Panasonic's slick PVR
Home CinemaWe've all seen hard drive/DVD recorders. Big deal. But if you've yet to take the plunge and actually buy one of these modern delights, then you could end up ahead of those early adopters, particularly if you plump for the Panasonic DMREH50. It landed at Crave this morning, strutting an 80GB hard drive and an SD card slot like the cock of the walk, crowing about its £300 price tag.
While older boxes had menu systems that made a Commodore 64 seem sophisticated, the DMREH50 has an interface that's smoother than a PSP covered in baby oil. It fires up in under a second and when you hit the record button it acts just as quickly. We can't help but think it's missed a trick by not letting you record video to an SD card though, a bit like Apple's annoying refusal to include a radio on the iPod.
Panasonic TUCTH100: Bad name, nice box
Home CinemaIf you haven't got a Freeview hard drive recorder by now, what the heck are you doing? It's okay, we forgive you, but we've consistently given high marks to these indispensible pieces of technology from Humax, Thomson and Sagem. And when a giant like Panasonic joins the fray, you really know it's time to sit up and take notice.
Sure, the strangely named TUCTH100 might not do anything different to Sagem's box, but it's got one major advantage -- it looks good. The sleek silver finish means it's something you'd actually sit next to your DVD player, and while it doesn't break any taboos, we'd happily sit it next to our high-end Denon DVD-2910.
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NEC LT20: Mini Me Projector
Home Cinema"Look at me, I'm tiny! If I was in your office, I could easily be smuggled out for a weekend of Bond movies and a 24 marathon." NEC's LT20 is a projector so small you might lose it down the back of the sofa, and its slinky body houses one of the latest DLP chipsets.
So what's the catch? Well, the projector's size limits the connectivity on the back -- and with just S-video, composite and VGA, you'd better have some sort of media centre PC handy for decent picture quality. Nevertheless, the LT20 is so dinky that even an image-quality queen is likely to go go 'aww', just because it's soooo cute.
Singapore Slingbox
AccessoriesIn a previous life back in the 20s, Crave would enjoy many a drunken night in a speakeasy, before heading off in high spirits to the local slingbox. These days though, the Slingbox is only another example of cool gadgetry enjoyed by the US long before we get the privilege (along with high-definition TV and Sony's PSP).
The box itself allows those living in the land of the free to watch their TV and media remotely, streamed over the Internet direct to your computer, anywhere in the world. With the Slingbox sat under your TV and connected to a Sky/Freeview recorder, it can stream across all your favourite programmes to a window on your desktop. Perfect for a sneaky episode of The Sopranos before the boss gets in.
Toshiba 27WL56: Checking us into rehab
TelevisionsIf there was a charity to help us kick our addiction to flat screen TVs, we'd sign up now. LCD-aholics Anonymous might help us remember what a CRT actually looks like. Companies like Philips, Sony and now Toshiba have been feeding our addiction with LCD upon LCD. And the big news on these shiny new models, apart from their understated cool? They're all fully high definition compatible.
Most LCDs above the 26-inch mark have been updated with high resolution panels and digital video inputs. Toshiba has a vested interest in next-generation TV, as its HD DVD format is due to launch before the end of the year, and the 27WL56 is the first mid-range system to carry an HDMI input. Despite being about the same size as a USB input, HDMI can carry digital video and audio along the same wire, meaning you can cut down on the spider's web of cabling at the back of your TV.
Philips LCD TV: Maximum Excitement
TelevisionsCrave doesn't do things by half. If we're going to play Battlefield 2, a game more addictive than peanut M&Ms, we're going to do it on nothing less than an Alienware Aurora PC and a brand new, high definition 26-inch Philips LCD. A theatre of war hasn't looked this beautiful since Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.
The 26PF5520 is gorgeous, taking the best of AV and PC connectivity and rolling it into one big, TV-shaped package. Best of all, it only costs around £800, making it a big-name competitor to our favourite bargain LCD, the Dell W2600. It's not just any old cheap TV -- it's fully high-definition compatible, has built-in Freeview and even a TopUp TV slot. As a sticker on the TV says, 'Excitement' has been turned up to the max. Unfortunately, we could find no controls on the remote control to adjust this promised excitement-o-meter, but a tight game of Battlefield 2 was certainly keeping us on tenterhooks.
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Sagem Axium: Eye on the Sky
TelevisionsSome people would rather be seen with a 15-inch black and white TV than a rear pro. In our anorexic desire for flat TVs, rear projection tellies and their hefty waist-line just can't compete, but Sagem's new 56-inch model is only 44cm deep. It's now dwarfing our collection of 42-inch plasmas, towering over everything with elegant French nonchalance. If it could talk, it would be saying, "Olympics? C'est rien..."
Its Parisian style should be enough to convince you that rear projection is the way forward -- its curved stand is an elegant way to hide its Dolby Virtual Surround speakers. But if you're the sort of hardware fetishist that gets a warm feeling inside when you reel off a list of numbers, check these bad boys out: eight video inputs (Sky HD compatible), the latest DLP HD2+ chipset and a 1,280x720 pixel resolution. We can't wait to run our Denon DVD player through this mother.
