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JVC demonstrated a new 1080p/D-ILA video projector that is expected to sell for around $7000 when it becomes available next year. it looked outstanding, even outperforming the Sony VPL-VW100 ("Ruby") set up side-by-side with it. I saw no significant shortcomings, at least under show conditions. It even had the best contrast I've yet seen on a JVC projector, by far.

I spent the better part of an hour in several separate visits watching the new Sony VPL-VW50 SXRD 1080p projector. While one could argue that there were better images to be seen at the show (comparing projectors under show conditions, with different screens sizes, materials, and different program material is a nearly hopeless exercise), there were only a few that could compete in the Sony's price range. The above screen shot won't really tell the whole story (screen shots are also an iffy thing) but I'll go with it anyway. The odd shape is simply due to limitations in the camera positioning. The image was a true rectangle. Honest.

Smyth Researth has been showing their headphone surround simulation technology (Smyth Virtual Surround or SVS) for a couple of CEDIAs now, and it looks like it is about to come to market.

Xperiment, a maker of music and movie whole house systems for custom installers has some interesting, albeit expensive products. But expensive as they are, they really do do a lot and compared to some of their competitors, they're sort of midline in price. Xperiment just struck a deal with Music Giants to download music and movies into one of their high end servers. Their servers, Poseidon and Polaris, offer between 1.5 and 4.0 Terabytes of raided storage for prices that closely mirror what corporation pay to protect their data. Of course, I don't know if you need that much protection for, say, <i>Godfather III</i>, but it's nice to know it's there. A top end server, the Poseidon, is $25,000 and each room where you want control needs a "client" which features a DVD player/reader (from $2,400 to $3,000). Everything is connected with Ethernet and the whole system can even synch with your other system at your vacation home in the Hamptons while jet over there for the weekend.