSP mode, discrete amp output and HDMI standby pass through. It’s a big improvement over its predecessor, a wonderful performer and superb value for money. Max Everingham

PROS AND CONS

Discrete amp design Six HDMI 1.4 inputs ‘Future-proof’ 3D and ARC support Slow HDMI switching Fugly remote iPhone connection an optional extra RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: AV receiver Price: $1099 YDS-12 iPhone dock: $179 YID-W10: $249 Warranty: 12 months Contact: Yamaha Music Australia 1300 739 390 www.yamahamusic.com.au/ Power output: 7.2 channels; 7 x 90 watts RMS output (front/centre/ surround/surround back 20-20 kHz, 0.08% THD, 8 ohms) Audio formats supported: Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby Digital, DTS, DSD 6ch, PCM 2ch-8ch (Max 192 kHz/24 bit) AV inputs: Audio 6 x analog audio, 1x 8CH multichannel, 2x optical, 2x coaxial, 1x dock Video 6 x HDMI 1.4a, 5 x composite, 1 x S-Video, 2 x component AV outputs: Audio 7 CH multichannel outputs, 7CH preouts, 2 x subwoofer out, 1 x audio out, Zone 2 out Video 1x HDMI out, 2x monitor out, 1x AV out Features: Video upscaling 480i/p and 576i/p to 1080p, FM/AM tuner, Zone 2 audio only, video repeating up to 1080p/60Hzm 50Hz & 24Hz, Accessories: iPod/ iPhone wireless dock Power consumption: 400 watts (standby/off, < 0.2 watts) Dimensions (WHD): 435 x 151 x 364 mm Weight: 10.5kg

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BOX FRESH

PROS AND CONS

DAB+, FM and Internet radio functionality Lightweight and portable 35 hour battery life (6x D-Cells) 802.11g WiFi on board Sound quality better suited for voice Disappointing bass response No audio output USB socket just for servicing RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Digital radio Price: $329 Contact: Glen Dimplex www.glendimplex.com.au 1300 556 816 Warranty: 12 months DAB+ and FM: stereo, DAB+ (Band III), FM Wireless: 802.11b/g, supports WEP and WPA/WPA2 encryption Media stream: MP3, WMA Speakers: 2x 3W 79mm Inputs: 3.5mm auxiliary in, USB (service port only) Outputs: 3.5mm headphone socket

ROBERTS STREAM 202 D AB+ radios can be divided into two groups: basic receivers that are cheap and cheerful, or full-spec devices that also function as Internet radios via Ethernet or wireless connection. The second type is often so expensive, you’d be forgiven for thinking twice before committing $800 to a kitchen radio – even if you really want that Internet functionality. The Stream 202 neatly bridges this divide by giving you all the functions of a top end system, at a reasonable price for a device with this many features.

FEATURES This is very much a 21st Century version of your Gran’s classic kitchen transistor radio. Handbag-sized, it weighs only a couple of kilos and is easy to carry around with you throughout a lazy day of gardening or whatever: it also runs on six D-Cell batteries which will give 35 hours of play time. As well as the DAB+ receiver which will give you access to all digital radio stations in your area, there’s built-in WiFi which hooks on to your home network and streams Internet radio stations. How many stations? More than 10,000. You can also set up your PC or notebook as a media server, and the Stream 202 will connect and play back MP3 or WMA files. It’s all controlled via a simple jog-wheel: spin to move up and down the menus and click to select.

SETUP As with all Internet radios, set up of the Stream 202 can be fiddly. DAB+ is easy: just scan for stations and they’re listed in alphabetical order. Internet requires first connecting to your wireless router (or via an Ethernet cable if you don’t need the radio to be portable), including inputting your security details. Connecting to a media server on a home PC is best left to the IT guru in the family – if you are one of the secret fraternity who understands the arcane rituals, then it’s pretty straightforward.

70 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Once you have content ready to go, you can sort stations into favourites and scan for old-school FM broadcasts too.

PERFORMANCE

The main disappointment with the Stream 202 is that it actually sounds a lot like your Gran’s old transistor radio. Since the speakers are mere 3 watt units, they don’t exactly set the china cups rattling in the dresser. A lack of a dedicated woofer – as found in more expensive units – also leaves audio sounding a little thin. However, this is not intended to be an audiophile’s device by any means. If you want superior sound quality, you can grab something like the Roberts Sound 16, which has discrete bookshelf speakers.

As well as the DAB+ receiver which will give you access to all digital radio stations in your area, there’s built-in WiFi which hooks on to your home network and streams Internet radio stations” OVERALL This is a lot of functionality for the price, and the Stream 202 does offer everything DAB+ has to offer, and does so without making you wonder if you should have just spent your money on a component FM tuner. Light and easy to use, it may not change your free-to-air world, but it’s certainly a worthwhile way to banish that terrible, terrible AM sound. Anthony Fordham

EPSON EH-TW5500 E pson presently has six home theatre projectors available in its Australian line-up, three of them offering full high definition resolution. The top two: the EH-TW4500 and the EH-TW5500 are very similar to each other, with the $500 more expensive TW5500 offering only a few more features, so in a sense this review covers both models.

The blacks are so good that I doubt that they can, in fact, get better” FEATURES The three things that distinguish them is that the TW5500 has a longer warranty, has an aspect ratio setting to support external anamorphic lenses used in some ‘constant image height’ projection systems, and has special picture presets in which a professional can store Imaging Sciences Foundation (ISF) settings after a careful calibration. Everything else is the same: the full high definition resolution, the horizontal and vertical lens shift, the massive 2.1:1 zoom range, the 12 volt trigger and RS-232C port for system integration, the 4000 hour lamp life, the motion smoothing frame interpolation system. Epson brings several elements to projector design that are matched by few, if any, of its competitors. In particular, it designs and builds its own LCD panels, and its own lamps (the UHE-E-TORL), rather than buying them from a third party. So the design of the parts is made with a view to how they will all be put together in the final product. It makes a particular point of noting that at its maximum output level of 1600 lumens, the projector’s light is a properly balanced white, rather than biased by some colour tint.

PERFORMANCE Occasionally I get to review projectors costing four or more times as much as this one and each of them has their own point of interest. But as overall packages, I generally find myself judging them against this Epson projector, and not altogether favourably.

In fact, the review projector was superb in just about every way. One potential problem with three-panel LCD projectors is misalignment between the panels, but with this one the colours were exactly overlaid right to the very corners of the picture. The colours themselves were quite acceptable at the default settings, but there was sufficient adjustment to allow them to be tweaked to greater accuracies. As mentioned, an ISF calibrator can do this with instruments and then save the settings in special presets. The picture scaling was immaculate. HQV progressive scan conversion and image scaling remains the best in the business. Its ‘Auto’ settings did a near perfect job, but there were also manual settings should you wish to do fine tuning yourself. The claimed contrast ratio of the model that this projector replaced was 72,000:1. For the EH-TW5500 it’s 200,000:1. Perhaps these extreme levels can be measured, but the real working result was not so much that the black levels of the 5500 were deeper, but that the ‘dynamic’ contrast system was better tuned. The blacks are so good that I doubt that they can, in fact, get better. The ramping of the dual automatic irises avoided any kind of ‘pumping’ effect in brightness. In other words, the improved tuning of the dynamic system left it doing its job of improving the subjective contrast in the picture, without being at all noticeable in its operation. I criticised the previous model for taking far too long to acquire the signal and produce a picture whenever the signal standard changed. It was so slow that if you were using a device that required confirmation within ten seconds after a resolution change, it was touch or go whether you’d have time. Epson has improved this considerably. It isn’t the fastest, but not the slowest either. Typically it took a reasonable four seconds to switch (the fastest projectors halve this).

