CES 2023 Key Takeaways - New tech, new connections, fun cars (1 Viewer)

[Colin]

CES 2023 Writeup


Hey everyone, this is Colin, one of the new owners of Home Theater Forum. @Jonathan (HTF co-owner) and I just got back a few days ago from CES 2023 and I wanted to do a little bit of a recap: who we met, what we saw, and what products got us excited.

Warning: If you’re here primarily for software discussions (Blu-Ray, etc), this might be a bit dull. =)

Goals​

This was our first time attending CES, so we really didn’t know what to expect. But we went in with a few clear goals:

• Make relationships with vendors to help supply our hardware reviewers with the latest and greatest home theater related products
• See what new home theater related tech is out there
• Meet Robert Zohn of Value Electronics in person (if at all possible)
• Have fun

Spoiler Alert: Mission Accomplished!

We had a rental car (more on that later), so we decided to drive to the Las Vegas Convention Center the first day rather than make the 40 minute walk from our hotel. Well, we were stuck for over 40 minutes trying to get into the parking lot, so that was a fail.

But after getting into the massive 4.6 million-square-foot facility, things started going our way. We made a beeline to Hisense, the first TV/Projector manufacturer we saw, and within minutes of looking at their new UST projectors, Jonathan said to me, “Hey, there’s Robert Zohn!” We had been emailing him about the idea of meeting up, but didn’t plan on bumping into him at an event with 100,000 attendees!

We rudely interrupted his conversation to introduce ourselves, and spent several minutes discussing Home Theater Forum and CES. Robert also introduced us to the Hisense National Sales Manager Laser TV from Hisense, who went hunting for business cards for us after Robert raved about the community at Home Theater Forum.


I won’t bore you with a play-by-play of the 3 days, so here are some key takeaways:

1. UST Projectors Aplenty. There are definitely compromises made, but it’s clear that many of the vendors are pushing ultra short throw projectors as an alternative to TV’s. While I would personally rather have a TV for television viewing and a projector for a home theater, it seems that there is a market for those who are willing to find a compromise by having one device for both viewing experiences.
2. TV Tech is Advancing Rapidly. I was excited to see the newest OLEDs, but there was so much more to see than I expected! Displace TV touted the world’s first wireless TV. Not to be outdone, LG had 97” wireless OLED TV’s (suspended on cables raising and lowering over a fountain, of course). I have a first generation LG OLED, and the brightness of the G3 puts mine to shame. LG also had ridiculously vibrant Micro LED TV’s and a crystal clear “Ultra Slim 8k Mini LED” TV. It will probably be quite a while before I consider a TV for a home theater, but I’m interested in seeing how the prices come down as the colors and contrast of these TV’s are truly impressive.
3. Home Theater Forum + Vendors = . Like I mentioned above, one of our biggest goals was to meet vendors to help get more products to our reviewers. We are going to be ramping up reviews in a big way in 2023, and vendors were incredibly open to helping get their latest projectors, speakers, and technology into our hands so we can provide honest, helpful reviews for home theater enthusiasts. We’re excited to get these reviews rocking and rolling.
4. Favorite Booth: SVS. While I’m not new to audio (I’ve been building all of my own speakers and subs for a few years now), I don’t have nearly the experience with hi-fi home theater audio as some of you. I have been spending a lot of time recently reading about the SVS Prime Series and PB16-Ultras, and finally got to hear them in person. I’m sold! I’m hoping to make these my reference speaker system. PS- Nick Brown from SVS was great!
5. Biggest Regret: Not waiting in line to see the new Samsung Tech. To get into the Samsung booth, you had to wait in a long line. We walked past it several times, thinking we’d come back later. After 6 hours of walking around, we forgot to circle back to it before leaving the Convention Center. I wanted to see their QD-OLED TV’s and they also had an 8k UST Projector that can project a 150” image.

LG Ultra Slim 8k Mini LED

SVS Booth… and yes, please resume playback now that my ears are no longer ringing!

LG Wins the award for most impressive display

The picture doesn’t do the TV justice, but this is the 97” Wireless OLED. The box in the bottom is where you connect HDMI cables, etc


Don't worry, I didn't go for a swim.


Jonathan and I both have young kids at home and don’t get away too often. So when our “work” was done, we did prioritize having some fun… primarily in the form of our transportation. Our original plan was to Uber around Vegas, but when I started calculating the costs of Uber rides, I decided it wouldn’t be much more expensive to get a car on Turo (Turo is like AirBNB for cars). I happened to find a last minute deal on a Tesla Model S Plaid for $400 for 3 days. Jonathan spends his free time watching Top Gear and reading up on the world’s fastest cars, so I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to get him behind the wheel of the fastest 0-60 car on the streets. He can share his take, but it doesn’t get old going from 0-60 in 2 seconds. No, we didn’t get to drive the new flying car revealed at CES, but it felt at times like we were flying in our car. ;-)


This is only in "Sport Mode" so it took a sluggish 3 seconds to get to 60mph ;-) Side note: My hand was shaking like crazy recording this, but my iPhone's stabilization did an amazing job smoothing out the recording!



While I primarily wanted to let you all know what we saw at CES, I also wanted to hear from you…
What latest tech are you most interested in learning more about or adding to your home?

We have 10 awesome reviewers here, and as I mentioned, we will be scaling up the hardware reviews this year. What types of home theater products are you most interested in having reviewed?

Thanks for reading,
Colin

 

[Robert_Zohn]

Very nice wrap-up review of things we saw and learned about at CES!

Thank you meeting up at CES. I enjoyed our conversations and all of your plans for our beloved HTF!

 

[Sam Posten]

an opportunity to get him behind the wheel of the fastest 0-60 car on the streets.

Haha now we have to meet up so you can try the true champion my F150 Lightning

Seriously great write up and so happy you guys had a good time AND made so many contacts. I am really hoping to make my ces return next year. It’s my 35th anniversary of attending the last time

 

[Colin]

Haha now we have to meet up so you can try the true champion my F150 Lightning

Seriously great write up and so happy you guys had a good time AND made so many contacts. I am really hoping to make my ces return next year. It’s my 35th anniversary of attending the last time

Deal!

 

[TimOctavio]

Hello @Colin

It was nice to see you at the Octavio booth at CES.

If you want to review our speaker, don't hesitate to send me an email

Regards from France,

Timothee

 

[DaveF]

Thanks for the event report. I look forward to seeing the hardware reviews!

 

[JimJasper]

Thank you a bunch for the report - especially for we folks who didn't make it. Great overview!

 

[Robert_Zohn]

Hope we meet again at CES 2024!

Lots of new advancements to see and learn.

 

[Sam Posten]

PC: I’m incredibly excited for a flood of 27 and 32” glossy OLED releases to pair with new NVIDIA 5 series graphics cards.


Home theaters: 115”+ OLED or bust