Home Theater View

Retail Goes Custom

There's a new big box retail mini-chain (5 stores) here in Northern NJ, Electronics Expo, and it is unlike any other big box retail store I have seen. The CEDIA custom installation market is growing at double digit rates, and Electronics Expo is essentially a gigantic showroom for flat panel displays, front projectors, and more flat panel displays. The highlight of the store is the second level - a walkthrough of a 'model home' with flat panel displays absolutely everywhere. Extremely high end receivers - though no separates - are arrayed in two of the rooms on the main floor, but the speaker selection is paltry and tops out at mid-tier brands (Polk's LSi line and Monitor Audio). There is a whole house audio system on display (Yamaha's MusiCAST), a few MP3 players out front, and small counters for digital cameras and camcorders near the entrance.

Some observations:

• The first page in Electronics Expo's brochure highlights the availability of CEDIA custom installation for its products. Given the product selection and pricing, installation services should be a significant profit driver for Electronics Expo.
• Consumers are spending money on video, not audio, and that is the focus on the sales floor: high end video. The selection is not what a videophile would consider high end, but close.
• It's clear you can't compete with Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, or Costco on cameras, computers, DVDs, video game systems, and even most TV categories.
• Pricing is almost ludicrously high; nearly everything was MSRP, and the sale prices were not competitive with sale prices elsewhere or online.
• The store's square footage is equivalent to a small Circuit City. The level of sales help was equivalent, too -- nowhere near as knowledgeable as at many small specialty retailers.

Bottom line: Electronics Expo has a nice showroom format, which could seriously hurt specialty retailers, forcing those without significant high end clientele (those who demand truly high end systems, not just "better than at Best Buy") to become full time custom installers, and drop their retail storefronts. But Electronics Expo is counting on the continued desirability - and premium pricing - of flat panel displays. Given the poor sales help and high fixed costs for the big box showroom format, if prices on high end panels drop, Electronics Expo is going to have to find something else to sell. I have long advocated that Best Buy dedicate more floor space to lifestyle demonstrations, custom installation, and front projection; if it does so, it could bury Electronics Expo on price.

-avi

Front Projection: When More is Less

Evan Powell over at Projector Central has an insightful article up on choosing the right resolution for budget front projectors.

Bottom line:

• In the U.S., 848x480 is ideal for DVD, video games, and regular TV. HDTV looks pretty good at this resolution, too. These projectors are cheap, the images are beautiful - go for it.
• Moving up to 1024x576 is essential for Europeans, where the extra resolution is needed for regular TV (the U.S. and Europe use different TV standards).
• Moving up to 1024x576 is counterproductive for U.S. consumers because the extra resolution isn't used for TV and makes little difference on HDTV, so why spend more to risk introducing softness or artifacts on DVD, which now has to be scaled up to fit?
• Moving all the way up to 1280x720 (or higher) makes sense for U.S. consumers who plan to watch a lot of HDTV or one of the new HD disc formats being introduced later this year.

-avi

The Sony PS3 and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Reapprochment

There's been a flurry of news over the past month about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD backers getting together to avoid a format war for the next generation of high definition discs.  I've avoided covering each step on the drama, so here's a quick recap of the posturing between the two camps:

• "Hey, we're new here at Sony, and going proprietary hasn't worked out so well in the past few years. Let's work this BD/HD-DVD thing out"
• "OK"
• "Um, we can't,"
• "No, really, we're still trying,"
• "Look! HD-DVD can do 45GB per disc, too!"
• "A single format doesn't look likely - the technologies don't mesh well."
• "...but we're getting our CEOs involved to hash out licensing revenue share possibilities"
• "Nope, not looking likely..."

To this, Bill Hunt over at The Digital Bits took in a bit of E3 hype and concluded that Blu-Ray has already won (5/17/05 "Early Post"), based on the potential PS3 installed base:

I'm going to go out in a limb right now and post something that some of you may consider a bit controversial. But I think the writing is on the wall. I think the format war is over before it's even begun, and the Toshiba/HD-DVD camp is toast.