CONCLUSION With the EH-TW5500 home theatre projector, Epson has continued on its path of raising the performance bar, model by model. It is now so good that until there is some radical new technological development (eg. 3D), it’s hard to see how it could be improved. Thomas Bartlett

PROS AND CONS

Full support for Blu-ray and DVD Black levels the best in the business Excellent video processing features Very good value for money Could acquire signal a little faster

RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS Category: Projector Price: $4999 Warranty: three years (including lamp) Contact: Epson Australia 1300 361 054 www.epson.com.au Image: 3 x LCD panels; 16:9 native aspect, 1920 x 1080 pixels; 1600 ANSI Lumens brightness; 200,000:1 contrast ratio (dynamic); lens zoom 2.1:1 Lamp: 200 watts UHE-E-TORL, 4000 hours rated life Inputs: 1 x composite video, 1 x S-Video, 1 x component video (supporting progressive scan and HD), 2 x HDMI (v1.3), 1 x D-SUB15 Others: 1 x 12 volt trigger out, 1 x RS-232C Features: Full high definition, Reon VX HQV video processing, motion smoothing frame interpolation, anamorphic lens support, vertical and horizontal lens shift Supplied accessories: remote control; manual (on CD ROM) Dimensions (WHD): 450 x 136 x 360mm (plus 9mm height for feet) Weight: 7.5kg

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BOX FRESH

HYBRID TV CASPA (VIA TIVO) W

A Search function allows you to locate movie titles of interest from the CASPA catalogue; Categories of content available from the CASPA library.

eb-based programming and services from content aggregators is an exciting new entertainment landscape, offering couch potatoes on-demand access to TV shows and movies that aren’t available on the broadcaster’s schedule. Content is downloaded or streamed to a set-top box (or TV or other connected device) using said potato’s broadband Internet connection, allowing them to be able to watch when they want, not when the networks say. CASPA (Content And Services Platform Asia) was one of the first on-demand IPTV services and, although currently available only via the Tivo media device, can ultimately run on any box that chooses to support it. The Tivo device also doubles as a 320GB PVR whose intelligent search features are matched only by those found in Foxtel’s iQ and IQ2 pay TV boxes, the cost of which is around $100 a month. The Tivo box costs $699 outright – a couple of hundred more than many competing PVRs, including those offering webbased entertainment. If the relatively high cost of the device the CASPA service is married to is a turn-off, alternative ways to

72 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

access the service will be available soon (though not all may be cheaper). Hybrid TV, the company bringing CASPA to market and the licensee of Tivo in Australia, reports that CASPA will appear on select net-connected living room devices (TVs, games consoles and Blu-ray players) by Christmas this year.

FEATURES CASPA, like many online content delivery services, requires you pay money into a digital wallet, which gives you credit to download movies and TV episodes. Movies cost from $4.99–6.99 and TV episodes typically cost $1.99, so pricing is competitive with other services. Some content is free, and all is, for the time being, in standard definition only. Content is divided into genres, such as Classic, Kids & Family, Romance and similar. TV is similarly divided, and there’s a music category too where you can view clips or entire concerts. All up, Hybrid TV reckons there are more than 500 movies and 2000 hours of television available for download.

Most interestingly, CASPA currently offers a handful of trailers which are streamed in 3D, allowing you to test out your new 3D TV. We’re promised more 3D content from September this year, but with the ink not yet dry on deals between Hybrid TV and the content owners, specific details were not available before this issue went to print. The company did, however, indicate that forthcoming 3D programming will include animations, documentaries, short films and TV shows. What we’re also promised is advertiser sponsorship of TV and movies in the near future, making them free to the viewer. You’ll be subjected to a number of unskippable ads, of course, but the prospect of choosing a specific sponsor for your evening’s entertainment is interesting.

PERFORMANCE CASPA works similarly to other video on-demand services, such as Telstra’s T-Box and Fetch TV. The selection of content is pretty typical, and pricing is competitive with other IPTV services. During our test period, for example, headline movies on CASPA were the same as those being offered by Foxtel’s pay-per-view on-demand Box Office Channel. Your viewing experience will depend heavily on the quality of your Internet connection. There is a large number of factors that can contribute to streaming problems, but you’ll have to take them up with your ISP. Hybrid TV has agreements with a handful of Aussie ISPs – iiNet, Internode, iPrimus, and others – which ensure CASPA downloads don’t count toward monthly data usage limits. No BigPond though, since Telstra has a competing service. Movie downloads will consume 1-2GB each, so if you’re not with an unmetered ISP you’ll need to keep a close eye on how much you watch and what else you’re using your connection for in any month. Acquiring content is pretty simple. Choose your preferred program or movie from the functional (but slightly dated) interface, and it starts loading. You can play back as the download continues: you just need to wait for the light on the front of the Tivo device to turn blue. Disappointingly this can take up to 10 minutes, even on a reasonably fast 2–8Mbps connection. Hybrid TV recommends a minimum connection speed of 1.5 Mbps, and even on a ‘best of breed’ 14–20Mbps connection, you’ll need to wait five minutes after pressing okay. Streaming was pretty ordinary for us via a TPG broadband service – a distinctly stop-start affair, but this

ISP is not one of Hybrid TV’s partners for CASPA. In this case, we just had to be patient and wait until the movie was completely downloaded. It took the typical amount of time we’ve come to expect from a file of that size – less than an hour. In other words, performance is tied to the speed of your ISP connection. This is definitely a service that would benefit enormously from the National Broadband Network!

Some content on CASPA is ad-funded, meaning you are served sponsor’s messages in return for receiving free programming.

CONCLUSION Choices for a simple, on-demand TV and movie service via your ISP are pretty limited at the moment, and it’s good to have another one in the pack. As a delivery device for CASPA content, the Tivo box is simple to setup (certainly preferable to the tedious process of hooking an actual PC up to your TV) and, for the premium it costs, provides the advanced PVR and search functionality unavailable from its competitors. Content-wise CASPA lags some of the opposition, but choice and variety will receive a lift in September, according to Hybrid TV, once deals with four new content partners are finalised. These new alliances, along with CASPA’s migration into devices other than the Tivo, indicate that the IPTV space will be a fiercely contested one. CASPA’s aim to deliver web-based content for free (or at least, supported by advertisers), will be one of the key elements that will lift it from the competition. Anthony Fordham

PROS AND CONS

Renting movies as easy as pressing a couple of buttons Easy set up Decent range of titles Promise of adfunded content by Christmas Tivo box more expensive than some rivals Speed of delivery depends on your ISP Slightly inelegant interface Standard definition only RATINGS PERFORMANCE FEATURES EASE OF USE VALUE FOR MONEY

SPECIFICATIONS

Movie titles are similar to those offered by other VOD services and cost $5-7.

Category: Video on-demand service Contact: Hybrid Television Services www.mytivo.com.au Content cost: $6-7 for movies, $2 for TV episodes; some programming and services are free Hardware cost: $699 for 320GB Tivo box, available in more devices by December 2010 System requirements: broadband connection (1.5Mbps or greater); credit in CASPA account/wallet

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 73

COMPETITION 3D TELEVISIONS

Pioneer

Electronics Australia

and

Home Entertainment Buyers Guide

are teaming up to offer you the chance to win one of three XW-NAV1 Home Theatre in Docks valued at $399.

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HOME THEATRE IN A DOCK

3 Pioneer XW-NAV1 worth $399 each Check out our full review of the XW-NAV1 on page 60

For more information visit www.pioneer.com.au This all-in-one compact entertainment centre has USB ports for playing back digital music, DivX and JPG files, plus a slot-loading DVD player with 1080p upscaling via HDMI. Video from a connected iPod or iPhone is exported

to a TV via by composite plugs, and you can copy a CD directly to a USB stick at 2x speed.

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Details on how to enter, as well as competition terms and conditions can be found at www.gadgetguy.com.au by clicking the Competition graphic on the right-hand side of the home page. The competition is open to all permanent residents of Australia and there is no limit to the number of entries a single person can make. The competition comprises three prizes totalling $1197.00. Prize value is in Australian dollars and is the recommended retail value as provided by the supplier and is correct at the time of printing.

