Hardware Features

We’ve all been there. Grovelled around the back of an AV system looking for the plug that needs jiggling in its socket to restore a mysteriously lost connection. We’ve trodden on a plug, and broken it, and so made an expensive cable useless; or broken the little plastic lock leaf on the RJ45 plug at the end of a carefully-laid Ethernet network cable. Worse still, we’ve tripped over a lead, wrenched the plug and broken the socket in a pricey piece of gear. And how many smartphones and tablets have been wrecked by someone pushing the USB connector home the wrong way round? What a wonderful world it would be if connections no long relied on plugs.

One of the tell-tale signs you're a 'home cinema hero' – according to my colleague Steve May – is that you 'still have a LaserDisc player, somewhere...' And, indeed, to AV geeks of a certain vintage, the mere word conjures up cherished memories of that unmistakable whooshing sound as the big and beautiful medium – think CD, enlarged to LP size – was brought up to speed within the sizeable slab of a player.

Where is your home cinema from? While speakers and even amplifiers designed for discerning domestic theatre owners often come from specialist boutique brands, the centrepieces – the TV screen, the projector and the Blu-ray player – almost always hail from East Asia. Panasonic, Sony, Toshiba, Epson and Sharp were birthed in Japan, and Korea's LG and Samsung have been busy chipping away at their dominance for the last decade.

It may have taken several years to reach these shores, but subscription-based streaming service Netflix clearly hit the ground running when it made its UK debut in 2012, racking up more than a million customers in its first month of operation.

We’ve been harping on about 4K content ever since 2160p panels first broke cover, and now it seems 8m-pixel movies, in the shape of a UHD upgrade to the Blu-ray standard, are in sight. While the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) continues to play some cards close to its chest, it’s confirmed a pre-Xmas 2015 debut for 4K Blu-ray has been scheduled.

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.