When buying a new TV you are certainly checking various models up by size right? You have an idea of where to place your big screen TV in your own home and you know how big you’d want it to be. You’d also want to know exactly what you’re paying for, wouldn’t you?

Well if you happen to pick up a Best Buy or Circuit City listing and check out the TV listing make sure you read those fine prints. You’ll discover that the TV you wanted is actually smaller than you thought.
The TVs are labeled under classes. A 31.5 inch TV will be labeled as a 32 Class while an 18.9 inch TV will be labeled as a 19 Class.

The good news here is that you get those fine prints which specify the actual size. Sony started to advertise the real size in 2007 while Best Buy did so about six months ago. Other big names like Samsung and Sharp did so to but didn’t explain yet what’s the real motivation. Word on the street is that customers sued or threatened to sue when they found out their Class TV was actually smaller than they thought it was. How big is your TV?

via NY Times

Mordaunt Short Speakers

The Mezzo 6 floorstanding speakers anchor the system. The system also included the Mezzo 5 center, two Mezzo 2 monitors that served as surrounds, and the petite Mezzo 9 subwoofer. Mordaunt-Short also offers a Mezzo 1 monitor.

The Mezzos are good-looking speakers with veneer finishes. Their curved enclosures minimize standing waves. Given the floorstander’s real bass response, that feature matters even more. Mordaunt-Short placed the tweeter at the top of the enclosure in an effort to manipulate diffraction off the front baffle. This gives the upper midrange and high frequencies a confident yet unhyped clarity that few high-end speakers achieve.

All of the Mezzos share a 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter mounted in a separate housing atop the enclosure, which controls resonance. The Mezzo 6 adds two 6.5-inch aluminum-cone woofers that match the one in the Mezzo 2 monitor. The Mezzo 5 center uses a 5.25-inch aluminum-cone woofer that matches the one in the Mezzo 1 monitor.

The Mezzo 9 sub has two 8-inch drivers. All of the jacks are located on the bottom of the sub. The most significant feature is an internal equalization circuit. Subs with EQ are still distressingly rare.  This sub comes with a setup CD that’s loaded with low-frequency test tones. It also includes an SPL meter that measures bass frequencies

WD-65835

With its 65-inch (diagonal) screen, the Mitsubishi WD-65835 is the second from the largest set in Mitsubishi’s full-featured Diamond line. But it’s a lot lighter and more maneuverable than you might expect.

The set offers a full array of the usual video and audio connections. Plus, it includes the increasingly common USB port for viewing your JPEG photos. There is no RGB computer input. You can only connect a computer via a digital link to one of the HDMI jacks.

The Mitsubishi offers three picture mode options: Brilliant, Bright, and Natural. Each of these modes is individually adjustable and adjusts for each input as well. There are only two color temperature options (High and Low), a video noise control, SharpEdge (on or off), and a control called DeepField Imager (on or off). Mitsubishi says this acts as a dynamic contrast control.

A PerfectColor feature (also separately adjustable for each input) offers both saturation and tint adjustments for each of the primary and secondary colors. While a color-management system such as this should ideally include a third control (intensity) for each color, the Mitsubishi does not. When set up correctly (which means only with precision test tools), a good color-management system can produce an accurate color gamut.

The multi-component remote is backlit and well laid out but does not offer direct input selection. However, the onscreen menus are straightforward. It lacks reverse navigation—that is, you can’t jump from the top of a menu to the bottom with a single push of the Up navigation control.

Mitsubishi, the proud maker of world-class LCD televisions and other electronic products, will soon be launching its two new LCD monitors. Both the new much-awaited Mitsubishi RDT196LM and RDT1710LM LCD Monitors will be out on January 9^th, 2009. The Mitsubishi RDT196LM sports a 19-inch screen while, the other model, Mitsubishi RDT1710LM sports a 17-inch screen.

Mitsubishi RDT196LM and RDT1710LM LCD Monitors feature integrated 1W+1W stereo speakers along with DVI-D port. Both these yet to be released LCD monitors deliver a superb 1280 x 1024 pixel resolution. Apart from this, these monitors provide a sharp 800:1 contrast ratio and 250 cd/m2 brightness. As per expectations, the first model will be available at a price of $329, while the second model will be available at $262.