Why? You know how many PlayStation 2 systems Sony's sold since that unit's launch? 87 million. Let me repeat that. 87 million. 1.5 million were sold in the PS2's first month of availability alone.

I already covered the PS3 angle back in March noting that with PS3 support, Blu-Ray should be able to solve the chicken and egg problem better than HD-DVD to get an installed base. Of course, that assumes that Sony prices the unit within reach of the masses. Despite lots of details coming out of the PS3 launch this week, pricing hasn't been announced, so Sony could theoretically decide to sell the PS3 at $999 and kill the market.  They won't do that, but console pricing will have an outsized impact here.

-avi

Of non-iPods

I've been testing several digital music players and third party headphones - none of them from Apple. It's not that I don't like the iPod, I just haven't gotten one in recently from Apple. My past experiences with iPod suggest that Apple leads the industry with good reason.

I prefer SanDisk's Digital Audio Player to the iPod Shuffle, though I understand the Shuffle's appeal - particularly the tight integration with iTunes for moving music on and off the device.  Still, I prefer seeing the title of what I'm listening to, and the SanDisk has both a screen and a remarkably good user interface for such a small thing. SanDisk has just announced a new flash player with removable memory; I have not gotten one in yet.

For most people looking for a hard drive player, the iPod product line has no equal. I've even recommended an iPod mini for my father (he uses it to study Talmud.  Really). But what if you aren't most people? What if you want to subscribe to Yahoo!'s new service?  What if you've ripped all your CD's in WMA format?  Then you'll need to look outside the land of fruit.

I've used three 5GB players recently, but with Virgin's player now off the market, I'll focus here on Dell's Pocket DJ and Olympus' m:robe 100. Both can play WMA files, and the Dell is compatible with Microsoft "Janus" powered music subscription services (Windows Media 10 with Digital Rights Management). Both have excellent fidelity. Both have just slightly more storage space than the 4GB iPod mini, and cost a bit less (the Olympus actually costs more, but can be bought from discounters online).

The Dell DJ gains versatility by giving up software. It uses Microsoft's Windows Media player for all synchronization and music management activities, which turns out is a good thing. Apple's iTunes synchronization is slightly more straightforward (especially for novices), but Microsoft is running a close second here (and MusicMatch a close third - MusicMatch will recognize and sync with the DJ as well). The physical interface on the DJ is a scroll bar, not a touchpad, and it works fine. The user interface is nothing fancy, and does not try to add PDA functionality or FM radio or voice recording - it's a music player.

The Olympus m:robe 100 has gorgeous industrial design. From the white back it looks like an iPod, but the front is a dramatic glassy black slab with no visible buttons. The whole front surface is touch sensitive, and bright red LEDs light up when needed to indicate where the buttons are. A high resolution red LED screen complements the "buttons." It is a striking design and works well in practice, though the sliding lock switch is a necessity with the m:robe, not an option.

However, there are problems with the m:robe. The headphone jack is on the side, which makes it difficult to pocket the device. The Olympus does not support subscription services. And here's the deal breaker: the Olympus demands that you use its proprietary - and terrible - m-trip PC software for synchronization and music management. You can't drag music files to the device directly, you can't use MusicMatch or Microsoft or Apple's to manage music on the device, and the Olympus m-trip software is missing basic functionality such as syncing playlists and the songs that are associated with them. With a 30GB player, you can move all your music to the device and then mostly forget about it.  But with a 5GB player, if you have more than 5 GB of music you need to move things on and off the device frequently. I found the m-trip software too painful to use on a regular basis.

I really wanted to like the m:robe - I love holding and playing with it - and I really wanted to dislike the Dell - design-wise, it's just "OK." Neither beats Apple at its own game. But despite the m:robe being prettier than any iPod, the m:trip software it comes with is too painful to use. As a basic device for playing WMA files or tethered music from subscriptions, the Dell is much easier to recommend.

-avi