74 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

HOW TO SET UP

WELL HUNG TV Easy steps for wall-mounting your flat screen TV. By Nathan Taylor

ew things will save more space in your home than mounting your flat panels on the walls. While you probably won’t throw out the TV cabinet in the lounge room (your components and discs still need a home) its surface can be cleared to accommodate decorative collectibles or, well, just plain cleared. In the kitchen you can watch TV while you’re cooking without having to sacrifice valuable bench space. And in the bedroom you no longer have to sacrifice the top of a chest of drawers so you can have a TV. The best part is that it’s actually relatively easy to mount your flat panel on the wall. It’s a process that’s not dissimilar to installing wall mounted shelves – with a few common tools and a wall mounting kit, it’s something you can do yourself. Done right, you should be able to have your TV attached to the wall in 30 minutes or less. Here’s our quick recipe for making that happen:

Ingredients • A flat screen TV with wall mounting holes • A wall mount kit suitable for your TV screen size and weight • A stud finder • A Phillips head screw driver and/or a socket wrench or shifter • A power drill • A carpenter’s leveller • A cable manager (optional) • A friend to help you lift the TV onto the wall mount

the wall, and brackets that attach to your TV. The plan is to screw the plate to the wall, attach the brackets to the television and then slide it on to the plate. It’s very important that your wall mount kit can support the size and weight of your television set (it will tell you its capacities in its specifications). Depending on the type and size of the mount, it will likely come with some combination of screws and anchors to support dry wall, masonry walls and timber studs – but it’s a good idea to check if it does properly support your wall type before you purchase it.

3. Locate your drill points. It’s likely that the hardest part of this exercise is finding the right location on your wall onto which you can affix the wall plate. For all but very light TVs, you can’t just drill anywhere, since the dry wall won’t support any significant weight or hold screw threading. You have to find one or two studs (depending on the size of the mount). A stud is

Most TV mounts come in two parts: a plate that mounts to a wall and a bracket that attaches to the TV.

Method

1. Figure out where you want the TV. You want it at the right height for comfortable viewing, in a place that minimises glare from external light sources and where everybody in the room has a good view of the screen. A good rule of thumb is to have the centre of the screen at eye level when seated.

2. Unpack your wall mount kit. A wall mount kit usually comes in two parts: a plate that attaches to

VISIT US AT WWW.HEBG.COM.AU | 75

HOW TO SET UP

Will my wall support the weight?

In most cases the answer to this question is yes – as long as you properly affix it to a timber stud inside the wall. If you want to attach it to dry or masonry walls without the support of a stud, however, the answer may be tricker. The threading on a normal screw or bolt probably won’t hold in these types of materials, so you need to use anchors – and these typically won’t support very heavy weights. These walls can be fine for lighter televisions, but we’d suggest seeking professional advice before mounting your 60 inch plasma on one. Wall mount systems allow you locate televisions above cabinet level, freeing up floor space.

a vertical timber (or sometimes metal) beam within the wall that can support the mounting. To find where the studs are in your wall, you’ll need a stud finder, which can be purchased at your local hardware store for as little at $30. Running the stud finder along the wall will reveal the location of the studs. Mark the edges of the studs in pencil on your wall. When you drill, you have to drill between these points.

4. Hold the wall mount plate flat against the wall at the height and in the location you want the television to be attached. Now slide it horizontally until the screw

A behind-the-scenes view of how a flat mount system secures a TV panel to a wall.

holes are over the studs you’ve identified in Step 3 above. On most wall mounts the ‘screw holes’ are actually horizontal slats that provide some give in the positioning of the screw (because not all studs are the same distance apart). Note that on many plates, there will actually be two or three sets of screw holes or slats, depending on the type of wall you’re attaching it to (dry, masonry or timber studs). The ones for masonry and dry walls will be broader because these need to have an anchor placed.

5. Put your spirit level on top of the plate as you’re holding it against the wall to ensure that the plate isn’t tilted. Once you’ve done that, use a pencil to mark your screw points on the wall. Through the screw holes on the plate, just draw a little ‘X’. There are probably two or four points on the plate that you have to mark If you’re attaching the television to a dry or masonry wall, the drill points should be as far apart as you can make them. Once you’ve marked the points where you will be screwing it into the wall, you can take the plate down for the moment.

6. Using your power drill, make pilot holes on the marks you’ve just made. The size of the bit required should be detailed in the manual that came with your wall mount kit. Typically it will be 6-8mm for timber studs or 10-12mm for masonry or dry wall – but be very sure to check before you drill.

7. Now secure the wall plate to the wall using the supplied screws. You will probably need either a socket wrench or large flat head screwdriver to do that. On masonry walls, you’ll have to hammer in a nylon anchor before inserting the screws; on dry walls, you’ll use a dry wall anchor in lieu of the screws. Once the plate is attached to your wall check to make sure it’s properly fastened and doesn’t wiggle or wobble.

VESA mounts

Thanks to the international standards organisation known as VESA, there’s a very good bet that your TV will work with just about any commercial wall mount. Most wallmountable flat panels are compliant with the VESA standard, meaning that their mounting holes are placed so that they will work with any standard VESA mount. Some mounts will also work with non VESA-compliant television sets, but you should check before purchasing one.

76 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Cable management systems will disguise the wires that connect outboard components to the television.

8. Now it’s time to attach the mounting brackets to the back of your flat screen. Most often this is two vertical rails that you just have to screw onto the mounting holes on the back of your TV, though sometimes it’s a single plate that you affix at four points. You may have to remove plastic caps to reveal the mounting holes, and check your TV manual for anything else you have to do to properly prepare it for wall mounting. If you’re going to lay the TV face down for attaching the mounting rails, make sure you do it on a soft surface that won’t damage the screen.

9. Use your Phillips head screwdriver to attach the rails to the mounting holes. The wall mount kit will come with all the screws and washers you need to do that – just follow the instructions in the manual that came with it. There is some considerable variation in the brackets that come with wall mount kits (such as height adjustments and locking mechanisms), so you have to make sure you follow the instructions precisely.

10.Attach the cables. Before attaching your TV to the wall, it’s a good idea to plug in the power and AV cables you need – it saves you from having to feel around for them later.

11. Lift the TV onto the wall plate. This is why you brought a friend along. Most of the time there will be hooks on the mounting rails that you screwed onto the back of the flat screen. These hooks attach to specific points on the wall plate, and the process is a bit like hanging a painting. Once the television is hooked on, make sure it’s locked in. On some wall mounts, the safety locking mechanism is a screw that you have to insert once the TV is hung. On others the locking may be automatic when you click the TV into place, and you need to pull a release to remove the TV from the mount. Check the manual that came with the wall mount.

12. Install a cable manager. This is optional, but it can make the whole setup more aesthetically pleasing. A cable manager is simply a tube or pipe through which you run all the cables, rather than just having them dangle down from the back of the TV. You can make one yourself, or purchase one of the many available for sale. If nothing else, a simple tie or piece of tape can be used to bundle the various cables. (Some people also drill holes in the wall to run cables, but this can be tricky). Once that’s done, plug in the TV and all your AV equipment and start enjoying your new TV experience. n

Wall mount system suppliers Adtec

www.adtec.com.au

Bell’O

www.audioproducts.com.au

Crest

www.crestonline.biz/product/ category/show/BRACKET

Sanus Systems www.sanus.com.au

Selby Acoustics

www.selbyacoustics.com.au

Skunkworks

www.skunkworks.com.au

Vogels, People of Lava, Venturi

www.canohm.com.au/brackets

Flat, tilting or articulating

There are actually three main types of wall mount available. Flat wall mounts simply place the TV flush with the wall (though they may allow some slight tilt to access the cables). Tilting wall mounts have some give on the vertical or horizontal (or both) axis, allowing you limited adjustment of the angle of the TV. Articulated arms are the most versatile, allowing you to swivel, tilt and extend the position of the television. They can put a lot of pressure on the mounting, however, and are typically only suitable for smaller screens.

An articulated mount allows TVs to be turned to face a range of viewing positions.

