While 3D TV sales may still be a little sluggish, between 10 and 20% of all new televisions made by the end of this year will have a 3D-enabled panel installed, according to new figures from the five key panel manufacturers.

Samsung, Sharp, LG Display, AU Optronics (AUO) and Chimei Innolux (CMI) have all revealed their projections for the coming months, showing that 3D screens are going to become increasingly dominant in electrical retail stores next year.

CMI have stated that one in five of their panels will be 3D ready, while AUO are hoping to achieve as much as 10 percent of their total panel production in 3D-enabled screens. The more recogniseable brands Sharp, LG Display and Samsung all have similar ballpark figures.

With the split between active and passive technologies likely to cause a 3D pricing war in the coming months, and an increasing amount of 3D content available, it looks as if the 3D market is finally beginning to mature. Whether the increaseed 3D availability leads to consumers buying 3D out of choice rather than the default fact that most new TV's will support the format is another matter entirely.

Via: DigiTimes

Pico-projectors are all well and good when it comes to the portable beaming of presentations and movies when on the go. The problem with many of them however is that an array of video and audio cables are needed to get the most out of them, often with the video connections incompatible with dinky ultra-portable notebooks.

Acer's C110 pico-projector looks to answer that problem. Needing neither a power adaptor or display port, it'll project 100 inch images onto your walls simply by connecting it to a source over USB.

While it isn't HD quality, it's specs put it comfortably at the top-end of the pico-projector market. Running at a native WVGA resolution (854 x 480) and maxing out at WXGA (1,280 x 800), it has a 20,000 hour lamp life, 1000:1 contrast ratio and brightness levles of 50 ANSI lumens.

Tiny at just 110x85x25 mm and 175g in weight, it also employs ColorSafe and DLP technology to ensure colour integrity remains top-notch even after prolonged use.

The projector will hit shelves this August, priced £199.

£500 may be a lot to spend on a Blu-ray player in this age of sub-£100 decks, but Onkyo's latest BD-SP809 high-def disc spinner is crammed full of so many high-end features that you'll be looking under the sofa for every penny you can find to nab it.

Using Qdeo visual processing technology from Marvell, the BD-SP809 promises to squeeze the very best out of even your aging DVD collection, with full 1080p upscaling, noise reduction and slick interlacing.

A universal player, the BD-SP809 plays nicely with all types of Blu-ray, DVD and CD discs, recognising DivX HD, Mp3 and WMA files saved to discs, USB drive on the rear, over a home network or using the DLNA 1.5 standard.

Audio is equally well served, with both DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby TrueHD lossless audio formats supported, as well as separate video and audio circuitry being employed to reduce digital noise issues.

Two HDMI ports for quick source changing round off an impressive package.

Keep an eye out for the BD-SP809, heading your way for the princely sum of £499.99.

Samsung's 3D video on demand portal has racked up a total of 1 million views in just 100 days, despite the relatively small amount of Samsung 3D TV owners.

As part of the company's Smart TV connected platform, the app allows a range of free 3D video content to be accessed, with over 10,000 3D viewings every day since the service went live.

"With more free 3D content to come, we will continue to develop our Smart TV offering to bring more excitement of 3D to the Smart TV platform ensuring more consumers access 3D content free and on-demand.'' said Samsung's Vice President of Consumer Electronics Andy Griffiths.

The Smart TV portal also offers iPlayer apps and social networking apps, as well as movie rentals through LoveFilm.

For an in depth look at Samsung's Smart TV range and connected TV apps, click here.

LG have revealed a set of snazzy 3D specs from UK designer Giles Deacon. The "FILES for LG" glasses are an "ultra stylish" option for Cinema 3D owners, with colouful stripey frames surrounding the polarised lenses.

"LG produce innovative and exciting products and these glasses are designed to complement that," said the designer.

"GILES is a label that creates trends using design that is conversational, with lots of colour and bold statement prints. Working with LG has given me a chance to experiment with technology which is something that I am constantly inspired by."

The problem is, passive 3DTVs biggest draw is that the glasses cost just a couple of quid to pick up or replace, with even the ones you cheekily nab at the cinema compatible. Slap a designer price tag onto them and that benefit is gone.

Still, if you can't face looking a little stupid even in your living room, you can pick the specs up exclusively from Selfridges from today, costing £29.99.

If you ask people the one issue, other than finances, that hold most folks back from purchasing a 5.1 home cinema set, the answer you'll usually hear back is that the lengthy wiring needed for the rear speakers is unsightly and troublesome to feed around a living room. 5.1 speaker sales may be set to sky-rocket then thanks to RocketFish, whose new RocketBoost Wireless Audio tech offers a solution to the 5.1 trip-wire-cabling-conundrum.

