Onkyo have ticked pretty much every box with their latest line of home cinema AV receivers. From 4K support through to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, the new Onkyo TX-NR929 and TX-NR828 receivers look feature-rich.

Each can take and accept pass through of 4K footage from UHD sources, making them future-proofed against the inevitable slew of 4K content set to hit in the coming years, while both can also upscale footage to 4K using Qdeo processing tech from Marvell for those lucky (and rich) enough to be able to get their hands on a 4K screen early.

The TX-NR929 is the higher-end model of the two, boasting 9.2 surround sound channels, nine HDMI inputs and two HDMI outputs. Set-up and calibrations is made breezy thanks to Audyssey's MultEQ XT32 room acoustic equalisation too.

The TX-NR828 on the other hand houses eight HDMI inputs and and two HDMI outputs, and uses the older Audyssey MultEQ tech that's been seen present in earlier Onkyo kit.

Both receivers also offer wireless loseless audio streaming from iPhone, iPad, Android, PC, Mac and NAS boxes, and include up-mixing options taking in Audyssey DSX and Dolby Pro Logic IIz. The top-end model also offers DTS Neo:X processing.

Available right now, the TX-NR929 will set you back £1,500, while the TX-NR828 will hit stores in June priced £1,000.

High-end audio manufacturers Bang & Olufsen have launched their first dedicated 5.1 surround sound system, the BeoLab 14.

Consisting of a subwoofer and five satellites, they're primarily made from aluminium, giving the round speakers (sitting on the end of aluminium poles) a retro sci-fi aesthetic. Those poles can be adjusted in height, while the speaker units themselves can be detached for wall mounting or even hung upside down from the ceiling.

The system will be sold in two separate packages, one intended for owners of Bang & Olufsen televisions that comes with only four satellites and the sub (with the B&O TV's own built-in audio making up the centre channel) and a package intended for all other AV enthusiasts, with a standard 5.1 configuration. "It's a balance between the fight between the designer and the sound engineer," said CEO Tue Mantoni at the system's launch in London.

"It's for someone who want's great sound, but does not want technology to take over their home. It's been a wish for the designer side of our team to create a product that is well designed, without any seams or join lines, and without comprising on audio quality. In terms of manufacture we start with a solid piece of aluminium and are able to avoid welding lines as a result."In terms of tech specs, the system makes use of a 280-watt subwoofer with a downward-facing 8-inch driver, housed in a cone-like casing, with five separate 140-watt amplifiers for the satellites. Low-end frequencies hit 26hz. Each satellite is houses 2.5-inch active treble and midrange drivers, with the whole unit measuring just 16-cm in diameter. As you'd expect from Bang & Olufsen, a selection of different coloured speaker grilles allow you to customise the look to suit your home preferences.

In typical Bang & Olufsen fashion, the systems don't come cheap. Starting at £2495 for the 4.1 system and rising to £2,795 for the full 5.1 set-up, they become available as of today from Bang & Olufsen dealerships. The optional stands themselves cost an additional £190 a pair, so start saving those pennies.

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All men at some point or other have experienced 'stage fright' - the fear of not being able to go for a wee in a urinal if other people are around. But what if above the urinals were women looking down on you and your chap as you are trying to do your business?

That's the premise behind LG's latest viral video, Stage Fright - So Real It's Scary 2. Only instead of real women looking directly at you which would be a little weird, it's actually two models who have been filmed in such a way as to appear live to the guys in the toilet. 

The idea is that the colours of LG's 21:9 ultra wide display are so realistic that you actually think there are sexy women on the other side ripping through adverts to take a peak at your manhood.

And the funny thing is that it works! While some of the guys experience stage fright, others are more brave and try to kiss the women or ask for their number. You can see the stunt for yourself in the video below: 

LG are set to add Spotify music streaming to their connected home cinema systems.

Plenty of LG's web connected Blu-ray players and speaker systems from 2013 will be getting the new Spotfy app, set to launch in April. No word yet however on whether it will hit the company's Smart TV line up too.

The Spotify app joins BBC iPlayer, Netflix, LoveFilm and a host of other web services on the company's ever-growing smart platform.

Craig West, Head of Marketing, LG Consumer Electronics UK, said:

"LG's Smart platform provides unparalleled choice for consumers and the addition of Spotify demonstrates LG's continued commitment to growing the brand's Smart offering for consumers. We are confident that LG Smart media owners will enjoy these latest services, as well as the fantastic updates we have planned for the rest of the year."

