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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from CNET Asia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Supercharge your FIFA experience
By Philip Wong
05/06/2006 URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/home_av/others/0,39037627,39362487,00.htm Let's face it. Some TV programs are just not meant to be experienced with puny visuals and mousy stereo sound. The FIFA World Cup 2006 coverage is a prime example. A modest setup would hardly mimic the scale and live atmosphere of the sought-after stadium effects. There are good reasons hardcore fans are willing to fork out hard earned cash to be there on ground zero.
We will power you through the technicalities and sieve out the right ingredients for optimal impact and returns. Take heed that not all products are not made equal and paying big bucks is no sure ticket for attaining the fellowship of the elite. It is the quality and not the quantity that matters! Visual There are two schools of thought in the visual department. We have the theatrical big-screen fanatics and the design-driven flat-panel cattle. Both have their draws and work well for our FIFA quest. In a nutshell, a projector is highly recommended for light-controlled environments and a sizeable entertainment room of 3 x 3.5m or larger. For anything else, a bright plasma or LCD panel is the way to go.
Projector A light cannon is the only truly affordable solution for true-to-life pictures, based on a variety of technology ranging from the established LCD and DLP to different renditions of the new LCoS engine. Two main flavors are available in the market: Home theater and multimedia. While the line has blurred in recent years, the former can still be distinguished by its widescreen display, low-to-mid brightness and high contrast.
That said, you should also avoid dated LCD projectors with less-than-ideal screen door performance. They produced pixilated images reminiscent of low-resolution prints when seated upfront. For the best of both worlds, check out Canon's Xeed and Sony's SXRD offerings but be prepared to pay premium to embrace these LCoS spinoffs. Regardless of the underlying engine, remember that a projector works best in dim environments. If such a condition is in high order, thrive to go for a build with a competent brightness level of 1,000 ANSI lumens and above. This should provide sufficient leeway to counter washed-out pictures from strong ambient lighting. Resolution is secondary here as it is dependent on the video source (standard or high-definition feed). Likewise for contrast ratio since the stadiums have excellent lighting unlike the dark scenes of movies and serials.
Hot recommendations Multimedia projectors are a nice bunch for occasional movie sessions but are, nonetheless, office-centric beamers not optimized for home entertainment use. For a sound home investment, we would still recommend full-fledged home theater models which will not only come in handy for the World Cup, but also DVDs and gameplay on consoles.
Tips and tricks One of the main caveats of projectors is the requirement for an external TV/cable tuner box. You can work around this shortfall by tapping on the onboard tuner of a DVR. Simply hook up the video output of the recorder or settop box to the video input of the projector and you are good to go for some serious soccer action. Last, but at least, remember to enable widescreen and progressive scan for best picture quality.
Flat-panel TVs Besides the sleek and ego-boasting form factor, new-gen flat panels also offer round-the-clock entertainment with little or negligible impact from natural lighting. They can be installed in just about every corner of the house and beat a projector's bulb life by a whopping 60,000-hour durability. Don’t forget the cooler and noise-free operation, too.
There are also selected models out in the market with a slew of motion-enhancement technologies. Samsung's DNIE, Sharp's Quick-shot, Toshiba's Meta Brain Pro and Philips Pixel Plus 2 are a few examples of such implementations. While we can't vouch for their effectiveness, they are nevertheless value-added features that sweeten the deal. Watching FIFA can never be complete without friends and soccer-crazed buddies. For this matter, you will need a generous screen estate of no less than 40 inches in size. To ensure everyone has an unmolested view of the onscreen action, keep a lookout for a wide viewing angle which currently tops off at 178 degrees. A 176-degree variant would probably deliver just as well for a smaller crowd of five or below.
Hot recommendations To bring up you to speed, we have narrowed down a collection of plasma and LCD TVs to kickstart your shopping list. Not that they are the best in the market. Rather they are well-regarded models with the right blend of features and performance.
Tips and tricks As flat panels are bright in nature, having soft backlighting is a must for minimizing eye fatigue. It is also a good idea to mount the panel at eye level and a viewing distance that's twice the horizontal screen size lest you end up with a stiff neck after prolonged matches. If you are game enough to go one step further, video calibration will be the next progression for a picture-perfect soccer game.
Audio Having stunning pictures is just half the equation for a fulfilling FIFA World Cup experience. Recreating the excitement of the rowdy stadium atmosphere brings you right into the heat of the action for that extra oomph. No TV audio subsystem can ever come close to the true enveloping effects of a multichannel home theater system. Here, two Dolby solutions are used to bring the stadium acoustics to life: Dolby Prologic 2 and Dolby Digital.
Both Dolby Pro Logic 2 and Dolby Digital can be found in a variety of home theater systems. They range from affordable home-theater-in-a-box to component-level receivers and processors. For seamless integration with HD settop boxes and distortion-free audio, it is recommended to target a set with digital audio input and an adequately powered amplifier with at least 75W per channel--the higher, the better if you own a spacious entertainment room.
Hot recommendations Auditing a sound system can be a time-consuming exercise for some, let alone a complex multichannel kit with all the bells and whistles. That’s why we took the liberty to compile the following list of competent wired and wireless home-theater-in-a-box for your listening pleasure. If you are going all out for performance, check our comprehensive guide on what's in stores for component-level equipment here.
Tips and tricks The installation of a home theater requires meticulous planning, particular the speaker placement. Ideally, these should be spaced at a matching distance from the sweet spot with the surround speakers mounted either by the side or the rear. For optimum performance, always line the speakers' tweeter at ear level and experiment with subwoofer placement. Go for corner placement for enhanced bass effect but keep a tab on the allowance to prevent bloating.
Archival Some diehard fans may loathe at the idea of recording live matches but not for others who can't afford a hangover at work or at class. For any recording, time is of the essence and the capacity of the recording media is a key cursor. Factoring in the game duration, half-time and advertisements for all 64 World Cup matches yields an estimated 128 hours' worth of content.
Hard-drive housekeeping and disc swapping are unavoidable for most recorders, though this can be minimized with high-capacity storage such as a 160GB hard drive or 8.5GB dual-layer recordables. Though the SP mode data compression varies from one manufacturer to another, it should nonetheless provide up to 66 hours for the former and 4 hours for the latter. For the ultimate in ease-of-use and convenience, users can also leverage on the advantages of an electronic program guide (EPG) found on digital tuner-equipped and TiVo-styled DVRs. Not only do they offer a one-glance match schedule, they also allow program-level recording which eliminates the hassle of punching in recording details.
Hot recommendations Though most manufacturers have bridged the +R/RW and -R/RW compatibility for single-layer media, only a handful are truly universal models that can handle both dual-layer formats found on shelves. Here is a selection of high-capacity HDD and DVD recorders which comes with DL compatibility (excluding the StarHub Smart TV).
Tips and tricks For users of StarHub HD settop boxes, you could record the World Cup matches by tapping the video output of the former to the input of a DVR. However, this recording capability is not guaranteed by the telco and may be disabled upon its content providers' request. |
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1: Introduction
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