Kicking off with a RF-RBKIT HD Audio starter kit (consisting of a wireless sender and an amplified receiver), the sender will hook up to your home cinema receiver using the speaker outputs, while the receiver is placed at the back of your listening space, connecting to your rear speakers. The audio is then sent from the wireless sender to the rear receiver without needing to have the rear speakers hooked up directly to your home cinema reciever.

While it's not truly wireless (as both the sender and reciever require your speaker cables to be fed into them) it does mean that you don't have to run the wiring around the walls, instead hiding it all beside the rear audio outputs, or down the back of the sofa in the case of many home cinema set ups. As the wireless units work on their own private network and intelligently pick a frequency free of interference in the surrounding space, playback is stutter-free. Also, as the unit is completely universal, it should work alongside any 5.1 system you own, regardless of brand.

If you want to later on expand to a 7.1 system, it's then simply a matter of adding another RF-RBAUX sender/reciever unit, or the same unit to hook up an auido source such as a PC speaker set wirelessly. Should your regular stereo speakers require an amp too there's the RF-RBREC amplified reciever variant, while RocketFish have also put together their own speaker set, the RF-RBWS02 Wireless Speaker kit, which is suitable for outdoor use.

As you can see, scalability is a key advantage with the gear, allowing you to expand the wireless sources and control them independently as your audio set-up around the house grows too. All in, you can send up to five sources of audio to nine different Rocketboost receivers without any drop in audio quality, including HD Blu-ray tracks in Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD High Resolution Audio and DTS-HD Master Audio.

Exclusive to Best Buy, you can check out the RocketBoost gear by clicking here.

Thanks to the popularity of Apple's App Store and the now-ubiquitous nature of apps on smartphones and tablet PCs, apps are weaving their way into every aspect of modern life. From doing your grocery shopping to finding a parking spot, there are apps to help you out with almost everything.

Though many manufacturers have attempted to put apps into their HD and 3D TVs, most have been met with, at best, middling success. Between clunky interfaces and a dearth of content, they feel tacked on additions to otherwise strong hardware.

Samsung however have taken the whole area very seriously, refreshing their connected TV line in 2010 with the Smart TV platform. Mixing together social networks, video on demand content, games, news and even video calling through a Skype app, its use of an app store and familiar grid-like app icon layout made it far easier to navigate than most rival offerings.

"Due to the popularity of smartphones and tablets, we know people are comfortable with smart devices. Smart TV is the next step in the evolution of smart devices and Samsung Smart TVs do everything that other smart devices do and more," said Guy Kinnell Samsung's UK Marketing Director for TV.

"The Samsung Smart TV hub is one of the most user friendly interfaces on the market and viewers are quickly mastering how to make the most of their Smart TV. For instance, Apps such as LOVEFiLM, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter are all common place in people's lives and are also all available on Samsung Smart TVs".

Where Samsung look most likely succeed where other rival's connected TV platforms have failed however is in the attention to synergy between the hardware of Smart TVs, Samsung's wider product catalogue and the app software. For instance, text entry in the past for TV apps has been a real chore using traditional remote controls, but the company's Touch Remote with (you guessed it) touchscreen controls makes it far easier to send Tweets or Facebook updates from the sofa. The "AllShare" feature, allowing you to control elements of the Smart TV platform with a Samsung mobile again makes navigation far more intuitive.

Most notably however is the introduction of the new free-to-view 3D Video On Demand app, the first of its kind on any 3D TV from any manufacturer. One of the biggest points slowing the growth of 3D TV sales is the relative lack of 3D video content to go with them, especially for free. With Samsung's 3D Smart TV range you now have access to 3D content straight out of the box, free of charge, with many of the offerings previously having been IMAX 3D cinema exclusives.

"The demand for 3D is growing rapidly, but only a handful of channels are providing content. Samsung has led the 3D LED TV market since it launched last year, and the roll-out of our 3D video-on-demand service demonstrates our commitment to accelerating its growth," said Andy Griffiths Samsung's UK Vice President for Consumer Electronics.

"We believe that in the near future every viewer will have access to 3D content in the comfort of their own living room through a Smart TV. We will therefore continue to develop our Smart TV offering in order to provide consumers with the best viewing experience possible."

So will we ever see apps on TVs as commonly used as those now seen on mobile platforms?