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DIGITAL SHACK

CEDIA AWARD WINNNERS

2010 Year’s best theatres and smart homes named in CEDIA custom installation awards. By Justin Worthy

he Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA) ‘Electronic Lifestyles Awards’ recognise the most outstanding examples of electronic integration projects in residential homes, with winners drawn from submissions made by its members each year. Rewarding the efforts of professional designers and installers both locally in Australia and overseas, including New Zealand and even one winner from Beijing in China, this year’s awards were judged by a panel of industry experts, with the recipients representing the best of the best when it comes to home electronic installations. And they build really cool stuff.

78 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

BEST INTEGRATED HOME INSTALLATION OVER $300,000 WINNER:

HOME THEATRIX, QLD Starting at the supreme envy end of the sliding scale, the winner of the ‘Best Integrated Home Installation’ over a whopping $300,000, Home Theatrix, was asked to by the client to “impress without spending a million dollars”. One of the biggest challenges was that, working on a building project for a very large house in Queensland that saw joinery being built in the USA and shipped over, the installers had to play with the cards they were dealt when it all arrived. Focusing on cost efficiency and ease of use for all members of the household, Home Theatrix installed 281 circuits for control of lighting and other devices, a 17-zone audio system (it’s a big house, over 90 squares) controllable via a single 10 inch touchscreen, 10-zone air conditioning, CCTV with night vision a PABX phone system and automatic security gates. Even the dressing rooms have motion sensors, to spark up as someone enters and pipe through whatever music the owners have playing from the ensuite bathroom! The installation was completed in March 2010 for just over $406,000.

BEST INTEGRATED HOME INSTALLATION $150,000 - 300,000 WINNER:

LEN WALLIS AUDIO, NSW Just scraping in under the $300,000 ceiling for the next category, Len Wallis Audio from Sydney scooped an award for ‘Best Integrated Home Installation $150,000300,000’. With 12 sub-systems controlled from the hub in the kitchen – including gates, blinds, air con, lighting, security cameras, AV equipment and, incredibly, even heated towel rails – the commissioning family also wanted remote access to the home’s systems via VPN (Virtual Private Network) and the ability to share digital files throughout the house. A major stipulation, given that the client was often overseas, was to provide AV equipment that was simple to understand and use for elderly family members who often came to stay, as well as to allow remote access to the house for tradesmen and deliveries. The resultant setup uses the VPN capability to allow the owner to set temporary access codes for the home’s keyless entry systems and Creston touchscreens with friendly user-interfaces for users less accustomed to operating hightech AV equipment. Special consideration was also given to the home’s proximity to the sea – such as heated stainless-steel keypads to ensure they still operate flawlessly when the cold sea air rocks the joint.

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DIGITAL SHACK BEST INTEGRATED HOME INSTALLATION UNDER $150,000 WINNER:

AUTOMATION ASSOCIATES, NZ Coming well within budget in this category, the New Zealand- based Automation Associates were working for a tech-savvy client who wanted to be able to adjust the system to his preferences even after the NZ crew had left. The security-conscious family now has a futuristic security system that employs photoelectric beams which illuminate external lighting if triggered by intruders, as well as a keypad in each bedroom that will turn on outside lights for them to check what’s going on if they’re roused. Averse to AV and control panel clutter and aiming for a ‘seamless’ look, the owners instead have simplified control of the home’s audio system integrated into the Vantage light switches, although the stone build of the house necessitated the installation of an additional Bluetooth outlet in one wall to overcome the blocking of the signal from the media PC’s keyboard! Vantage touch panels control everything, including that all-important home security, underfloor heating, main and pedestrian gates, blinds, fireplace and irrigation zones outside. The biggest challenge, says Automation Associates, was matching the owner’s creativity, as his own expertise kept them on their toes!

BEST MEDIA ROOM WINNER:

HOWDOI.COM, VIC Installing an amazing media room in a pre-existing space can often be a lot more challenging than having the luxury of designing one from scratch, and that’s what the winners of the ‘Best Media Room’ category found in Victoria when faced with a room that already had glass walls on two sides and a request to install the biggest screen possible in the space. All the ambient light and the owner’s desire to use the room a lot during the day time ruled out a projector, so installers Howdoi chose a mammoth 103 inch screen from Panasonic. This meant a good deal of jumping through hoops in order to satisfy the preparation requirements specified by Pana for correct installation of the 250kg+ behemoth. It didn’t help that the room was on the second floor, so in came an industrial-strength crane and hydraulic trolleys to maneuver the panel into place. Not that it would never move again… The panel requires six-monthly services, so Howdoi fixed it to a custom wall bracket that moves the TV approximately 900mm out from the back wall, allowing service engineers to easily reach the rear of the panel. Custom cabinets housing Middle Atlantic roll-out racks for the AV equipment allowed all the guts to be hidden neatly from view, resulting in a clean, seamlesslyintegrated media room.

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BEST HOME THEATRE OVER $100,000 WINNER:

SUITE CONTROL, NSW It must be good news when an AV custom installer is contacted by a client that shares the same passion for movies and automation as they do. So when the winners of the ‘Best Home Theatre over $100,000’ category found themselves commissioned by a man who once operated a commercial cinema, lived for movies, and wanted to create a home theatre out of an existing concrete bunker, it was game on for Suite Control. Looking for a solution that would make watching movies the exciting entertainment experience it used to be, as well as being simple to operate so even his very young grandchildren could get it up and running, Suite Control went to work putting in an extensive Control4 system. Eschewing boring old doors – how passé – and choosing instead to motorise the massive 500kg walls to allow entry to the room, Suite control installed custom door rails and a safety cut-out circuit to open the doors and allow any occupants to escape in the event of a power failure! A projector system with four-metre wide SMX screen, soft lighting, full, almost silent air con and concealed speakers form the heart of the system so, presumably, Gold Class is now a thing of the past for this family.

BEST HOME THEATRE $50,000-100,000 WINNER:

ZENETECH BEIJING, CHINA Going for a classic, more understated look, the client who approached Zenetech Beijing didn’t want to sit on a raised dais but rather towards the back of her new home theatre, on a comfy sofa. Nor did she want to lose anything from the room size by building in cabinetry to hide all the equipment, so the accommodating Zenetech crew simply put all the AV gear on a rack behind the sofa, out of the owner’s line of sight, also hiding the subwoofer behind the couch. Working to a strict budget, the crew created a new, single-layer dry wall over the existing concrete, put diffusers on the ceiling, covered the walls in fabric and went as far as putting a muffler on the AC to lower the noise output from the cooling system. A 140 inch 2.35:1 projector screen sits at the front and an IR interface controls the media centre, projector and screen, rounding off the project with muted but classy grey and dark-grey tones and a motorised curtain across the screen.

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DIGITAL SHACK BEST HOME THEATRE UNDER $50,000 WINNER:

CABLE MAN, VIC Still in fantasyland for most of us, the next project came in well under the 50 grand ceiling at $43,000, converting a basement with single window overlooking the tennis court. Bye bye window, hello acoustic panels for the walls, with a sealed door and two rows of cinema-style seating covered in vibrant fabrics creating a distinctivelooking home theatre room. A full HD DLP projector with Gennum processor and auto light-dimming were installed for movie watching, but this is a family that enjoys watching regular TV on the big screen too, so provision was also made for cable and free-to-air TV. The Cable Man team chose the THX and ISF-approved Stewart projection screen StudioTek130 to complement the projector, a Marantz amp powering a THX speaker system and a Philips TSU 9400 Pronto rig to control the lighting and AV. Working around what they were given, Cable Man has created a superb, comfortable-looking home theatre system in what is quite a small space of only 28 square metres.

BEST MARINE PROJECT WINNER:

LIQUID AUTOMATION, NZ Spending eight months onboard a luxury yacht bigger than most people’s houses doesn’t sound too terrible, and that’s just what this NZ company did to fit out the Loretta Anne. Liquid Automation, winner of the same award last year, was tasked with integrating a world-class AV setup with the other electronic systems peculiar to sea-going vessels on the 40 metre yacht (radar, sonar, sounder and navigation) plus the ability to monitor it all remotely for faults. Operation of the 15 different entertainment zones on the vessel was made straightforward for any guest onboard, allowing them to view any source on their TVs and control the bimini camera. The IR codes and controls of the satellite TV can be changed to comply with the country the boat moves into, and provision was made for the captain to be able to override all controls and have exclusive command in the event of an emergency. Plus, the TVs exposed to the outside can withstand being hosed down by cleaning crews. As everything can get pretty hot and wet on yachts, Crestron temperature and humidity sensors were installed to track the AV racks, providing visual alerts at 40C and shutdown at 45C, along with sending an alert email to the boat’s operating company.