"It's our mission to make all the world's music available instantly to everyone, everywhere, so we're delighted to partner with LG to make our music service available on their smart media devices", added Kate Opekar, Director, hardware business development at Spotify.

"Spotify wants to be at the heart of the home entertainment experience, so it's a natural fit to make our music service available on blu-ray players and home cinema systems."

The LG products set to get the Spotify update are the BH9430PW, BH7530TW, BH7430P, BH7130C, BH6730S, BH6430P, BH6230S, BP730, BP630 and the BP530R.

Those looking to use the Spotify app will need to be signed up for a premium account, which will set you back £9.99 a month and offer unlimited mobile and desktop streaming of Spotify's music catalogue, as well as the ability to download albums as offline playlists.

Panasonic are rumoured to be slowing down their TV production, and considering pulling the plug on plasma TVs altogether.

According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, Panasonic will gradually pull back TV production over the next three years, and could even stop plasma TV production altogether as soon as 2014.

A quick look at Panasonic's books however show that it's hardly a surprising move. The company has struggled in recent years, with the TV division failing to turn a profit for the past five quarters. It's thought that Panasonic will instead refocus its efforts on the automotive and enterprise divisions, as well as in-flight entertainment systems, an area where they are proving more successful.

There's been suggestion that Panasonic would be pulling plasma production to a halt for some time now, with rumours suggesting the company had stopped pumping money into its plasma research and development centres some time ago.

For home cinema enthusiasts however, this will still come as a great loss. Once Pioneer gave up their plasma production and the stunning Kuro line was discontinued, Panasonic plasmas were the next best thing. With Panasonic now looking to remove themselves from the market, and AV enthusiasts still insisting that Plasma TVs offer the best picture quality, it's not certain where they'll now turn to for their TV fixes.

LG's stunning 55-inch OLED TV, as seen earlier this year at the CES tech circus in Las Vegas, is now up for pre-order for UK home cinema fans. The LG 55EM970V can be ordered from Harrods, ready to take home from July.

But it'll cost you. It's listed at a bank-breaking £9,999.99.

You are getting a hell of a lot of TV for the money though. A staggeringly thin set at just 4.5mm thick, it uses LG's WRGB technology (adding a white pixel to the usual red, green and blue array) to deliver top-notch picture quality, along with a wide viewing angle and superb 3D performance with LG's passive Cinema 3D tech.

As a Smart TV, the set is also fully web connected, allowing you to browse the internet, update social networks and check out video content services such as Netflix and LoveFilm.

"We are proud to be the first in the world to offer consumers a big screen OLED TV," said Brian Na, President of LG Electronics UK.

"LG's next generation display is a true game changer, which will forever alter the way we think about TVs. Since OLED TV was first unveiled, we've been working tirelessly to bring what we call 'the ultimate display' to market. I'm sure you'll agree that our 55-inch OLED TV has definitely been worth the wait."
 
Andrew Mackay, UK Commercial Director of Home Entertainment and Home Appliances added: "Following the LG launch and supply to the Korean market earlier in the year, the UK is proud to be the next market to launch LG OLED TV, as this innovative and premium model launches first in Europe to UK consumers."  

Name: Orbitsound M9

Type: Wireless Bluetooth soundbar

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: Available from March 2013 at £299.99 direct from Orbitsound

Orbitsound pop wireless Bluetooth streaming into the new M9 soundbar, just one of many new improvements made to the company's already-excellent soundbar range. But can the tweaks and new features of the M9 justify a price tag 50% more expensive than its predecessor? Read on to find out!

Orbitsound blew us away last year with their diminutive T9 soundbar, which achieved a perfect score in our review. A compact speaker unit that was just as well suited to supporting a home cinema set up as it was blasting out your favourite tunes from its iPod dock, it was a real bargain at £199. Orbitsound has now followed it up with the new-and-improved M9 speaker, which irons out the few kinks that were present in the T9 whilst adding a few brand new features too.

Pairing both a soundbar and subwoofer together again, at first glance the M9 looks very similar to its T9 predecessor. Only marginally bigger at 300mm x 90mm x 100mm for the soundbar and 345mm x 140mm x 230 mm for the subwoofer, it's again an all-black finish (gloss on the soundbar, matte on the subwoofer), with a pop-off front metal grille exposing the soundbar's speakers if you prefer. Though pre-production units don't have it, the M9 will ship with an LED light behind the grille to help indicate power state and remote control inputs.

