Epson today introduced five new full HD 1080p 2D and 3D home theater projectors namely the Epson 3LCD PowerLite Pro Cinema 6020UB, Home Cinema 5020UB/5020UBe and 3020/3020e. All models feature full HD (1080p) resolution, Active Shutter 3D and WirelessHD. These projectors also support 2D-to-3D conversion to transform any 2D movie to spectacular 3D. The Epson 3LCD PowerLite Pro Cinema 6020UB, Home Cinema 5020UB/5020UBe and 3020/3020e are equipped with two pairs of RF 3D glasses that last up to 40-hour when fully charged or up to three hours with a new three-minute quick charge. [Akihabara]
It seems that Epson USA is in better shape than it’s Japanese counterpart, after the company just announced in the US not one but five new Home Theater projectors with the 3020, 3020e, 5020, 5020e and Pro Home Cinema 6020! All models comes with a full HD (1080p) resolution and even 3D to 3D conversion, Active Shutter 3D, WirelessHD and RF 3D Glasses! So what’s new here? Well not much really the first two models including the 3020 and 3020e comes with a better bigness than its …
Epson has decided not to mess with success, as it’s left the new Home Cinema 3020, 3020e, 5020, 5020e and Pro Home Cinema 6020 projectors largely untouched from last year. All the models still carry full 1080p resolution, active shutter 3D, 2D-to-3D conversion, WirelessHD and a pair of RF 3D glasses. There’s a slight bump in brightness for the lower-end 3020/3020e models from 2,200 to 2,300 lumens and a 100,000:1 contrast hike for the 5020/5020e and 6020 models. Otherwise, the new projectors remain unchanged, right down to the colors, housings, 3LCD tech, 6,000 hour lamp and Fujinon OptiCinema lenses for the 6020. Prices also carry over from the previous models, at under $4,000, $3,000 and $2,000 for the high- to low-end models, respectively. The projectors will start arriving in October and with little other competition in that price range, Epson can probably rest on its laurels — at least for a while longer.
Syabas has announced the latest iteration of its Popcorn Hour media player, the A-400. Like the models before it, this is a networked player that allows for easy media playback (especially in the case of local content), but unlike the models before it, this one can boast support for 3D video. It also brings a number of “studio-quality” video processing features to the table, including adaptive detail and contrast enhancement along with adaptive debanding.
You can connect the A-400 to your network through its Gigabit Ethernet port, but a Wi-Fi dongle is also available separately if you want to go wireless. The A-400 comes equipped with an SD card slot, an HMDI 1.4 connector, and an eSATA port to make local media playback easier, and you can upgrade the player with a 2.5 or 3.5-inch HDD or SSD to turn the A-400 into something of an external storage device for your content. Not too bad, but the media player seems to be lacking a Blu-Ray drive, a feature that will be sorely missed by some.
Once you’ve got your A-400 connected to the Internet, you can access the Syabas Apps Market, which contains “over 90 free and premium TV apps,” just in case you find your streaming options to be lacking. The whole thing is run by Sigma Design’s Dual Core 800Mhz SMP 8911 chipset, which should give you the power you need when you take advantage of the A-400′s 3D playback capabilities. As if that wasn’t enough, it seems that Syabas is considering tossing a USB 3.0 port into the mix before the player launches.
As for when that will be, we don’t have a specific answer yet. The Popcorn Hour A-400 is slated to launch in Europe sometime next month, and will come sporting a price tag of €289. For the moment, it seems that this is only scheduled for a European launch, but it probably won’t be long before the A-400 makes its way to the US. Stay tuned for more information.
In the unmarked office of 3-D Vision, Inc., you can see a television or PC display a videogame or movie with a convincing stereoscopic effect. That might not seem very unique. However, the television is a CRT from the 1990s, the video game is Super Mario for the Nintendo 64 and the movie is The Wizard of Oz, made in 1939.
Despite the growth in 3D television sales, the requirement to wear 3D glasses has loomed as one of the most significant barriers to adoption. 3-D Vision’s technology still requires glasses, at least for now. However, with some caveats, it overcomes some of the other, oft-overlooked barriers to 3D adoption by creating 3D video from 2D content on 2D (or 3D) displays. On televisions, this is achieved via a small set-top box — a prototype of which approaches the size and noise level of a mini-fridge — that plugs into the video source and the TV and converts the video in real-time with virtually no latency. The box should be available early next year.
