DV, HDTV, PSP, Oh My
Posted by Emru Townsend | Saturday, January 07, 2006 6:13 PM PT
I've been remiss: Wednesday night, as vendors and construction workers got the exhibition floor ready at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Sony held a press conference showing off some of their recent and upcoming gadgetry. What follows are some highlights, buttressed by some of today's observations.
The slim-design 55'' SXRD Grand Wega HDTV set, offering 1920 x 1080i resolution, is 30% slimmer than the 50'' SXRD.
New in the Bravia HDTV line is a 46'' LCD flat panel. An 82'' Bravia prototype was also being shown off, with clips from
Spider-Man 2 -- a Sony movie, natch -- among other things. No price was given, but since I'm not ready to remortgage the house just yet, I expect I'll be waiting a while before I pick one up.
Sony is in cinematic heaven with their 4K SXRD 8.8-megapixel digital-cinema projector, which will be in used in Landmark Cinemas. And of course, it's also a cross-promotion dream: Sony Pictures' upcoming Adam Sandler movie, as well as Sony Imageworks' animated
Open Season and
Monster House will get the D-cinema treatment. Other movies will too, of course, but they didn't mention them by name.
A bunch of PSP goodies are in the offing: a service for downloading movies and short (March); RSS feed support; and Location Free TV support. The upshot of the latter means you can watch live TV from home while anywhere in the world on your PSP -- so long as you're got Wi-Fi. I watched two units side by side, streaming video from Tokyo and New York. Pretty impressive. Just remember to call home first before you interrupt the kids' daily
SpongeBob viewing, or they might booby-trap the front door when you get home.
The MEX-1GP Drag'n' Drive car stereo has a detachable faceplate containing 1 GB of memory. Take it out of the car, plug it into your computer, and download your music.
Two new DV cams, the DVD505 and the tapeless SR100 (it uses a 30 GB hard drive) have 5.1 Dolby ProLogic capability -- a Bluetooth wireless mic provides center-channel audio. One thing about the SR100: like other tapeless camcorders, it writes MPEG-2 video. "DVD-quality!" they shout, but it's a pain to edit with. The Sony folks I spoke to said that their $79 Vegas program can convert to DV AVI, but that makes for an initial quality hit (MPEG-2 is compressed more than DV) and an extra step. Why don't these guys just write straight to DV? A 30 GB hard disk would hold a respectable 150 minutes or so.
The company predict an early summer delivery of Blu-ray players, as well as read/write drives for Blue-ray discs. And speaking of hi-def, the VAIO XL2 Digital Living Media Center PC will include an HDTV tuner; a third model (the XL3?) will be BD-compatible.
Dear Mr. Emru Townsend
Referring to the above mentioned article. How come that nobody and I mean nobody (SONY IS DEAF MUTE)can inform me when that SLIM DESIGN 55 SXRD GRAND WEGA HDTV (with hopefully a true 1080i )will show up on the american market. The rumors were spread by Sony in Vegas. Do they spread these rumors TWO YEARS IN ADVANCE ? Do you have any more definite information Mr. Townsend ? Thanks Rusty
When you purchase Sony your purchase TROUBLE! I have purchased Sony in the past, when it came time for repair they said the units were discontinued ... and the parts were no longer available. The expensive products became expensive doorstops! Now, Sony is having trouble trying to be #1. Perhaps many people have had similar problems.
Sony in my opinion, is not worth the carton it is packed in!
I will no longer buy an expensive doorstop!!!
Hi:
I buy Sony Brand as a rule; Notebook,Desktop are both Vaio and camera is DSC-T1 All my Sony items are exceptional and worked very hard in fun and play without any troubles.
Hi:
I buy Sony Brand as a rule; Notebook,Desktop are both Vaio and camera is DSC-T1 All my Sony items are exceptional and worked very hard in fun and play without any troubles.
Hi:
I buy Sony Brand as a rule; Notebook,Desktop are both Vaio and camera is DSC-T1 All my Sony items are exceptional and worked very hard in fun and play without any troubles.
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