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Pioneer’s new home theatre range

Pioneer has announced its new audiovisual lineup for 2007/8 which includes the new ultra-black Kuro televisions, DVD recorders and receivers. The range brings with it the launch of Pioneer’s new slogan — “Seeing and hearing like never before” — and is part of the company’s attempt to restore its reputation as a premium brand. There …

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Whaddyareckon?: TV talk

It’s been over 50 years since Bruce Gyngell appeared on the tube in a tux and made that gallant, unassuming announcement: “Good evening, and welcome to television”. Since then the medium has delivered such momentous gems as the moon landing, the Whitlam dismissal, the bogan wedding of Scott and Charlene, and a Big Brother turkey slap that echoed all the …

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Poll: Has sport in HD changed your world?

We’ve been whinging for ages about the lack of sport programming in high definition in this country — especially last year, when the Winter Olympics, Commonwealth Games and FIFA World Cup all passed us by without an HD look-in. We’ve not been shy about taking Channel Ten to task in the past, but now that they’ve stepped up and have …

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Sharp to release Blu

Sharp is about to unleash some of the world’s first Blu-ray recorders for HD television with four new models slated for release in Japan from next month. Sharp’s BD-HDW20 and BD-HDW15 Blu-ray recorders to be released in Japan in December. According to the Sharp Japan Web site (via Google Translate), the flagship of the new AQUOS range model will be …

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Ban plasma TVs and standby, say Tories

Earlier this week a commission set up by Conservative leader David Cameron — the Orwellian-sounding ‘Quality of Life’ group — indicated that it would advocate the banning of plasma screens, because they apparently use too much power. They didn’t mention the more popular LCD screens, and I’m going to assume this is because they don’t know the difference. They also …

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Say hello to CH

It’s all go in the HD DVD camp at the moment. Still on a high from the Paramount/Dreamworks deal, we’re now hearing that HD DVD will soon have a 51GB, triple-layer disc on the way. The significance of a 51GB capacity is that it exceeds the current Blu-ray maximum by 1GB. Obviously, 1GB is nothing more than a token increase, …

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Want a free HD DVD player?

If you live near London, and you’ve got some spare time on Monday morning (10 September), you could snag yourself a free Toshiba HD-E1 worth about £200 if you buy a copy of The Matrix trilogy on HD DVD from HMV on Oxford Street. The first 150 people will get a free player, and the first 400 will all get …

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There seems to be an awful lot of cack on Freeview

Obviously, as a TV nut, I want HD to be available on Freeview as soon as possible. So as you can imagine, I was annoyed when Ofcom announced it thought hi-def channels should be broadcast in the existing spectrum. I was annoyed because I don’t want to see the analogue spectrum simply being sold off to companies with deep pockets, …

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JVC HD

Tucked away on the JVC stand at this year’s IFA was a little surprise. A 110-inch LCD projection TV, using three D-ILA — or to use the more descriptive name, liquid crystal on silicon — chips, through which light is projected to create an image on screen. Easily the most impressive thing about this telly is the fact that it …

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