Rebecca Day

Sony provided details of its first ES projector Thursday at the press launch of the 3D VPL-VW90ES at CEDIA Expo in Atlanta (CED Sept 22 p1). The VPL-VW90ES ($9,999), due in stores in November, uses a single 200-watt UHP lamp, comes with a multi-element zoom lens and integrates with third-party control systems from AMX, Crestron, Elan, Control4, Savant, Vantage, RTI and URC, said Neal Manowitz, director of home audio/video for Sony. Incorporating 2D to 3D conversion, the SXRD projector comes with two pairs of infrared 3D active-shutter glasses, which communicate with an IR transmitter built into the chassis. The 1080p projector incorporates the latest 3G LCoS panel technology, Manowitz said, including reduced pixel spacing, from 25mm to 20mm, and lower noise, 20 dB, down from 22 dB. The projector uses three, 0.61-inch panels and is driven by a custom Sony-grown ASIC that handles the video processing, according to Chris Fawcett, vice president of TVs for Sony. The brightness of the projector was given as 1,000 lumens with dynamic contrast ratio of 85,000:1. Limited warranty is three years, compared with two years for general distribution projectors, Manowitz said, and distribution is limited to the specialty channel and custom installers as part of Sony’s renewed commitment to the custom channel.

After “not hitting our targets” with its Renovia multi-room audio system that began shipping last spring, Nuvo Technologies adapted a system headed to international markets for the home crowd and unveiled it at CEDIA, David Rodarte, chief operating officer, told Consumer Electronics Daily. “We didn’t get as much pickup as we wanted,” Rodarte said, when the company began shipping powerline-based system to dealers last spring. Ironically, the no-new-wires system, based on the HomePlug 1.0 standard, required an electrician to connect the in-wall amplifier to the electrical mains in the outlet. When dealers found out the company was readying a freestanding model for international markets where solid walls preclude in-wall amplifiers, they asked for a freestanding model for the U.S. that doesn’t require an electrician for installation. “Our dealers told us it took additional time and another trades person to put in the amplifier,” Rodarte said. “So we have a new form factor,” he said, “and all you have to do is plug it in.” The company lopped $1,000 off the retail price in the process, to $999, he said, and will ship the new version next month.

ATLANTA -- Media-server company Kaleidescape is making a strong stand with product and rhetoric this week at CEDIA, in advance of the company’s Dec. 6 court date with the DVD Copy Control Association. The company is demoing a modular 100-disc vault designed to circumvent rigid and complex Blu-ray playback rules, Linus Wong, director of product marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily. Wong said what the vault does complies with an agreement between Kaleidescape and the Blu-ray Disc Association requiring that a disc be present for Blu-ray playback.

ATLANTA - In what Speakercraft hopes will be an urgent wake-up call to custom integrators, the company, which claims the largest portfolio of in-wall speakers for the custom installation market, has come to CEDIA with a line of iPod dock systems for specialists and mass-market retailers. “It’s a new market landscape,” said President Jeremy Burkhardt, saying more music than ever is being consumed, and mainly by people under 35. “This whole trade show has to cater to that generation,” he said at a news conference Wednesday. “If this industry doesn’t re-invent and make products available to the next round of homebuyers, custom isn’t going to last the way that it has.”

XStreamHD, which first announced plans for a “pre-fetched” movie, music and game satellite delivery service at the 2008 CES, is demonstrating its technology at the AMX booth at CEDIA this week. AMX has developed customized controls for the service, which allows AMX home automation system owners to access and control movies from XStreamHD media servers for viewing on connected TVs in the house. The satellite-based service, which has experienced a series of delays since first announced in 2008, will automatically beam 1080p movies, based on consumers’ preferences, to a media server when titles become available on DVD, according to James Mahoney, vice president of marketing.

Aperion Audio will unveil at CEDIA Expo this week a $2,499 home theater system built around Summit Semiconductor wireless audio technology that gives speaker makers a “turnkey solution” to wireless home theater. Summit’s technology is built into a wireless audio hub with an audio decoder that supports what the company calls the latest Dolby and DTS audio formats. Coaxial, optical and analog inputs are designed for connection to sources including TVs, Blu-ray and game players and digital music players. Aperion, a consumer-direct loudspeaker company, is taking pre-orders for the 5.1-channel active speaker system, which is due to deliver this year.

With historical AV revenue models in transition if not in serious jeopardy, electronic systems contractors (ESCs) attending this week’s CEDIA Expo in Atlanta will be scanning the aisles for ways to expand their portfolios and boost profitability. Green electronics -- including programmable systems that control temperature and integrate natural and artificial light, solar power and energy management -- will be among the disciplines integrators will evaluate as high-margin add-ons to their traditional AV portfolios.

Samsung Mobile will surpass 2 million shipments of Galaxy S smartphones in the U.S. this week, Dale Sohn, president of Samsung Telecommunications America told journalists Thursday at the pre-launch of the company’s Galaxy Tab tablet PC. The four Galaxy phones, launched through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, will record shipments of 5 million in the U.S. by the end of the year, Sohn said. Globally, Samsung expects to ship 25 million smartphones by year-end across the product portfolio, with forecasts to double shipments in 2011, he said. Although the company showed the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, underscoring its one-handed operation and ability to fit into the pocket of a jacket, its official launch with the top four mobile service providers will be in the “upcoming months” and pricing plans weren’t disclosed. Responding to a question about 2010 volume forecasts for tablets, Omar Kahn, chief strategy officer of Samsung, said, “The tablet market is so new that early forecasts from the beginning of the year have been blown through already.” Citing the unpredictability of the market and the wide range of tablet PC projections from analysts, he wouldn’t hazard an estimate on volume, but said the company expected “strong demand.” Like some Samsung cameras, the Tab comes with front- and back-facing cameras, which allow users to have video chats. In the Q&A, officials revealed that only the Wi-Fi version, due out later than the first-launch product, would be enabled for video chat. The company also announced its Media Hub, a cloud-based content service for premium purchase and rental content, including next-day TV shows. MediaHub users will be able to share content with up to five mobile devices, according to Gavin Kim, vice president of content and services. Kim wouldn’t disclose pricing for the content other than it would be “competitive” with other online content. Nor would he comment on whether MediaHub content would be available to buyers of Samsung TVs or Blu-ray players. Asked when Media Hub will be available to those users, Kim said, “We're not prepared to talk about other devices.

How Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office, the City Council, CE manufacturers and the National Resources Defense Council hammer out an e-waste plan for New York City is likely to set a template for other densely populated cities in the country, NRDC senior attorney Kate Sinding told Green Electronics Daily. The parties have continued to talk since CEA and the ITI Council withdrew their lawsuit to stop the New York City e-waste program from taking effect, following enactment of New York State’s e-waste law in June that rendered the city program moot, Sinding said. NRDC intervened as a co-defendant with the city to fight the injunction CE makers sought. The state law takes effect in April.

Haier America previewed its upcoming Internet-connected LED-backlit LCD TVs late Wednesday at the Digital Experience media event in New York. The company will begin production of 19-, 22- and 24-inch TVs in December, with product due in stores in January, Mark Lee, director of product planning, told us. Larger models will follow after CES, Lee said. The connected TVs, packing Wi-Fi and Ethernet capability, will include Netflix 2.1, which allows viewers to browse the list of available titles on screen rather than having to set up a queue via computer. Additional content will come from Pandora, Sonic’s Cinema Now and Yahoo widgets, Lee said. The Netflix feature will be upgradable to future versions, Lee said.