June 26, 2006 | Volume 3, Issue 11 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
News
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Introduction Editorial Hey Hollywood, The Audience is Aging – And We're Not Attending
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Manufacturers: Do your messages target system integrators? So do ours! rAVe Home Edition is the only eNewsletter written for design and installation professionals working in home theater and automation. rAVe Home Edition, co-sponsored by CEDIA, currently has one opportunity for an annual sponsorship. Sponsorships are limited in number and restrictions apply. To see if your company is eligible, contact Alex Gibson at agibson@kayye.com or (919) 969-7501. Introduction Welcome to another issue of rAVe Home Edition! Blu-ray is coming on the market fast, with both Panasonic and Sony announcing not only new players, but new components supporting the format. Also this issue, we continue the 3-part encore series “Hey Hollywood!” This time, I discuss how the industry can keep the post-dating crowd happy. There was a lot of news in June, so much that we're splitting it into two editions, with industry news, integrator solutions and displays today and the rest later in the week. Enjoy the issue!
Editorial
Hey By Gary Kayye, CTS Part 2 — See Part 1 at http://www.ravehome.com/issues/2005/08/vol2iss16/index.htm Due to popular demand, we’re reprinting this column from earlier issues. Enjoy the three-part series!
I’ll start this column with the statement I made at the end of the last column: The fact that the time from theatrical release to DVD release is shortening is no accident. It’s planned. In fact, what you will see in 2006 and 2007 is that trend continuing and maybe even being within weeks of each other. In 2005, the money made on DVD will far and away surpass the money made in the theater for most movies; and Here’s the deal. The theaters are still doing a great job attracting a major demographic they want to attract: singles. It’s still the ultimate safe-date. If you’re getting along, you can cuddle – if you’re not, you can escape by not having to talk and enjoying the show. But, families? Forget it. Sure, we come to the theaters to see the annual Disney, DreamWorks and Hey, it’s not that we don’t want to see movies. In fact, according to my Netflix account, I rented over 120 movies last year – and I know I watched at least 100 of them. I also randomly buy movies from DirecTV and Target every once in a while. But, I would much rather pause a movie at my own will and watch it stretched out on my Cineloungers from First Impressions Themed Theaters – in my boxer shorts. And, don’t try and fix the theater – make it faster. I don’t care what you do to the movie theater. Stadium seating: been there, done that. DTS/THX audio: heard it – got it myself. Cup holders: heck my new car has 7 of them. ICEEs: OK, well, that is a draw as I don’t have one of those in my home, but am looking into it. Fix the distribution system instead. Let me give you an example. I never got into the MP3 stealing music thing. I guess it missed my age group by a few years. When I tried Napster, it kept locking up my Windows XP computer. I bought CDs whenever I wanted to hear a song. I paid the old fashioned way – albeit mostly from Amazon – better pricing there and a CD is a CD. Hey, I need to stop and at least say thanks to Borders and Barnes and Noble as they do have those free listening stations – and a nice flat surface for me to write down the name of the next CD I would need to buy on-line. And, then, I bought a MAC. Since owning a MAC, I have purchased exactly 440 songs. Know how I know? It costs exactly 99-cents a song. It’s simple to buy and they are available instantly. Actually, I ended up spending more per song than I would have continuing to buy CDs, but the convenience was well worth it! So, take note. This is how my generation, and the two younger generations that are already listening to music after me, want to buy/watch movies. Trust me. TiVo me. iTunes me. iPod me. MP3 me. Whatever you have to do, give me the ability to buy movies on-line whenever I want. In fact, charge me two times – heck even three times as much as I would pay to physically go to the movie theater as I’m spending that much already on the sitter and the popcorn – which sometimes is awesome and sometimes sucks! And, don’t make me wait. Apple didn’t. When Coldplay released their 3rd album (oh, I mean CD) in the stores on June 6th of this year, Apple’s iTunes had it for me that morning. Same songs – and even included a free music video!
So, when Indiana Jones IV hits the theaters next summer, charge me $20 to get it in my home theater. Charge me $30. I don’t care. What you’ll be doing is getting money I’m already spending on the babysitter, parking, bad popcorn and ICEEs if I were to see it in a movie theater.
Oh, I forgot the money I’m spending on gas – take that, too. At this rate of increase, for a gallon of gas, it will cost me more than the movie tickets by year’s end, anyway!
CEDIA News
CEDIA EXPO 2006
CEDIA EXPO registration is now officially open, so don’t miss out on your chance to register today and save. The early bird registration deadline is fast approaching.
