Tom Norton

Projectiondesign will be introducing its Avielo Chroma DLP projector with LED illumination. No price was available at press time. The projector is said to produce a wider and more consistent color gamut with its red, green, and Blue LEDs. While the desirability of a wider gamut is debatable given the standard HD color gamut that most program sources use (a playback gamut that's wider than the source simply distorts the colors), more consistent color is always welcome. And unlike conventional lamp-based projectors, the Avielo Chroma's LEDs are said to produce the same color balance throughout their claimed lifetime of 50,000 hours.

Gefen is showing its GefenTV-WirelessHD sender-receiver combo ($899). Operating at 60GHz, it is said to offer high quality wireless transmission of HDMI 1.3 audio/video at up to 1080p/60 to any remote display up to 30 feet away, with no obstructions between transmitter and receiver.

Vizio is showing its first Blu-ray player, the VBR100, at $199 MSRP. It is BD Live (Profile 2.0) compatible (requires a separate, user-provided memory card). Multichannel audio formats are output over HDMI only (the player does not have multichannel analog outputs). The player can decode Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS to LPCM and output them over HDMI (plus native LPCM, of course). It cannot decode DTS-HD Master Audio (or DTS High Resolution) to LPCM; advanced DTS formats are decoded to the DTS "core" track only (generally DTS 5.1 48kHz). The Vizio VBR100 can, however, output all supported Blu-ray Disc audio formats over HDMI in bitstream form (including all DTS high resolution formats), where they may be decoded in a compatible A/V receiver or pre-pro.

Runco's XTREME VX-33i and VX-33d three-chip DLP projectors will be featured at CEDIA. At $49,995 and $59.995 respectively, and available with a variety of optional lenses, they're designed for luxury home theaters using very large (above 120" diagonal) screens. The VX-33i includes Runco's integrated Vivix video processing, while the VX-33d features Runco's outboard DHD video processor-controller, also incorporating Vivix.