Via: Mitsubishi

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Samsung 46A750

What is readily apparent, and worth discussing, is the screen. Unlike most LCD screens, this one is glossy—not unlike most plasma screens. So somewhat ironically, one of LCDs main legs up over plasmas (the lack of reflections), is not here. If there are windows behind where you’re sitting, and you’re at the right angle, you’re going to see the windows (somewhat) in the screen. While this may seem, at first, to be a major flaw, for some people this is actually a good thing.

It’s true that most LCDs don’t have reflections. In many brightly lit rooms, this is great. What most LCD’s also don’t have is a decent black level. The light hitting the screen has to go somewhere. So it is diffused across the entire screen, raising the apparent black level. While you’re watching in a brightly lit room, this probably isn’t that noticeable.

What the LN-46A750’s screen does instead is reflect some of that light back out. So if there is a lamp on behind the other end of the sofa, you may see it. But if there is just more ambient light in the room, the black level will actually appear lower.

And it works. With room lights on, the black level seems extremely dark, darker than you’d expect from an LCD. So as long as your setup doesn’t put light sources behind you (or ones you can’t shut off), then this set will give you a better daytime black level than most other LCDs.

At night, though, is a different story. Even with the backlight set at the lowest setting (which creates a pretty dim image), the black level isn’t anything exciting. About on par with most LCDs, which is to say worse than the better plasmas. With the HD DVD of Batman Begins the black level wasn’t objectionable, and it was possible to dial in a backlight setting that was bright enough to be pleasing, without having gray blacks. Turn the backlight up further, though, and you can tan yourself on the cheap.

The contrast ratio is good, similar, and perhaps a little better than most LCDs, though certainly not as good as Samsung’s own local dimming LED LCD or the better plasmas. Again, in a brightly lit room, though, it seems much higher.

Grandslam Rawlings Seating

Via a new licensing agreement, PremiereHTS (PHTS) will exclusively design, manufacture and market a product under the Rawlings brand names.

The Grand Slam features a lower seat back with a stealth, club-chair-like design allowing for a slightly smaller footprint, saving space and making it ideal for smaller home theater rooms.

The low-back design allows for full-frequency response from rear channel speakers. Additional Grand Slam features include an optional swivel tray table and a large capacity, stainless steel cup holder.

The Grand Slam comes available in buckskin or black leather and can be configurable in a straight, shared arm or single club row.

Designed in a Euro-deco style, the Reliever model is a great choice for a contemporary-styled home theater.

With its quality, custom-tailored stitching and rounded-styled seatback with decorative contrast welting combinations, it will transform even the most basic entertainment room into a chic home theater.

Other Reliever features available include an optional swivel tray table, which is great for snacks, drinks, and even laptops. In addition, a whisper-quiet recliner motor, for continuously variable recline capability is a great add-on option.

There is also a light touch variable lever release for non-motorized recline function as well as a space saving, “wall hugger” incliner design.

It is offered in buckskin or black leather. The Reliever can be configured in shared arm row layouts (straight or curved), or loveseat configuration (each seat will recline independently). In addition, a large capacity stainless steel cup holder is offered.

Both the Grand Slam and the Reliever come with a lifetime warranty frame, five years of parts and labor on leather, and one year on ultra suede.

The Reliever and Grand Slam models are now making their debut in home theater designer showrooms throughout the US, with plans to expand to other retailers, specialty designers and furniture dealers in the future.

Recently, TG Sambo introduced their latest all-in-one PC, called LLUON B2. Looking like a standalone television or monitor, this new PC comes sporting a 26-inch widescreen display. It features a 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400 processor and a 320 GB hard drive.

The new LLUON B2 all-in-one PC features a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS 256 MB Graphics. There is a built-in webcam along with a memory card reader that makes this PC exceptional. Apart from these, there is a whole clutch of USB 2.0 ports. This PC supports Windows Vista Home Premium. TG Sambo LLUON B2 is available in Korean market at an unconfirmed price.

Pioneer SC-07

Pioneer’s SC-07 is the second son in the firm’s new A/V receiver lineup. As such, it omits the flashy front-panel LCD video display of the flagship SC-09 but retains many of that model’s more notable features for a much lower price.

Among these are a full alphabet soup of surround modes and enhancements, both XM and Sirius satellite radio, and Pioneer’s own Multi-Channel Acoustic Calibration System (MCACC) auto-setup/EQ processing. An arguably more important item is the SC-07’s highly efficient 7-channel ICEpower amplifier. This sophisticated variant of Class D topology eliminates most of the bulk, waste heat, and weight — not to mention the increasingly costly copper — of conventional amplifying circuits.

