CEA last year established a working group to study developing a standard for 3D glasses that would allow eyewear to work across multiple brands of 3D TVs. But some observers we polled told Consumer Electronics Daily that the quest for a standard on 3D goggles that all TV makers will adhere to likely will be no more successful than fashioning truly universal remote control codes. When it comes down to it, these observers said, no one supplier of 3D TVs wants consumers to use the glasses sold or bundled with another brand’s set.
Though it’s still easy to find analog phono preamps and tube amplifiers in the high-end audio section at CES, more and more audio companies are going digital with impressive results, a trend we found when we canvassed specialty audio companies at last week’s show.
LAS VEGAS -- With consumer electronics representing as much as 20 percent of residential energy use in the U.S., the challenge is on for CE companies to provide energy-saving options for power-hungry electronics. That was a theme of a CES panel Thursday sponsored by Control4, which supplies home energy-management products.
LAS VEGAS - ActiveVideo Networks, a Silicon Valley cloud-based interactive services company, is the latest in a list of companies vying for the application provider role in connected TVs. ActiveVideo joins Yahoo, Vudu and others in seeking partner relationships with CE device makers for Internet application platforms that extend over multiple channels including TVs, Blu-ray and game players and smartphones. It’s fast becoming a crowded field.
LAS VEGAS -- ActiveVideo Networks, a Silicon Valley cloud-based interactive services company, is the latest in a list of companies vying for the application provider role in connected TVs. ActiveVideo joins Yahoo, Vudu and others in seeking partner relationships with CE device makers for Internet application platforms that extend over multiple channels including TVs, Blu-ray and game players and smartphones. It’s fast becoming a crowded field.
Bowers & Wilkins cut by half the number of SKUs in its flagship 800 series of speakers as part of a streamlining effort in conventional speakers at the same time the company is expanding its automotive, headphone and multimedia speaker lines. B&W eliminated two models of surround and center- channel speakers from the 800 series to steer clear of duplication in its custom installation line, Vice President of Sales and Marketing Doug Henderson told us. “To avoid the GM model of expanding and not trimming back,” Henderson said, “you have to cull the number of products.” At CES, B&W introduced the 805 Diamond speaker, incorporating the company’s Diamond tweeter that’s said to improve efficiency and boost dynamic range at the top end. The 805 ships next month at a suggested retail price of $5,000 a pair. Cutting back on home theater speakers gives the company room to expand in other areas, Henderson said. The company recently launched its headphone line with the $299 P5 and will follow it later this year with a noise-cancelling model and in-ear phones. “We're about using the reference-quality performance of our freestanding loudspeakers and applying it to headphones,” Henderson said, “because for many people today, headphones are their speakers.” B&W also showed a Jaguar XJ Premium Sound System comprising 20 B&W speakers. The Jaguar XJ with B&W sound package will be available in March.
LAS VEGAS -- Vudu, a darling of specialty A/V channels, is going high volume, the company is announcing at this week’s CES. With a movie library of some 20,000 titles, the streaming content provider is starting its own Internet application platform to take on Yahoo, adding four new CE hardware partners and expanding current agreements with Mitsubishi, LG and Vizio. The end result is that “Vudu will be in millions of devices by the end of 2010, a scale we could never have hoped to achieve by selling our own box,” Executive Vice President Edward Lichty told us.
LAS VEGAS -- Vudu, a darling of specialty A/V channels, is going high volume, the company is announcing at this week’s CES. With a movie library of some 20,000 titles, the streaming content provider is starting its own Internet application platform to take on Yahoo, adding four new CE hardware partners and expanding current agreements with Mitsubishi, LG and Vizio. The end result is that “Vudu will be in millions of devices by the end of 2010, a scale we could never have hoped to achieve by selling our own box,” Executive Vice President Edward Lichty told us.
LAS VEGAS -- While most of the pre-CES TV buzz centered around 3D, Sharp came to CES promoting an expanded color strategy called QuadPixel and a new 68-inch screen size. The company’s new line of Ultra Brilliant Edge-lit Aquos TVs adds yellow to the RGB color filter, resulting in colors never seen before in the industry, Sharp President Mikio Katayama told journalists at a news conference here Wednesday.
Dolby Labs last week set up temporarily in a 175-square- foot demo space in a pop-up Wired holiday-season location in Manhattan. Dolby’s “surround sound lounge” is part of a broader branding campaign that the company kicked off Oct. 1 to increase awareness of its product reach.