LATEST ADDITIONS

Danny Phillips  |  Jun 25, 2012  |  0 comments

Smart is still the big buzzword in the AV world. Slapping it on a product guarantees instant kudos, enticing buyers with promises of extra web content and clever networking tricks. It’s an approach taken by Samsung for the BD-E8500, whose ‘Smart PVR’ not only brings you all the usual TV trappings like twin Freeview HD tuners and a 500GB HDD, but also the company’s online internet portal as well as playback of 2D and 3D Blu-ray discs.

Steve May  |  Jun 22, 2012  |  0 comments

The wind of change is blowing through the corridors of Sony’s Home Entertainment division. Rocked by earthquake and tsunami, battered by exchange rates and economic meltdown, wounded by inconsistent products, the world’s most iconic consumer electronics brand is going back to basics in an effort to re-energise its ailing TV business.

Steve May  |  Jun 21, 2012  |  0 comments

We’re increasingly living in a connected world. Last year, 400 of the world’s 600 million broadband homes deployed home networking technology. By 2015, upwards of 700 million homes will be running local networks. Small wonder then that TV makers have put the pedal to the metal when it comes to making Smart TVs.

Anton van Beek  |  Jun 20, 2012  |  0 comments

New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) just doesn’t seem to be able to catch a break. He spent Christmas 1988 dealing with terrorists holding his wife and other workers hostage in an LA office. Two years later his Christmas was ruined by mercenaries taking control of Washington’s Dulles Airport. No wonder that by 1995 he’d become a washed-up alcoholic, coaxed back in to action by a nutter with a vendetta against him. And then in 2007 he quit swearing and turned into a virtual superhero, surfing on the back of a jet in his quest to foil a computer hacker.

John Archer  |  Jun 19, 2012  |  0 comments

If you’re reading this magazine, chances are you love a big screen. In fact, for some of you, even ‘big’ won’t cut it. You want MASSIVE. This would be fine, were it not for the fact that going truly massive where video screens are concerned means either spending a fortune on a king-sized plasma TV (such as Panasonic’s extraordinary 103-incher), or else trying to accommodate a projection system.

Anton van Beek  |  Jun 18, 2012  |  0 comments

Presumably due to some sense of loyalty to the Underworld franchise (and series creator/husband Len Wiseman), Kate Beckinsale has been persuaded to get her leather catsuit out of mothballs and return to the role of gun-totting vampire vixen Selene. But, in all honesty, she needn’t have bothered.

Anton van Beek  |  Jun 16, 2012  |  0 comments

The Ridge Racer franchise has always been about one thing and one thing only – drift racing through city streets. No matter what instalment in the series you played, the basic set-up was the same: jam your finger down on the accelerator and never let go, carrying as much speed as possible into every corner as you modulate your braking to powerslide around every bend in the road.

Richard Stevenson  |  Jun 15, 2012  |  0 comments
If I was able to trade body parts for AV goodies I would already be the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. But whilst I rolled around limbless on the floor I wouldn’t think twice about proffering a major organ for Bryston’s SP3 processor. Not only is it really rather special but, at ten grand, it’s the only way I am ever likely to afford one…
Adam Rayner  |  Jun 14, 2012  |  0 comments

People in the home cinema industry – manufacturers, PRs and the like – know me for being keen on mad, huge potent audio. Giant 18in subwoofers and speakers the size of Stonehenge. I think they sometimes forget that I am also impressed by the delicate and the clever. So much so, that with this set of skinny tower-style speakers, all housed in an aluminium toothpaste-tube squeezed-out extrusion, I could feel palpable fear from the PR chap as he kept on politely enquiring how I was ‘getting on’ with the Revel Concerta speaker system.

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