Greetings, this is just a quick note that the first pass of our projector review of the Sony VPL-VW600ES home theater projector has been posted.  That means there's still a bit more to come, but the core review is there.  Missing still is the VPL-VW600ES calibration information, and some comparisons to the serious projector competition, among other things. The VPL-VW600ES produces an awesome picture.  4K makes such a difference, including a big one with 1080p content, but when you get to watch true 4K content then you are getting a jump in resolution that's almost as great as going from pre-hdtv NTSC tv to 1080. True 4K or Ultra-HD is something that is more appreciated by us projector folk than folks with those tiny 65 inch LCD TVs.  We need it more.  Sadly, only Sony is offering up 4K so far, but I predict that will change dramatically over the next two years. The Sony VPL-VW600ES projector claims 1700 lumens, and delivers on that claim. (more…) Greetings all,  Great news, BenQ's new W7500 Home Theater Projector has been shipped to us.  It will be calibrated early next week (2/18/2014), and I will start the review as soon as I finish the Sony 4K projector (previous blog). Because projectors are getting stacked up, I will definitely put out a "First Look" mini-review or blog, by the end of that weekend. Mind you, I've always been a big fan of the W7000 projector's predecessors.  The W6000 was always my favorite DLP home theater projector around the price, and the W7000 basically had minor improvements, plus the addition of 3D. Here comes the BenQ W7500, the direct replacement for the W7000 in the US and the W7000+ in the EU. The W7500 projector has the same 2000 lumens claim, so it should be an exceptionally bright home theater projector (as opposed to home entertainment projectors which have lower quality pictures, but are often very bright). Contrast has been improved from 50,000:1, to 60,000:1, which on paper isn't a really significant amount, but who trusts contrast claims any more?  There are projectors claiming 60,000:1 that have better blacks than some with 300,000:1 claims… (That's why our analysis of black level performance is subjective.  The numbers don't provide much useful info. Well, getting back on topic, the W7500 is supposed to be shipping right about now, a good thing, since I'm seeing that some BenQ dealers in the US are already out of the older projectors. What else does the W7500 bring to the party?

• CFI - creative frame interpolation oft called "smooth motion"
• Single chip DLP, with 6X, 6 segment color wheel (for minimum rainbow effect)
• 3D, and 2D to 3D conversion (3D glasses are optional)
• 1.5:1 manual zoom lens, plus lens shift
• Vidi - a new video entertainment platform (I'm not very familiar, but will know a lot more for the review)

MSRP is $2799 I believe. This should be a very serious competitor.  For those that love the DLP look and feel, it may well be the best game in town, under $3000, doubly so if you need a bright projector.  In 2D the BenQ W7500, in a home theater type environment, after calibration, likely will be able to handle screens up to 150" diagonal, maybe more.  It should be a great gamer projector too.  We'll certainly run input lag tests. That's all for now.   This is going to be a fun one.  And I again have an Epson HC5030UB here for direct comparisons.  -artAs many of you know I got two good looks at pre-production VW600ES projectors months ago.  It had come with a PC/Server - generic, not the round one that now ships with the VW600ES.  It had some 4K content on it.  This time they sent me the official server - needed for Sony's 4K media service (more details in the review) and a second source with even more 4K content than previous. Well, I had Mike immediately calibrate this projector (figure about 20 hours on the lamp).  And started watching it extensively (more…)Now, I actually was able to spend some time in the 3D printing booths. Along with "smart" stuff and robotics, 3D printing was probably among the most talked about things at the show. Here's an image of a large, portable Solar Panel. The casing was created with a 3D printer, reducing time from design to production significantly. A classic case of being able to model your products in-house at a fraction of the cost. Robots. Floor sweepers, polishers, lots of cleaning robots... But the one that really impressed me, was a one of a kind: Winbot. This little guy (about a foot by a foot), climbs all over your window cleaning it. Takes some time, but it works. The demo included writing with magic marker, and when the robot got to that place, it took off the marker in one attempt. I really want to include one of the Winbots for review and demoing in our dream home. Certainly we do have the glass, inside and out. The Winbot is tethered, as it probably works hard to stay attached to vertical glass windows. Lots of cute robots, and pet dog robots, and informational jetson type robots, robots for kids, robots with digital faces and touch sensitive tummies. for digital signage, and ultimately to replace counter folks at fast food restaurants, etc. In fact, Robots and 3D printing was everywhere in South Hall, with all the major players, and many minor ones present, with MakerBot (now part of Stratasys Systems) probably the best of the booths, but also 3D Printing. Many printers were actually actively printing things, and the booths were loaded with working devices that were printed, from toys to tools. Of course, the nicest thing I saw was not at the Zigbee booth, or the Belkin booth, or even the Epson press conference. It was the Lamborghini Veneno located in the Monster booth. Magnificent car, definitely the hottest thing at the show. It made those Teslas look like old Volkswagens.