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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 (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 Advisor PO Box 721 St Ives NSW 2075 02 9440 5379 www.audiovisualadvisor.com.au Audio Visual Lifestyle 86 Merewether Street Merewether NSW 2291 02 49 635304 avlifestyle@exemail.com.au Automated Innovation 1 / 12 Channel Road Mayfield NSW 2304 02 49676666 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

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

Intelligent Installations PO Box 219 Northbridge NSW 1560 0425 250 646 www.intelligentinstallations.com.au

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wavetrain Cinemas 10, 1 - 13 Atkinson Road Taren Point NSW 2229 02 9526 5497 www.wavetrain.com.au

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

Zeale Group P.O. Box 1196 Albury NSW 2640 02 6041 1484 www.zealegroup.com.au

LovemyTV PO Box 3320 Sutherland, NSW 2234 0439 888 113 www.lovemytv.com.au

QLD

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

Audio Connection (Kawana Waters) Shop 3/ 70 Nicklin Way Kawana Waters QLD 4575 www.audioconnection.com.au 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

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CEDIA

HomeTech Systems Pty Ltd PO Box 979 Nerang QLD 4211 07 5502 0760 info@hometechsystems.com.au Hoopers Sound Centre 97 Sorensen Road Gympie NSW 4570 07 5482 3409 www.hooperssound.com Home Theatrix Unit 11 Nautilus Business Park 210 Queensport Rd Murarrie, QLD 4172 1 300 555 270 www.hometheatrix.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

VIC Advanced Lifestyle Solutions Pty Ltd PO Box 360, Niddrie, VIC 3042 03 8307 5618 www.advancedlifestylesolutions.com.au Audio Trends 10 Argent Place Ringwood Vic 3135 03 9874 8233 www.audiotrends.com.au Automated Living Systems Shop 4, Bellevue Arcade, 75 Barrabool Road Highton VIC 3216 03 5241 9660 www.alsys.com.au Cableman Pty Ltd Level 1/1227 Glen Huntly Road Glen Huntly, VIC 3163 03 9572 8900 www.cableman.com.au Carlton Audio Visual 164 - 172 Lygon St, Carlton, VIC 3053 03 9639 2737 www.carltonaudiovisual.com.au Custom Home Theatre PO Box 963 Berwick VIC 3806 03 9796 2617 www.customhometheatre.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 Urban Intelligence 292 Hoddle Street Abbotsford VIC 3067 03 9001 3001 www.urbanintel.com.au Zentec.com.au PO Box 438 Ocean Grove, VIC 3226 1300 362 972 www.zentec.com.au

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

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

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

iCue Ltd PO Box 11481, Elleslie Auckland +64 9 524 6620 www.icue.co.nz

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

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

Image Audio 723 Main Street Palmerston North 64 6 357 1969 www.imageaudio.co.nz

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

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

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

Good Vibrations Sound Installations Po Box 4511 Langwarrin VIC 3910 03 9789 7078 www.gvhometheatre.com.au

ECA Systems Unit 2/13 Clark Street Dunsborough WA 6281 1300 858 897 www.ecasystems.com.au

Sandman Audio Video Unit 1, 69 Kaiwharawhara Road Wellington +64 4 499 2228 www.sandman.co.nz

Hidden Technology P.O. Box 1084 Altona Meadows 3028 03 8685 8544 www.hiddentechnology.com.au

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

Sound Advice First PO Box 12-145 Christchurch 8002 +64 3 379 9416 www.soundadvicefirst.com

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

Essential Cabling 1 / 6 Chullora Bend Jandakot WA 6164 08 94141961 mcairns@arach.net.au

Soundline Audio PO Box 9680 Newmarket, Auckland +64 9 307 1238 www.aletro.com

Harvey Norman Mile End PO Box 288 Torrensville, SA 5031 08 8150 8000 www.harveynorman.com.au

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

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

Sound & Vision Studio 237 Greenhill Road Dulwich, SA 5065 08 8364 4000 www.sv-studio.com.au

Impact Electrics 3 England Street Bentleigh East, VIC 3165 03 9209 8140 impactelectrics@optusnet.com.au

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

TAS

Insight Systems Group Factory 1, 256 Bolton Street Eltham VIC 8008 1300 369 451 www.insightsystems.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

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

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

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

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

Nation Technology Level 1, 2 Trotters Lane Prospect, TAS 7250 03 6343 0655 www.nationtechnology.com

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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

ust purchased a fridge, TV, washing machine, air conditioner or computer? Feeling slightly queasy about the environmental impact of your consumer electronics splurge? Or maybe you’re simply dreading your next water or electricity bill. There are simple and effective ways to reduce your energy and water consumption and it’s pretty easy to make smart choices when buying ‘greener’ electronics gear, helping you reduce your contribution to landfill, too. When you’re buying, don’t just think about price, specs, performance and the brand’s reputation. Look beyond the marketing guff. Find out if the company has genuine ‘green’ credentials. Are they recycling their waste? Do their products incorporate a percentage of recycled materials? Do their products contain harmful, sneaky substances? Got you thinking? Here are some easy ways to spend your electronics dollars wisely with the environment in mind. You could even save some money too!

Buying Green Peace of mind

Sustainability is the modern mantra of responsible living, but how do you help achieve it when choosing entertainment gear? Ella Legg provides tips on buying electronics in general, and TVs in particular.

TOP TIPS FOR TVS Go for models with better energy efficiency.

The more stars the better. Visit www. energyrating.gov.au to compare running costs (10 years based on 10 hours’ daily use). Do a search on manufacturer, screen size or all brands. Today, super efficient TVs with a 7-star energy rating (out of a possible 10) are available, like Sharp’s LC52700X, a 52 inch LED backlight LCD TV with a 7 star energy rating, which costs approximately $614 over 10 years to run.

86 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

Condenser, or steam, dryers typically have better energy ratings than conventional models.

Choose TVs that are EU RoHS compliant or state they are ‘free from harmful substances’.

Many reputable brands have designed their products to be EU RoHS compliant meaning their products no longer contain, or contain reduced amounts of toxic substances (eg. cadmium, lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE). Check product packaging for tips.

Buy TVs from brands that are members of Product Stewardship Australia (PSA). Support the companies that are doing their utmost to take care of the environment. This not-for-profit industry-led organisation has been driving the development of a national collection,

The Electrolux ‘Green’ series of vacuum cleaners are made from 55 percent recycled materials.

1. Select products with a high energy efficiency. Check for the approved energy label. Some products (like TVs and air conditioners) now feature a 10-star energy label for super efficient products so you can buy products that chew through less electricity and have lower operating costs.

2. Choose products that are water efficient. The average Aussie consumes around 200 litres of water each day. Products like dishwashers and washing machines feature a WELS water rating label with a maximum of six stars (the more stars the better). The labels also show a water consumption or water flow figure. This is the number of litres of water used in a washing machine’s wash cycle or, in the case of a showerhead, the litres used per minute. The WELS rating scheme is being expanded to include evaporative air conditioners, instantaneous gas hot water heaters, hot water recirculators and domestic irrigation controls.

recycling and community education scheme for obsolete consumer electronics (the initial focus is TVs). Companies that have spent the most include Panasonic, Sharp, Sony and Sanyo. Dick Smith Electronics is a PSA member and Chinese company Hisense is the most recent new PSA member.

Check the TV’s power consumption in standby mode.

It’s something that’s rarely displayed at point of sale so it’s not always apparent how much energy is used when a TV is in standby mode. However, over time the costs add up! Go

The DTM4200SC uses a refrigerant that has a shorter life in the atmosphere than the more commonly used hydrofluorocarbon.

online and scan a product’s operation manual for this information. Or ring the manufacturer.

