Home Theatre Point | Your starting point on Home Theatre and Surround Sound Systems

A study commissioned by digital technology company DTS highlights the sound/value relationship in the home entertainment market.

The results of its 3rd annual, study conducted in conjunction with Nielsen Entertainment Research, revealed continuing growth in the home theatre and surround sound marketplaces. In an online survey of 2,000 adult ages 18 to 65 across the USA, Nielsen Entertainment determined that home theatre systems featuring surround sound will continue to experience solid growth and drive a majority of home audio industry sales. Supporting the conclusions of the Nielsen research study, separately published reports by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) estimate that by the end of 2006 approximately 38 per cent of households (42 million) will own a home theatre – up from 21 per cent (22 million) in January 2000.

A significant number of consumers are familiar with the surround sound concept when purchasing audio equipment. According to the CEA Audio Purchasing Study, 73 per cent of home audio owners considered the surround sound listening mode as the most important audio product specification when evaluating a product.

Notable news from the latest study includes remarkably strong awareness about the high definition next generation optical disc formats among DVD consumers. According to the latest study, close to three-fourths (73 per cent) of these DVD consumers are either aware of HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc respectively. Close to 30 million home theatre households now possess a system with five or more speakers for true surround sound, and among those that plan to upgrade their equipment to high definition, 74 per cent consider surround sound important when deciding what high definition equipment to purchase.

Another key indicator of home theatre growth is the growth of high definition displays. By the end of 2005 there were 21.6 million households with HDTV sets in the USA (19 per cent of total households) according to figures from the JupiterResearch. By the end of 2010, the number of HD-receiving households will reach close to 75 million, or 63 per cent of total households in the USA.

The Nielsen Entertainment study revealed that more than half (54 per cent) of DVD owners and 79 per cent of surround sound owners consider high quality sound as the most important special feature on a DVD. In fact, recent studies have indicated that consumers who own home theatre system believe that sound quality is as important as video quality.

Source: AV international newsletter

Technorati Tags: home entertainment, HD DVD, Blu-ray, home theatre

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Panasonic has revealed details on its new PT-AE1000E projector: its first to feature a ‘full HD‘ resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. This means it perfectly matches the native resolution of Sky’s HD broadcasts and 1080-line films on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs, potentially delivering a purer, crisper picture.

Other exciting things about the AE1000E include:

• claimed contrast ratio of 11000:1 - the highest in its class
• optical system that delivers a high brightness of 1100 Lumens
• Panasonic’s aspherical glass lens system, which reduces the amount of light dispersion to make pictures look crisper and more vivid.
• next-generation full HD LCD panels characterised by inorganic, vertically aligned liquid crystals for enhanced black level performance
• An improved version of Panasonic’s Dynamic Iris system
• A new Pure Colour Filter using optical tweaks to achieve a higher level of purity for the three primary colours of red, green and blue. The result is deeper blacks and a wider colour gamut
• Smooth Screen technology to reduce LCD’s ‘chicken wire effect’
• Cinema Colour Management, which helps colour correct approximately 1.07 billion colours using 14-bit gamma correction
• a very impressive 2x power zoom

The PT-AE1000E will be available December 2006, for an estimated price of around £3,500.

Via Home Cinema Choice

Technorati Tags: Panasonic, PT-AE1000E, full HD, 1920×1080, 1080

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