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Another year, another Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where manufacturers come to present their latest electronic wonders to the digitally deprived world.
Held in Las Vegas, amid one-armed bandits, neon lights and casino resorts disguised as old European cities, CES is the most exiting event of the year for gadget fans. It’s too bad they’re not allowed to attend, unless they work in the industry (CES isn’t open to the public).
For big screen video junkies, it looks like the future will mean flat-panel TVs for everyone. Small and large LCD TVs were everywhere, dominating the show’s main hall. In fact, the light emitted by the LCD TVs alone probably could have illuminated the place by night. Samsung and Sharp clearly took the lead in LCD TVs, showing modules in a greater variety of sizes than anyone else. A contest for the biggest LCD TV was waged between Samsung, Philips and Zenith. Samsung won out by an inch with its 54-inch widescreen TV, a prototype that won’t make it to market this year.
Plasma gas TVs haven’t gotten any bigger since last year. Though they still top out at around 60 inches, overall they’re more affordable (by a little) and much more prevalent. At least now, most people know that plasmas don’t need their gas refilled every 3,000 hours.
Rear projection TVs powered by Texas Intruments’ DLP chip were proudly displayed by Samsung, Zenith, RCA, Panasonic and others, while Philips and Toshiba showed off big screen TVs using Liquid Crystal on Silicon chips (LCoS). The $9,000 Toshiba boasts an incredible 1,080 progressive resolution — double that of any other model on the market. All this should tell you something: CRT televisions are doomed to be dinosaurs in a few years.
DVD machines have become so common, they’re almost VCRs… at least they act like VCRs. From Panasonic to Polaroid, every booth had a DVD recorder. The going price for DVD recorders for 2003 looks to be about $500, a price sure to get a lot of people off their tape habits. Panasonic, Hitachi and Sony showed small, stylish DVD camcorders.
Many of the DVD recorders shown sported hard drives. A few of the hard drives that didn’t include DVD recorders did include other nifty tricks, such as high-definition recording and networking. Hard drive recorders have been a hard sell to Americans who in large part haven’t been convinced of their value, but as they become more common, hopefully America will come around.
Overall, gadgets are getting smaller and doing more. More cell phones double as PDAs and digital camcorder. Digital camcorders now let you do video editing that previously could only be done with a PC. Wireless networking technology, particularly the various forms of 802.11 (otherwise know as Wi-Fi), is being used to send digital signals of all kinds all through the house.
High-definition television made news with Thomson RCA announcing its sponsorship of Super Bowl XXXVII in high-definition on ABC. Even bigger, the cable industry and TV manufacturers announced their readiness to make high definition cable-ready televisions. In line with the recent agreement between cable companies and TV makers to build high-definition cable-ready TVs, Zenith showed two products with cable HD tuners: one was a 60-inch rear-projection LCD TV with a built-in hard disc video recorderand both off-air ATSC and QAM cable high-def tuners (though when the public will see that product is anyone’s guess).
Several manufacturers showcased high-definition DVD machines, yet those are still a couple of years away. For HD now, Marantz showed a new D-Theater high-definition VCR similar to the JVC unit we reviewed in November.
Whatever your digital pleasure, CES was the place to see it. Here’s a sample of what we’ll be covering in more detail in the months to come.
The Panasonic SV-AV30 makes personal video really personal — pocket-sized. Data is stored in MPEG4 format on convenient, thumb-sized SD cards.
www.panasonic.com
The Nokia 5100 is made for an active lifestyle with splash, dust and bump protection, as well as mobile multimedia messaging services. The phone also features a built-in thermometer, flashlight and calorie counter. The TriBand’s Xpress-on color shell is changeable, with eight color schemes.
www.nokia.com
The InFocus SP7200 DLP projector will turn your rec room into a home theater — just add a screen (and DVD player, speakers, receiver, etc.). With a resolution of 720p, the Infocus is perfect for HDTV.
www.infocus.com
Garmin International’s IQue 3600 is a PDA with an organizer running Palm OS 5 and GPS satellite navigation built into one handheld device.
www.garmin.com
Samsung wouldn’t settle for a standard progressive scan DVD player. Its new DVD-HD931 scales DVD video to high-definition resolutions of 720p or 1,080i and sends them out through an uncompressed DVI interface to your new HDTV.
www.samsungusa.com
Take your copy of Trading Spaces with you: RCA’s RD2780 is a digital audio and video player that plays MP3 digital audio and MPEG4 digital video. www.rca.com
The KEF XQ speakers feature a titanium “hypertweeter” and Uni-Q array for great detail, wide sound dispersion and cool looks.
www.kef.com
The perfect optical disc format may not be here yet, but the perfect optical disc player is: The Denon DVD2900 plays everything, including DVD, DVD-A and SACD.
www.denon.com
This Audiovox VE1510DV is a 15-inch LCD TV with cable/antenna tuner, AM/FM radio, DVD/CD/MP3 player and speakers, as well. It’s perfect for dorms and small rooms. www.audiovox.com
Power is important; that’s the theory behind the Richard Gray’s Power Company Substation. The Substation takes advantage of a balanced 240-volt AC line to provide the most stable and constant source of AC power yet.
www.richardgrayspowercompany.com
Monster, the company behind Monster Power and Monster Cable, now offers Monster Game surround sound video game speakers. They come in blue for PS2 systems or green for Xbox consoles.
www.monstercable.com
Marantz’s DH9300 music server is a CD recorder and hard drive server for storing a wall’s worth of CDs. The future of music will be written on hard drive devices like this one.
www.marantz.com
Why transfer your digital videos onto DVD when you can record them directly to DVD discs with Hitachi’s DZMV350A? It also lets you record your old analog tapes onto DVD within the camera.
www.hitachi.com
Jay Leno in HDTV looks a lot better when you don’t have to stay up until 11:30 to watch him. Simply record it with Zenith’s HDR230 hard drive recorder. This is one of the personal video recorders capable of storing the massive data required for HDTV.
www.zenith.com
Your Plastic Pal
Perhaps Douglas Adams’ jest of robotic buddies is close to coming true. At CES, Sony Electronics gave the public a sneak peak of its latest automaton, the Sony Dream Robot (SDR-4X). This 2.5-foot high, 14-pound, bi-pedal automaton can do all sorts of tricks: it can recognize its owner’s face, voice and name, as well as nine other individuals; walk rough terrain; and even sing and dance. Two color CCD cameras allow the robot to judge distances, while seven microphones built into its head enable it to detect the location of any sound it hears. This robot can learn, too. Using a wireless LAN, the SDR can connect to a PC and download new voice recognition patterns and other upgrades. Sadly, it won’t be available to the general public just yet. Sony says it is still investigating whether or not the public will clamor for dream robots of their very own, though a company source says the Robot may possibly be available in Japan as early as this year.
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