However, there's a significant and notable difference with the M9. The new model has ditched the T9's iPod dock in favour of a wireless Bluetooth connection. This means that any device with a Bluetooth connection can quickly be paired with the M9 and stream audio wirelessly to it. While the T9 was great for iPhones and iPods thanks to its dock, users of other smartphones or MP3 devices had to make do with the 3.5mm jack. Though that 3.5mm port is still present, Bluetooth support makes the M9 far more flexible overall, especially for tablet users.On top instead of the dock then is a new control panel, with buttons which let you switch audio sources (the active source is indicated by a light next to its name), activate Bluetooth pairing, control volume and put the soundbar into standby mode.

If Bluetooth streaming isn't an option for you, Orbitsound still squeeze in a number of other connections on the rear of the M9 soundbar, including optical, AUX and the aforementioned 3.5mm. That optical port will be useful for anyone looking to hook up a digital audio source such as a Blu-ray player, but we still miss the presence of a HDMI pass-through. You'll also find a power switch on the back.Likewise, the subwoofer is now a 2.4GHz wireless unit too (aside from its power cable, of course), meaning it can be popped anywhere in a room. It's also now an active side-firing subwoofer unit compared to the T9's passive sub, giving it a bit more oomph than its predecessor and a more stable sound at higher volume levels. With the wireless support allowing the subwoofer to sit around 15 metres from the M9 soundbar, Orbitsound have sensibly put an independent volume knob on the back of the subwoofer, letting you tweak its output to be appropriate to its surroundings and distance from the soundbar. A "normal" setting is marked too however, which should be suitable for most scenarios, though we wish the dial had this off-centre point notched so that we could find it without having to get behind the subwoofer. There's also an independent power switch for the subwoofer on the back too.Even the remote control is improved, feeling weightier than its predecessor, and offering track selection controls and play/pause control over connected Bluetooth devices. We still find the buttons themselves a little cheap, and would rather had a remote that matches the feel of the soundbar's new top-mounted control panel, but it's still better than what went before.

There are a handful of other improvements over the T9 too. The M9 now saves fine-tuned audio tweaks to treble and bass settings (carried out by the remote control) when the power is switched off, something the T9 annoyingly didn't. Also, if you've been blasting out tunes for a party at a ridiculous volume the night before, the M9 will now sensibly dial back the volume to a more gentle level the next time its switched on. It'll even go into a low-power standby mode automatically if it's left switched on for a time without outputting any sound.Sonically, the M9 continues to impress. Like its predecessor it is able to hit ridiculously high volumes regardless of its compact size. Packing in twin 2.5-inch mid-high drivers, two full range "spacial generators" (we'll talk about them in a second), a single 1-inch tweeter and a new digital amp capable of 200W output, it uses new programming to reduce distortion even at the highest volume levels. Also, despite being wireless, the use of high-gain antennas mean there's next to no delay, with the soundbar and subwoofer staying in sync between an inaudible 10ms delay. The sub's 6.5-inch driver also delivers meaty low levels, staying composed even at higher volumes.

The Orbitsound brand's key audio draw though is its patented Spatial Stereo technology, again present in the M9. As well as speakers housed in the soundbar facing forwards, there are two more "spatial generators" placed in the sides pointing left and right. Along with some clever audio processing, they give the effect of a stereo sound no mater where you are in relation to the soundbar. It's a system we've praised in the past, and it continues to impress here.Listening to a range of music, the Orbitsound M9 handles all genres magnificently. From the crashing drums of ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead's 'Worlds Apart' album to the shimmery electro of Crystal Castles and onto the subtle piano runs of Debussy, it's a warm, evenly balanced sound with detailed highs and comfortable, enveloping lows. If you prefer a little more bass or more treble, the hardware knob on the back of the subwoofer and fine-tuning tweaks offered by the remote will suit your needs well. It's also a great unit for beefing up TV and movie output. That subwoofer adds some real punch to explosive action scenes, while voices sit clearly at the front.

Verdict

Orbitsound continue to impress with the M9 soundbar. Wireless technologies are implemented well, while numerous other small improvements over last year's T9 model, including saved audio preferences and an improved remote, along with the consistently superb Spatial Stereo technology, make it easy to recommend. Its significantly higher price tag of £299 (£100 more expensive than the T9 launched at), means that the outgoing T9 isn't made obsolete yet, and will likely now drop to bargain prices. However, the convenience and flexibility of a Bluetooth connection will certainly make the new M9 highly sought after, and it'd still be £299 well spent when compared to the competition.

Alongside a raft of handycams, cameras and an impressive smartphone range, Sony have also showed off a few prototype gadgets at this year's CES. Most impressive was the "in development" 56-inch 4K OLED TV.

