Flatness

The LT-46SL89 is a lot better looking in person than in pictures.

Surprisingly so.

In pictures it has a boxy look that can't hold a candle to the Hitachi 1.5-inch LCD. But while it doesn't have the Hitachi's swoopiness, it has an elegance all its own.

Digital Out

At first glace, this appears to be just another iPod dock. What makes it special is on the inside (awww, isn't that sweet)—so hidden, in fact, that if you didn't know about it beforehand, you may miss it.

You see, this is the first iPod dock that is able to extract a digital signal from the iPod, keeping the signal digital (depending on your system) all the way to the speaker terminals on your amp. Even if your setup isn't digital that far, wouldn't you rather rely on the digital converters in your receiver/pre-pro than the $300 iPod? Me too.

Can't Afford a new Rolls? How about this instead?

Hyundai is trying to be Toyota. And Honda. And why not, they're both some of the most respected and successful car makers out there. With the Genesis, Hyundai aims right in the middle of the luxury sports sedan market.

To help them with that image, they enlisted Lexicon to design the audio system. The only other car with a Lexicon audio system is the Rolls-Royce Phantom. So it's in good company.

No matter what you're looking for, or how you shop, this guide will tell you everything you need to know to find the right TV for you.

Shopping for a new TV can be quite daunting. Countless models, countless prices, different technologies, and every store you go into telling you to buy something different.

With this guide, we'll help you navigate your way through all this, so that you can find the TV that suits your needs.

The Audience is Viewing

THX, as a company, has an interesting "job" so to speak: work with companies to help them design better performing products. Their work with audio is well known, but home video is a new realm for them, which you can read about in Seal of Approval.

Panasonic plasmas offer a great starting point. Rarely underwhelming, Panasonic's displays are usually aimed towards the mainstream market, with performance to match. That is to say, good, but rarely great. To say I was intrigued by the idea of these two companies working together would be putting it mildly.

The final installment of our epic two-part show coverage of the CEATEC show in Tokyo has pics and words on things you can’t even imagine.

Ok, you can probably imagine them. Even thinner LCD and plasmas, the next generation of processing, and apparently the next big thing in Blu-ray: VHS!

Think of it as a CES preview

It’s the rainly season here in Japan. Seeing as I live in what is effectively the desert, I love it.

CEATEC is sort of like a Japanese-only CEDIA. It’s fairly small, but each company shows their latest, and future greatest. Several years ago I got the first glimpse at Pioneer’s KURO before it was shown to western press. This year…

I lament the fact that HAL is not turning 16 this year, that we are not traveling to Space Station V on PanAm, and that we are not worried about the Russians (sorry, the "Soviets") getting to Jupiter in a little over a year. So it goes.

But at least we have pretty good facsimiles of communicators, tricorders, and transparent aluminum (seriously). The future may not be what it once was, but what sci-fi writer would have imagined local dimming LED LCDs, laser TVs, and Blu-ray? Sure, they're not quite as exciting as a holodeck, but at least we're getting somewhere.