"Connected TV apps I think will grow incredibly but will be a different experience entirely to mobile apps; the TV doesn't move, it is a shared experience and you don't want to be inputting too much text on your TV as the handset makes this difficult," said Craig Chuter Head of Business Development at app developers Capablue, winners of the Samsung App Developer Challenge.

"I think the TV apps will become an integral part of our TV viewing experience especially for TV catch-up and film services. "

Samsung's relationship with app developers, as highlighted by their partnership with Capablue, also bodes well for the future. Compared to other connected TV platforms, you get the sense that Samsung are in for the long haul with the Smart TV's, with a constantly updated stream of apps from a variety of developers and content that looks set to be as well served and relevant in five years time as it is now.

"Samsung will be continually building on the current Samsung Apps store to ensure viewers have the widest range of content to enjoy on their TV" said Kinnell.

"Gaming, 3D videos and social networking; whether they still have a 2011 model in two years or five years time, these Apps will still provide as an important viewer experience as ever before."

Picture the scene; it's a glorious summer's day, birds are chirping in the trees, kids are playing in the parks and hot guys and gals are stripping down to shorts and bikinis everywhere. It's THE time to get outside. But, to pull a line from The Lemonheads' The Outdoor Type tune, "What if something's on TV and it's never shown again?". Are you destined for a summer indoors, pasty skinned watching Cash in The Attic re-runs?

Not any more! Say hello to Toshiba's REGZA 19P2 TV. HD-ready with a resolution of 1366x768, the 19 inch TV comes equipped with a removable rechargeable battery that allows for 5 hours of continuous TV viewing. Packing in a 1Seg Digital TV Tuner, the TV frees you from the tyranny of power sockets, letting you take your shows on the go in crisp HD-ready quality.

You can of course use the TV from the mains too, with a "Peak Shift" option intelligently switching from battery to the mains once the power pack is charged. Additional battery packs are also available, while other specs for the LED-backlit panel include a 1000:1 contrast ratio and a single HDMI port.

Looks to be a Japanese exclusive at the moment however, with a price tag of 50,000 Yen.

Cello, the British TV manufacturers best known for bringing the BBC iPlayer to their iViewer TVs before anyone else (as reviewed here) are preparing to launch their first 3D-enabled TV models this summer.

Two models will be available, with a 42 incher costing £499 and a 47 inch TV for £699. Using passive 3D screen tech similar to that used in cinema showings, each screen comes with four sets of passive glasses to go along with the LG-built panels.

Full specs for the 47 inch model can be found here, and specs for the 42 inch model here.

"Initially I was unsure about the future of 3D, but the quality of 3D vision now available and the number of new 3D films coming onto the market this year guarantees success for this new technology, " said Brian Palmer, director of Cello.

"Sky now has one 3D channel and existing subscribers who already have Sky's full package can get it free of charge.

"I'm sure many other 3D channels will also launch in the near future, making ownership of a 3D TV even more appealing."

The sets will be onsale later this month.

Via: TechRadar

Teufel have revealed a new budget-friendly 5.1 speaker package today in the shape of the Columa 200 set.

Featuring four column speakers and a central bar speaker that's built to replicate the towering surround units, each houses two 70mm mid range drivers and a 19mm fabric dome tweeter. The included active subwoofer is of the 140W variety, packing in a 250mm Klippel optimised bass driver.

Designed for rooms up to 30 square metres, the speakers will be fully compatible with any brand of AV reciever that supports 5.1 channel output.

Available now, you can bag the Teufel speakers for £479 direct from the manufacturers at http://www.teufelaudio.co.uk/.

Sony have thrown out some details today on their latest 3D projector, the relatively affordable VPL-HW30. We say relatively affordable as it's still set to retail at under a pocket-pinching £2,000, but that's a far sight cheaper than the £6,000 its predecessor cost.

So what does two grand bag you then?

A full HD 1080p projector, the VPL-HW30 features a High Frame Rate SXRD Panel that when coupled with Sony's MotionFlow tech, should work well to reduce the amount of blur in fast moving images.

A 70,000:1 contrast ratio and a brightness of 1,300 ANSI Lumens should result in a deep, detailed picture too. Also, a 240Hz panel drive system will reduce the tricky problem of crosstalk in 3D images, while 2D to 3D conversion is also possible for what its worth, considering how poorly these conversion systems usually work.

However, to access the 3D features of the projector you'll have to shell out for a pair of TDG-PJ1 active shutter specs or two, as well as a TMR-PJ1 transmitter, both sold separately.