Look for clever energy-saving product features.

Some Panasonic TVs, for example, have Intelligent Auto Standby which automatically switches connected devices (like DVD or Blu-ray players) to standby when it’s not in use. Panasonic has its own eco website, http://panasonic.com.au/energy-wise where you can see the energy consumption of Panasonic plasma and LCD TVs, read tips about reducing energy consumption over

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4. Buy from a company that disposes of its products and packaging thoughtfully.

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Some companies remove your old appliance for free, recycle it and re-use parts of it – like your old vacuum cleaner, for example. Some companies even recycle their polystyrene (if they use it at all in their packaging!) in addition to recycled cardboard.

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5. Buy from a company that has a genuine sustainability policy. Steer clear of companies making false claims about their environmental credentials (also known as ‘greenwashing’). Do your research.

6. Find out about how you can recycle your household appliances and other consumer electronics goods. Many washing machines (opposite) and dishwashers feature a WELs rating to indicate water consumption during operation.

3. Choose products made from recycled materials. Some products are made from a percentage of recycled materials – which means less material going into landfill. An example is Sony Ericsson’s Naite phone which is made from a minimum of 50% recycled plastic. Electrolux’s Ultra Silencer Green and Ergospace Green vacuum cleaners are made from 55% recycled materials and the majority of the packaging (56%) is made from recycled materials.

a TV’s lifespan and calculate how much it costs, per quarter, to run your Viera plasma or LCD. A mobile version is available, too, so you can do your calculations before you buy.

Keep your eye out for the launch of the industry-run national collection and recycling scheme for TVs, slated for launch in 2011.

In Australia, the majority of end-oflife TVs end up in landfill, with little

Ask your local council about its recycling programs and nearby recycling centres, or visit recyclingnearyou.com.au. Then of course there’s www.mobilemuster.com.au (for recycling mobile phones), Planet Ark (printer cartridges), www.ewaste.com.au (for electronic waste), discstation. com.au (CD recycling) and loads of others. Check out manufacturers’ websites to find out what recycling programs they operate nationally and locally. Some offer recycling events in partnership with local councils (like Apple). Some manufacturers, like Apple and Dyson may even recycle competitors’ products. n

or no recycling taking place. This results in the potential for toxic and/or hazardous substances in old TVs not being safely recovered and managed. The lack of widespread recycling also contributes to the generation of solid waste and materials, such as plastics, glass and circuit boards, not being recovered for reprocessing. This situation will change for the better when the Government’s promised Recycling Scheme is introduced in 2011. n

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GEAR LOG HTC LEGEND

HTC Legend Machined from a single chunk of brushed aluminium, HTC’s Legend not only looks and feels better than the standard plastic smartphone, but packs an equally impressive feature set. This includes a high resolution 3.2 inch AMOLED touchscreen, five megapixel camera, GPS, up to 32GB of microSD memory for storing video, photos and music, a 600MHz processor and the latest Android 2.1 operating system. With HTC’s Sense software, you can also see all the updates, tweets and photos from your social networking friends and contacts on the same screen, and group them all – including calls and text messages – by contact rather than application. Overall, the Legend looks, feels and acts more expensive than it is. PRICE $599 COMPANY HTC WEBSITE www.htc.com.au

ASUS NX90

Asus NX90 Featuring Bang & Olfsen’s highly regarded ICEpower digital amplifier technology, and created with input from the company’s foremost designer, David Lewis, the flagship NX90 from Asus is a powerful multimedia notebook with real audio cred. It features a polished aluminium body that locates speakers outside the chassis and alongside the screen so that sound wraps around the user, and provisioned with a full HD LED backlit LCD, top-notch images from its Blu-ray drive are a cert. On the inside, there’s an Intel Core i7 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, a two megapixel camera, 6GB of RAM (yes, 6 gig!) and a pair of 500GB drives. PRICE $3500 COMPANY ASUS WEBSITE www.asus.com.au

BELKIN PLAY POWERLINE HD DUAL PACK

Belkin Play Powerline HD They ain’t much to look at, but as mum says: even the ugly ones needs lovin’. And love is what you’ll have for Belkin’s Play Powerline HD Dual Pack if wireless networking is a no-show at your digs, ’cos this pair of plain-looking adapters uses plain old electrical wiring to share an internet connection for up to 300 metres around the home. Simply attach one to a router and plug it into a power point, then plug the second (located in a remote room) into a power point and its other end into the Ethernet port on a computer, gaming console, or AV setup. The system supports up to eight adapters, meaning you can connect seven networked devices, and promises speeds up to one gigabit per second. This means that large video files - even multiple HD video streams – can be transferred quickly, according to Belkin, allowing stutter-free playback of web-based content and reduced latency for online gaming. PRICE $249 COMPANY Belkin WEBSITE www.belkin.com/nz

90 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

The GadgetGuy™ presents great gear and top tech for your digital life NIKON COOLPIX S1100PJ

Nikon Coolpix S1100pj Nikon’s Coolpix S1100pj advances the cause of the photo slideshow by integrating a pico projector that can throw your just-snapped pictures instantly onto a wall, directly from the camera that shot them. Specs-wise it captures 14 megapixel stills, has a 5x optical zoom and a 3 inch LCD screen from which most controls and operations are handled via touch. It shoots video at 720p standard and, when plugged into a PC or Mac, functions as a real projector to display images and text from your computer. PRICE $449 COMPANY Nikon WEBSITE www.nikon.com.au

EDIFIER IF200 PLUS

Edifier IF200 Plus Designed like a traditional double-bell alarm clock, the Edifier’s iF200 Plus automatically switches a docked iPod or iPhone to alarm clock mode and serves up its playlist through “360-degree omnidirectional speakers” according to the preset times you’ve programmed. While it won’t make early starts more enjoyable, it does give you a large chrome-plated snooze button to smash, and cease what is, for many of us, the shrill morning drill. This buys you but a nine-minute reprieve, after which the whole hideous noisy routine is repeated until you get up. Available in pink, white and black. PRICE $50 COMPANY Edifier WEBSITE www.edifierinternational.com.au

APPLE MAGIC TRACKPAD

Apple Magic Trackpad Like the trackpads on its notebooks, Apple’s Magic Trackpad allows you to interact with your computer using finger gestures: pinch-to-zoom in or out of a picture, slide to scroll through web pages, and swipe to flick through long documents. Unlike notebook trackpads, however, the Magic provides a lot more acreage for your fingers, making the whole hands-on approach more comfortable and natural. The Magic Trackpad uses Bluetooth wireless networking to connect to your PC or Mac, which makes for a nicely clutter-free desk. PRICE $99 COMPANY Apple WEBSITE www.apple.com.au

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EARS & EYES & THUMBS

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

HIGH DEFINITION MOVIES

SHUTTER ISLAND

STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIO, SIR BEN KINGSLEY, MARK RUFFALO DIRECTOR MARTIN SCORSESE RATED M 15+ SOUND DTS-HD 5.1 MASTER AUDIO, DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR PARAMOUNT

Scorsese’s latest work, Shutter Island, gets off to slow start, but gathers pace towards a brilliant finale. Sir Ben Kingsley lends the film an appropriate air of mystery and inscrutability, and the drama, while seemingly continuing for centuries (with a running time of almost two-and-a-half hours), eventually engages the viewer enough to want to find out what on earth is going on at this bizarre, creepy asylum. Shutter Island’s plot surprises, but it’s in that genre of movie that makes a second viewing almost pointless. DiCaprio, in the lead role as an investigating US Marshall, does a fine job of portraying a haunted man on the brink of collapse himself, with a supporting cast that seems to focus the intensity on his growing awareness. We get tired of pointing this out, but the movie houses are letting all the early adopters down by failing to deliver on their promises with Bluray format. True to form, this disc doesn’t have any special features that don’t also appear on the DVD version of the film. And there are only two; paltry by any standards. Nevertheless, one of them is a ‘featurette’