To check out all the exciting opportunities that
During your stay in
NEW! 5-Day Designer School Register now at www.cedia.org/education
CEDIA and DIpartner join efforts to offer a NEW 5-Day Designer School. Don’t miss out on the chance to send your technicians and designers to get one-on-one training with an industry expert! Go way beyond the Designer Boot Camp with this new 5-day
Learn How To:
Key Technologies:
2006 Dates & Locations: July 17 – 21: December 11 – 15: CEDIA Training Facility,
For more information visit www.cedia.org, or contact Erin Reynolds at ereynolds@cedia.org.
News Have a news tip? Send them to rAVe Editor-in-Chief Denise Harrison — dharrison@kayye.com
Industry News
1. THX Begins Certifying Manufacturers THX just began a certification program for home theater systems. The first spec for Integrated Home Theater System was announced this week and it focuses on overall system design and performance rather than just on individual components. THX collaborated with Onkyo, and Onkyo’s HT-S990THX, a 7.1-channel $1,099 speaker/receiver system, is the first product to be released in compliance with the THX spec. THX Certified Integrated Home Theater Systems are geared to small home theater environments and residential living rooms, a space currently filled by home theater-in-a-box (HTiB) products. During the design and certification process for the HT-S990THX, THX worked closely with Onkyo to evaluate how each component performed as an integrated unit or system. Because the HT-S990THX was developed and successfully tested by THX as a system, its components — receiver, speakers and amplifier — are optimized to work together to deliver a THX quality audio experience in an affordable "all-in-one" package. Basically, THX is hoping to help manufacturers position products somewhere between the HTiB and premium custom design home theater systems. For more information, go to http://www.thx.com/news/20060621A.html
2. Founders Release HDMI 1.3 Spec HDMI is already the champ when it comes to consumer (and even Pro) electronics, and now the technology gets a boost with the release of a major enhancement to the spec. It was signed off by the HDMI founder companies (Hitachi, Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic), Royal Philips Electronics, Silicon Image, Inc., Sony Corp., Thomson, Inc. and Toshiba Corp.). The HDMI 1.3 specification more than doubles HDMI's bandwidth — from 165MHz (4.95 gigabits per second) to 340 MHz (10.2 Gbps) — and adds support for Deep Color technology, a broader color space, new digital audio formats, automatic audio/video synching capability ("lip sync"), and an optional smaller connector for use with personal photo and video devices. They say the HDMI 1.3 will allow the next generation of HDTVs, PCs and DVD players to transmit and display content in billions of colors with unprecedented vividness and accuracy. It supports 30-bit, 36-bit and 48-bit (RGB or YCbCr) color depths, up from the 24-bit depths in the previous spec. HDMI Licensing, LLC also announced that more than 400 makers of consumer electronics and PC products worldwide have adopted HDMI. Market researcher In-Stat expects 60 million devices featuring HDMI to ship in 2006. For more information, go to http://www.hdmi.org/press/pr/pr_20060622.asp
3. Vongo Beta Concludes, Service Goes Gold Vongo, a new service that delivers movies and videos over the internet to Windows-based PCs, laptops and some portable media devices, is now out of its five-month beta testing and available to the public. The Starz Entertainment-owned service boasts more than 1,600 movies and videos. Other movie download services exist, and have for a while. Probably the best known is CinemaNow at http://www.cinemanow.com – a service that does not require a monthly subscription fee. The hitch, however, is that you have to watch the movie you download within 24 hours of downloading it. That severely limits the use – you’ll have to find that exact window of time when you know you’ll be able to watch the movie you already paid for. So, while it’s a great concept, it’s pretty restrictive. Vongo claims the big difference this new service brings to the market is there is no limit, at all, in how many times you watch the movie and there is no expiration on the movie. BUT! There is limit to how long Vongo owns the rights, and that could be months or days. The service tells you that date up front and the consumer can monitor that expiration date within the software after the title is downloaded. After it expires, the movie will be automatically deleted from the computer. The user pays a $9.99 monthly subscription fee, downloads an application that lets the subscriber play movies on up to three devices for as long as Vongo