Xelos A42: I'm a Loewe, not a fighter
TelevisionsJust in case anyone doesn't understand our brilliant headline -- 'Loewe' is pronounced 'Lurve-er'. And unless you buy your suits from Saville Row and your furniture from Harrods, any lack of knowledge about this German uber-manufacturer would be completely forgiven. Along with Bang & Olufsen, the company has let Europe claim the world's most gorgeous plasmas. If you read the glossy style bibles like Wallpaper*, you'll often see a Loewe adorning the world's grooviest apartments.
While this sort of style usually costs you more than the GDP of a sub-Saharan nation, the Xelos A42 is probably the closest Loewe has come to a mainstream television -- at £3,200 it's not much more than Pioneer's latest. If the gorgeous design flourishes aren't enough to convince you to sell your children for this TV, then consider that it's also a gadget fetishist's dream. It has full support for high-definition TV, an integrated Freeview tuner and even a slot for a TopUp TV card.
Sharp P50 Series: UK's perfect PAL
TelevisionsWe can't get enough of new technology at Crave, and it's got to the point where we could accurately be described as junkies. And we admit, in the constant pursuit of the new, we might sometimes overlook the fruits of today's televisual bounty. So it's a good job that Sharp's here to remind us that high-definition TV and DVD is still quite a way off, which is why it's got a whole new range of LCD TVs that are designed specifically for the TV and DVD we're watching today.
We're always complaining that analogue and digital TV on flat screens makes us want to sandpaper our eyeballs, but it's usually down to the high resolution of the panel (usually 720 lines or more) and the low resolution of the PAL signal (576 lines). Sharp's ingenious idea is to make the Aquos P50 series exactly match PAL resolution, so the television doesn't have to fill any gaps. As we saw at Sharp's demonstration, the results are nearly as good as CRT TV, with significantly fewer artefacts and sharper details. Continue reading...
Sony MFM-HT75W: Wide-boy LCD
TelevisionsIt's not just mobile phones that are convergent multi-taskers. You turn your back for five minutes and this Sony LCD TV/monitor hybrid sneaks up on you, with a built-in TV tuner and PC connectivity that don't hamper its style one little bit. Featuring Sony's X-Black LCD technology, a widescreen panel and component/VGA inputs, the MFM-HT75W is the perfect display for your bedroom or office.
Sony seems to have an exclusive contract with the gods of TV design at the moment, and it feels as though every Sony TV that turns up at Crave is more desirable than the last. It certainly kicks the other big boys like the KE-P42M1 and even the gorgeous KDL-L32MRX into touch. We've had the MFM-HT75W sitting on our desk and it's been quite embarrassing how much attention it's getting -- anyone would think we were actually popular.
We Crave: High Definition
Home CinemaIn the first of a regular feature on Crave, we're going to clear up the confusion on an upcoming technology, to let you know what it is, how to get it, and what it's going to cost you.
At the moment, high definition (or hi-def/HD) is something of an urban myth -- you hear lots about it but very few people have actually seen it, and so most people don't know what the fuss is about. Continue reading...
Hitachi Plasma: Digitise This!
TelevisionsIf the plasma world was the Premier League, Hitachi, Panasonic and Pioneer world be Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. Just when you think one has the best lineup, another goes and buys some fancy foreign talent to usurp the competition.
Hitachi has been on a prolific spending spree of late, investing 85bn to produce 10,000 more plasmas a month. We only care that it's finally adding Freeview as an optional extra to this brand-new 42-inch plasma. Hopefully it'll fare better than Panasonic's latest effort, the TH42PE50. Continue reading...
Sony KDL-L32MRX: Choose Life
Televisions"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a f***ing big television." According to Renton's famous advice from the film Trainspotting, that huge TV is the fourth most important part of your life. Sony might not have designed the KDL-L32MRX1 with Trainspotting in mind, but those canny Japanese designers have clocked on to the fact that a large TV just isn't enough any more. They've gone all digital on our asses, and included a Freeview tuner in the belly of this 32-inch LCD TV.
The Sony LCD is as immaculately designed as a Versace suit, with the main 'look at me' statement a screen surrounded by glass. We were dazzled by this £2,500 TV, but it goes one step beyond by appearing to have LEDs embedded inside this frame. It's an optical illusion, but it was still enough to impress and confuse us with its voodoo magic.
Toshiba HD DVD & RD-XS64: Hi-Def here we come
TelevisionsThe high-definition era is finally approaching, and Toshiba plans to accompany its HD DVD launch with a bevy of new flatscreens. The high-end 'WL58' LCD range will arrive in September with 42-inch, 37-inch and 32-inch models, all featuring two HDMI inputs. Clearly, Toshiba is banking on you buying into both Sky high definition and HD DVD in the near future, but in the meantime the built-in Freeview recievers should tide you over. No prices have been announced as yet, but you'll be able to buy the 37-inch WL56 model, which has only one HDMI input, for £2,000 -- not bad for a 37-inch high-definition LCD.