Keep an out for the Sony VPL-HW30 projector at your local AV retailer from July.

There are growing signs that the demand for 3D cinema screenings is slowing from US movie fans. Memorial Day weekend, one of the United States' most lucrative movie-going holidays, showed that more and more cinema goers are opting for 2D screenings over 3D ones when given the option.

Memorial Day weekend saw the massive opening of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which managed to earn just 46% of its $90.2 million takings from 3D showings, the 54% majority coming from 2D screenings. That makes for the second-worst 3D opening for a film since November 2008, while Kung Fu Panda 2's 3D takings over Memorial Day weekend were equally shakey - making up just 45% of its $60.9 million opening.

It's a drop so significant that Wall Street is shuffling nervously: RealD, the leading provider of 3D cinema tech, saw shares tumble 26% over the course of the last two weeks.

So has the novelty of 3D cinema worn off? Perhaps; whereas 3D flicks began as "event" cinema, with one or two special openings a month, they're now being churned out on average at a rate of four a month. What with the premium slapped onto 3D screenings combined with the discomfort some cinema-goers experience when wearing the 3D glasses, it's no wonder consumers are opting for the 2D versions.

Is this the end of Hollywood's fixation with 3D? Unlikely, says Warner Brothers president of domestic distribution Dan Fellman: "I think it's a bit of a glitch we're going through at the moment. By the middle of August, I think we can really determine what the pattern is and if we need to make some adjustments."

This summer has still yet to see the 3D releases of Green Lantern, Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Captain America: The First Avenger, The Smurfs, Final Destination 5, Glee Live 3D, Conan the Barbarian, Fright Night, and Spy Kids 4, so there's plenty of time for 3D to do big business again this year.

The rest of the world has yet to see the 3D bubble burst too, with the massive Chinese and Russian cinema markets continuing to see growth in 3D showings. If that international trend continues, it's unlikely that Hollywood will ditch the third-dimension anytime soon.

Via: Entertainment Weekly

Loewe's collection of web-connected HD TVs are getting a software update today that sees Napster added to the growing selection of services through the televisions' online portal.

Napster will now feature in Loewe's MediaNet on all Individual LED, Connect LED and Art LED screens. The service allows users to download and stream some 15 million songs to their sets, and will be available for free for the first 14 days of use, after which a subscription charge will be required.

MediaNet allows websites and online services like Napster to be navigated with just a remote control, optimising websites for viewing on a HD TV.

Name: EH-TW5500 (Epson)

Type: Full HD DLP Projector

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £749.99

BenQ surprised everyone with the quality of their W1000 projector when it launched in the back end of 2009. Offering superb picture quality for under a grand, it practically single-handedly redefined the the word "value" when it came to home cinema projectors. The BenQ W1000+ is something of a sequel then, refining the features of the first model and slashing the price to an even more attractive low. Is it another bargain offering?

First things first; the BenQ W1000+ isn't much of a looker. Though the "white with silver accents" design in theory should look good, in practice it's a very cheap-looking box, with ugly ventilation strips on the side and sticky control buttons on the top. Focus and horizontal picture-shift dials sit just behind the square lens housing, with this deep recess doing little to help the projector's already messy stylings. It's much better served by its connectivity options however, packing in two HDMIs, D-Sub PC port, component video port, and USB/RS-232 control ports; far more than you'd expect at this price range.

Thankfully, the looks department is one of the only places where the W1000+ betrays its budget price bracket. Capable of throwing full 1080p images out at a maximum size of 300 inches, the W1000+ is capable of superb images despite its bargain labelling.

That's mostly thanks to the refined colour wheel used here. Though the original W1000 projector was a fine offering, it did suffer greatly from the dreaded "rainbow effect" (causing solid stripes of red, green and blue to appear) that many cheaper projectors fall foul of. With a significant speed boost and freshly optimised waveform software in the colour wheel employed here, the BenQ W1000+ has all but eliminated this unsightly problem.

The image improvements over the W1000 model don't stop with the reduced "rainbow effect" either. Colour temperature is markedly better, while the contrast ratio jumps from 3,000:1 to 3,500:1. Upon initially firing up the projector things can look a bit of a mess, but the W1000+ offers fairly robust image tweaking options. Though you're only able to tweak three preset settings (Cinema, Dynamic and Standard) before delving into the advanced menus, doing so gives you full control over minute colour detail, colour temperature, gamma and white balance controls.