By the way, Monster threw their annual awards event, with Head Monster Noel, and Nick Cannon, introducing the usual hip hop and rap stars. The concert was Fleetwood Mac, and boy did they rock. Stevie Nicks sounded real good, but playing by Mick Fleetwood on drums, and especially Lindsey Buckingham on guitar, blew away the thousands of us in attendance. Awesome. Noel (Lee) always puts on a show, and raises a lot of money for his favorite charities... Not to mention giving out lots of product awards. Here's the view from the GhostBar, best in Vegas. Just had to stop by, as Sony had its press dinner in the Palms Fantasy Tower (click to enlarge). I saw a demonstration of Leap Motion for the first time in the Haier booth. A guy was playing a flight game, just by moving his hand inches above the sensor: Tilting hand to bank the jet, etc. Cool, but the guy wouldn't stop playing it so I never got a chance to try it out.  LG was also showing Speech and Gesture recognition, but I didn't get close enough... All right, back to more of your typical home theater-y stuff: Above, Casio shows ultra short throw projector that works great for digital signage.  Elite Screens launches a new ambient light rejection screen - the DarkStar. I plan to get it in here for review at some point. The cutest projectors at the show, however, were these tiny projectors that come in bright colors. Not exactly business class products, but cool... The DLP.com booth was one of the highlights, lots of pico and pocket projectors there. Some are already being distributed in the US (i.e. at Brookstone), and others are seeking distribution (such as the little guys in bright colors). But on the performance side, the big thing there were projector based dashes for cars.  One looked similar to the huge display inside the Tesla S, but these even offered curved screens. and capacitance knobs, etc. The menus come up as you hand gets within about an inch of the control, I didn't get a photo. But this year the heads up display for cars, that DLP.com was showing was really awesome, and extremely bright. It won't be long before we start seeing a revamp of the modern dash and controls. Curved OLED TVs were the rage, still pricy, and do we really need a curve, and don't forget, that curves make sense if you are sitting straight back, and at the right distance, things get funky if sitting to the sides... That's all I've got. Overall, lots of cool stuff, very pleased with the showing this year. Hope you found it interesting. -a  Z-Wave Alliance and Zigbee Alliance: These are the two major, new-generation "smart" networks for your home, essentially. Z-Wave had a nice sized booth with a couple dozen companies showing their wares within. Z-wave allows integration of smart products from hundreds of companies, in all areas - smart lighting, security, HVAC, irrigation, appliance control, energy management, monitoring, in-wall dimmers... We plan to use Z-Wave as a primary "hub" for a smarter home in our Dream Home Project. There are many Z-wave compatible smart thermostats, monitors, etc.  Not to mention fancy wall switches. Here are some images of a few other fun smarter home products from Z-Wave, including motorized shades, security and lighting control:   Home Seer is Z-Wave compatible.  You can actually integrate all your different Z-wave compatible devices….enlarge the image to get a good idea of what HomeSeer looks like in action.

Arrayment works with manufacturers of connected products, such as Whirlpool, Chamberlain, Maytag, and Pentair.

Not to be outdone, Zigbee Alliance is there with a booth showing off many of their partners. Word, though, from talking to folks is that Z-wave better integrates many different brand products, their standards are, I guess, tighter. Both certainly allow you to control their respective devices.  But, it would seem, that if you want a lot of different companies tech to be controlled by other companies software, apps, etc, at this point, Z-Wave seems to have the edge in that regard!

Another player, Centralite, offers a full selection of light switches, outlets, dimmers, motion sensors, etc. Lots of product lines are showing some products, now, but their charts show building out more and more related products, smart lights, etc.