VPL VW 70

Check out the architectural grace of the arcing top and bottom panels. Peer closer and you’ll notice a subtle cerulean sparkle rising from the projector’s gloss finish.

Projectors also offer more to excite the left cerebral hemisphere. Only recently, most models struggled to deliver adequate contrast and to deal with the high resolution of HDTV. Now some of the latest models exceed the needs of the average buyer as flamboyantly as a Ferrari does.

Sony’s industrial-design team even threw in a gratuitous “wow” feature: an automatic two-piece lens cover that slides open when you power up the projector and closes when you cut the juice. But in a shocking design oversight, Sony didn’t consider the sound of the door; it emits only a plasticky clunk.

The VPL-VW70 uses three of Sony’s SXRD (Silicon X-tal Reflective Display) chips, so it doesn’t suffer the color fringing you can see in single-chip DLP projectors. And it offers a complete complement of inputs.

One neat feature, unusual at this price point, is compatibility with anamorphic 2.35:1 motorized lenses. Lots of projectors have the internal image processing necessary to work with these lenses, which let you fill an extra-wide screen for a CinemaScope effect. The VPL-VW70 adds a trigger output for a motorized lens sled, so the lens moves into place automatically when the anamorphic zoom mode is activated. Sony doesn’t sell such a lens, but the lens/sled combo is available from such companies as Panamorph starting at around $3,000.

The VPL-VW70 offers more adjustments and tweaks than Ferrari’s F1 cars. All the must-have stuff like gain and bias adjustment for red, green, and blue is there. But you also get exotic goodies, like manual iris adjustment (which lets you stop down the projector’s light output to improve contrast). It also has Sony’s Real Color Processing (RCP), which lets you fine-tune the saturation and hue of the three primary and three secondary colors to a degree I haven’t seen before.

The remote control is an installer’s dream. It has so many dedicated buttons — even for such functions as sharpness and gamma — that the menu system seems almost superfluous. Because of these dedicated buttons, any adjustment takes only seconds. Controls behind a door on the side offer full access to the on-screen menus.

Ever thought of using a handbag with a television? If yes, then you can actually grab one, as Bagtv range has arrived in the market. Featuring an integrated 7” DVD/ MP3 player along with a digital photo viewer, this television handbag range is truly an innovation.

Bagtv provides a battery life of 2.5 hours. It lets you connect to your PC for an easy uploading of pictures and videos. You can also plug in your SD card for sharing images on this Bagtv. This bag series is available in a variety of colors and finishes to ensure your style is not hampered while carrying an entertainment handbag.

Via: BagTv

Researchers in the OLED business have been working their brains off to get a better, more efficient blue OLED material. And it looks like all that researching and working has proved to be right. Blue OLED has reached an efficiency record in the hands of a few guys over at the University of Florida. What they did is to achieve “a new record in efficiency of blue organic light-emitting diodes, and because blue is essential to white light, the advance helps overcome a hurdle to lighting that is much more efficient than compact fluorescents.” They managed to squeeze 50 lumens per Watt which is 50% of their final goal. Will it arrive at CES?

via physorg

Undoubtedly we’ve seen this year greener and greener technologies for various of our gadgets. Alternative energy is also a big issue with gadgets manufacturers. The remote control in the picture doesn’t need any batteries to make it work. The Shake Control is a concept TV remote that works simply by shaking it. Just move it in different directions to change the channels or the volume. The remote has a visible arrow-shaped magnet and coils of wire inside. All those components will generate 20-30mA current when the device is shaken. Then the gravity sensor measures the direction of the shake and delivers the corresponding result. The remote is definitely interesting, but I’ll get tired soon as I am going through channels over and over to find something worthy of watching.

via The Design Blog

Want HD video quality to come wirelessly to you but don’t afford it? Then you should get that new HDMI cable from Flatwire. It’s not big, it’s gianormous. The longest one is “just” 20 feet long. It will bring you that HDMI no matter where you sit in your house. The price will match the length although there’s no confirmation of it. It’s said that a 20 feet cable will cost you about $140. What are you going to do with all that cable? Pack it nicely under the floor, inside the wall, around your Christmas tree! You chose! Cheaper than going for wireless HD right?

via boing boing

JVC LT 47X899 LCD

JVC packed the LT-47X899 with all the technological wrinkles it could assemble. Its image processors upsample today’s 8-bit sources to 12 bits (although the LCD panel itself is limited to 10 bits). It can also handle Deep Color (if and when we get Deep Color program material). It also does x.v.Color, although this format is currently limited to the few HD camcorders that can record it. In addition to the usual inputs (including three HDMI 1.3 and two component), the set also includes a USB Photo Viewer. You can use this to show your friends the JPEG photos you took last summer.

