Sights and Sounds to Overwhelm the Senses

The line was deep all day outside the Hyatt Newporter’s Terrace Room, where every 15 minutes another 50 people were ushered in for a bone-rattling demonstration of how mighty a home theater can be.

Sure, for the price of the connector cables alone--$11,000--you could buy a new car, but that was the point: Organizers of the recent Home Entertainment Expo and Sale in Newport Beach wanted a sky’s-the-limit demonstration.

“For my generation, your car was the measure of your success--the better you were doing, the bigger and fancier car you’d get,” said Chuck Ashman of the show-sponsoring CurtCo Publishing, which puts out Home Theater magazine. “For this generation, I think maybe it’s their home entertainment systems.”

Most spectators were indeed awed at the clarity of the big-screen images and the thunderous sound emanating from tiny, 5-inch digital videodiscs (DVDs) of “Jurassic Park.”

But with seven speakers that cost $140,000--and separate amplifiers for each, adding another $87,500 at the checkout stand--who wouldn’t expect the sound to equal that of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dancing on the coffee table?

“Very nice,” said Lake Elsinore resident Randy Silva after his test drive through audio-video Valhalla. “But then, for $300,000, it better be.” Whispered his wife, Linda: “It’s really not that much better than what we have now. And we haven’t even upgraded our TV yet.”

For the Silvas and many others, the sun may be rapidly setting on the day of the standard TV set.

Few conventional TV-like monitors were in evidence at the event. Instead, horizontally rectangular movie screens--16 to 9 is now the standard width-to-height ratio, compared to the more squarish 4-3 ratio of conventional TVs--were everywhere.

Single- and three-lens front-projection video systems far outnumbered rear-projection cathode-ray tubes. Such projectors start at about $4,000 for a Sharpvision single-lens system--they’re more versatile and cheaper than three-lens projectors, but the picture is not as crisp and bright--to $25,000 for the top-end Runco triple-lens projector used in the $300,000 system. (“Until the human eyeball gets better,” beamed a Runco rep, “we won’t need another system.” Didn’t somebody say the same thing about the human ear and the phonograph in, oh, about 1922?)

The advantage here is that they can be mounted in retractable lifts that disappear into the ceiling. Ditto with the viewing screens. At considerably less expense and effort, the projector can be positioned on a tabletop and the screen on a wall or a stand.

Also at the forefront of high-tech TV was QFTV’s FlatScreen plasma display panel video monitor. With a 42-inch screen that’s just 4 inches deep and weighs 79 pounds, it can be mounted flush against a wall, on a wall surface, on a tabletop or suspended from the ceiling. Or, for that matter, in your garage, if you buy this $17,500 unit instead of a second car.

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The main question with all these snazzy systems is, of course, what to watch on them.

As with each video format that has come along, the advancements offered by DVD--full digital audio and video capabilities on a disc the size of an audio CD, plus a host of additional special features--have taken a back seat to the availability of movie titles.

But with Walt Disney’s Buena Vista Home Video as well as Universal Pictures jumping aboard, DVD supporters believe the pendulum has swung solidly into their camp. Now, the only major American film studios yet to commit to releasing movies on DVD are 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures. Most DVD players can accommodate audio CDs. And for those who have significant collections of 12-inch laser videodiscs, Pioneer makes two players--listing for $1,000 and $1,750--that can accommodate those discs and the higher-picture-quality DVDs. More such combination units are expected to be available in the U.S. soon, which means laserdisc owners don’t need to abandon their collections for yet another “new and improved” video format.

Cox Communications was on hand to demonstrate the digital TV system it introduced in Aliso Viejo recently, expanding into the hundreds the number of channels subscribers can get.

So although HBO, ESPN and other cable channels send out digital signals that provide improved pictures on conventional TV sets, it’s far from clear how soon, or how many, of the networks will start digital broadcasting.

Nevertheless, Expo promoters were hailing the fact that the technology is in place for high-definition television (HDTV) to become a reality in the U.S.

At one demonstration (which included every format of high-resolution video except, ironically, true HDTV), a manufacturers’ representative said the HDTV system approved by the Federal Communications Commission is a significant improvement over the analog HDTV system that’s been in operation in Japan for most of this decade.

What viewers saw were pictures from the Japanese HDTV system that were markedly crisper and free of “pixilization,” in which individual dots and lines that make up a video image become visible.

The American system, impressed onlookers were told, will be as superior to the Japanese system as a live cablecast picture is to a run-of-the-mill home videotape.

Yet the technical question is only half the HDTV picture. Although the FCC in April cleared the way for rapid implementation of HDTV in the U.S., broadcasters here still haven’t fallen in line to make it happen.

Many claim the cost of converting stations from the current analog to digital broadcasting--estimated at anywhere from $2 million to $10 million per station--make it prohibitive to switch. Further, they say, there is no proof they can make their money back through increased advertising.

Even with the question of HDTV broadcasting still unresolved, high-quality video and audio source material is proliferating in the form of DVDs and digital cablecasts.

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At least there is something approaching standardization that seems to be settling into surround-sound audio to accompany these higher-quality video images.

There’s still a bewildering array of terms for what’s out there--Dolby Surround, Dolby Pro Logic, AC-3, Dolby Digital, Digital Theater Systems (DTS), THX--but most consumers focus on the two leading-edge systems: Dolby Digital and DTS, which are supplanting those earlier methods of creating surround sound for home theaters.

DTS theoretically can deliver slightly better sound quality than Dolby Digital, but both offer what’s commonly referred to as 5.1-channel surround sound.

That means there are five separate audio tracks: one each for left and right speakers, front and back, and another for the center channel speaker. There’s also a restricted-frequency sixth channel--the .1 of 5.1--that provides all the low frequencies typically handled by a separate subwoofer.

You don’t have to spend $33,900 for the pair of 7-foot-tall Wilson subwoofers, titanic as they are, in the high-end system at the show. For each of the five main channels, decent bookshelf speakers from such respected makers as Boston Acoustics, AR, Advent and Cambridge Soundworks sell for as little as $100 each.

And for the low end, a subwoofer that can rattle all but concrete bomb-shelter floors can be found for $250 or less.

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Another keynote theme of the Newport Beach show was integration.

Gone, it seems, are the days when we simply watched TV or listened to the stereo. We’ve entered the age of “total immersion entertainment environments,” perhaps best represented by the Philips DVX 8000, which brings a personal computer together with a sophisticated audio and video system, all in one $5,000 chassis.

The DVX 8000 permits on-screen access to the Internet via a wireless keyboard. An illuminated remote control unit with more buttons than the science officer’s station on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise puts a gaggle of functions within the palm of the user’s hand.

It includes a DVD player that also can operate audio CDs, CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs; video games; a sophisticated internal line doubler that improves the image from any video source; a bank of audio and video inputs; and a versatile and powerful audio amplifier, preamplifier and tuner section.

“I remember years ago when somebody brought out the first infrared remote control for a stereo receiver. Pretty soon you couldn’t buy a receiver without one,” said Dave Donald, director of special projects and events for Home Theater.

“Then after the first combined A/V [audio-video] receiver came out, everybody started making them. I wonder if this isn’t the next step, and whether it won’t be long before you can’t find a home audio-video system that doesn’t also have a PC built in?”