I will also note, though, that one of the things apparent at the show is that we're starting to see WiFi being used specifically in devices and, even more importantly, in a low-power consumption BlueTooth. So some of the products we've got pictures of here may be using those kinds of things as well. Similarly, Bluetooth appears as a controller format.  Even the Energizer bunny is in on the act with a wireless surge protector/rapid charger that uses blutooth to keep you informed, and to control - stay in touch with USB and other devices, and they featured wireless charger pads, among other devices.  A company I wasn't familiar with - BeeWi, showed a whole wall full of products using Blutooth.  We hope to include a number of bluetooth enabled devices in our Dream Home project. Stay tuned! Speaking of "smart," I found The Big Bright Light at Cisco. This is important because it looks like they're OEMing these lights from Philips--that's probably good if you've got stock with Philips. But again, it's another group getting into selling colored lighting, and that gives me an alternative source for getting more lights to integrate into our Smarter Home Project. And I do believe that lighting and color will be the future of home decor. Speaking of Cisco: You know "The Internet of Everything" is their line. Here's an image of their monitoring system showing the cost of operation of many smart devices in the home: I also wanted to mention again Philips.  They perhaps were the first to get the ball rolling with their Hue rgb smart light bulbs, and recently added rgb flood lights, and light strips.  Apple fans have probably seen their products in Apple stores for about a year. By the end of 2014, the choices in dimmable white and rgb smart lighting that will be available, is likely to be mind boggling.   I can't wait.   OK, that's it for this one, more coming in the next blog: PART THREE!  -artWelcome to "part 2" of our look around CES 2014.  This time, it's home automation.  As we've previously announced, we've added "smarter home automation" a a new section of our website.  (Makes sense, after all, home automation could be considered as an expansion that came out of automating home theaters. Let's start talking home automation:  Belkin was one of my favorite places. I've already got some slightly older Belkin (not-as-smart) equipment in my house from a couple years ago, and their gear is only getting smarter. Belkin now has a great many wireless devices and apps that give you smart control. As you can see here, there's the new WeMo product line. We looked at the first ones two years ago, but they were stand alone, not "smart" enough to talk to a network. BTW, with most of these images, if you click to enlarge, you can read most of the text in the image, and find lots of good info! With devices such as the WeMo maker, a DIY device you can use to control what you want, you can control everything: lighting, wall plates, pet door, motors, air conditioners, motorized blinds, basically a wide range of appliances... So if you're one of those tech-y people, you can rig up control of, say, your sprinkler system by tying in a censor and connecting it to your control system. The full WeMo line-up includes: smart wall switches (to replace those you already have), net cameras for security, smart outlets (plug into regular outlet, or replace existing outlets), motion sensors, and one they call a Wemo Insight switch (motion sensor built in?) Here are a few images of products from their line: Belkin also showed embedded smart controls inside of coffee makers (Mr Coffee), a crock pot, and a dehumidifier, all on display.   Look for more and more devices to offer enough smarts to work with home networks. Also, Belkin is extending their collection of WiFi routers/hubs and repeaters for the home. Time for me to upgrade to faster wifi! (NOTE: Our upcoming Dream Home Project already uses repeaters for both Wifi, and AT&T cell service). What really thrilled me is that Belkin is another company that's really getting into the smart lighting market. They have only white so far but I gathered RGB color smart lights are coming. Since we're planning to extensively use smart lighting (especially smart colored lighting) in the Dream Home Project, that's very cool for us. Happy to have found several interesting companies in the space. Well, there was more than enough Belkin products to do an entire report, let alone a blog, but it's time to move on.  Check out part 3 in our series.This is sort of going to be a rambling blog here of what I saw at the International Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month is Las Vegas. I took a number of pictures of fun new gadgets in home theater (and beyond) that I want to walk you through. I figure we should do this in some sort of order, so let's start from the beginning. I arrived on Monday, the day before the show floor opens, because that's Press Day. And my first event was dropping by the Mandalay Bay where a buddy of mine at Epson addressed what must have been close to 400 members of the press. He was announcing Epson's new line of wearable products, including two health bands--one was watch-like and one thinner--with all of the usual fancy reporting. Health bands offer very low power consumption, long term tracking of data. It looked very impressive, but I'm no expert on that.  Epson already has a briefcase full of patents relating to wearable tech, which makes sense. Epson's big on bringing to market the technologies they develop, such as modern LCD technology that has made them the one truly dominant manufacturer of projectors, with far more market share than any other company.  