JVC provides five selectable Video Status modes in the Picture Adjust menu. (Video Status is JVC’s name for its preset, user-adjustable picture modes.) You can adjust the basic video controls separately for each Video Status mode, but not for all of the advanced adjustments. In turn, you can set each mode differently for SD (480i/p) and HD (720p, 1080i/p) sources. However, you can’t configure a given Video Status mode differently for each input.

Berkline 13175

If you’re ready to take your entertainment center to the next level, the Berkline 13175 Home Theater Lounger can get you there. Here is contemporary luxury that’s at home in any forward-thinking home theater. The plush, three-section seat backs provide luxurious support, and boxed seat cushions assure excellent comfort and durability. Each padded arm has a cup holder that’s generously sized to hold most cans, bottles and drink cups.

The PowerRecline feature lets you effortlessly recline to your favorite position, and the space-saving Wallaway design lets you fully recline within inches of the wall for greater decorating flexibility. Upholstered in black top-grain leather, this lounger comes in a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-seat model, so your whole family can enjoy the comfort.

Get ready for an ultimate home entertainment experience with the newly launched Klipsch RF-62 Home Cinema Speaker System. Packed with the advanced entertainment features, this new home cinema speaker system lets you enjoy exceptional music effects.

The new RF-62 Home Cinema Speaker System is considered as an entry-level product featuring several permutations and combinations of speaker choice for a 5.1 surround sound set up.

The new Klipsch RF-62 Home Cinema Speaker System sport bright gold cones that delivers superb music. This set comprises of 20 units and you will be really puzzled to choose six out of them for yourself.

Klipsch’s RF-62 Home Cinema Speaker System is available at a price ranging between £900-£2000

AQUOS LC 46D64U

Sharp’s Slim-line D64U Series is so named because the cabinet has 25 percent less depth and 20 percent less weight than previous Sharp LCDs, and there’s only about 1.5 inches of bezel surrounding the 46-inch screen. This 1080p LCD has a 4-millisecond response time and a healthy connection panel that includes three HDMI, two component video, and one PC input, plus a single RF input for access to the internal ATSC, NTSC, and Clear-QAM tuners. Both the HDMI and component video inputs accept 1080p/60 but not 1080p/24, and Sharp has put one HDMI and component video input on the side panel for easy access. Picture-in-picture is not available, but an RS-232 port is included, so you can integrate the TV into an advanced control system. This TV does not include the 120Hz technology found in Sharp’s higher-end LCD lines.

In addition to a whopping eight picture modes and five color-temperature settings, the LC-46D64U features a Color Management System that lets you precisely adjust the hue and saturation of the six color points. The OPC feature automatically adjusts image brightness based on your room’s lighting conditions. However, advanced white-balance and gamma controls are not available. The TV features four aspect-ratio options for both HD and SD sources, including a Dot by Dot mode for viewing 1080i/1080p images with no overscan.

A thin, silver speaker bar runs along the bottom of the panel. The audio menu includes treble, bass, and balance controls, as well as a generic surround mode and bass enhancer and the option to turn off the screen and only output an audio signal.

Roku Netflix player

Roku has announced that it has released support for streaming high definition (HD) content from its Netflix Player. Through the use of advanced compression technology, Roku can deliver instant streaming of HD content over average consumer broadband connections - bringing HD to the mass market at an affordable price of just $99 - and no monthly charges for those already signed up for one of Netflix’ unlimited rental plans ($8.99/month or higher).

So far, the number of HD titles numbers in the 100s, but it’s a step in the right direction and you should expect to see more and more content coming through in high definition. If Roku delivers as promised, it should soon stream HD content from more sources and with a much wider selection.

Netflix, Inc. is the first content provider to deliver HD content to the Roku player. Additional providers of HD content are expected in the first quarter of 2009. The new software will be automatically delivered to all Roku players free-of-charge over the course of the next few weeks.

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