Audio Video News

High-end audio is the primary emphasis here at HE 2001, but home theater is getting plenty of exposure at demos put on by Polk Audio, MartinLogan, and other audio manufacturers who are pushing their products for surround sound. Polk's large suite—immediately next door to the show's Press Room—has been packed for the first two days, with show attendees waiting in long lines to get in. The emphasis: a new multi-channel audio system known as the Digital Solution 7200, which includes five two-way speakers, a powered subwoofer with an integral multichannel amplifier, and a tuner/processor/preamp.

The Polk system even includes 140' of oxygen-free speaker cable—all for $2200 retail. Bass management is user-controllable via the remote, which enables separate calibration for satellites and sub. The sound in demonstration here—good with both movies and music—accompanies video on a 36" 16:9 television from Loewe, the German manufacturer. Guide to Home Theater editor Tom Norton described the Digital Solution 7200 system as "an excellent value." Polk representatives call it "high-end home theater in a box."

The high-performance electronics action at the Hilton has been allocated to widely separated floors, with some displays on the 2nd and 4th floors, as well as on the 9th, 10th, and 42nd—two from the top. Vidikron, in Suite 4203, is getting mucho praise with an action clip from Shanghai Noon, the Jackie Chan movie in which the martial arts star takes on several Crow Indian warriors to save a distraught princess. A Snell & Wilcox interpolator, a Vision One projector, and a Stewart GreyHawk film screen combine for superb images. Vidikron has one of the best-looking demonstrations at the show, easily among the top CRT-based displays.

Sim2 Seleco is competing well with some new DLP projectors, the Grand Cinema series, designed from the ground up for home theater applications. According to company executives, earlier DLPs were adapted from units intended for static image use—as in PowerPoint presentations. One drawback with the extraordinary brightness these projectors can generate is that black is often rendered as charcoal gray. The sleek silver unit in SIM2's suite has been optimized for minimal motion artifacts and dark blacks. It looks excellent when used with the proper screen, weighs only a few pounds, and features a full array of inputs for almost all types of PC and video signals, including 480p, 720p, and 1080i, with 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios. The basic Grand Cinema DLP projector will retail in the $10,000 neighborhood.

Always looking for new paths to video improvements, Runco International has introduced what it is calling VIVEX Pixel for Pixel Processors—devices intended to help home theater fans get the most from fixed-pixel displays, as opposed to CRT-based systems. Displays that can benefit from the PFP Processors include DLP, LCD, D-ILA, and plasma units. Runco's technical director Mike Woods says the PFP-7 and PFP-11 improve such displays by offering "multiple scaling outputs, aspect ratio control, sync polarity, image shift, blanking, and other important adjustments."