Opinion

It’s recently come to light that the buying public don’t like 3DTV, don’t connect their Smart TVs to the internet and 89 per cent of them are actually stone deaf. Now, a quick straw poll around the HCC office would suggest these figures are a little off the mark, but you can’t argue with the research. After all, these surveys of consumer behaviour form the basis on which TV manufacturers develop new products and new features for the year ahead. My email inbox is positively awash with survey results at the moment, and one guaranteed conclusion of this research is that 100 per cent of grumpy old AV columnists will get incensed.

What’s in a name? As Juliet states in Shakespeare’s best-known play, ‘That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet’. Indeed it would. But when it comes to cinema it’s a whole different board game – something I believe was ably demonstrated earlier this year by the performance of Disney’s sci-fi epic John Carter.

If you had an empty space in your house – perhaps a basement or a loft, or even an unused garage – and you wanted to convert it into a home cinema, what route would you take? Would you break out the toolbox, roll up your shirt-sleeves and do it yourself, or call in a professional installer?

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece for HCC about how much I loved my AV receiver. But I’ve now realised there’s something I love even more – my Sony PlayStation 3.

There’s no two ways about it, 2010 will be remembered as a vintage year for modern cinema. Toy Story 3, Winter’s Bone, The Social Network, Inception, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Kick-Ass, Piranha 3D, The Illusionist, Buried, Mother and Easy A all broke cover at the UK box office that year, while the likes of True Grit and Black Swan were making a late bow in the US, ready to leap across the Atlantic in the New Year.

My home cinema system is just not looking good enough these days. Despite deploying the very latest hardware, mostly by not answering the phone when makers want their review samples back, its image is less impressive than it was some 10 years ago.

I have been pondering the high-end of AV recently, mostly why I can’t afford it, of course. But events have made me wonder at precisely what price reality ends and opulent lunacy begins. I have a horrible feeling it is about a tenner.