It’s not a surprise to see Pioneer launching a Blu-ray player — we’ve been waiting for it for some time now. The good news is our thumb twiddling hasn’t been for nothing, because Pioneer has come up with a fantastic-looking player with some nifty features: pray silence for the BDP-LX70. The most exciting feature of …

CES is here, and this is going to be a fantastic year for audio and video gadgets. We’re not expecting a revolution — just loads of big TVs, plenty of good old-fashioned fisticuffs in the HD DVD/Blu-ray war and even better quality images on the TVs we’ll be buying next year. A new technology called “surface-conduction electron-emitter display” (SED) is …

It was supposed to be the awakening of a new era in entertainment history, but high-definition video seems to have overslept its alarm clock. HD Ready TV sets have been startlingly popular, but there’s nothing to watch on them. Blu-ray and HD DVD could still be sleeping giants, but sales projections for 2006 have fallen drastically — so why are …

While 1080p LCDs are nothing new, ‘Full HD’ plasmas have only started to come on to the market this year. The new PS50P96 from Samsung is designed to redress the balance and make us fall in love with that glorious gas. Samsung has added a whole bunch of features also intended to improve the viewing experience. Firstly, it is using …

Yes, it’s true: Samsung thinks the kerazee world of audio-visual entertainment doesn’t have enough three-letter acronyms, so it’s decided to bring LEDs to LCD TVs. The massive LE52F96 is one of the first TVs to feature an LED backlight, which replaces the traditional cathode-based system. The result of the LED backlight is that the TV can selectively dim areas of …

Despite oft-repeated claims that the Blu-ray vs HD DVD battle is similar to the VHS vs Betamax scuffle of the 80s, the latest news makes it appear that Sony might actually have backed a winner this time. The most recent sales figures generated by Nielsen VideoScan, a US company responsible for measuring the sales of video products in retail stores, …

Barely weeks have passed since we reviewed the Yamaha YSP-1100 but there’s already a new kid on the block. The recently announced YSP-40D isn’t a replacement for the 1100, but it does have some pleasing new features that make it well worth considering. Unlike the 1100, the YSP-40D offers standard-definition upscaling to both 720p and 1080i via analogue inputs. The …

According to the old adage, possession is nine tenths of the law. Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, certainly seems to use it as its mantra, because it has decided — and it’s backed by MPs — that the analogue TV spectrum will be sold off when the UK completely moves over to digital in a few years time. Although the …

Last week, we mentioned that HMV Oxford Street was the place to go this morning if you were a Matrix fan and wanted to pick up a free HD DVD player — the Toshiba HD-E1 — with your purchase of the box set. We were expecting this to be a popular promotion, but we were blown away by exactly how …

One thing Blu-ray has always had in its favour is that there’s more than one manufacturer making players. With HD DVD, if you aren’t a fan of Toshiba, you’re stuck — at least for the time being. It’s taken Sharp a while to announce its Blu-ray player but now it’s here, we’re very impressed indeed. The best bit about the …