Review Remember those rugged plastic ‘singalong’ cassette players you could buy for pre-school children? The Aiptek MobileCinema D10 looks a projector version of the same kind of thing. Encased in tough, nursery-blue plastic, it is the least fragile projector we have ever tested, and the only one that required absolutely no warmup or setup whatsoever.
Cute or hideous? Aiptek’s MobileCinema
However, the MobileCinema D10 is not a home cinema as you might understand it. If you are looking for a quality image and surround sound, keep looking. This product is a toy, an amusing gadget, a £160 spent for a bit of a laugh. Read the rest of this entry »
Review LaCie was among the first hard disk manufacturers to produce high capacity, multimedia storage devices designed for media playback. These hard drives, equipped with A/V interfacing, enabled you to take your digital music and video files away from your computer and play them on a decent hi-fi and a full-size TV screen. With its new LaCinema Black range, LaCie has gone a step further and produced a full-scale set-top box.
Screen idol? LaCie’s LaCinema Black MAX
There are three models in the Black range, starting at around £280 for the Black PLAY, which is essentially a straightforward media server. However, we decided to test the top-of-the-range Black MAX, which costs a hefty £420 with 500GB hard disk or £505 with 1TB. That’s expensive, but the Black MAX does make an ambitious attempt to combine a network media server and a set-top DVR in a single unit.
The glossy black box measures around 9in wide and deep and a little under 2in high. It’s larger than an ordinary hard disk, but still only about half the size of our Sky+ box. A quick look around the back reveals a good selection of input and output options, including a digital TV tuner. However, at this price you might have expected two separate tuners, so that you could record one programme while watching another. Read the rest of this entry »
Enjoy the magic of movies in tighter spaces with this compact cinema system. Featuring an integrated universal iPod dock, a built-in subwoofer and cinema Sound it immerses you in sound and quality video with HDMI 1080p upscaling.
Though it bears a strong resemblance to a certain vacuuming robot, the new cinema One from philips is actually a fully integrated A/V system. philips has managed to squeeze an iPod dock, a slot-loading CD/DVD player, a five channel amplifier, six speakers, and a 4″ subwoofer into a device with a diameter of just 10.75″. Read the rest of this entry »