Black levels are strong, with the W1000+ retaining great detail even in murkier scenes, with white levels equally vibrant. Black and white images were the worst perpetrators of the "rainbow effect", though in no way as severely noticeable as with similarly priced projectors. Colours, once fine-tuned, can be reassuringly realistic too, though red levels remained stubbornly dominant. For once, we'd encourage using the Brilliant Colour mode: though it can initially be overwhelmingly vibrant to the point of being unrealistic, use the menu screens to tone it down and you'll get a surprisingly punchy image. Fast-paced action scenes do little to rock the projectors motion capabilities too remaining relatively judder-free through a Blu-ray screening of The Watchmen. Overall, full HD images retained a clarity and sharpness rarely seen in projectors that break the £1,000 mark, let alone one that sits some £250 below it.

The projector even comes with a 3W built-in speaker. Now, a 3W speaker is of course in no way a fitting match for an epic movie screening. But in keeping with the projector's budget charms, it does make the W1000+ a far more portable prospect, allowing for modest audio playback if you're to bring this unit around to a pal's house, without the need to lug an audio system around with you too.

Our main quibble come with the auto-keystone functionality. The projector failed to find the natural oblong shape of our 16:9 source material on a flat wall perfectly parallel to the lens. It took an age to reposition the projector and manually tweak the keystone settings before the image was taper-free. Likewise, the 1.2x optical zoom and a lack of an optical vertical lens shift meant positioning the image was far more difficult than it should have been.

Verdict:

At a penny shy of £750, the BenQ W1000+ is an absolute steal. Building significantly upon its already-rather-good W1000 predecessor, the W1000+ offers full HD cinema thrills at a price so competitive it's likely to get the more expensive projector manufacturers quaking in their overpriced boots. While the keystone function and optical zoom range leave a little to be desired, the picture quality is far better than the value-price tag would lead you to believe. An excellent purchase then for the budding home theatre enthusiast.

Name: AVerTV Volar HD A835(Aver Media)

Type: Digital TV tuner for PC and Mac

System Requirements: Click here

Price: £18.99 from Amazon

With most of the functionality of a fully-fledged set-top box, the AVerTV Volar HD A835 digital TV tuner for PC and Mac has a lot going for it. But is it relevant in this age of catch-up TV and high-definition television?

The AVerTV Volar HD A835 unit consists of a set-up software CD and a USB drive, which a supplied TV antenna can be plugged into. Considering the USB stick has to accommodate a chunky aerial connection, it manages to stay fairly slim, though you may have trouble squeezing in other USB devices should your ports be closely bunched together. The aerial itself is little bigger than a thumb drive too, housing two telescopic, rotatable antenna and comes with two mounts; a suction pad and a clip for sticking the unit to the top of your monitor.

Once the quick software installation is complete and the AVerTV Volar HD A835 USB unit is plugged in, a surprisingly fast and accurate channel scan will have you watching Freeview channels and listening to digital radio within minutes. Though image quality will depend somewhat on the quality of your monitor, we were pleased to find our viewing session to be clear and free of noise. However, despite the HD suffix, you wont be able to get any high-definition Freeview channels; though it supports H.264 transmissions, which are widespread in Europe for high-def shows, it isn't compatible with the DVB-T2 transmission system Freeview HD is based on. An update has been promised for some time, but we were unable to access the channels during our review.

Though here you negate the need for an internet connection in order to watch shows, it's also worth noting that in this age of streamed catch-up TV on computers, we've forgotten how frustrating trying to pick up a good TV signal is. The AVerTV Volar HD A835 had us standing with the aerial over our heads in order to maintain a decent image. A quirk of our tuner or simply the fact we're in something of a coverage blackspot, it's worth remembering before committing your cash.

The software accompanying the drive is full of functionality, including a full EPG, timeshift modes and a number of recording and scheduled recording options. We particularly liked the fact you're able to record in iOS compatible formats, meaning getting your favourite shows direct from the telly onto your Apple mobile media devices won't be a problem. It's a shame though that visually the software is very bland, with a design more like shareware rather than a retail product.

Verdict:

With most of the major Freeview destinations now having robust video-on-demand services backing them up online, TV tuners for PCs are beginning to feel a little redundant. The AVerTV Volar HD stick makes itself more useful than some by offering video recording modes directly compatible with iOS devices, but a bare-bones software interface and lack of Freeview HD channels, paired with the frustrations of picking up a decent signal, ultimately let it down. Having said that, it's a cheap and small solution for those watching the pennies our with little space to play about with, so it may find an audience with students or backpackers.

