LATEST ADDITIONS

Anton van Beek  |  Jun 27, 2011  |  0 comments

The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy – Extended Edition delivers exactly what its name implies. It takes three of the biggest films in the history of cinema and restores a huge amount of deleted material to each (running from around half an hour in The Fellowship of the Ring to almost an hour in The Return of the King), making them bigger and better than ever.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Multimedia megastore Adrian Justins gets acquainted with a 1TB media player

The ScreenPlay is a no-thrills, hard drive-based storage device for easy multimedia file playback. With no networking functions, it’s down to you to stream your media via a USB drive or laptop after installation.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Adapt to adopt 3D Your very own big screen 3D cinema for less than a grand? It’s possible says Steve May, but there are caveats…

Three dimensions work best on a cinema-sized screen where the format is more immersive and ultimately more convincing. While a 3DTV promises a peek through a dimensional window, cinema opens the doors and drags you inside.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Chill-axing with a party animal Yamaha's top-of-the-range 3D-capable receiver has a musical heart. Steve May throws up some devil horns

The RX-V3067 is a deceptively polite flag-bearer for Yamaha’s latest generation of AVRs. It sits at the top of the brand’s 3D-capable range, but it’s an unassuming hero and certainly doesn’t cast the same shadow as its Z11 and Z7 forebears.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Packing 3D punch Adrian Justins is impressed by Denon’s debut 3D BD player, despite his misgivings about its sonic and handling limitations

Denon’s first 3D deck looks like it could be a decent proposition for anyone with a cutting-edge 3D-capable AVR to take care of the sonic side of things.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
New dog’s tricks Danny Phillips gets to play with a feature-rich, new generation 3D Blu-ray player with Skype connection and refined sound. And he’s loving it

Ever the innovator, Panasonic has stuffed a shed load of new techno-tricks into this year’s Blu-ray decks and the DMP-BDT310 is the most advanced of the lot.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Flexible AV friend Danny Phillips savours a combination package of Blu-ray player with Freeview HD PVR and finds Samsung has catered for almost every need

Why take two hi-def sources into the shower when you can simply watch ‘n’ go with Samsung’s latest Blu-ray player/Freeview HD PVR combi? By forcing these two products into shared accommodation, Samsung is putting an unfeasible amount of content at your disposal, as well as saving you some space in your AV cabinet.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments
Vento 5.1 feeds a craving for power Fine engineering, high-quality sonics. Adam Rayner is impressed

German loudspeaker brand Canton was one heck of a startup, having hit the deck running back in 1972, with 35 folks all busily making what they knew to be terribly posh speakers. Meanwhile, Acoustic Energy, as I recall, started with just three blokes.

Ed Selley  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments

Pioneer’s efforts as a speaker manufacturer can often be overlooked in favour of its more widely recognised efforts in electronics and the great – if doomed – Kuro plasma project. Despite this, the Japanese giant has produced a number of interesting designs over the years and, in both construction and performance, its high-end TAD models are on par with most rival high-end speakers. Some of this thinking has been making its way down to less rarefied price points and more than a bit of it can be found inside the S-71 series tested here.

Steve May  |  Jun 17, 2011  |  0 comments

The Harman group cuts quite a dash. With such brands as Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson on the books, it knows its way around the higher end of the home entertainment market.

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