owns the rights. (Vongo also offers a no-subscription pay-per-view option but consumers are restricted to a 24-hour viewing window on those). Vongo claims you can start watching a downloaded movie within 30 seconds of selecting it – during beta, the encode rate was raised to 1.3Mbps for most selections. The software also lets the consumer organize the content using the Vongo UI. Vongo is certainly an improvement over most internet-download movie services. The varying expiration dates would require some monitoring, but it’s better than just 24 hours. There are two more downsides, however. For avid movie buffs, they won’t receive the DVD Extras that DVD rental services such as Netflix offers (so no “the making of” featurettes). Also, the films are between 1GB and 1.3GB so it certainly takes up space on the hard drive. Still, for a media center hooked up to a TV set, or for taking movies on the road, this isn’t a bad way to go. And it might be just the right solution for your customers who have children and don’t want to have to worry about protecting a DVD from damage, keeping track of where the rental DVDs are, or returning movies to the store. In another announcement, Vongo announced a partnership with Toshiba in which Vongo will be a leading content provider for Toshiba's new line of gigabeat For more information, go to http://www.vongo.com/
4. Survey Reveals Most Consumers Prefer the Small Screen for Watching Movies According to a recent national study by Guideline, Inc., 85 percent of consumers typically watch movies at home on the small screen. Even when it's a movie they want to see, 49 percent of respondents said they usually wait to purchase or rent the DVD. Guideline conducted the survey in May among 1,000 consumers. According to Guideline's survey, men are more likely (28 percent) to go to the cinema to see the movie before it comes out on DVD, and women are more likely (31 percent) to wait for the movie to be released on DVD so they can rent it. Gender aside, 22 percent usually go to see the movie on the big screen first. Regarding DVD purchases, the survey revealed that DVD owners fall into one of two categories — casual buyers and collectors. Approximately 49 percent of consumers consider themselves to be casual buyers of movies and almost one-fourth (24 percent) of the consumers surveyed consider themselves collectors. Most consumers (68 percent) say they purchase a movie if it's one they really want to see. Others (52 percent) are motivated by price. And, 20 percent are influenced to buy because of the special features found on a DVD. None of this is a huge surprise but it bodes well for the continued growth in the home entertainment market. For more information, go to http://www.guideline.com/
5. JVC Adds USB Audio to Receivers JVC announced a new line of 7.1-channel AV receivers, which include a USB audio input to route music from a PC or Mac through the receiver. Two models offer a wireless USB connection using the 2.4GHz band to transmit uncompressed signals approximately 100 feet. JVC has also expanded the number of models offering HDMI upconversion and now offers two receivers that offer control of JVC Sirius Satellite Radio "plug and play" tuners and XM Connect and Play compatibility. For exact specs and more details, go to http://www.jvc.com/press/index.jsp?item=512&pageID=1
6. Vativ Announces Three Input, Single Selectable Output HDMI Receiver Vativ Technologies announced availability of VTV2310, an HDMI receiver chip for digital TV applications that supports three independent HDMI inputs, and a selectable single decoded output in a 24-bit digital video format. The company says the VTV2310 chip includes a patent-pending DSP-based adaptive equalizer for improving HDMI receiver performance by recovering TMDS data error-free even at a cable attenuation of 40dB at 800 MHz. So the HDMI cables can be used in up to 50 meters in length. Also, the HDMI inputs can be placed anywhere in the TV set. VTV2310 is fully compliant to the HDMI 1.2a standard. They may want to get busy on that 1.3 spec just announced. For more information, go to http://www.vativ.com/downloads/pr/VTV2310_Press_Release_6-21-06.pdf
7. Panasonic Announces Blu-Ray Disc HD System Panasonic announced its first Blu-ray Disc player and matching receiver and speaker system. They are sold separately but designed to work together, and to work with Panasonic plasmas, including the upcoming 10880P-capable 65-inch plasma. All components are expected to ship in the fall. The Panasonic Blu-ray Disc Player, model DMP-BD10, will retail for $1,299.95. The matching receiver, the SA-XR700, will retail for $999.95. The speaker system will retail for $2,999.95. For more information and detailed specs, click here.