Sony has unveiled its first 4K TV namely the XBR-84X900. The 84-inch 4K TV provides a 4K (3840 x 2160) resolution, which is four times the resolution of Full HD. The Sony XBR-84X900 features a 10-driver stereo speaker system, passive 3D viewing and the included 3D glasses. Additionally, it has full network connectivity, allowing users to control the XBR-84X900 via a tablet or a smartphone with the downloadable Media Remote App. [Akihabara]
Eager to get your hands on a top-of-the-line set without shelling out five figures for a super-slick 55-inch OLED? Sony’s Bravia HX950 may have caught your eye, with its Intelligent Peak LED Backlight that’s said to deliver “the best contrast Sony has to offer.” According to representatives at IFA (who don’t always tend to offer the most consistent specifications), the full-array system includes 196 individual zones, letting the television adjust backlighting on a more granular level, resulting in brighter whites and deeper blacks. We caught up with both the 55- and 65-inch flavors of Sony’s HX950 at the company’s booth, where several demo stations were arranged to highlight the backlighting, along with features called 3D Super-Resolution, Internet Video Super Resolution and HD Super Resolution. All of the side-by-side demonstrations provided noticeable improvements, though all three Super Resolution settings may be a tad too sharp for some viewers.
The set itself is as gorgeous as you’d expect for a flagship model, with a black glossy bezel and a narrow design that’s sufficiently svelte without stepping into ultra-thin territory. The specially designed glass panel does indeed help to reduce glare, as we experienced in the visually congested IFA booth. Perhaps most interesting is the price — €2,999 (about $3,800) for the 55-inch model, and €4,999 (about $6,300) for the 65 incher — a steep drop from the 650,000 yen (about $8,270) the HDTV is commanding in Japan. We weren’t able to confirm US availability or pricing, which will likely come in below the European tag, but reps did quote a November 1st ship date, which seems to be in line with the November 10th date we heard for Japan earlier this week. You’ll have but two months to wait before adding this monster to your collection, but you can snag a look today in our gallery below and hands-on video after the break.
You would think that people would be sick of Pac-Man by now, but we keep coming up with new versions and new ways to play the classic game. And now some enterprising folks have come up with a way to play Pac-Man in 3D. It’s surprisingly low-tech, though.
The installation was put conceived by Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy for the recent Babycastles Summit at New York’s Museum of Art and Design.
Basically, you play this game in a square room, using all four walls as a screen. This puts you right in the center of the maze as you eat power pellets and chase ghosts to every side of you and on the ceiling too. The room and ceiling are covered in white cloth with the images projected onto them. You just have to play the game as if you are in it.
I imagine this would make some people feel a bit sick, but it still looks like fun.
While it might not be as huge as the Super Hi Vision panel lingering in the same darkened theater, Panasonic’s new 103-inch demonstration display has the ability to offer up a 3D view to five different viewers — as long as they’re in the right visual sweet spot. The effect is subtle, natural, although colors felt little bit muted compared to the 145-inch prototype, with the demo videos drawing us in to its demo reel, rather than pushing out an image. The plasma display panel prototype is also glasses-free, with the 4K2K screen able to push out enough pixels to offer these multiple viewing angles. Again, there’s no substitute for being there yourself.
Wearable displays have jumped in attention over the past twelve months, with the arrival of Google’s Glass driving interest, but Sony continues to push virtual big-screen entertainment rather than augmented reality. The HMZ-T2 Personal 3D Viewer was a quiet surprise at IFA, replacing last year’s T1 with a more compact, lightweight version using a pair of 720p HD OLED screens to create a virtually vast individual screen. Read on for our hands-on first impressions.
Where wearables like Google Glass focus on overlaying digital data on top of the virtual world, Sony’s headset hopes to take you away from it. The two OLEDs are enclosed in a white and black plastic visor – you can see your feet below you, but nothing ahead of you – and though they’re each only 0.7-inches diagonal, the effect is of watching a considerably larger screen at a distance of several feet.
The first struggle is getting it to fit. Perhaps I have an unfeasibly large head, but getting the adjustable strap – which pulls on like a baseball cap, from back to front – to sit snugly but still allow the visor to sit in my eye-line proved tricky. You also need headphones, either a set of in-ear buds plugging into the HMZ-T2 itself, or a separate pair of cans that you put on secondly. There’s a padded piece that rests against your forehead, and while we were able to ignore it initially, we could imagine it might get uncomfortable after watching a full feature film.
Once you’ve actually got it on, though, the result is impressive. The screens may be 720p not 1080p, but you don’t notice at that distance: the overall effect is of crisp visuals that are bright enough to be clear but not so much as to hurt your eyes. Meanwhile the 3D effect is excellent: none of the shimmer or shudder that you can suffer using regular 3D TVs.
Controls are hidden on the lower side of the headset, though they’re quite small and – since you can’t actually see them when you’re pressing them – could do with being larger for more straightforward navigation. A dual display switcher, meanwhile, allows for two players to game on the same console, one using the TV as normal and the other seeing their own personal view through the HMZ-T2.
Sony HMZ-T2 hands-on:
Sony isn’t talking price yet for the T2, though its predecessor came in at around $800. That gets you a big TV for home viewing or a couple of tablets for on the move, though the latter are never really going to provide the same visual experience as the former. The HMZ-T2, however, might well prove a sufficient alternative, and that’s before you get into the possibility of hooking up computers or other devices to take advantage. Expect it to hit shelves later in 2012.
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The installation was put conceived by Keita Takahashi, creator of Katamari Damacy for the recent 