The first and largest 4K OLED TV in the world, Sony have used a new "Super Top Emission" technology to overcome the challenge of pushing light through larger OLED glass. It looked incredibly impressive according to experts in attendance, setting a new standard for OLED TVs (despite the fact that the technology is still yet to become available in western stores).

Sony also used the show to reveal new 55 and 65-inch versions of the 84-inch 4K LED Bravia screen that impressed us so much at IFA in Berlin last year.

Looking to lead the 4K field as the televisual revolution kicks into gear, Sony will also be showcasing a 4K consumer camcorder and the first line-up of 4K Blu-ray discs.

Click here for more news from CES 2013

After a wait that's felt like an age, LG have finally unleashed a commercially available large screen OLED TV to consumers. Korean home cinema fans can now get their mitts on the 55-inch 55EM9700.

A lush WRGB panel (adding a white pixel to the usual red, green blue array for brighter images), the screen is an insanely thin 4mm thick, weighing just 10kg, with a wide viewing angle and deep blacks.

The screen looks very similar to the 55EM9600, which Tech Digest went eyes-on with back in May of last year. It never made it to market in the end, but our first impressions of that TV should give you a good idea of what to expect with the 55EM9700.

1,400 Korean stores will be stocking the OLED TV, with shipping due to start in February. UK, US and European home cinema fanatics can expect a localised release to follow shortly afterwards, but be warned; it don't come cheap. The 55EM9700 lands with a 1,100,000 Korean Won price tag. That's around £6,300 or over $10,000.

Set to wow that crowds on the CES 2013 show floor next week, we'll have more from LG's home cinema portfolio for 2013 next week.

Logitech's Harmony range of universal AV remote controls are among the best available, but have been well overdue an update for some time now. The Logitech Harmony Touch answers that call with aplomb, adding a 2.4-inch colour touchscreen to its multi-device controlling smarts.

As well as regular hardware button controls for DVR/DVD playback and volume controls, the Harmony Touch lets users assign up to 50 favourite channel icons on the touchscreen, in an interface not dissimilar to Apple's iPhone iOS UI.

Tap, swipe and scrolling controls can also be used to control a wide range of other TV functions (with many geared towards triggering Smart TV functions), as well as offering backlit hardware keys.

"The Logitech Harmony Touch represents the next evolution for the universal remote," said Joerg Tewes, vice president of Logitech's digital home business group.

"Today, people prize convenience and want home-entertainment systems that are impressive and easy to use. With this in mind, Logitech designed a remote that makes it simple for people to customise their experience, and feel in control of their systems like never before."

Supporting 225,000 home entertainment devices and more than 5,000 brands, the Logitech Harmony Touch can control as many as 15 of your AV devices at once.

Out in October, it'll set you back £149.

Onkyo have revealed their DS-A5 dock, which allows you to add Apple's AirPlay media streaming capabilities to old home cinema receivers and Hi-Fi kits.

The DS-A5 has an Ethernet port for cabled internet connectivity, as well as Wi-Fi options, letting you stream content from both mobile Apple devices and PCs or Macs with iTunes.

Stereo phono audio outputs, optical audio out and a composite video out socket also allow for standard definition video to be pumped to a big screen.

There's also a direct digital connector for iPhones (but not the iPhone 5), iPad and iPod touch (again, not this month's recent updated ones).

An RI connection on the dock also allows compatible Onkyo kit to connect to iPhone's iPads and iPod Touch devices, letting you boot up your audio gear from standby by tapping the AirPlay icon on the iGadgets. A dedicated remote lets you control docked Apple devices too.

The dock can also be hooked up to non-Onkyo home cinema kit, but you loose the benefits of RI connectivity.

Available now, you can pick it up for £150.

IFA has traditionally been an AV showcase for the major brands, but with a shift towards mobile over the past few years, the 2012 Berlin tech extravaganza had fewer stand-out home cinema moments this year. Sony's 84-inch 4K Bravia KD-84X9005 TV was one such stand-out screen.

A gigantic display, the screen doesn't take massive chances in terms of industrial design. Stood on a two-legged, practical chrome stand and with a sizeable bezel and thickness, it doesn't have the initial wow factor that, say, the LG OLED display touts.

