Get your free HD fix while jet-setting

Feeling a bit detached without your daily HD fix whenever you travel for leisure or work? Good news, there may be a no-fuss solution for you and, best of all, it's complementary. The next time you transit through Singapore Changi Airport, drop by the Departure/Transit Mall, Terminal 2, for the 24-hour National Geographic Channel HD showcase.

A collaboration between National Geographic Channel Asia, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, StarHub and Samsung Asia, the showcase will feature a live hi-def feed presented on a Samsung full-HD M8 LCD TV and HT-TXQ120 home theater system. The program lineup ranges from documentaries on modern science and mega structures to lost culture investigations and natural history.

InFocus, never too late to go 1080p

While most home theater projector manufacturers have disclosed information about their second-generation 1080p projectors, InFocus has just announced its first full-HD model here in Asia. Better late than never, the 12,000:1 dynamic contrast Play Big IN82 is powered by the latest Texas Instrument DarkChip3 DLP engine paired with a 10-bit Pixelwork DNX video processor.

As with the earlier launched IN78, this has inbuilt Imaging Science Foundation Certified Calibration Configuration or ISF 3C support for professional color tuning. Connectivity-wise, there are a 1080p24-enabled HDMI 1.3 terminal and a set of component-video sockets. That’s besides its proprietary M1-D1 port which can be converted to a secondary HDMI via an optional adapter.

On a separate note, the company is also debuting the Work Big IN10, a featherweight 1.1kg ultra-mobile projector small enough to fit in the palm. Small in size but big in performance, it's capable of delivering a competent 1,800 ANSI lumen brightness and high 1,024 x 768-pixel resolution. The IN82 and IN10 will be available in Singapore from September 17 at S$9,999 (US$7,104.09) and S$2,399 (US$1,704.44), respectively.

Philips' Ambilight is back and better

The Ambilight Flat TVs are back and for this year Philips is throwing out the old fluorescent lamp in favor of LEDs. This not only allows Ambilight to put out even better colors, but also minimizes the bulk of related assembly, enabling the Dutch company to roll out sleeker flat panels equipped with this auxiliary offscreen backlighting. Making their pilot entry are the 9532-series comprising a 42- and 47-incher. These are equipped with the new Perfect Pixel HD video-enhancement engine and 100Hz Clear LCD frame-rate doubling function.

Also released recently is the affordable 1080p 7422/7432-series, including one of the first branded 37-inch true full-HD TVs. Unlike the above, these have two instead of three HDMI and will ship with the Pixel Plus HD engine. These are now available in Singapore from S$2,999 (US$2,130.73), while the flagships are going from S$4,999 (US$3,551.69). Pricing and availability for the rest of Asia were pending confirmation at press time.

LG's Time Machine TVs take two

LG is taking its second shot at its digital video recorder-equipped flat panels, a.k.a. Time Machine TVs. Available in both LCD and plasma flavors from 42 to 50 inches, these offer 33-hour-long video-recording and time-shift capabilities. The latter allows users to pause and replay live programs just like any regular TV recording.

To address its previous shortfall, the new-gens now ship with a USB Backup function. Implemented via a high-speed USB 2.0 port, this allows recorded clips to be archived onto external hard drives. While this frees up onboard storage space, the exported footage is unfortunately incompatible with computers.

On the brighter side, the above jack supports a variety of multimedia formats. Hook it up with an inexpensive thumbdrive and you could enjoy instant playback of MP3, JPEG and DivX files. The 42LBRT, 42PB4RT and 50PB4RT will be available in Singapore from September. Details for the rest of Asia were pending confirmation at press time.

Say hello to CH-DVD and a 51GB HD-DVD

It's all go in the HD-DVD camp at the moment. Still on a high from the Paramount/Dreamworks deal, we're now hearing that HD-DVD will soon have a 51GB, triple-layer disc on the way. The significance of a 51GB capacity is that it exceeds the current Blu-ray maximum by 1GB.

Obviously, 1GB is nothing more than a token increase, but it's an amusing nose-thumbing by Sony's opposition. Of course, the smile might be wiped from HD-DVD's face if Sony announces a 100GB disc in the near future. There's also a DVD/HD-DVD hybrid disc that has a 4.7GB DVD layer, and two 15GB HD DVD layers, something that could encourage DVD player owners to buy a hybrid disc for future upgrade purposes.

The good news is that the 51GB discs should play in all HD DVD players currently on the market. CNET discussed this with James Armour from Toshiba's optical storage division at CeBIT this year, and were told that although the third layer would be harder to read and generate more data errors, the player's error correction should be able to fix these problems without picture and sound problems.
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