THE DESCENT: PART 2 The press release blurb opens its description of The Descent: Part 2 with “Dazed, bloodied and speechless with trauma” which, coincidentally, is exactly how I felt watching this movie but not, I think, for the right reasons. A ludicrous, hammy and woefully misdirected sequel to the halfway-decent original thriller (The Descent), Part 2 has nothing at all to recommend it. Jon Harris, Director, clearly needs some horror-movie-directing classes of his own, because eking out a long, silent pause then cranking the volume up and playing stupidly loud, short bursts of discordant music to accompany an entirely mundane occurrence, like someone appearing in a doorway, is not the way to create good horror, or even suspense. Apparently borrowing the look of the cannibalistic cave dwellers from The Lord of the Rings then multiplying by 100, there’s nothing in this sequel that we didn’t

92 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

(presumably a feature that just isn’t grown up enough to earn the non-diminutive title) called ‘Into the Lighthouse’. The featurette is lightweight in its revelations but nonetheless reasonably interesting, with the actors and Dr James Gilligan, reallife psychiatrist and consultant, discussing how closely the film adheres to real-life psychiatric practice from the 1950s. These were the days when jamming an ice pick into a patient’s eye was considered the best way of ‘curing’ mental illness, otherwise known as a ‘trans-orbital lobotomy’, removing big chunks of the brain in the process. The other huge bonus from Paramount is your bog-standard ‘making of’ doc, but you have to be quite the fan to sit that one out. STARRING SHAUNA MACDONALD, DOUGLAS HODGE, JOSHUA DALLAS DIRECTOR JON HARRIS RATED MA15+ SOUND DTS 5.1, DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR ICON

see in the first movie. Indulgently gory but lacking even the most fleeting sense of actual horror, Descent 2 is a risibly idiotic second outing for a movie that was already a dumb and exceedingly inferior take on an idea H.G. Wells expressed far more eloquently over 115 years ago. The Blu-ray version of this film comes with, er… actually it doesn’t come with any extras at all. Nothing. Good one Icon! Thinking about it, they’re probably doing you a favour, minimising the exposure you’ll have to this mess. Thanks Icon!

Best of the podcasts

FROM PARIS WITH LOVE STARRING JOHN TRAVOLTA, JONATHAN RHYS MEYERS, KASIA SMUTNIAK DIRECTOR PIERRE MOREL RATED M 15+ SOUND DTS-HD MASTER AUDIO 5.1 + DOLBY TRUEHD 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR SONY

More Transporter 3 than La Femme Nikita or Leon, director Luc Besson seems to be plummeting to earth in a creative freefall with From Paris with Love, an incredible (in the strictest sense of the word) tale of a maverick CIA agent who hooks up with an ambitious but naïve aide to the US Ambassador based in Paris. And so the highly unoriginal ‘renegade veteran pairs with rookie’ conceit is rehashed into an utterly absurd romp through the capital as Travolta (as the improbably-named ‘Charlie Wax’) wages his own little war against terror, apparently entirely unobserved by the local law enforcement. Besson must have been watching a lot of John Woo films before he staged From Paris with Love, because his stars run and gun in that other-worldly place in movieland where the CIA kill in broad daylight in a foreign capital in a sort of bored malaise, bad guys empty entire clips to no effect while the good guy kills five of them with five rounds, and the police arrive 10 minutes after the street has been reduced to rubble. It’s fantasyland for gun nerds with a plot as dumb as a brick but – in this climate of real terrorist threat being more reality than fantasy – bordering on offensive. Extras on the Blu-ray include the usual ‘making of’, a music video and theatrical trailer (why on earth movie houses still put theatrical trailers of the film you’ve just bought on the discs is beyond me) and commentary. More interestingly, there are deleted and extended scenes, plus two features on the spying game that are exclusive to the Blu-ray version: ‘Secrets of Spycraft’ and ‘Spies, Spooks and Special Ops’, giving insight into the history and operations of real-life spies. Nothing you see here will bear the slightest resemblance to what you just saw in the main feature. Still.

DVD MOVIES

THE GHOST WRITER STARRING EWAN MCGREGOR, PIERCE BROSNAN, OLIVIA WILLIAMS, KIM CATTRALL DIRECTOR ROMAN POLANSKI RATED M 15+ SOUND DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 DISTRIBUTOR SUMMIT

Adapted from the novel by ex-political editor Robert Harris, The Ghost is the ‘inspired’ telling of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s time in office (and, like another of Harris’ books, Pompei, is directed in film form by Roman Polanski). It’s pretty transparent as such, telling the story of an ex-PM who is accused of war crimes while commissioning a ‘ghost writer’ to write his memoirs. A touch of intrigue, a hint of private military company involvement and an overdose of CIA interference later and you have the recipe for a decent, albeit slightly frustrating, political thriller. Ewan McGregor plays the pivotal role of ghost writer turning, finally, investigative reporter and does so reasonably but with an odd lack of commitment, just as the oh-so-English accent is over-played and rather forced (Yorkshireman Tom Wilkinson’s effort at an American one not being much better). Advertising references for BMW and Google are as subtle as a tank, and Polanski’s er, legal difficulties, meant that German locations had to substitute for Martha’s Vineyard , but the resultant film is engaging and atmospheric, despite a quite daft denouement.

Just like iPhone ‘apps’, there is a surfeit of the audio and video feeds dubbed ‘podcasts’ out in the great digital yonder to peruse, and it can all be a bit overwhelming. So we’ve handpicked a few in this issue’s column that we think you, as an Australian resident and reader of Home Entertainment Buyers Guide and fan of all things techy, will appreciate. First up is perhaps the most tenuous, but very entertaining. ABC’s Big Ideas is a series of lectures, hosted by Tony Jones, that appears twice a week on TV but now also on your iPod, should you care to subscribe for free to the service via iTunes. Thought-provoking, erudite and certainly an intellectual cut about the rest, recent lectures have included topics such as formulating a ‘digital philosophy’ for approaching the likes of Twitter and Facebook, policing social media, and so forth. More familiar are the unlikely but enduring pairing of David and Elrond’s mum – sorry, Margaret – in a portable video dose of At the Movies – great for catching what you might have missed on the TV and always fun to watch and hear them go at each other. For videogames, try the Good Game video podcast, featuring two likeable presenters who, unfortunately, rarely venture from expressing a middle-of-the-road verdict on the games they cover. It’s not bad viewing, although the hosts’ cute, matching outfits are a little bizarre. Another home-grown effort and often more engaging, comes every Friday from the lads over at Australian Gamer in Brisbane, available on iTunes or their own website – they use rude words because they think they’re big and clever, but that’s apartment-bound nerds for you . And for games for your iPhone or other mobile device, have a listen to the Pocket Gamer iPhone gaming podcast out of the UK (occasional profanity). The Aussie Geek podcast, presenting the latest tech news and reviews or, as they put it ’AGP’ is a great homegrown broadcast. Their enthusiasm is clear, describing what they cover as ‘Bloody awesome tech’ and they’re not afraid to express honest opinions, backed up by their technical knowledge and practical experience of the items they cover, which is a breath of fresh air; the value of being independent, we guess, as opposed to their conglomerate-owned competitors. The atmosphere is true-blue Aussie – despite Keith’s Canadian heritage – and laid back, perfect to listen to while being thrown around on the public transport system or stuck in the car. iTunes also hosts Discovery Communications’ How Stuff Works podcasts from their excellent website., with explanatory pieces on home entertainment items like Tivo, Netflix, 3D TV, Holographic versatile discs iPhone 4, Facebook privacy and even good ol’ amplifiers. There’s also a podcast dedicated entirely to tech from their gadget crew called ‘Tech Stuff’ – they even have a podcast on how to make your own podcast!