But get a 4K feed into the new flagship Bravia and the screen comes to life. Boasting a resolution of 3840x2160, it's four times as sharp as a full HD 1080p display, pushing 8 million pixels to the viewer's eyes. Sony manages this with their new 4K X-Reality Pro processing engine, which delivers jaw-dropping visuals. Colours are bold and movement is handled in a fluid, natural way that's easy on the eyes. But it's the added detail that really impresses. Fine detail is pulled out of every inch of the screen, giving far more depth to images, particularly in busy landscape and natural scenes. A field full of long grass shimmers with the breeze, and if you push your nose right up to the screen you can pick out individual blades with barely a pixel seam in sight. It's stunning.The KD-84X9005 also benefits from having a pair of dedicated external speakers bolted onto either side. Noting that flatscreen TVs have woeful audio capabilities, Sony have gone for a practical solution by basically sticking two soundbars to the left and right of the screen. Each houses 5 individual "Live Speakers" for 50W of pseudo-5.1 surround sound. Even amidst the noisy bustle of Sony's IFA stand, we got a strong appreciation for the width of the soundstage (it helps to have those speakers a few feet apart thanks to the screen's size), as well as the resonant bass frequencies that are so often seriously inadequate on flat-screen displays.

Perhaps most impressively (and most importantly, considering the relative lack of native 4K footage currently available to consumers) was the screen's upscaling capabilities. We saw the 4K screen displaying the same 1080p landscape footage side-by-side with a previous Sony flagship standard HD screen of similar size, and were blown away by how well the new screen picked out extra detail in the older footage. Upscaling is not always a pretty sight, but the KD-84X9005 managed pleasantly sharp images that drew added depth from the lower-resolution source material, without too much added noise. The 4K X-Reality Pro really shows its chops here, meaning that even with little native 4K footage, you'll be able enjoy an improved image with your current catalogue of Blu-ray titles.
If there was one area where we were less impressed, it was with 3D footage. Using a passive system, the screen managed better brightness, less flicker and richer colours thanks to the 4K source than other top-tier 3D panels we have viewed. However, the sense of depth from The Amazing Spider-Man trailer Sony used to demo the 3D effect was reserved to the point of being unnoticeable. But, as some commentators have noted, this may easily be down to the subdued nature of the 3D effect in the source material, rather than being a flaw of the screen.

All in, Sony's KD-84X9005 4K 84-inch TV was very impressive. Tentatively priced at 25,000 Euros (or £19,805) this is very much out of the average consumer's league, but it bodes well for the 4K revolution as a whole. Give it a year or two and prices will come down to affordable realms, and there will also finally be enough 4K footage to justify such a screen. On the back of our brief time with the KD-84X9005, Sony are already one step ahead of the competition in the 4K field.

Click here for more news straight from the IFA 2012 technology show

TP Vision, the new TV manufacturing arm for Philips, have revealed the new PFL6900 Smart TV series, ditching the chunky frames of Philips' earlier offerings.

Measuring just 35mm thick but still squeezing in the atmospheric Ambilight technology that throws light around the walls surrounding the TV, they're fully connected sets with 3D support thrown in for good measure.

Available in 42 and 47-inch sizes, both 6900 series screens offer catch-up TV services, web browsing, online video download stores apps and USB hard-disk recording of shows across three USB ports.

Android and iPhone users will be able to control the sets via the Philips MyRemote App, while gamers will be able to use the 3D capabilities of the screen to view the entire display each when sharing the TV for split-screen multiplayer games.

600Hz Perfect Motion Rate refresh rates and 4 HDMI ports round off an impressive spec list.

Pricing and availability to follow. We'll update when we have it.

Click here for more news straight from the IFA 2012 technology show

Sony's HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer headset was one of the maddest home cinema devices we've had the pleasure of trying in recent years. Sure, it wasn't all that comfortable (so heavy you had to lean back to use it for extended periods of time) and it was as expensive as a whole TV despite only one person being able to use it at a time, but it looked as though it came from a future, Tron-inspired world, and offered a pretty darn good 3D viewing experience. Sony have now used IFA 2012 to reveal its successor, the HMZ-T2.

Aimed mainly at gamers (though working equally well with 3D movies), the HMZ-T2 uses stereo OLED panels (one for each eye) to deliver its 3D visuals, eliminating the crosstalk issues other 3D sets suffer from. There's also virtual surround sound onboard for a personal cinema experience.

This time around everything should feel far more comfortable though, being significantly lighter at 330g and with more fitting options to let the device fit more snugly around your head and over your eyes. You can now also hook up your own headphones, either wired or wireless, to the headset, given a tailored audio experience, as well as those that come with the device.

"Everything about the HMZ-T2 Personal 3D Viewer is designed for comfort and total immersion," says Naoto Yoshioka, Home Audio Video senior product manager at Sony Europe.

"Once you're watching a film or playing a game, you're totally absorbed in the thrilling action and forget you're even wearing the headset."

