New flats to come up with DTH fittings

A GUIDE TO WHAT'S NEW IN THE AUDIO, VIDEO WORLD

India: Industry News The retail of car-stereo and tape/CD players is in doldrums. The reason for the above fiasco is two-fold. All present generation cars come in with a built in stereo system. Every car manufacturer buys the systems in bulk direct from the manufacturers of popular brands.

These sets are fitted at the production level and generally produce high quality sound not necessitating installation of systems available in the retail market. Secondly, tape players have faded out from the car installation front, today's favourites being CD players and FM tuners. The CD players too are facing competition from MP3 players. At present, the pre-fitted car audio systems mostly come with the MP3 player compatible inputs.

MDU (Multi Distribution Unit) networks Builders are opting for DTH network cabling. With the trend of new flats coming in with ready fittings, the builders are supplying sockets for direct installation of satellite decoders. The advantage to the builder is that major DTH players, Tata Sky and Dish TV are offering the network installation free of cost with the hope that with the connection being readily available, the flat owner will opt for a DTH rather than go in for cable boxes. The new DTH settop boxes with VGA outputs are the latest entrants and are finding favour with Plasma TV owners and computer users. Multimedia Projectors New technology advances have enabled these projectors to project pictures with enhanced quality and reasonable pricing. Presently, they are being preferred over large screen Plasma and LCD screens for home-theatre viewing. Increasingly, consumers who want to experience cinema-like viewing in their home opt for a home theatre projector. These devices allow users to view their entertainment in a darkened room without the size restrictions of a television screen. You can project a reasonably good picture on a 50-inch screen whereas, LCD or Plasma screen of the same size would cost more. Multi-media projectors are supported by two different technologies the LCD and DLP.

The proponents of each technology claim supremacy over the other. Those favouring the LCD projector technology claim that DLP suffers from issues like rainbow effect and unnatural brightness. Those backing DLP say that these problems are history and that LCD still has to deal with problems of ideation and screen-door effect. In the earlier years. LCD projectors commanded 60 per cent of the market, but today the scenario is changing and the shift is towards the DLP projectors.

Going by the reports of research firms, by 2008 the DLP projectors are expected to command market share upwards of 60 per cent. A great deal of this would be a result of the increasing sale of home theatre projectors, where DLPs score over LCD in many ways. That DLP will be the leading technology of tomorrow can also be gauged from the fact that players like HPNEC have completely adopted it for its projector business.

Texas Instrument, the main promoter of the DLP technology has also proved that due to long-term usage of an LCD projector, there is a degradation of image, especially that gets formed due to the blue channel.

As far as rainbow effects associated with DLPs are concerned, it's more or less history with colour wheels in the projectors now rotating at 7200 RPMs and above. The following claim by the DLP promoters gives the DLP an edge over the LCD for home theatre viewing.

When compared to the best models of LCD home theatre projectors, the DLP counterparts prove to be far more superior on various counts.

One is DLP's capability to offer very high contrast ratio. Second, since DLP's edge definition is softer as compared to LCD, hence rendering smooth videos. And most importantly, at any resolution, DLPs have an advantage over LCD in visible pixelation, making it ideal for home theatre viewers.