Larger than life

TV is no longer merely a medium to view moving images. In order to get a clear picture, read on...

With technology blurring the differences and myriad brands presenting a plethora of choices, it is not surprising that the consumer is facing the problem of plenty.

The home entertainment market in the UAE is booming. The high influx of expatriates from around the world, commercial spending patterns and the tech-savvy local Emirati population have meant that home entertainment and multimedia products have witnessed consistent demand on both the professional and consumer levels.

According to market research released by DisplaySearch, the sale of plasma televisions worldwide increased by 95 per cent from April to June 2006 and accounted for 20 per cent of the global TV revenues.

LCD television sales rose by 135 per cent and accounted for 22 per cent of revenues during the same period. These encouraging figures have been reflected in this part of the world as well.

The new breed

Flat-screen TVs are fast replacing iPods, digital cameras and other mobile devices as the primary source of consumer electronics market growth. As Manish Bakshi, General Manager, BenQ Middle East and Africa, says, "The global TV market is forecast to grow from an estimated $25 billion (about Dh92 billion) in sales and 21 million units shipped in 2005 to $85 billion (Dh313 billion) and over 101 million units shipped in 2009.

"This represents a 183 per cent growth on shipment units and a 110 per cent growth in revenue. In 2009, for the first time, LCD televisions will outstrip sales of CRT TVs in the ratio of 53:47.

In the Middle East, 226 per cent growth is expected — total units shipped will increase from 150,000 to 450,000 units by 2009. Saudi Arabia and the UAE will remain key markets."

Solid growth

"The growth in regional LCD TV sales can be partly attributed to the replacement market, with consumers updating their outdated TVs for stylish and compact models. With the flooding of affordable LCD and plasma displays in the market, average TV screen sizes will rise dramatically. The existing market is dominated by 32-inch screens followed by 26-inch screens while 40-inch screens will take the pole position in the future. In terms of the resolution matrix, which forms another important criterion, models with 1366 x 788 pixels will dominate with a 71 per cent market share followed by 1,080 pixels with eight per cent."

BenQ is at the forefront of a surge in popularity for home theatre projectors such as W100 across the Middle East. "The concept of home theatre projectors has grown in recent years as their quality and affordability has made them very attractive to millions of people who want the cinema experience in their own homes," says Bakshi.

Waqar Ahmed of the House Of Sound says, "The shift in the LCD market in the Middle East is greatly due to the fact that technically-advanced home entertainment solutions are now very much affordable. This extension of technology leads well in home audio integration. Today you have a vast choice of wireless and HD-based applications like hard disc-based technology and wireless applications such as the Xmod, SONOS, NEVO SL, Kaleidescape or applications like INport Deluxe, which allow users to record their favourite vinyl records, cassette tapes and other music from a home stereo into the computer."

High-end products

"Affordable yet high-end in terms of acoustic quality systems like the ONKYO SKS-HT240, or Cambridge's Newton HD 5.1 home theatre speaker system have brought high quality sound and entertainment options well within budgets. I would very much add the Bose Companion 5 multimedia speaker system, which addresses the need for having a single, yet unobtrusive system capable of playing back 5.1 encoded audio as well as stereo sound. Again, high-end sound at an
affordable price."

Rapid advances in the fields of high definition CDs, DVDs and information storage will soon see the consumers enjoying easily accessible libraries of their favourite music and movies; films and soundtracks, which will be viewed with outstanding picture and sound quality, relegating the current optical disc collections to things of the past. Christopher Hudson, Chief Operating Officer, Messe Frankfurt — which is hosting the CEA at the region's largest consumer technology trade fair — points to a radical media transformation greater than the DVD revolution that has evolved over the past 10 years. "There's no doubt that we're witnessing a steep curve in the progression of home entertainment technology right now, with hard disc media servers becoming increasingly popular and new advances for the CD format waiting in the pipeline.

"These new systems are convenient, practical and offer greater enjoyment because of the enhanced quality that they feature."

Media servers are featuring in larger numbers of home entertainment systems across the Middle East. A typical unit with a 9,000 GB hard disk has the capacity to store over 1,300 DVDs or 13,500 CDs, allowing instant access to a personal catalogue of music and films.