Toshiba also let slip that a new version of the RD-XS34 is on the cards for September. The RD-XS34 scored highly for its innovative features and massive 160GB hard drive, but the RD-XS64 looks set to completely blow us away. When pushed, Toshiba admitted that the hard drive is likely to be even bigger, probably 200GB (enough for 90 hours of high-quality recording), and will definitely feature a HDMI output. This should offer excellent picture quality when paired with a compatible display, and you will be able to upscale DVD movies to better fit the resolution of the screen (meaning fewer visual artefacts). If you're not bothered about hard-disk recording, but still want to upscale DVDs for your fancy new flat screen, Toshiba's SD-350E is also going to feature a HDMI output for the very small price of £100.
Vigilante projector: NEC HT410
Home CinemaYou talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? You talkin' to me? Then who the hell else are you talkin' to? You talkin' to me? Well I'm the only one here. Who do you think you're talking to? Oh yeah? Huh? Okay. Well, I'm the NEC HT410, and I'm no cop man, I'm hip. I'm also DLP.
I can display high definition images and I made Taxi Driver look pretty damn close to how it does in the cinema. Sure, there's still some odd rainbow effects when you scan your eyes quickly from left to right across the picture I project, but why would you do that? Are you a cop? Continue reading...
Panasonic Plasma: Model Behaviour
TelevisionsWe unboxed the catchily named Panasonic TH42PE50 this morning, returning to the relatively lightweight world of the plasma after the hernia-inducing Toshiba CRT. "What makes this TV worth my hard-earned moolah?' we hear you ask. Be happy. Panasonic has managed to fit a Digital Freeview receiver inside its slinky frame. Those cheeky Japanese wizards.
Even surrounded by the flat screens we've got in at the moment from the likes of Sony and Hitachi, the Panasonic knows it's the best-looking plasma in the room. However, like a vacuous supermodel whose only talent is walking up and down in a straight line, the Panasonic gives you a confused look when you demand something more than great looks. It's not high definition, you can't connect it to your PC, and there's not even an S-video or composite connection. And worst of all, the screen resolution is a cripplingly low 852x480 pixels -- about half the resolution your computer is running at, and even lower than a CRT TV. Ouch.
Toshiba CRT: There's life in the old dog yet
TelevisionsCRT TVs? Aren't they for people with huge mobile phones, typewriters, and Nintendo Game & Watches? But despite all the buzz surrounding flat-screen and high-definition TV, a helluva lot of people are still choosing traditional TVs because of their picture quality and low price. Which is why we got on the blower to Toshiba and asked for the very best CRT TV the company could muster.
Despite being the most beautiful CRT we've ever clapped eyes on, the 36ZP48 is an astonomically heavy 75kg -- that's over twice as much as a 42-inch plasma! It took half the Crave team risking serious back injury just to get it out of the box, but it was worth it to see this king of the CRT world.
Toshiba TDP-S25: sub-£1,000 Home Cinema
Home CinemaFancy giving off the impression that you're a high-rolling, cigar-smoking pimp daddy? Well, follow Crave's lead and grab yourself Toshiba's inexplicably cheap TDP-S25 projector for immediate respect. Home cinema no longer needs to be the preserve of hardcore tech-heads who should really get out more, because at only £700, this is even cheaper than the Dell 2300MP.
Before you think 'that's bound to be the projector equivalent of a Skoda', the fascia proudly boasts that the TDP-S25 features the world-conquering DLP chipset, as opposed to its ugly LCD counterpart. DLP is the technology that's behind even the most expensive projectors on the market, and it more or less completely removes that annoying 'chicken wire' effect on images.
The PY2DR series: high-def meets hard drive
TelevisionsBuying a flat-screen TV can be a bumpy journey -- all these different formats and connections seem specifically designed to make you upgrade every two years. Luckily, Crave's here to act as your GPS system, to help you avoid all the potholes, wrong turns and crazy axe-wielding maniacs on the road to a perfect plasma.
Our Crave news hounds have caught the whiff of a pretty amazing new plasma from LG. While most manufacturers are happy just to get their televisions high-definition approved, LG has set out to make the PY2DR series record high-definition TV as well, with an integrated 160GB hard drive as standard. Even though those lucky Americans can pick them up as we speak, we're going to have to wait till the beginning of 2006, meaning it won't even make the Crave Christmas list.
Hauppauge rampage: it's a Freeview-for-all
TelevisionsAnalogue TV is so yesterday -- we can't believe that manufacturers still have the nerve to produce analogue-only flatscreens. Thankfully, Hauppauge seems to have taken to Freeview like a dog to a particularly juicy bone, sending us two of its best new Freeview tuners: the DEC 1100T and the WinTV NOVA-T USB2.
It's not just sticking to the PC market -- the DEC 1100T on the right is the smallest Freeview set-top box (STB) yet. Digi-tastic, we say... it's the Kylie Minogue of the Freeview world. It also has an SPDIF digital audio output, so if you're a fancy hi-fi enthusiast you can connect up for a sublime aural experience. Just stay well away from watching Stars In Their Eyes.
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