No pricing or release date revealed yet, but we wouldn't expect this to land much cheaper than the £500 price tag of the original model.

Click here for more news straight from the IFA 2012 technology show

Name: Orbitsound T9

Type: Soundbar/ iPod dock

Price: £199.99 direct from Orbitsound

Who said that good things can't come in small packages? Orbitsound's latest soundbar/iPod dock combo, the T9, is as dinky as they come, but doesn't scrimp on either volume or audio quality. Read on to find out why we may have a new favourite soundbar.

Whereas your average soundbar can be upwards of 20 inches long and a few inches deep, Orbitsound's T9 is positively minuscule by comparison, measuring just 300mm x 94mm x 94mm. Even the supplied subwoofer is relatively small, measuring 230mm x 139mm x 344 mm. Available in either black or white (we got our grubby mitts on a white version), the T9 set is small enough to fit into even the busiest of home cinema set-ups. As with earlier Orbitsound soundbars, it looks very nice too; both the soundbar and the subwoofer are simple, inoffensive boxy shapes, with a metal grille attached to the front of the soundbar magnetically, which can be removed if you prefer the look of the T9's exposed speaker array.

Being so small, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the T9 would struggle to hit higher volumes without distorting, or be capable or the width and space a more traditionally sized soundbar could achieve. But you'd be wrong. Orbitsound's T9 makes use of a patented audio system called Spatial Stereo Technology. As well as housing speakers (two mid-high drivers and one tweeter) at the front of the T9, Orbitsound also pop two midrange speakers onto the side. Combined with some clever audio-processing wizardry, the result is that, no matter where you position yourself ion relation to the T9, you'll always feel enveloped by that stereo "sweetspot". It's impressed us before on earlier Orbitsound gear, but with the size of the T9 so dramatically smaller, it's even more marvellous an achievement here.

Volume levels too can reach disarmingly loud heights with the T9, despite the size. You'll easily fill a decent sized room with sound, be it for a party filled with guests or a booming blockbuster movie night. There's little sign of distortion even towards the top decibel levels, with volume maxing out at 140RMS from the soundbar and sub combined. Made from a lacquered wooden case, lows can resonate without ever rattling, and overall the sound is always warm and smooth at the preset EQ levels.

The sub and soundbar feel well balanced with each other too; the sub here is a little less boisterous than with earlier Orbitsound gear, making it (to our ears) better suited to music playback than before, which a handily placed iPod/iPhone dock on the top of the T9 easily accommodates. Again, the speakers are well tuned, with great detail no matter what the genre. Likewise, movies sound just as good, with dialogue cutting clearly through even in busy action scenes.

If you do feel the need to tinker with the well-balanced EQ presets, a tidy little remote control lets you do so. You can tweak bass and treble settings, but the jump between notches is quite significant, so a delicate touch when refining the sound to your own personal preferences is needed. The remote also lets you pick the audio source connected to the T9, as well as jumping through iPod tracks, and feels sturdy enough in the hand.

A strong array of audio connections mean that the T9 can hook up to practically any audio source. As well as the iPod dock, you've got 3.5mm and stereo phono inputs, as all as an optical S/PDIF input, with an optical cable popped into the box for good measure. If there's one thing missing, it's HDMI, which Blu-ray audiophiles will likely miss. Other than that, it's a thorough offering.
Verdict

The Orbitsound T9 ticks almost every box for a soundbar. Room-filling, crystal-clear and spacious sound is complimented by a balanced subwoofer, all in a package small enough to fit into even the most cramped of AV set-ups. The Spatial Stereo technology continues to impress, and though it's a shame that high-quality Blu-ray sources aren't better catered for through HDMI, there are plenty of connectivity options to counteract that. Take into account the relatively low £199.99 price too and the T9 quickly climbs to the top of the soundbar pile. Great stuff.

We've been big fans of OLED TV tech at Tech Digest and HDTV UK for many a year since first setting eyes upon a prototype Sony screen at CES a few shows ago. Incremental updates to the tech have wowed us at subsequent trade shows, but high prices for screens no bigger than 15 inches have made OLED televisions a ludicrous luxury for only the most demanding of AV enthusiasts.

That's all set to change this year however as LG and Samsung go head-to-head with stonking 55-inch OLED models, due in stores later this year. Tech Digest and HDTV UK were invited this week to LG's glitzy Monaco launch event for their 55-inch OLED TV offering. Make no mistakes; if you're in the market for a new TV, this is what your cash should be splashed on.

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) televisions offer some key advantages over LCD or LED screens. Faster refresh rates and wider viewing angles can be paired with deep contrast ratios and lavish colours. As OLED sets don't use backlights, this can all be achieved with far lower power consumption levels, in bezels almost invisibly thin.

