Oh! Gizmo

by Shane McGlaun

The R2-D2 Home Theater System isn’t completely new to the market, but this updated version from Hammacher is. R2 now sports a DLP projector in his little droid noggin that has a 1024 x 768 resolution and 1500:1 contrast ratio.

R2 can throw an image 80” in size from up to 16.5 feet away. If you feel like watching a movie on the ceiling, the projector can rotate 65 degrees making that possible. One of the arm housings has a DVD/CD player and R2’s vents hide an iPod dock, which I’m sure Luke always felt R2 was missing.

The iPod dock will fit most iPod’s including the iPod Video and allows you to play your videos back through the projector and hear the sound through the twin 20mm speakers built-in. Next to the docking station are a memory card reader and a USB port. Connections on the back allow you to hook up headphones, speakers and your game system as well. The only thing R2 lacks now is HD output and a price that geeks into Star Wars can afford. At $2799.95 I don’t see many Star Wars fans scrambling for their wallets. The Millennium Falcon statue holds the remote that controls R2-D2’s functions.

VIA [ Hammacher ]

by Shane McGlaun

There are a lot of people out there who want to own a home theater system but don’t want to have to run wires all around their rooms. Polk Audio has introduced a new SurroundBar model to their line up that packs Polk’s patented SDA tech inside to simulate real surround sound from one single speaker.

The new SurroundBar50 is 51” wide and sized to match up to 50” plasma and LCD HDTV sets. The new SurroundBar also adds SDA (Stereo Dimensional Array) technology to the left and right front channels to enhance sound further.

The SurroundBar50 contains inside the single 51” W x 4.5” H x 5.1” D extruded aluminum enclosure nine mid/bass drivers with Neodymium magnets, three dome tweeters and a four-PC board crossover. A bracket is supplied to hang the SurroundBar50 above or below your TV. The MSRP for the SurroundBar50 is $1099.95 and it will be available in October.

[ Press Release (Subscription Required) ] VIA [ Polk Audio ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You just dropped a bundle on that new Plasma or LCD TV so why limit its use to only the living room? The PlasmaRiser provides a safe and easy way to transport your new TV all over the house allowing you to enjoy it everywhere from the kitchen to the bedroom.

Besides the 4 industrial style locking wheels that allow your TV to be easily rolled (as opposed to carried) the PlasmaRiser is also capable of raising or lowering your TV into its protective shell. That way during transport you don’t have to be worried about something damaging the delicate screen. And once you’ve got the PlasmaRiser repositioned just plug the unit in and at the push of a button your TV rises back up again. There’s even an impressive selection of optional extras including an infra-red remote or even voice control, internal flat screen speakers, LED illumination and a weatherproof transportation cover.

The PlasmaRiser is available in either a black or white lacquered finish (or in a custom order corporate color scheme) for about $2,500.

[ PlasmaRiser ] VIA [ Freshome ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Personally I’ve never had the desire to watch a movie in someone’s backyard but apparently the demand does exist. Harmony Interiors of Asheville, NC created this outdoor home theater for a dream home at the ‘Cliffs at Walnut Cove’ golfing community. It’s actually installed on the home’s well appointed back porch and uses a SharpVision Z3000 projector in conjunction with a Draper rear-projection screen. The idea is to allow you to enjoy a film while sitting on the back porch or while putting on your own private green.

There’s not much innovation here unless you consider flipping the image on the projector an amazing breakthrough but when it comes to outfitting a new home with the latest gadgetry I suppose this fits the bill. A Bose AV 38 Media Center inside the house is used to feed movies, music and HD cable to the projector and speakers on the porch as well as weatherproof speakers on the lawn. And when you need the porch for other activities or when it’s raining the screen and projector are both motorized allowing them to retract into the ceiling.

[ Watch Video from Both Sides of a Screen ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]

By David Ponce

HDTVs are really starting to kick into the mainstream, and people are paying attention. One of the most important specs to look at when shopping for a new HDTV is the contrast ratio: the deeper the blacks, the clearer and sharper all the other colors will look. So that’s why we’re excited to hear about Pioneer’s Project Kuro line of high quality flat screens that boast up to 20,000:1 contrast rations, and what they claim are “black levels that are 80% deeper than before”. This is true 20,000:1 contrast, not its puffy cousin “Dynamic contrast”.

