Audio Video News

First thing Friday morning, the day the show floor opened, I dashed over to Projection Design's booth. The Norwegian manufacturer promised to have something revolutionary. And they did. Their Model Three 1080 single-chip front projector, as the model number suggests, offers a full 1920x1080 resolution. This originates from a brand new TI DLP chip, with full 1920x1080 resolution. That's on the chip, not just on the screen. In short, it does not use the wobulation technology you'll find in all the new 1080p rear projection sets. The latter apparently does not work well with large, front-projection images.

In any event, this technology will obviously not be exclusive to Projection Design, though they may be the first to market a 1080p DLP front projector. The Model Three will have 6 lens options, a claimed contrast of 7500:1, an ANSI lumens output of 3500, two color wheels (!), and a likely availability in early 2006. I haven't yet made it to all the booths on the show floor, so may yet discover other manufacturers who are showing prototypes of 1080p DLP front projectors for home use. And I haven't yet actually seen the Projection Design in action; early setup problems delayed the demo, so I plan to stop back tomorrow. The actual release date of the product will depend on when the chip becomes available in production quantities, and the price has not yet been determined.

Meridian held their first press event as the new primary manufacturer and promoter of Faroudja-branded products. So naturally they were making a big splash with the Faroudja DILA1080pHD Digital Projector ($37,995) and DVP1080 video processor ($6,995). But they had other interesting products as well. There's the DILA788 a D-ILA projector with 1400x788 resolution ($24,995). There are also the HDMAX 121 Extender and HDMAX 421 Switch. The extender is said to allow HDMI cable runs of up to 150+ feet, depending on the signal resolution. The HDMAX 421 is a 4-in, 1-out HDMI switcher. Each input includes Meridian's HDMI Extender technology which Meridian claims improves image quality and stability and reduces noise and jitter.

Meridian's newest small speaker is the Compact DSP3100, consisting of a 6-inch (or dual 5.25-inch, in a matching center channel) woofer and 1-inch tweeter, each driven by independent built-in, 75W amplifiers. The speakers are driven by a digital input (an analog version will be available later) together with DSP for the crossovers, Shipping in October 2005, the 3100s will retail for $4795/pair and the center channel for $2895.

A lunchtime panel session on Blu-ray brought together representatives from three studios supporting the format: Fox, Disney, and Sony. The panel provided little new information. The members expressed the importance of new sorts of added features (including interactivity) to attract mass-market buyers; improved picture and sound, while very important, may not be enough by themselves to attract a market of the size required for long-term success. Despite PPV (and downloads—which were not addressed for obvious reasons!), the panelists expect packaged media to continue to be important in the marketplace.

Two key questions from the audience, however, were left essentially unanswered. They were: Will there be 1080p content from Blu-ray, and will we get full HD resolution from the component (not just the HDMI) output? The response to both questions was, in general, "That's still being studied/considered." That answer struck me as code-wording for either "we don't know," or "no, but we'd rather not discuss it in detail at this time."

SIM2 was demonstrating their new C3X 1280x720 3-chip DLP front projector (about $20,000, with lens) with high def clips from Star Wars Episode III (720p), Starship Troupers (1080i) and Shrek 2 (1080i). The clips, as projected on a 96-inch Stewart FireHawk screen, looked fabulous. The spacecraft in Starship Troupers, were, for the first time in my experience, clearly revealed to be models, something I'm sure the filmmakers didn't want to be made quite so obvious.

Over at Rotel, there were two new digital amplifiers, each offering 500Wpc into 8, ohms, the 2-channel RMP-1092 and the monoblock RMP-1091. Both are expected in January, price TBA. The RVE-1070 ($2,000, December) will be Rotel's first video scaler, and will offer 4-in, 1-out HDMI switching, de-interlacing, and scaling up to 1080p. The RDV-1092 is Rotel's newest DVD, DVD-Audio, and CD player ($1800, January). It will also scale up to 1080p from its HDMI output.

JVC now has a full range of 1080p HD-ILA RPTVs. The 70-inch 70FH96 streets for $5999. Two other models, at 61- and 56-inches respectively, will run $4999 and $4499. All will be available by October.

The evening hours were occupied by a huge reception from Silicon Optix showing off the many new products incorporating their Teranex-based Realta video processing ship. It's making broad inroads into the market, not the least of which is Yamaha's newest single chip DLP projector, the DPX-1300 (November, $12,500). Keeping in mind that I still have two days to go and a lot to see, including new projectors from many well-known suppliers (not least of which is the new Sony SXRD projector mentioned in yesterday's report which I have not yet seen in action), the Yamaha was clearly the star of the show for me thus far. It sailed through a wide range of HD program material, from bright sunlit beaches to the dark trailer for Batman Begins with hardly a whimper. Resolution, black levels, brightness, and color were all superb on a 96-inch wide, Stewart Studiotek 130 screen. My only reservation was that I could not get closer to the screen than about 14 feet (estimated) so it was hard to judge the ultimate limits of its 1280x720 resolution. This new projector is said to be virtually identical to the current DPX-1200, apart from the addition of the Realta chip.