Podcast URLs Pocket Gamer http://feeds2.feedburner.com/itunes-podcasts Australian Gamer http://www.australiangamer.com/podcast/ How Stuff Works http://www.howstuffworks.com/ How to make a podcast http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/ basics/podcasting3.htm Aussie Geeks http://www.aussiegeekpodcast.com/

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EARS & EYES & THUMBS

GAMES

TRANSFORMERS: WAR FOR CYBERTRON PLATFORM XBOX360 GENRE ACTION RATED M DISTRIBUTOR ACTIVISION

Back for another bout of wanton robotic destruction, the Autobots and Decepticons battling takes place this round on Cybertron, the machines’ home planet. Players once again can fight on either side, choosing from a roster that swells in ranks as you progress through

the game. Based more closely on the original Transformers cartoon series, there are sufficient changes in design as well as execution that the game feels fresh and is, quite possibly, the best Transformers videogame ever made. Playing out on Cybertron will have most resonance for diehard Transformers fans, but even gamers new to the robot-on-robot shenanigans will appreciate the artistic direction, the flexibility and choice in the game modes and, most importantly of all, the superb transformations. While the controls have been irritatingly reassigned from the previous game, it’s still great fun to have your robot transform on the run or in mid-air without breaking its stride and seamlessly continue its ferocious assault! New downloadable content, comprising two entirely new characters (Scattershot and Onslaught), three previously available only via Acitivison’s deals with retailers (Shockwave, Demolishor and Jazz) and four new maps (two for the Horde, sorry, ‘Escalation’ mode and two multiplayer) are already available to boost the offering and, for the first time, you can even create your own Transformer and drop him into multiplayer online battles.

RED DEAD REDEMPTION

Another magnum opus from Rockstar, creators of the legendary Grand Theft Auto games, Red Dead Redemption is, at its most basic, GTA in the Wild West. But my lazy description is doing the game a disservice, because as soon as you pull your cowboy boots on and enter this new, free-roaming adventure, Rockstar’s extraordinary achievement is immediately apparent. Employing a similar overarching but muted narrative that its urban cousin espouses, Red Dead Redemption is a simple tale of retribution layered with taskoriented relationship building, decision-making and petty diversion which plays out in a massive Western-themed environment that is entrancing at the same time as feeling authentic. It may not be, of course, but the game exudes the same sense of accuracy as HBO’s Deadwood TV show, with superb, quite superlative, voiceover work in the game, both very natural-sounding and entertaining. The skeleton of GTA IV is very visible here: the same graphical look, same story segueways while driving (in this case, while trotting along on

LIMBO

PLATFORM XBOX 360 GENRE ACTION RATED MA 15+ DISTRIBUTOR ROCKSTAR

horseback), same “go here, fetch that, shoot bad guys on the way” gameplay, but the change of theme and the pure escapist fantasy that playing the game provides is enough to dispel concerns that the game is just GTA in a different outfit. The only real criticism we can levy at Red Dead Redemption is that the very loose nature of the narrative – meaning that there’s no strong ‘invisible’ force pushing the gamer along to make progress, as you find in more restricted games – means that, once you stop play and re-enter the real world for a while, the impulse to return isn’t very strong. Undoubtedly, once you pick up the controller and immerse yourself in the game again, you’ll be as entertained and enthralled as before.

PLATFORM XBOX360 GENRE PLATFORM RATED M DISTRIBUTOR PLAY DEAD

Available exclusively on the Xbox Live service, PlayDead Studio’s Limbo constitutes a hurricane – not breath – of fresh air as it rips through the often mediocre competition on Xbox 360, turning a lot of current videogame archetypes on their head. First to go is colour – Limbo plays out in macabre monochrome tones – along with any kind of health indicator, map or even tutorial. In another of Limbo’s stark contrasts, the entire game is played with only two controller buttons; one to jump, one for actions, making it one of the most accessible games available. A classic left-to-right scrolling adventure, Limbo places you in the shoes of a small boy apparently on the search for his lost sister. Game play consists of running and jumping your way through occasionally devious environmental puzzles, never directly

94 HOME ENTERTAINMENT BUYERS GUIDE | SPRING 2010

interacting with any other game characters but, instead, manipulating what you find in the environment to progress. Beautifully designed and realised, albeit violent in a polarising way, Limbo epitomises everything that is great about videogames, providing an immersive, interactive, beguiling, entertainment experience that, like all artistic expression, achieves greatness through inspired design and well-executed simplicity. The journey lasts only a few hours, sadly, which doesn’t represent the best value.

TIME WARP

DVD’S debt of gratitude

Video CD held only 80 minutes of low-res video, but showed the way for DVD.

o best re-create what it was like trying to watch a movie on a Video-CD, this article will have a brief intermission about-three quarters of the way through. This will simulate the experience of having to swap to disc two to see the final act of your preferred film, since VCDs could only hold up to 80 minutes of video. What was VCD? Created by the usual suspects – Sony, Philips, Matsushita and JVC – it aimed to bring vision to the CD. The standard was called ‘White Book’ and could hold both video and still pictures, using MPEG-1 compression. A quick recap: back in 1993, with use of the famous ‘Mode 2/XA’ format tweak, audio CDs could be coaxed into holding a maximum of 80 minutes of raw digital audio. But CDs could hold data too, and video is just data after all. So the White Book consortium therefore set compression rates and resolution for VCD to offer precisely 80 minutes (or 800MB) of video per disc. Resolution specs won’t impress new Blu-ray converts. A mere 352 x 240 for NTSC and 352 x 288 for PAL. Aspect ratio was locked to 4:3, and why not? Back in the early ’90s, everyone’s TV and PC monitor was square. If you wanted widescreen, you went to the cinema. Keen students of obsolete video formats will of course recognise that VCD offered only half the resoution of VHS video, which ran at 330 x 486. However, because the format was digital and playing the disc did not degrade image quality, there wasn’t any analog ‘noise’, static or vertical hold problems. So that’s what VCD is... what was the point of it? VHS dominated the home video rental and (in the US at least) home video ownership markets. But as mentioned, the Video Home System ran on analog tape that was actually damaged by repeated use. Remember how rental movies used to look more terrible, the older they were? Audio CD had finally come into its own by the earlyto-mid ’90s, and studios loved the combination of low manufacturing costs and fantastic audio quality. But earlier

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experimentation with the confusingly-named CD Video – which could only hold one music video’s worth of content (ie about five minutes) – were frustrating. Yet, that optical disc held the future of home video. All that remained was to find the right technological mix. The MPEG-1 compression format let the White Book consortium make an important leap forward for optical media. Only by combining the digital CD format with compression could the promise of an entire movie, in good quality, on a 120mm plastic disc be realised.

Keen students of obsolete video formats will of course recognise that VCD offered only half the resolution of VHS video” Of course as we know, VCD was not the be-all and end-all of optical. DVD was up and coming even as Asia embraced the low cost (and let’s be frank, easy pirating) of VCD. And no matter how many VCD-compatible players were sold, the format was doomed from the start because it... Intermission! Please insert disc two! ...couldn’t hold a full movie. Hollywood loved its 90 minute (or longer!) epics, and it would take the superior compression and technological tweaks of DVD to deliver a full feature on a single 120mm disc. But VCD shouldn’t be forgotten, because it showed the big consortiums that the market would embrace digital video, if it could only be delivered in the best possible format, with the best possible video quality. VCD might not have won the battle against analog tape, but it sure softened VHS up for DVD’s final killing blow. n

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Windows®. Life without Walls™. Toshiba recommends Windows.

Think mobility think Toshiba

The science of movement takes many sophisticated forms. Take Toshiba’s fully featured, ultra-thin, ultra-light Portégé R700. With its sleek magnesium-alloy chassis, 13.3” LED backlit widescreen display and industry leading battery life, Toshiba has perfected the business of movement for the optimal movement of business. Available with Solid State Drive (SSD) and Powered by Intel® Core™ i5 processor. Also available with Intel® Core™ i3 and i7 processor with optional vPro™. Contact your authorised Toshiba Reseller, call 13 30 70 or visit www.mytoshiba.com.au Toshiba is a proud Partner of the 2010 Australian Commonwealth Games Team. Intel, the Intel logo, Intel Core and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.Toshiba (Australia) Pty Limited ABN 19 001 320 421 TOS0026/HE

Portégé R700