Last year I wrote about Neosonik, who were trumpeting a Wireless HD home theatre solution. Unfortunately they had show gremlins and couldn’t demonstrate the video at the time.

I went back today to check up on progress, and guess what? It really works. I saw "Casino Royale" in 1080p, coming from a blu-ray source. Let me recap that, in case you glossed over it: 1080p high definition video with audiophile grade 5.1 surround (the system supports 7.2), without wires. OK, so you do need to run power to the speakers but that’s it.

The unassuming plastic box in the photo is the picture receiver module which plugs into the HDMI port on the TV. Range is about 200 feet.

Neosonik are running a few demo systems here at CES in adjacent rooms, which not only demonstrates that they actually have a working and reliable product but also that they can run in close proximity without interference. Handy if your neighbour gets one too!

Availability and price? Sometime this year, and since they’re going after the high-end market you can probably expect a price tag with 5 figures when it comes out.

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SE2 labs think that high-end custom installs are getting too complicated. If you go it alone you’ve got a bewildering array of choices when it comes to amplifiers, video processors, projectors, sound sources etc and that’s before you’ve tried to make them all talk to each other.

So they’ve done the hard work for you. Take a large box that wouldn’t be out of place in a high-tech computer room. Fill it full of best-of-breed technology (Bryston amplifiers, high def TiVo etc). Make a customised interface to control it all and Voila, you get "The One".

The full list of toys is too long to repeat and includes mechanical as well as electronic devices. Think power conditioners, cable management, anti-vibration systems, your choice of game console, media center PC… the list is endless.

It looks great, it costs $24K and it has a space for you to plug in your iPod. What are you waiting for?

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Originally releasing their catalog in both formats to meet consumer demands for choice, Warner Brothers announced today that all future HD releases in DVD will be exclusively in the Blu-ray format. The movie is a stunning blow in the protracted format wars which has stalled market saturation of the high definition format and kept prices higher as a result.

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Sure, the iPhone’s touch screen capability is super cool. And if previous reports proved true, a Newton Touch may be just over the horizon, then touch screen may be the interface of the future. Microsoft surely thinks to, having announced the SURFACE last year as a tabletop interface for hotels and other corporate concerns.

LG/Philips is on the touch bandwagon as they are set to rock CES with Multi-touch Screens that recognize input from either a touch of a finger or more precise writing instruments.

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The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas always rings in the new year with breaking news that make gadget geeks foam at the mouth and this year will be no different. Mitsubishi is set to announce at CES their long anticipated ‘Laser TV’ rear projection 1080p HDTV. Using three lasers rather than one, the new Laser TV concept will divide the colors into red, blue and green lasers to display what Mitsubishi claims is 90% of colors visible to the human eye. By contrast, LCD and Plasma TVs only display about 40% of the known color spectrum. The result will make for sharper, more colorful images. In addition, the new LaserTV technology holds the promise of more lightweight, thin, amd extremely wide-viewing-angles at an affordable price.

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Every year, January is all about CES in Las Vegas. It’s the high tech Disneyland for the gadget obsessed. Everything with a circuit will be announced and drooled over. But already, the one item that’s catching everyone’s attention is Panasonic’s monster 150 inch Plasma HDTV.
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Are you one of those types of people who really, really need their CDs or DVDs organized into some sort of jukebox formation? Or maybe you got a lot of CDs and DVDs for Christmas, and you need a place to store them.

I really like this because it can store 150 discs, and it looks kind of compact. You might want to connect it to a computer, create a database, then you can search your collection by title or keyword. Then all you need to do is double-click the title you want, and I imagine the thing just wheels around to you.

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I’m a big fan of digital media recorders. I have owned my Series 2 TiVo for years now and I love it very much. I’m not sure how I got along watching television without one. What it doesn’t give me - awesome as it is - is the ability to easily take recordings off of it and move it to my laptop or iPod. What are the options? Well you can build your own MythTV box, but that takes a lot of work and technical know-how that most of us don’t necessarily possess.

ThinkGeek is selling the Neuros OSD Linux Media Recorder, which setting up is as easy as plugging it in to your TV and give it an analog video input from your DVD or cable box. Its ability to encode video in various formats for your portable devices is a TV lover’s dream. Files can be stored on and played back with either using media cards or using an USB external hard drive plugged in to the Neuros. For the more advanced technical people among us (and for whom a Linux OS is Heaven on Earth) will be delighted by its wealth of ports and the completely open source firmware. Read the rest of this entry »

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