Samsung have launched a new 3D video content portal for their 3D TV range. Owners of 8000, D7000, D6500, D6100, D8000, D6900 and D5520 Samsung TV models can today download the Explore 3D app through the Smart TV connected service, which offers free, on demand 3D shows and movies.

There are currently 20 free 3D shows to watch alongside premium content, meaning that those without Sky 3D or Virgin 3D services, or those who've exhausted the miniscule 3D Blu-ray library currently available, now have a reason to don their 3D specs again.

Andy Griffiths, Vice President, Consumer Electronics, Samsung UK said: "The demand for 3D is growing rapidly, but only a handful of channels are providing content. Samsung has led the 3D LED TV market since it launched last year, and the roll-out of our 3D video-on-demand service demonstrates our commitment to accelerating its growth. We believe that in the near future every viewer will have access to 3D content in the comfort of their own living room through a Smart TV. We will therefore continue to develop our Smart TV offering in order to provide consumers with the best viewing experience possible."

Samsung promise that 70 videos will be available to be viewed through the Explore 3D portal before the year is out.

Freesat are allowing TV watchers to pick the winner of their TV Channel of the Year award, with the winner crowned at an annual awards event to be held on July 12th.

The Viewers Choice award will not only see TV execs and stars walking away with a prize, but also one lucky UK voter, who stands the chance of winning a day at a luxurious spa as well as an Echostar+ digital TV box.

To take part, head on over to www.freesat.co.uk/awards/viewer-s-choice-awards. Voting closes on the 17th of June.

Name: BDS 700 (Harman Kardon)

Type: Blu-ray deck and 5.1 home cinema combo

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £1099.99 direct from Harman Kardon

The convenience of one-box home cinema set-ups often make them the first port of call for budding home theatre enthusiasts. Combining a Blu-ray deck with 5.1 surround speakers, Harman Kardon's BDS 700 set is a stylishly designed premium AV solution. But can the sparse feature list do enough to justify its hefty price tag?

As the introduction suggests, in the box you're getting a Blu-ray player which also acts as a simple receiver for an included set of 5.1 home cinema speakers with the BDS 700. For the sake of simplicity, we're going to focus on both aspects individually, starting with the Blu-ray player.

The deck in question is the BDS 5SO. It's chunkier than your average player (as it needs to house all of the 5.1 audio connections) but is in no way lacking in the looks department. A mixture of gloss black with brushed aluminium accents, the large volume knob with its backlight adds a Tron-like air to proceedings, married with a clear blue dot matrix display. The slot-in rather than pop-out disc drive also allows the kit's smooth lines and curved front edges to be maintained, though we're always a bit fearful of what would happen if a disc ever got stuck inside.

In terms of connectivity, the deck has a single HDMI output, a USB port for media playback, an Ethernet port for BD Live functions and an array of speaker terminals backed by two optical digital inputs, two analog RCA stereo audio inputs and a coaxial digital input. You'll also be able to play files directly from an iPod or iPhone via an optional Harman Kardon Bridge IIIP dock (not included).

Despite being a premium bit of kit, we were disappointed to see how underused the Ethernet port is here. Solely for BD Live content, you can't access files stored on your home network, nor any media portals or web video services familiar to owners of Samsung or Sony decks. USB playback fares a little better (compatible with MPEG, DiVX-AVI files, MP4 in HD and even temperamental MKV files with the H.264 codec, as well as MP3, WMA , AAC and FLAC audio files) but shoots its usability in the foot by being limited to drives formatted in FAT32, leaving you with only 4GB of storage to play around with.

Thankfully, Blu-ray playback image quality is very good. We popped in the stalwart Casino Royale disc and were welcomed by sharp images and smooth-moving action scenes, crisp textures and vibrant colour reproduction. Even murkier scenes, such as when Bond is captured and tied up, retained visual clarity, highlighting minute details in the darkened dungeon room and making the purple-y bruises on Bond's face look all the more painful. Boot-times were fast too, taking just 14 seconds to get Bond going. Remember however, that you wont be able to play 3D discs here; another feature now quite regularly found in more reasonably priced sets.

DVD upscaling was equally impressive, pushing our Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back DVD to 1080p. Colours were natural and overall images were sharpened up nicely without any smeary artifacting. The only real weak spot was during the opening yellow-scrolling introductory text, looking a little shakey with slight colour bleeding over the black space backdrop.

On then to the BDS-700's sound capabilities, which are overall very good. In the box you'll find a 200W 353mm x 267mm x 267mm down-firing subwoofer, four 167mm x 100mm x 92mm 80W satellites, and a 120W 102mm x 241mm x 92mm dual-driver central channel. Compatible with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, Dolby Digital and DTS-HD / DTS-HD Master Audio formats, it delivered crisp audio, consistently well spaced across the soundscape.