And as almost everyone remembers, they were almost a monopoly in dot matrix printing, (back in the day), with upward of 80% market share for that printing technology, if I recall correctly. So, expect Epson to be a serious new player into these types of wearable products. Of particular note, Epson claimed exceptional battery life, something you want in a wearable band, that tracks, so to speak, your every movement. The other thing Epson showed was a new 2nd generation Moverio: We took a look at the original Moverio "Android-power interactive display," and it had some issues at the time.  It worked, but needed more work to be a really viable, popular product.  The new version is dramatically improved in many areas. Basically, this is a set of glasses that has two projectors in it that project into the center of the two lenses so you can actually see computer information and video in front of you, but you can still see around and even through it.  In some ways you can think of it as a heads up display. One Moverio application demonstrated lets doctors and nurses wear the glasses, and see the veins under the skin clearly, ideal for injecting into veins, and just as effective as using it to inject when missing the veins is critical. Even more important, though, is it lets you see the flow, so that  where flow conditions in veins are not normal, such as burned areas of skin, treatments can be better planned and better results achieved. The medical uses are many! On a totally different note, one of our reviewers Tony, who flies small drones--the robo-helicopter type--used the first gen extensively. Very cool to have that drone view looking down at the earth. Anyway, Epson's press conference was very informational overall.  There was even a game you could play sort of space invaders, where you simply look at the target to fire at it.  The line was too long for me to get to try that, but folks were impressed. Speaking of wearables, Canon was showing their Vixia Mini X, a very tiny, full HD (1080p) cam corder with built in WiFi. And it was wearable...  Tons of wearables at the show. Okay, speaking of drone helicopters. My first day on the show floor I happened to start in South Hall, where there was a lot of stuff we're going to talk about, but thinking of Tony--one of the first booths I passed was Parrot. They were showing a variety of robocopters. The smallest ("mini") ones were about palm-sized. They were just flying around in a cage on the show floor. LED lighting was clearly big throughout. A DJ works at a booth where smart LED lighting strips are wrapped around the table for effect. There was also a nice LED chandelier hanging in one of the rooms--smart programmable of course, although my camera did not capture the subtle greens within... Ah! The cheapest thing I saw at the whole show was a mini boom box with LED lights... Perhaps the dumbest device, as well. But four colored LED lights and liquid and bubbles on this $25 wired small speaker. Cool for the young kids though, or so I suppose. Ok, we're just getting started.  Check out the next few blogs for a whole lot more!  Here's Part 2 (Belkin and Home Automation) -artGreetings projector fans, This will be the first of several blogs about projectors, and also other cool stuff that I saw at CES.   In this first blog, I'll talk about home theater projectors and home entertainment projectors seen there.  This is the first blog, I'll touch on a number of projectors but follow up with individual blogs on many of them.   As those other blogs get posted, I'll link to them from this one. For the most part, I'll deal with the smaller LED projectors (there are a bunch of new ones) in a separate blog, but will mention one or two that are appropriate to address in this particular Home Theater Projector blog.   Of course, most home theater projectors tend to be announced at CEDIA, which this past year was in mid-September, in Denver, Colorado.   Those of you who follow our site, or my blogs, know that most of the projectors (under $30,000) announced were from three companies: Epson, Sony, and JVC.   The traditional "big name" DLP oriented companies, such as Optoma and BenQ had little new to show at CEDIA. In truth, there were very few projectors even on the show floor.  Most full spectrum manufacturers that had booths, didn't even have demo rooms for projectors, and often not even static displays. (more…)The BenQ W1500 is the "flagship" of BenQ's home entertainment projector fleet.  Similar to the popular W1070, and the W1080ST - a short throw version of the W1070, this W1500 comes with some extra features, a zoom lens with 1.6:1 zoom range (the W1070 is only 1.3:1). I thought I'd take a break from the full review to let you folks know that it's about half written up. There haven't been many surprises.  As expected the W1500 has some pretty darn good (more…)UPDATE: This review of the Optoma HD131XE is now live. Read it here. Greetings projector fans, this is just a really quick note to say that the HD131Xe home entertainment projector review is almost done.  I've just begun the summary.   As is traditional, it won't go up all at once, but, for starters we'll have all but the calibration, competitors and screen recommendation pages at launch. Also of note, I still will be adding some additional commentary and images.  There will be an additional (and better) set of images looking at the effects of Brilliant Color, some additional HDTV images (non-sports), and some additional feature demonstration images. The posting of the review will either be very late tonight (Saturday), or early afternoon (west coast US time), on Sunday, Dec. 15th. Enjoy!  Owners, feedback on your own experiences with this projector are valuable, I'd like to see you comment about your impressions, and I'd especially like to hear from anyone who has figured out how to get some pretty accurate color out of this Optoma projector. (more…)