LG's 55EM9600 OLED TV made its first appearance at the start of the year in January's CES 2012 show, and while little has changed with the set in the subsequent months, it's still massively exciting to see.

The latest headlining feature of LG's OLED TV detailed at this week's launch is its use of WRGB technology. Adding a white sub-pixel to the standard red, green and blue set-up, LG claim WRGB panels will "perfect" colour output and make the image displayed feel "natural and colourful to the human eye". It's a similar technique as was used by Sharp in their Quattron televisions, which added a yellow sub-pixel with impressive results.

Even without the WRGB technology, the screen would attract attention purely based upon how thin it is. At a ridiculous 4mm thin, it's half the thickness of your average smartphone, weighing just 10kgs thanks to its being built from carbon fibre reinforced plastics. Those who like to wall-mount their displays will instantly fall in love, with the LG5EM9600 sitting almost flush against the wall.

It's a real treat for the eyes, with the display delivering vibrant, bold colours. Close-up footage of rain-soaked plant petals felt crisp enough to reach into the TV and touch. If anything, LG's rainbow-like showreel ran the risk of making the screen seem overly saturated, but as with all showroom settings you'll likely be able to tone the colours down a bit for a more natural, accurate calibration.

Superb viewing angles afforded by OLED technology mean that there will be no duff seat in a home cinema that has this screen as its centrepiece. We experienced no noticeable dropout in contrast or colours no matter where we placed ourselves, whether at a wide horizontal angle or a low vertical position.
The inky blacks of the display and strong brightness levels deserve extra credit. LG's launch event was held in the Salle des Etoiles, famous for its mechanical opening roof. Halfway through the event the roof opened, bathing what had been a dimly lit hall with Mediterranean sunlight. Even with the dramatic change in ambient lighting colours remained vivid, and shadow detail bold and legible.

Though we've yet to see the display handling 3D video for ourselves, all reports so far have been incredibly positive. Indeed, our own prior experience with smaller 3D OLED displays has seen the technology deliver smooth, ghost-free 3D images of the highest quality. With 3D always working better on a larger screen, the results with the 55EM9600 would presumably be remarkable. A 0.02s response time will lead to super-smooth 3D visuals, as well as being a boon for gamers looking for a display as quick as their trigger fingers.

Pre-orders for the LG OLED sets will kick off in July, ready for a "Q4 2012" release.

So how many pennies will you have to drop in order to get one of these beauties in your home? Around the 9000 EURO mark, or roughly £7,300 if the UK pricing reflects direct exchange rates.

That is of course an astronomically priced set, but LG's OLED giant is poised to represent the very best that money can currently buy for home cinema fans. While the false promise of 3D TV left many frustrated, OLED TV sets offer genuinely luxurious 2D viewing while still delivering the very best in 3D visuals should you still be looking for eye-popping entertainment.

Local pricing is likely to be the big deciding factor as LG's flagship battles it out with Samsung's in stores. Regardless as to which proves the victor, the stage is set for one of the most exciting years for home cinema fanatics for a while, and LG are well placed to dominate.

Apple iTV, where art thou? In this world of iPhone 5, iPad Mini and MacBook rumours, it's sometimes easy to forget about Apple's oft-rumoured entry into the home cinema market. But a new report into the possible feature list of the Apple iTV suggests there is still much to be excited about.

Cult of Mac are reporting that one of their sources has seen the mythic HDTV, stating that it looks much like an oversized Apple Cinema Display.

Though no mention of iOS software is made (nor specific technical specifications) the source did state that an iSight camera is built into the bezel, paired with face tracking technology that can zoom in on a caller's head and make video conferencing from the comfort of an arm chair a piece of cake.

If the leak is accurate, Apple iTV owners may be able to do away with remote controls too, as Siri voice control could make navigating the channels and searching for iTunes content as simple as calling commands to the television.

As for sizes, Foxconn, who would likely be the manufacturers, have the ability to build displays up to 60-inches in size after investing $1.6 billion in Sharp's TV unit. With tentative rumoured release windows of 2013, it may be time to start saving up for what we'd expect to be a very different, very expensive new line of televisions.

Via: Cult Of Mac

LG have lifted the covers off their own cloud-based service, simply called the LG Cloud.

The LG Cloud will allow an owner of an LG smartphone and LG Smart TV to share content between the television and the handset, as well as a PC, with multiple file types and content to be supported across each platform. For instance, photos and videos could be recorded on an LG smartphone, and beamed instantly to both a TV in the living room and a laptop on the other side of the world.

