Cedia 2009 My Top Five Things  

 

 

CEDIA 2009 has come and gone and there has been a lot of coverage here and elsewhere as to what was being shown and touted. I was able to tour most of the show floor (even with so much out there) and while there was a huge volume of eye and ear candy I decided to list a bunch of things that jumped out at me as a Home Theater buff that might or might not appear on a lot of Top Ten, or in this case “Top Five”, lists. Some are well known and others are a bit more obscure but all are related to our common hobby in one way or another. The following article is not an attempt to formally review the items discussed here but just to make you aware as a Home Theater Forum member or lurker (you really should join because then you could chime in with your opinions) of some things that might make your Home Entertainment experience even better. Note: I am purposely not listing these items a numerical order because I don’t want you to think that this is a ranked listing. Some are small items and others have much larger ramification but all of them, in my opinion, are things that you might be interested in. So let the alphabetical listing begin….

 

The first item that I offer for your consideration is the AVGRIP Locking HDMI Cable from ACCELL. This looks like a regular HDMI to HDMI cable but it contains a locking mechanism that is activated when you plug it into a normal HDMI receptacle. It’s such a simple and effective concept that the first thing that comes to mind is, “Why didn’t someone think of this sooner?” proving once again that sometimes the little things can go a long way to making our lives simpler. Here’s a video podcast.

 

We now turn to the opposite end of the financial spectrum, going from an accessory that is easily affordable to a Home Theater than is beyond the reach of the average consumer. CINEPRO INC. combined their amazing speakers, wiring and electronics with a commercial grade Barco DLP 2K projector provided by Cineramax, utilizing an acoustically transparent ProCurv screen with auto-masking from SMX. A rough calculation came up with a figure of approximately $225,000 for the complete setup with the following breakdown:

 

Audio equipment: $95,000

Projector: $105,000

Screen: $25,000

 

The program included a musical selection from Jane Monheit and John Pizzarelli, an intense scene from The Incredible Hulk and another from Kung-fu Panda. The performance was powerful and riveting. Both sound and picture provided a combination that was unrivaled at the show in my opinion. While $225,000 might seem excessive for most of us there are several things to consider. 

 

 

I always love to see new approaches to old ideas. Atlantic Technology demonstrated a prototype of a new way to produce low frequency sound from what are generally termed mid-range speakers. The entire concept is presented in this thread so that you can fill in some of the technical details. Essentially, H-PAS makes satellite speakers into full range speakers without any additional active components but by applying some passive techniques to the sounds produced thus reinforcing and amplifying the lower frequencies just as they trail off. You have to hear it to believe it – and I did. Look for Atlantic Technologies to be licensing H-PAS to a variety of vendors (five are rumored to already be in the pipeline) and for prototypes from several companies to be introduced by CES 2010. An additional bonus involves the “Green” component. Without the need for powerful amplification for sub woofers, the carbon profile of H-PAS products is very, very low. Al Gore would approve. Sub woofer designers might be of a different opinion. Let’s see where H-PAS is this time next year. It may turn out to be the sleeper technology of CEDIA 2009.

 

The buzzword at CEDIA 2009 seems to have been 3D with many systems and working implementations being show by Panasonic, Sony, JVC, Mitsubishi and others. Even THX got into the act with a 3D concept of their own. Some formats are here now and others are not quite ready for prime time while a final standard for Blu-ray 3D is still in the wings. At least one system is up and running right now in a format that is relatively affordable (if you already have the monitor.) In my quest for one of the last of the “Big Butt” RPM DLP monitors my choice was limited to the 2010 models from Mitsubishi. All other manufacturers had gone the flat panel route exclusively. Mitsubishi’s top two lines – the Laservue and the Diamond “837” series both contain 3D inputs and I vowed to investigate the 3D capability and implementation once at CEDIA. I had ended up purchasing and installing a 65” Mitsubishi WD-65837 before leaving for Atlanta. This is discussed in this thread.  At the show I saw some excellent 3D being shown on Mitsubishi DLPs using a relatively inexpensive NVidia set of shutter driven LCD lenses in contact with a wireless emitter. The content was being provided by a PC connected to a DVD player. Software on the PC was creating 3D content on the fly from normal and Blu-ray DVDs so that the glasses could translate the resulting 3D images. All in all it was quite satisfactory –quite impressive, actually – so much so that I intend to pursue the matter once I get home. The claims are that 3D content can be produced from regular 2D DVDs and that this will provide me with lots of 3D content. I hope to report on my progress with this project as it develops. Mitsubishi representatives even claimed that whatever final 3D “standard” is agreed upon that they would be able to produce a hardware interface to adapt their monitor to the new standard. The proof will be in the implementation – or lack thereof – and I intend to keep on top of this. The fact that 3D may be much closer to a reality in my home makes this worthy of making my top five events at CEDIA 2009.

 

 

 

 

Finally we turn to something that I’ve been monitoring for a long time – a way to combine all of my recorded TV programs into a central location so that I can access any program on any set. While there have been whole house multimedia solutions out there for some time, with the advent of Windows 7 in October with all its built-in multimedia capabilities it should become much easier to reorganize one’s TV recording and playback. In essence, you set up a PC running Win7 as a whole house DVR – piping your service provider into your PC, recording content on its hard drive, and distributing it to media extenders connected to your monitors as you see fit and accessing the content (as well as programming recordings) via remotes in each room. It’s a “record it in any room and watch it in any other room” model. So far FIOS, The Dish Network, and various cable companies have announced support (Dish, tentatively) when Windows 7 rolls out on October 23^rd. As soon as that date comes I intend to build a Win7 PC with all the hardware and software needed to make this a reality. And as the project develops I’ll report on it on the Home Theater Forum.

 

 

So there you have it; five of the favorite things that I personally took away from CEDIA 2009. Some are small, some are grandiose and others involve projects that I’m looking forward to. There were many other new, innovative and exciting things that were showcased there but these are the ones that hit home (theater) with me. By CEDIA 2010 I should know better which ones had an impact on my electronic lifestyle and which ones still need some more work. As always, time will tell. I hope that some of this was of interest to our members.