8. Sony, Too, Announces Blu-ray AV Receiver Sony announced the STR-DG1000, which includes dual HDMI active intelligence, and automatically detects and receives the best possible video and audio signals from connected devices, according to Sony. This all-digital path from source to display also handles 1080p resolution and up to eight channels of uncompressed audio. Sony says the system simplifies multi-channel surround sound set-up with Sony's Digital Cinema Auto Calibration (DCAC) technology. This helps customize the receiver's audio performance based on its room environment. You plug in the supplied microphone and the DCAC automatically adjusts for speaker placement, distance and delay based on information collected by the microphone and processed in the receiver. The receiver also offers a redesigned on-screen display for set-up and control, as well as a multi-room function for two-channel distribution in an adjoining room, and it has XM Connect and Play satellite radio capabilities. The 7.1 channel audio/video receiver has 120 watts of system power per channel. The receiver supports HDMI switching and the up-conversion of composite, S-video and component video sources to HDMI, minimizing the number of connections between the receiver and display. For more information, go to http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/home_audio_video/blu-ray_disc/release/22455.html
9. SunBriteTV Introduces 32-Inch HD-Ready Outdoor LCD TV SunBrite has a new 32-inch LCD outdoor TV that is HD-ready and is specified at 1366 x 768 resolution, 800 nits of brightness and 1200:1 contrast ratio. It is built with a corrosion-resistant, powder-coated aluminum enclosure, and built into the enclosure is an anti-reflective, impact- and scratch-resistant window that protects the TV screen. The speakers and operating controls are also sealed against rain and moisture. The 3200HD-Pro addresses extreme climate conditions with a baffled and filtered, dual-fan airflow system that keeps the unit cool in temperatures up to 122 degrees. In cold climates, the internal thermostatically-controlled heater activates automatically when the TV's internal temperature dips to 32 degrees F. The heater provides a 20-degree F temperature rise, allowing the TV to safely remain outdoors in temperatures as low as -24 degrees F. It has a pass-through design for easy connections. Standard accessories include the SunBriteTV's new water-resistant remote control with long-life lithium batteries, and a removable table-top stand. There is also an optional articulating wall mount for horizontal extension and lateral rotation, tilt and swivel. Another option is a deck/planter pole mount. SunBriteTV also offers a 20-inch model of the outdoor TV. The Model 2010A-Pro is available with MSRP of $2,495 and the new Model 3200HD-Pro has an MSRP of $4,495. For more information, go to http://www.sunbritetv.com/
10. ViewSonic Debuts Two LCD TVs With HDMI ViewSonic has two new LCD TVs in 27- and 32-inch sizes that are equipped with HDMI connections and compatible with digital HDTV over-the-air broadcasts as well as the usual sources. The N2751w and N3251w are specified at 1366 x 768 resolutions, 8 millisecond video response times, 1000:1 contrast ratios and widescreen 16:9 aspect ratios. They also have VGA connections, support DVI/HDCP digital connection format when used with a HDMI-to-DVI adapter, and have traditional TV inputs. ViewSonic's N2751w and N3251w are equipped with integrated digital (ATSC) tuners and they have two 10W Dolby audio and SPDIF output connections. The pricing is rather amazing — $799 and $999. For more information, go to http://www.viewsonic.com/companyinfo/pressrelease_detail.cfm?key_press_release=1274
11. Media Décor Announces High End Robotic Artwork System for Concealing Flat Panel TVs It’s expensive, but Media Décor has debuted one of the ultimate home theater toys – a robotic system that raises the artwork out of the frame then moves the TV into the frame, and even positions it for optimal viewing. The HideandChic QX series uses a provided remote or RS-232C touch panel. It has a twin-roller system powered by a Lutron QED that the company says silently and smoothly raises the custom artwork. The robotic arm by CLO Systems then guides the display through the mounted picture frame extending the display 10 inches past the picture frame into the room. Using the remote control, the user then adjusts the swivel (up to 20º left, 20º right) and tilt (up to 25º down, 7º up) until they get the display where they want it. Two memory locations are provided for different day and night angles or for user one and two. HideandChic QX can be used with flat panel displays 42 to 60 inches. Media Decor offers a range of more than 500 art choices ranging from the world’s masters and authorized Smithsonian reproductions to contemporary and urban artists. The HideandChic QX series moving art products can be customized. There are 30 standard frames and clients can choose their own art at no extra cost. It’s available now and prices start at $14,350. For more information, go to http://www.mediadecor.com/home.htm
12. Panasonic Selling HD Art, Photography for Display on TVs Panasonic Direct is selling HD art and photography for use on Panasonic HDTVs. It’s a web-based service called the Panasonic HD Image Gallery and consumers can downloadable HD images. The images range masterpieces from Monet, DaVinci, and Andy Warhol to photography from National Geographic, Time Life, and 30 other content partners. The Panasonic HD Image Gallery incorporates "Smart Display" technology which automatically adjusts each image to match and fit the display — regardless of the display's aspect ratio and screen resolution. For more information, go to http://www.panasonic.galleryplayer.com/ 13. Sony Adds HD and 1080p TVs to BRAVIA LCD Line With Changeable Color Bezels and Floating Glass Design Sony Electronics announced new models of BRAVIA LCD TVs, including several new models with native 1920 x 1080 full HD, and HDMI inputs with 1080p capability. The line features six new models in 40- and 46-inch screen sizes and a 32-inch set specified at 1366 x 768 (WXGA) screen resolution. The new XBR models have a cool floating glass design. Prices start at $2,500. For detailed specs, go to http://news.sel.sony.com/en/press_room/consumer/television/flat_panel_displays/lcd/release/22416.html
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Thanks for reading, and tell your friends by clicking on the forward button at the top of the newsletter or sending them to Copyright 2006 – Kayye Consulting – All rights reserved. For reprint policies, contact us at Kayye Consulting, Inc. Editorial: dharrison@kayye.com Gary Kayye's rAVe contains the opinions of the author only and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of other persons or companies or its sponsors.
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