A quick jump to Avatar's massive tree-felling battle sequence really saw the subwoofer working a treat, booming with a ground-shakingly resonate sound every time an explosion went off, easily tweaked with the rear volume knob if it's a little overpowering. The central channel too did very well to keep dialogue clear over noisy action scenes, while the rear speakers blended in with subtle ambient sounds remarkably naturally. Our one complaint with the satellites is they at times felt a little bright, but tended to settle down once they'd warmed up a little.

Verdict:

If you've neither a Blu-ray player nor 5.1 system to accompany your HD TV, the BDS 700 kit isn't a bad shout at all, providing you've got the dough. It looks and sounds great, with sharp HD images from Blu-ray discs too. However, buying a separate Blu-ray deck and 5.1 set up from other brands for the same combined value as the BDS-700 would open you up to far more fully-featured products. Convenient, but not necessarily good vale for money then.

Name: Digital Stream DPS-1000 (Onyx)

Type: Web connected media streamer

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £89.99 from Amazon

Looking for web-connected features from your ageing flatscreen TV? Then the Digital Stream DPS-1000 from Onyx (recently refreshed to add LoveFilm support), may suit your needs for a bargain price, providing you can put up with a few glaring omissions.

Though its heavily vented black chassis wont win it any style awards, the Onyx DPS-1000 is attractively small. Measuring up at roughly 16cm x 12cm x 3.5 cm, it'll sit discretely alongside most AV set ups. On the rear you'll find one HDMI port, a scart connection, two USB ports and an Ethernet port. That Ethernet port will be of the utmost importance here, as the DPS-1000 lacks a Wi-Fi connection. It seems a remarkable oversight considering the device is used primarily for web and network connected media streaming; you'll have to make sure your TV is placed near your router in order to wire it up tidily, or else hunt around for a compatible third-party Wi-Fi dongle.

It's a shame that this may put off potential buyers, as the interface and content portals on offer in the DPS-1000 are very good indeed. Built around UK-based Oregan's web platform first seen in last year's Cello TV range, it does away with many of the international fluff found in many larger brands web-connected TV portals. Instead, you're treated to a line up that includes the afore-mentioned LoveFilm, BBC iPlayer, BlinkBox, YouTube and a host of other Web TV offerings.

A mainscreen features a series of widgets, including Twitter, Facebook and news and weather feeds down the right hand side, which while welcome, likely wont get much use as they can be fiddly to navigate, particularly the social networks. The rest of the screen is made of a carousel-like series of icons leading to each content provider.

First up is the iPlayer portal, almost identical to that seen in Cello's iPlayer TV range. It's a slick and fast interface, with the usual "Just In", "Highlights" and "Last Played" tabs. Normal, high and HD quality video, where available, can be toggled through, while a serviceable search function lets you browse the current BBC catalogue.

LoveFilm offers information on all 70,000-odd movies it has in its catalogue, though only a fraction of those can be streamed via the DPS-1000, and none of those in HD. That's not a problem unique to this device though; it's the same with the LoveFilm desktop portal and the one found in the PS3 games console. Regardless, it's again a tidy and well organised interface, giving the option also for subscribers to order Blu-ray or DVD rental versions of those films not available for streaming. Dynamic searching of the LoveFilm library, throwing up new results every time you input each letter, is a little unnecessary in this format however, often annoyingly slowing down search speeds. £5.99 will give 2 hours of online viewing time, while those who opt for the £15.99 subscription will get unlimited access, as well as the ability to order physical disc rentals from LoveFilm.

BlinkBox, while offering a slightly more clunky interface than LoveFilm, is just as well stocked, with US shows such as the West Wing sitting alongside The Inbetweeners, as well as a fair few movies too. Blinkbox's value rentals (starting at £1) gives it a slight edge over LoveFilm in regards to pricing, and there are nice options to nab full TV show boxsets from between £12.99 and £15.99.

Of more questionable quality is the WebTV portal, pulling in video content from myriad sources. Here's where you'll find the likes of YouTube and Flickr, alongside more unusual sources such as Disney Channel Movie Previews, Larry King, the Discovery Channel, UEFA.com and Sesame Street. Presented in a list with thumbnails, it's a motley crew of feeds and video sources, though they're disparate enough to offer at least a few gems to most viewers.

