Industry

Is Going Luddite the Answer?

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

Back in January, 2005, I posted a column asking if the speed of new technology was outstripping consumers’ abilities to absorb its implications. Thanks to the magic of Google, that old column is now getting new comments, one of which spurred me to revisit the issue. The complaints are numerous: nothing works with anything else, it all gets outdated too quickly, and retail salespeople don’t understand what they’re selling, so there’s no place to turn for advice. This reader’s solution? Withdraw from technology altogether. The question of when to buy/when to wait is a common one; nobody wants to buy …

Is Going Luddite the Answer? Read More
Displays / HDTV / Industry

CEDIA Highlights, Part II

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

In last month’s CEDIA Highlights post, I noted two projectors that broke through the clutter (and there was a lot of clutter: my in box has dozens and dozens of press releases). There was a third announcement that caught my eye, and, surprisingly, it, too, was projector-related. THX is now certifying home projectors. On the surface, this does not seem surprising – THX certifies just about everything. In fact, don’t they already have a certification program for displays? It certainly seems like they did. (Actually, they did – but only as part of their commercial theater certification program.) THX is …

CEDIA Highlights, Part II Read More
Displays / HDTV / Industry

CEDIA Highlights, Part I

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

To all the PR people trying to set up meetings with me at CEDIA this weekend: I’m not there. I just got back from CTIA before heading out again early next week, and CEDIA just didn’t make it onto the schedule this year. Of course, I’m following the show remotely. So far, only a couple of announcements have really broken through the clutter, and they’re two projectors that offer clear value propositions: Sony’s 1080p VPL-VW50 SXRD front projector, which brings essentially the same technology from the $25,000 Qualia line (that then showed up in the $10,000 VPL-VW100 front projector, and …

CEDIA Highlights, Part I Read More
Accessories

Flexity PowerSquid Swims Its Way Into Apple Stores

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

OK, the press release [warning: PDF] is somewhat gratuitous, as the product itself was announced what seems like ages ago. But Flexity’s PowerSquid line is such an elegant solution to such an annoying problem that it’s worth plugging them again (sorry about the pun). Sure, some home theater components include standard narrow plugs, which fit nicely onto a surge protector, but as the digital/gadget quotient rises in home entertainment, so do the wall warts (those big brick things that you can’t fit onto a standard surge protector). To be completely truthful, I haven’t even used the PowerSquid sample Flexity sent …

Flexity PowerSquid Swims Its Way Into Apple Stores Read More
HDTV

LIVEDigitally Reviews Gefen Switcher

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

I always wondered how well Gefen’s line of switchers would work in the real world. Gefen used to make switch boxes for the broadcast world which began finding their way into HDTV households as connectivity formats increased without a commesurate number of inputs on TVs or receivers. Lately, some of Gefen’s products have been picked up by home theater distributors, and Jeremey Toeman over at LIVEDigitally gives a 4 x 1 unit (4 HDMI inputs, 1 DVI output) a strong review. One side note: simple boxes that switch analog formats can be had for $29.99 at Radio Shack, so there’s …

LIVEDigitally Reviews Gefen Switcher Read More
Audio / Computing / Industry

Sonos Tries to Market “The Experience”

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

Sonos has built a flash version of its music controller for online demos. It’s neat, and was probably worth the investment it took to build because the UI (depicted below) is a key part of the Sonos value proposition. However, one of the more interesting pieces of feedback I received from my Sonos review was from people who wanted to know why Sonos was worth a price premium over simply sticking an iPod and a speaker dock in each room. There are good answers to that question, but the experience is different, and that doesn’t come across in an answer …

Sonos Tries to Market “The Experience” Read More
Audio / Computing / DVD / Industry

What it takes to launch a new media format

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

JupiterKagan’s Michael Gartenberg has a great post about the three elements needed to successfully launch a new consumer media format. He concludes that neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray measures up. -avi Full disclosure: I created the diagram that Michael uses to illustrate his point back when I was an analyst at what was then called JupiterResearch and he was my Research Director; it was for a report on next generation audio formats.

What it takes to launch a new media format Read More
DVD / HDTV

Samsung Blu-Ray Launch Did Not Impress

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

I attended Samsung’s Blu-ray Disc player launch this evening at the Samsung Experience in New York and came away disappointed. There were several things wrong with the launch, starting with the fact that it was off by ten days (the players won’t actually be available for sale until the 25th): Samsung’s prepared remarks were overwraught, telling us over and over again how much we would be blown away by Blu-ray, and to prove this they showed a cheesy video and a few movie previews that, quite frankly, weren’t all that impressive on the pair of Samsung DLP TVs at the …

Samsung Blu-Ray Launch Did Not Impress Read More
Computing / DVD

Sony Kills Blu-Ray Advantage with PS3 Pricing

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

When assessing the relative strength of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray for high definition disc format war handicapping, I have always been quick to point out that DVD is the likely successor to DVD, as it is "good enough" for most consumers and addresses a larger installed base of non-HDTVs in addition to HDTV sets with decent anamorphic ("enhanced for widescreen TV") performance. But the other thing I have noted time and time again is that Sony’s Playstation 3 (PS3) was a potential trojan horse, bringing Blu-Ray playback to the masses. At E3 today, Sony announced the pricing and availability for the …

Sony Kills Blu-Ray Advantage with PS3 Pricing Read More
Audio / Computing

Sonos System Review

- by Avi Greengart - 20 Comments.

I’ll admit it up front – one of the key reasons I run Home Theater View is to get early looks at products like the Sonos system. I have been following Sonos since well before it launched. The concept is simple: Sonos takes the music you’re already storing and managing on your PC and streams it to multiple locations around your house. The controller looks like an iPod, and, like an iPod, nearly anyone can use it. Each Sonos unit becomes part of a separate wireless mesh network – no WiFi needed, and setup consists of pushing a couple of …

Sonos System Review Read More