When linked up to a home entertainment set-up that includes more than one television, it means that this library can be viewed on screens in different rooms, displaying the album or movie cover alongside the title selected. "Media servers are certainly the way forward," says Hudson. "The advantages are numerous compared to the existing DVD and video systems. There are no worries about storage, no fumbling around to find the right title and the choice of music or film can be made from the comfort of your armchair. These servers offer the customer convenience in the way they interact with their media collections and they will feature heavily in the home entertainment systems of the future."

Straight from the studio

HD and Blu-Ray, are the new dark horses on the entertainment horizon with major studios like Sony Pictures, Walt Disney, MGM and Twentieth Century Fox now offering movies on the Blu-ray format. With the launch of PlayStation 3, which supports the Blu-ray format, all gaming titles for PlayStation 3 are available on Blu-ray discs.
Jenny Price of Avalon Audio Visual Consultants says: "LG's announcement that it was to unveil a dual-format DVD player capable of playing Toshiba's HD-DVD and rival Sony's Blu-ray formats spurred expectations that a bruising was over before it had even really started.

The issue matters because the division between the HD-DVD camp, which includes Microsoft and Intel, and the Blu-ray camp, comprising the majority of consumer electronics makers, is widely expected to delay the penetration of next-generation DVD technology until one format can establish supremacy."

The new era

While the verdict on that one is out, Samsung has heralded a new era of entertainment with the BD-P1000, the world's first mass-market Blu-ray Disc player, a product that Je Hyoung Park, President and CEO, Samsung Gulf Electronics, refers to as symbolising Samsung's "leadership in driving the next generation optical format".

Samsung is also the leading brand of LCD TVs in the Middle East with leading market share in major markets including UAE and Iran, according to a DisplaySearch study. Samsung was ranked first in the UAE from January to October 2006, with a market share of 27.6 per cent and occupied the top position in Iran from January to October with a market share of 48.9 per cent. "The system is not about the largest picture screen, the most powerful sound or the latest technical gadgetry, it is a compact and integral home theatre solution for the intimate and personal spaces of the modern home," says Khalid Tuer, General Manager, Philips Consumer Electronics, Middle East and Africa, while citing the Philips HTS9800W, the winner of 2006 CES Best of Innovations Award and iF product design award 2006.

Ruling the roost

Abhijit Pradhan, Account Manager with Wallace Baker says, "Marantz's DAVED —Digital Audio Via Electrical Distribution — which allows a Marantz receiver to broadcast a proprietary and encoded signal output via electrical wires already present in the home, to up to seven remote receivers anywhere in the house is something I would personally be on the lookout for. Of course, we have the HomePlug Alliance's HomePlug technology, which has often been billed as the future of high-speed home networking for sound, data, and home automation. It is essentially a technology that connects devices to each other through the power lines in a home.

But which of these makes it to the top is something we'll have to wait and watch. In terms of sheer entertainment, few products beat the KHT-3005's stunningly styled, egg-shaped speaker package, Aperion's handsome five-speaker 533-PT Cinema HD or the ONKYO SKS-HT240.

Unless you are thinking of standalone products such as the amazing Meridian 800 DVD player."

Plasmas with built-in hard disks, 70-inch LCDs with elegant floating glass design, laptops for the gaming enthusiast, media servers with a lifetime of reel favourites… the plethora of options is simply endless for home entertainment enthusiasts in the UAE.

LOOK OUT FOR
Designer televisions

- The Mirror TV, from Royal Philips Electronics, is a versatile 17, 23 or 30-inch LCD display integrated into a mirror. The Mirror TV uses a unique polarised mirror technology, which transfers close to 100 per cent of the light through the reflective surface.

- A new line of 3-D televisions by Philips uses the familiar trick of sending slightly different images to the left and right eyes — mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips' WOW technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub-pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display, so that viewers can move around without losing much of the effect.

- Karlheinz Brandenburg, one of the inventors of the MP3 format and the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Media Technology, has created a new superrealistic audio technology called Iosono, touted as true "three dimensional" audio, marking a substantial break from the way recorded sound has been replicated, something that is set to revolutionise sound in theatres, theme parks, and eventually the home.