LG also believe that they've got the problem of incompatible video files sorted, using a proprietary Real-time Streaming Transcoding technology to ensure your content will work flawlessly no matter what the file type or codec on any of the supported devices.

LG also states that the service has robust support for 3D content streaming, which will cause the handful of owners of both an LG 3D TV and LG Optimus 3D handset to go all misty eyed.

Both free and paid-for versions of the LG Cloud are expected to launch, with pricing and availability to be announced in time with the services roll-out to each individual territory.

It's a timely move by LG, what with rival Samsung widely expected to be launching it's own "S-Cloud" cloud-based service alongside the Samsung Galaxy S3 handset this Thursday.

Samsung are expanding their Smart TV hub by adding a new app from independent cinema chain Curzon Cinemas. Curzon on Demand will bring curated independent and art house films to the connected TV platform, streaming in HD straight to the living room.

Though Curzon on Demand has some well-established rivals in the VOD space (namely LoveFilm and Netflix) it has a superb standout feature that sets it apart from the competition; same day releases for movies just hitting cinemas.

Using the example of Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre, which hits Curzon cinemas this Friday, Curzon CEO Philip Knatchbull described how users will be able to sit in the comfort of their "home cinemas" and stream new releases just as they hit the silver screen.

"I'm not going to be the friend of the multiplex cinema, as what I'm advocating is a complete paradigm shift in terms of how our customers are able to enjoy film," explained Knatchbull.

"it won't happen overnight and it'll start slowly, but over the next four or five years I hope more and of what we show will be available simultaneously in our public cinemas and our home cinemas."

It's an exciting shift for VOD, and Curzon are in a perfect position to lead the charge. As an independent film distributor as well as cinema venue, they're able to easily negotiate same day VOD releases for the films they're closely linked to, and maintain strong relations with other key independent distributors as one of the few chains to champion art house cinema.

Keep in mind that Curzon, as one of the only art-house cinema chains, only have 9 cinemas (the majority of which are in London), and it's quite easy to spot an audience not being catered for up and down the country. In this respect, independent distributors could exponentially increase their films' exposure (and revenues) by launching same day on Curzon on Demand.

In terms of pricing, brand new releases (though currently set at an introductory £6 price) will pretty much match cinema ticket prices at £10, while classic and older titles will also be available from as little as £2. Films, once paid for, are then available to be watched as many times as a viewer wants across a 7-day period. Curzon Cinema members will also benefit from discount prices on the VOD service.

Curzon aim to have 300 movies at any one time on the service, being rotated and updated as new releases become available. While this doesn't match the 1,000s available through Netflix and LoveFilm, it's a quality-over-quantity approach, with attention paid to European auteurs like Wim Wenders and Jean-Luc Godard and foreign language films that would struggle to get a look in elsewhere.

Samsung Smart TVs aren't the only potential home for the Curzon on Demand app either; having already been available for nearly a year in a beta form on computers and laptops, and hitting iOS devices such as the iPad and iPhone today, the Capablue-built app can easily migrate to other platforms. The Xbox 360, Virgin Tivo box and Apple TV were all mentioned as possible future targets for Curzon.

For more information, visit www.curzonondemand.com .

Having got both the entry and high-end levels of the AV receiver market sorted, Onkyo are now turning their attentions to does with medium-sized wallets and an eye on a new home cinema upgrade. From the looks of things, their TX-NR818 and TX-NR717 receivers will fit the bill nicely.

Kicking off with the slightly pricier Onkyo TX-NR818 (£999), it's a network-capable bit of kit with Spotify and Simfy apps built in.

The TX-NR818 offers Audyssey MultEQ XT32 room acoustic correction, using the shape of your room and a mic to tailor the set-up process to its surroundings for best possible audio-quality.

With 7.2 channel support, Audyssey DSX, Dolby Pro Logic IIz and DTS Neo:X decoding, a HQV Vida VHD 1900 video processor for 1080p upscaling and Marvell's 4K video processor (upconverting HD images making it future-proofed for the coming wave of 4K2K TVs) and ISF video calibration controls, it's feature-rich enough to challenge much more expensive receivers.
£200 cheaper but still packing 7.2 channel support is the TX-NR717, again offering Audyssey DSX and Dolby Pro Logic IIz decoding and THX Select 2 Plus certification.

Eight HDMI ports (one being on the front) are found on both receivers, as well as two output sockets for hooking up multiple displays or perhaps a projector.

Available in silver or black, both Onkyo receivers hit stores in May.