 |
|
Mark Muschett puts X10's DVD/MP3 Anywhere Kit to the test |
|
|
|
|
|
| Sound News | Press
Releases | Archives | Week In
Review | Editorials
| Articles | |
|
|
|
||||
|
|||||
|
|
DVD/MP3 Anywhere - Mark Muschett - Last updated January 17, 2000
With the growing influx of low cost DVD drives to the PC market the temptation becomes great to get dual use out of your PC DVD for home theater, especially given that stand-alone DVD players (on average starting at $250) are still on average double the price of a decent HI-FI VCR (around $125). Its worth noting that we have also seen a review of one player stating it can be found for as low as US$175.00 street price and while that's unusually low, the gap is narrowing. Despite that price difference and the higher costs of DVD movies compared to video tapes, DVD sales are booming. According to a recent article on CNET several movies stores now have almost as much shelf space for DVD as they have for VHS and blockbuster titles like Private Ryan the DVD version outsold the VHS version. The report also predicts that DVD-ROM drives will outsell CD-ROM drives by 2001. This year CD-ROM sold 94.9 million while DVD-ROM drives had sales of 13.4 million which still is a lot of people with DVD on their PC. If you had a PC DVD setup but were frustrated with your 17" monitor your options until recently have been fairly limited. You could put your PC close enough to the TV to use cables to connect it. The longest A/V cables I could find were 12 feet long so lets take that as the common limit. The down side of this, at least in my household, is I might want to play games and someone else wants to watch TV. There is no way around that other than having the TV and computer in separate rooms. Now the options are more limited. Expensive custom A/V cabling is an option but by the time you buy it and install it you would have been better off investing in a stand alone DVD unit. Well in comes X-10 to the rescue or at least so we will find out in this review. X10 designs, develops, manufactures and markets a wide variety of home automation, home security and home entertainment products which are inexpensive and easily installed by consumers. Today, X10 Ltd. and its subsidiaries employ more people in the design, development, manufacture and marketing of electronic home automation products than any other company in the world. The longtime original equipment manufacturer had long been the premier supplier of products for the Wired Home. It was X10 who developed the Powerline Carrier Technology, now an industry standard, to use existing AC wiring to automatically control lights, appliances, and security systems. It was X10 who chose an open standard that has been embraced by companies such as RCA and IBM. In 1997, X10 ltd. launched X10.com which is based in Seattle, Washington in the US. X10.com is the newest company in the X10 family, managed by the X10 (USA) Retail Sales Division. The X10 (USA) Retail Sales Division is one of three subsidiaries of X10 ltd. The other divisions are the Professional Installation Division, (X10Pro), and the OEM Division, (X10 OEM.). X10.com was developed to take advantage of two factors. One: the Internet has changed the marketplace by providing a direct link to buying customers. Recently, Media Metrix has ranked X10 as a top one hundred e-commerce Web site based on traffic and sales. Second: selling online was a perfect match for X10’s products, known for providing high functionality at a low-cost. To date, X10 has shipped well over one hundred million units of home control products worldwide. X10 has received numerous consumer and industry awards. So we know that X10 has a long and successful history in wireless home products but what is this DVD Anywhere and MP3 Anywhere product how does it perform? The DVD Anywhere Kit consists of a two main parts - a transmitter and that sends a stereo audio signal and high-quality video using 2.4-gigahertz wireless signals from the DVD movie to the a receiver connected to the TV. According to X10, the key to this breakthrough is the use of new 2.4 GHz technology. The frequency has a broad signal range which means that more video information can be transmitted. The results are cleaner pictures, reduced signal interference when compared to lower frequencies. What's more, because it's used much less than the old 900 MHz frequency, the 2.4 GHz range is virtually uncluttered so again much less interference. The best part about this technology is that it creates a circular polarization signal to provide clear, powerful retransmission of audio and video signals throughout your home - unobstructed by walls, ceiling, furniture, or floors. So the question is does it work as advertised? Read on to find out… Technical Overview and Installation--->
|
Speaker Reviews Altec Lansing ADA880 Dolby Digital Cambridge SoundWorks FPS2000 digital Cambridge SoundWorks 2.1 Digital Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT2500 Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1 DTT3500 Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks 510D Diamond Audio Technology ProMedia 3205 Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 Initial Review Logitech SoundMan Xtrusio DSR-100 Philips MMS305 4.1 Initial Review Yamaha TSS1 Dolby Digital / DTS 5.1 Sirocco Crossfire vs ProMedia v.2-400 Evergreen RumbleFX force feedback headphones Jazz Speakers DE-005/DE-006 Digital Audio Decoders Boostaroo Headphone Amplifier / Splitter |
|
|
|
All content, design and work is ©
2001 - 3D Sound Surge Please respect the copyrights of the articles and writers herein. All copyrights are enforced by 3DSS.