08/20, 4:10pm
Panasonic car BD player
Panasonic in Japan on Thursday introduced the first Blu-ray player made for cars with its CY-BB1000D along with a conventional but HD-capable counterpart, the HX-3000D. The former sports an HDMI input and 7-inch display with 1280x720 resolution that will play the Blu-ray content in HD. While the player will support Bonus View content on compatible BD media, accessing BD-Live content that requires an Internet connection isn't an option.
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07/23, 3:50pm
Sony 400-disc B Ray Player
Sony this afternoon aggressively bolstered its Blu-ray player lineup with three high-end models. The BDP-CX960 MegaChanger is built to address a whole movie collection and manages 400 titles whether they're Blu-ray, DVD or audio CD. It also has an Ethernet port that helps auto-tag movies and music for easier searching as well as BD-Live support for newer Blu-ray releases.
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03/12, 12:30pm
Onkyo SR607 Receiver
Onkyo has launched a trio of new AV receivers that are topped by an industry first. The TX-SR607 is the first to include Dolby Pro Logic IIz support and can add a vertical dimension to the sound in movies that support it: the element lets home theaters with two extra, elevated front channel speakers register sounds that would appear above the movie viewer, such as an aircraft. It additionally brings support for 7.2-channel surround at 90W per channel with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio as well as a rear port for add-ons like an iPod dock or HD Radio tuner.
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11/04, 3:40pm
NAD T 587 Blu-ray Player
High-end home theater maker NAD has made a late entry into Blu-ray players with the launch of the T 587. The dedicated player quickly catches NAD up to rivals with both Profile 2.0 support, which adds support for BD-Live and other Internet-related special features, as well as a quick startup time. Unlike even some high-end players, the T 587 is said to load movies in under a minute versus times from rivals that creep over this mark.
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05/12, 2:40pm
Creative X-Fi Surround 5.1
Creative expanded its lineup to the underserved notebook audience with the Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1. The USB device is claimed as the first to both boost audio quality and output in full 5.1-channel surround sound; Dolby and DTS movies, as well as games that support surround through DirectSound or OpenAL, automatically have their video processed and split across a speaker setup. Compressed audio is also cleaned up through the Crystalizer hardware that Creative says restores lost details.
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05/07, 12:10pm
Pioneer's Elite receivers
As part of its home theater product launch on Wednesday, Pioneer USA introduced four new A/V receivers to its Elite line. The SC-07, SC-05, VSX-03TXH and VSX-01TXH feature 7.1-channel surround sound connections and support DTS HD Master Audio, DTS-HD High Resolution, Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus lossless audio formats. The SC-07 and SC-05 benefit from the same Direct Energy HD amplifier with ICEpower analog class D technology Pioneer uses in its flagship SC-09TX receiver.
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04/10, 10:10am
DTS-HD for PS3 Next Week
DTS today said one of the longstanding criticisms of the PlayStation 3 would be addressed with a firmware update next week that adds DTS-HD Master Audio for movies on the Sony game console. The addition allows Blu-ray movies and other HD titles to output 7.1-channel surround at a 96kHz, 24-bit quality at up to 24.5 megabits per second. At this rate, the stream virtually equals the sound created in the studio masters that give the DTS format its namesake, according to its creator.
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