how do you get pregnant: CEDIA 2011 odds and ends wrap up: THX, TiVo and plenty of projectors

Friday, September 16, 2011

CEDIA 2011 odds and ends wrap up: THX, TiVo and plenty of projectors

Another CEDIA is in the books, and if you weren't there, just know the story was -- as it has been in many corners of the country -- the economy. Oh sure, projectors that cost only $10k still seemed value priced, but everywhere you looked companies were extending their products a little closer to the mass market. Whether it's a heavy duty wall mounts, wireless hi fi systems or, most surprisingly, $300 powered shades from companies like Lutron, custom theater equipment is getting cheaper and ready to work in more homes. Interested in remaking a home theater while spending less than $10k and without building an entirely new house around it? 2011 may be your year.

As far as the hardware on display, we also got a look at TiVo's new Premiere Elite DVR (hint: it looks and runs like a TiVo) and Dish Network's new Tailgater portable satellite dish. Another treat was an MHL-to-HDMI adapter from DVDO that could make hooking your celly up to pretty much any TV on the go and charging it at the same time easy. At the THX booth, it had its stamp slapped on LG's newest Nano LED lit 3D LCD, as well as a new program for soundbar / subwoofer combinations it says will result in more accurate sound for implementations where surround speakers don't make sense. We also got a demo of its new Media Director protocol that can automatically configure compatible home theater equipment based on the content being watched. The Star Wars Blu-ray discs will be the first ones to ship with the embedded metadata, while partnerships with chipmakers mean software updates could start rolling out shortly for manufacturers that choose to deliver them -- the demo ran on an HDI Dune player -- and next year's new devices should ship with the feature included.

The usual slew of projectors included new models from Mitsubishi and Digital Projection, with automatic settings for ultrawidescreen viewing as one of the hot features (other than 4K) this year. For a better look at some of the things we spotted on the show floor check the gallery below, and details in their press releases after the break.

Gallery: CEDIA 2011 wrap-up