Preview ’92 : What’s New for Your TV Room

Remember life before the Video Revolution, when a night at home watching the tube was something you did only when there was nothing to do? Along came the VCR and big-screen TVs, not to mention cable and video-rental outlets, and suddenly the home theater sprang into popular culture as a wildly versatile, cutting-edge concept; a way to spend a night out, in a sense, without leaving the couch.

In the ‘90s, mastering the art of being a sofa spud is an active pursuit packed with myriad options, and not merely in terms of programming. Keeping up with the latest home-video components can be as difficult as deciding which new fall shows or videocassettes or laser discs to watch. New models and features are proliferating fast, and, perhaps most importantly, new formats and technologies are taking home entertainment into entirely new realms, such as personal video photo albums and interactive video/audio discs.

Want to look at the big picture? They don’t get any bigger than the 150-inch-wide images, measured diagonally, cast by the SharpVision XV-H30U video projector ($3,995), a revolutionary portable unit that’s roughly as small as a Super 8 film projector.

Just hook it to a VCR or a TV tuner or any video source, point it at a blank wall or an optional stand-up screen and you’ve got bigger-than-life video without having to pay five figures for an unwieldy, professionally installed projection video system.

Regular picture-tube TVs have more to offer than ever in terms of picture size, image quality and increasingly sophisticated stereo-sound features. Examples? Sony’s new Trinitron XBR2 line clearly ranks at the top of the TV class of ’92. Both the 27- and 32-inch models ($1,899 to $2,599) offer some of the most dazzling new innovations available, including the flattest screens in the industry for minimum picture distortion, and a host of high-tech circuitry that provides enhanced, realistic color and unparalleled brightness and contrast.

The XBR2 sets come with a wide range of digital audio options that include Dolby Surround Sound, the same wraparound system found in the finest movie theaters, and synthesized soundfields that simulate the acoustics of movie theaters, jazz clubs and concert halls. The speakers detach from the set, so you can position them for an optimum stereo effect.

On the VCR front, decks with built-in VCR Plus capabilities are hot new items. They make unattended taping easier than ever--just grab the remote and punch in the program’s PlusCode numbers, found in TV listings (including TV Times).

Coming in early 1993 from Goldstar and Go-Video will be combination 8mm-VHS VCRs, wonderfully convenient two-in-one decks for camcorder enthusiasts who fancy the compact 8mm format for their home videos and prefer the popular VHS format for taping shows and watching prerecorded videocassettes.

So much for new twists on old ideas. Plowing entirely new paths in the world of home entertainment are a pair of revolutionary and integrated infant formats: Kodak’s Photo CD system (starts at $400), which stores up to 100 high-resolution photographs on a CD for playback on any TV set, and Compact Disc-Interactive ($599-$799), a configuration that combines audio, video, elaborate graphics and extensive text storage on a single compact disc.

Think of Photo CD as sort of a home-video slide show without the slides and without the hassle--just pop a disc into a Photo-CD deck or a CD-Interactive player and grab the remote. You can instantly flip to your favorite pictures, skip others, or zoom-in for extreme close-ups. Soon, you’ll be able to bring your 35mm film to an authorized developer for digital processing onto a Photo CD and, sometime in the near future, you’ll be able to add audio captions, graphics and music.

Right here and right now, cutting-edge types can tap into the ultimate thinking-person’s video format. Hook up a CD-Interactive deck to your TV--and if it doesn’t have stereo sound, also to your stereo system--and by flicking a remote control and fingering a joy stick you can access a dazzling new array of hands-on entertainment and information programming ($18-$50).

Consider the “Treasures of the Smithsonian” disc. It lets you examine 200 exhibits from several angles, listen to guided-tour narration and bits of recorded history and even learn to play music instruments. Moreover, a number of cross-referenced video and audio addendums for each subject can be punched up.

“Palm Springs Revisited,” a highly realistic CD-1 golf game, offers complex competition on a challenging course; viewers get to select their clubs and gauge wind speed and navigate sand traps. Then there’s “First-Year Child Care,” a forthcoming interactive program featuring television doctor Art Ulene.

That’s just the iceberg tip. Someday, CD-1 is expected to spawn entirely new forms of home entertainment.

“Someday a genius will come along and dream up a new, non-linear form of storytelling for interactive video,” said Stan Cornyn, president of Warner New Media and a pioneer in the CD-Interactive industry. “It’s going to take a new type of author. Hitchcock wouldn’t have been comfortable with it. Neither would Hemingway.”