Once connected to a networked PC or media server, or by plugging in a USB drive loaded with media content, you'll also be able to access various image, music and video files through the box. In a nice touch, a search feature will scan both your networked content and the web portals available here, pulling results into one compiled list. In terms of file playback, BMP and JPEG images and MP3 and WMA files work fine, but things get a little more complex on the video front. AVI (DivX), WMV, VOB, MP4 HD, MKV (DivX HD), and WMV HD files worked from a USB stick (but not H.264 MOV or QuickTime) while network searches only recognised MOV, DivX, MP4 and AVCHD files.

Verdict:

It's worth noting that anyone with a Wii or PS3 console will already have access to most of what is on offer here. While the lack of built in Wi-Fi support may keep the price of this diminutive media streamer down, it could prove a deal breaker for all but those with a router very nearby their television sets. If you fall into that likely very small bracket, you'll come away impressed with the DPS-1000, whose many features and content portals gives even the most recent web connected TV offerings from major brands a run for their money. It's well polished on the software front, even if its hardware leaves a little to be desired.

Name: DTR-Z500HD (TVonics)

Type: Freeview+ HD Digital TV recorder

Specs: Click here for full specs

Price: £224.99 direct from TVonics

HDMI switching is a rare feature for a digital TV recorder, but the TVonics DTR-Z500HD packs it in. Does the rest of its features live up to the relatively hefty price tag attached to this PVR?

Sleek black curves and its stout boxy frame aside, the DTR-Z500HD is a rather unassuming Freeview HD set top box, completely bereft of buttons, that houses a rather unique feature. On its rear is not only a HDMI Output port, but also two HDMI inputs, allowing for pass-through switching of two further HD sources, such as a Blu-ray player or games console. Switching between the two via dedicated "HDMI 1" and "HDMI 2" buttons on the remote control, it'll be a godsend for those with a TV packing only the one HDMI port, or those looking to tidily wall-mount a TV with the minimum amount of input cables on show. With Freeview HD broadcast in 1080i, it also reveals why the need for 1080p support is included here, as so many Blu-ray players and games consoles using the sharper picture format could potentially pass through the box.

Cramming in a 500GB hard disk, the DTR-Z500HD has all the Freeview+ HD features you'd expect from a premium digital TV recorder, including series link options, one-button recording and Live TV pause, allowing you to fence off a portion of the hard drive for as many as 4 hours of live TV to be rewound through. Dual tuners allow two channels to be recorded whilst a third is being viewed. Around 70 hours of HD footage can be stored, or 220 hours of standard definition programming. There's even a recommendation service which, depending on whether or not broadcasters include the relevant information with their shows, will suggest programs you may enjoy based on those you've already recorded.

In use, the EPG and menu system is punchy and fast, skirting around the layers of programme information and channel listings briskly. Text is crisp and easy to read, and there's even some light customisation options when it comes to the skin of the EPG and its colours.

Sharp, smear-free Freeview HD images are delivered from the box, while even standard definition channels are upscaled to a high standard. Those using larger screen TVs upwards of 40 inches may see a little softening to SD images, but only minimally. Though few shows are broadcast with 5.1 sound on Freeview HD, the DTR-Z500HD supports it regardless, converting the compressed HE-AAC format into Dolby Digital 5.1, compatible with all AV amps. There's even a Dolby Surround option, converting stereo sources into 5.1 through an AV with Dolby Pro Logic codecs.

The remote control is very comfortable, if a little lightweight. Along with the afore-mentioned HDMI switching buttons, there's a central click wheel, surrounded by "Guide", "Text", "Info" and "Back" buttons. A button dedicated for switching between TV and radio EPG listings will suit those who listen to the wireless a lot too. However there's one pretty glaring issue with the remote set-up here. Though leaving the DTR-Z500HD without buttons makes a fairly sleek design for the box itself, losing the remote down the side of a sofa or, even worse, breaking it, will lead to you being unable to control the box at all.

If we had any other major complaints with the box, it's how underused both the dual USB ports and Ethernet port found on the device are. The USB ports can only display photos stored on a memory stick rather than music or movie files, with their purpose predominately for updating the system software. Likewise, the Ethernet port is incapable of grabbing content from a networked PC or other DLNA compliant device, though it will be future-proofed for eventual Freeview+ HD web features.

Verdict:

Delivering class-leading Freeview HD images and offering a genuinely useful feature in the shape of its HDMI switching function, there's a lot to love in this latest TVonics box. However, it's got quite a steep price tag, and those looking for a little more storage space or a more robust feature list may be better served elsewhere.