The line will include 10 different models, with resolution ranges from 720p at 16,000:1 all the way up to 1080p at 20,000:1, and sizes ranging from 42 inches to 60 inches. No word yet on price, but the lower end models will hit market in June, while the 1080p should come out in September.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Crunchgear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

What do you do when you move into a home with an indoor swimming pool you have no intentions of ever using? You convert it to a home theater of course! A Wisconsin family did just that and when you see the pictures it becomes obvious how perfect the sloped floor of the pool is for stadium-style seating.

Unfortunately they couldn’t install surround sound speakers into the pool’s walls due to them being made of concrete so they had to opt for floorstanding models instead but on the plus side the existing plumbing system provided a perfect place to easily run all of the AV cables. The family also had to hang black draperies all around the pool since the room was probably floor to ceiling windows before the conversion took place.

All in all I’d have to say if I hadn’t already converted my apartment’s indoor pool into a massive slot car track this would definitely be the way to go.

[ Pool Transformed Into Home Theater ] VIA [ Uber-Review ]

By David Ponce

The EVA8000 has been in the news for a while now, though we recently found out that it’s been available for purchase for a month or so. It’s a cool box that promises to do a lot, and is maybe the only one that could challenge the Apple TV. Connect it to your home network via Ethernet of WiFi, and it’ll scan your PC’s for whatever multimedia files they contain, and play those back on your TV, up to 1080p, via HDMI. It claims it’s even able to playback YouTube videos on your big screen, through some deal that allows the device to access the YouTube servers. What’s more, it plays nice with iTunes FairPlay, so you can also stream the music you bought there.

What we found particularly interesting is that right on their product page, Netgear announces their compatibility with BitTorrent. Sure, they’re referring to the new, legit BitTorrent, but most people still associate the name with the delicious technology that still allows them to download movies (and pretty much anything) for free. And while it’s no secret to some that the iPod became ubiquitous on the account of pirated music, it’s interesting to see another company try to cash in on pirated movies this time. Sure, they won’t admit as much, and maybe we’re being paranoid, but still. We thought of it; how much do you figure other will?

It’s $350 or so, available from a variety of retailers.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ PrylFeber ]

By Evan Ackerman

It’s actually called the “Home Theater Watch,” but that’s somewhat of a misnomer, seeing as the screen that this watch features is only an inch and a half in size. Nothing wrong with that, though… It is, after all, a watch. The 2 gigs of onboard memory should handle at least one movie, or the equivalent number of episodes of Invader Zim. The watch hooks up to your computer via USB, and can also play back picture slideshows and audio files.

Although software is included to convert some types of video files (including AVI, WMV, MPEG, and VCD) into watch video format (whatever that is), there’s no information given about battery life. It would be nice, too, if instead of the 2GB of built in memory, there was an SD card slot. Oh well… At $150, I shouldn’t be picky.

[ Home Theater Watch ] VIA [ Coolest-gadgets ]

By Andrew Liszewski

A Japanese company called KFE will soon be releasing the EXEMODE CDR-300 mini stereo system. At first glance it’s pretty run-of-the-mill with support for CDs and an AM/FM radio but what really sets it apart is the ability to copy those CDs in either MP3 or WMA formats to an SD card or a USB Key.

I assume it’s also able to playback MP3s or WMAs otherwise the whole setup would seem a bit useless. One downside is that it only supports SD cards up to 1Gb in size which is kind of lame so hopefully you can adjust the bit rate settings for the conversion process in order to squeeze as many files on the card as possible.

When released the EXEMODE CDR-300 should be available for about $60.

[ KFE EXEMODE CDR-300 ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When it comes to universal remotes Logitech has recently made a push to become king of the consumer castle but there are other companies vying for that same title. One in particular called tvCompass is pushing the idea of a wifi capable remote that does more than just control your home theater.

The Wifi Smart Remote as they call it includes a mobile phone sized 2.2-inch QVGA LCD screen that can be used for setting up and controlling all the components in your home theater system. Nothing new there but the addition of built-in wifi means the remote can automatically retrieve the ‘device codes’ for whatever hardware you’re running online and even safely backup your remote’s settings on the company’s network servers in case they need to be retrieved later on.

The wifi and screen combination also allows content to be delivered directly to the remote itself including news, sports scores, stock info, programming guides and of course advertisements. It even has a built in speaker like the Wiimote which can be used to grab your attention or probably just annoy the heck out of you.

As far as I can tell the remote is still kind of a concept in the works (the single image of the remote is a bit plain looking) but the extra features might make paying $300-400 for a remote control actually seem worth it.

[ tvCompass WiFi Smart Remote ] VIA [ Ubergizmo ]