Site created 12/15/97.		page created: 1/8/00 (updated 1/13/00) CES 2000 Picture Gallery Page 8 Back to Menu Unfortunately, Sony's DVD area in their CES booth was a LOT less impressive than Aibo. There were no technology demonstrations on hand anywhere - no recordable DVD and no HD-DVD. And that was fine with me. But neither did Sony have any DVD-Audio capable players, or even progressive scan capable players on display. Ouch. Surprisingly, Sony's DVD showing was less than impressive. Above are their S570D (top), S560D (middle) and S360 players. Not a DVD-Audio or progressive scan player in the bunch. They did have a number of current and coming-soon set-top units on display, with features like the ability to remember the parental lock settings on 50 or even more discs. But I can't remember EVER using my DVD players' parental lock feature. As a DVD fan, I want performance features. I REALLY want progressive scan, which I personally think is the greatest thing to happen to DVD since the format was introduced. If you see a side-by-side demonstration of progressive scan vs. standard interlaced video, you'll be stunned. One looks like a film should (with no visible scan lines), and the other looks like... well, like a TV set. For those of you who don't know the difference, basically all current (standard) TVs construct the video image by scanning each video frame twice - half of the image on the first pass, and the other half on the second. This results in a flickery image, with noticeable scan lines, and detracts from the picture quality. But new DTVs (and the computer monitor you're reading this on) scan the image only once (progressively from top to bottom) per frame, resulting in a much smoother image. And the video data encoded on your favorite DVD is also recorded in progressive scan, which gets converted to interlaced NTSC for your current TV. But if you buy a new DVD player that can output progressive scan and a new DTV, you'll see the image in quality that will amaze you. To address our concerns about the lack of progressive scan and other DVD innovations in the Sony booth, one company representative (who contacted me this week) had this to say: "Sony in general is very conservative about what products they show - they rarely put out prototypes or products that won't ship for at least 6 months. That's why you didn't see DVD-A or DVD-RW in the booth. In fact, their focus was almost exclusively on hi-def television, which is finally ready for prime time. Apparently, they're still doing some tweaking on the progressive scan player. You may remember that all of Sony's MPEG ICs are proprietary, rather than just popping in the latest OEM chip. Sony made the decision, I believe correctly, that it wasn't appropriate to take the current interlaced output from the MPEG chip and then convert it back to progressive and call it a "progressive" player. The new player will take the progressive feed directly from the disc without any interlacing conversion. I believe this is what Toshiba's 2nd generation Super Progressive is doing also - basically, the way it should have been done originally." I'd like to thank this gentlemen for his thoughtful comments, which should go a long way to explaining Sony's position. It does sound as though good things are coming for DVD from Sony. Still, it doesn't help that fact that other manufacturers are rolling out product with some of these features now... or the fact that (from a DVD standpoint at least) their CES offerings were rather dull. Here's Sony's currently-available DVD changer - 200 discs. I will give Sony this though - they're finally rolling out at least one DVD portable player that has an LCD screen. Pictured below is the sleek DVP-FX1 (with 7-inch display) and its screenless cousin, the DVP-F5. Finally, a Sony portable with an LCD screen - the DVP-FX1 (with 7-inch display)... ...and the DVP-F5, without display. And if you'd rather not let those around you know what you're watching... or you'd like to watch a movie in bright daylight (against which an LCD can't compete), you can use Sony's nifty set of LCD glasses with earphones. Dubbed the "Glasstron" you simply slip them on and get to see a "simulated" 52" screen before your very eyes. They're just now available, for roughly $599. But while they work surprisingly well, the resolution just doesn't compare to even the LCD screen on a portable DVD player. It's cool... but I'll wait until they refine it a bit. Your faithful editor demos a set of Sony LCD glasses for use with their portables. The verdict? Neat, but not ready for prime time. I can tell you that Frankie was plenty excited to finally get a live demonstration of Sony's Super Audio CD (SACD). But after comparing it to DVD-Audio... well, both of us were less than thrilled. To start with, it's 2-channel only. And while it sounds very good, it's hard to get excited about it next to the full surround sound of DVD-A. We did hear a great demonstration of DVD-A at the show - more on that in a minute. To be fair, a table-top demonstration through headphones probably isn't the best way to demonstrate the technology. We'll definitely give SACD a second chance when we get our hands on demo product. But given what we heard on DVD-Audio... SACD's got a big hill to climb. And Bits audio editor Frank Ortiz checks out Sony's 2-channel only SACD. His 2 cents? Nowhere near as cool as DVD-Audio. A closer look at Sony's mammoth SACD player. The real showcase of Sony's booth was DTV. But Frank and I wanted to see DVD, and we were both disappointed that so little was on display. We spent a LOT of time in Panasonic, Pioneer and Toshiba's booths. But we skipped out of Sony right quick... and since we're both Sony fans, that's too bad. We're really hoping for a lot more from Sony next year. And a final look at the Sony DVD booth - no DVD-Audio, DVD-R, HD-DVD demonstration or even progressive scan. All in all, extremely disappointing. On to Page 9
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