Philips DVX8000 Multimedia Home Theater

[Tapas Das [ESRI-Redlands]]

I wanted to share my first impressions on the new Philips DVX8000
Multimedia Home Theater. I watched a demo this weekend at the
first annual Entertainment Expo at the Newport Hyatt, Newport Beach, CA,
hosted by Home Theater Magazine. This product will be available to
dealers in 2 weeks.

This is a brilliant product. I am estatic.

The weakest link in a typical home theater is the video. It is very
easy to get a decent sound but is exhorbitantly expensive to get
a wall to wall picture with good resolution. The DVX8000 addresses
the video part square on. This is its most compelling selling point.

The DVX8000 comes with a built-in DVD drive and processes the video
signal entirely in the digital domain to output a progressive
scanning RGB signal in SVGA resolution. The line doubling is done
internally. At the show they used a Runco Super HDTV IDP-980
graphics grade projector to accept the RGB output from the DVX8000
to project a stunning image on an 80 inch wide Stewart Screen.

The picture was breathtaking. This was certainly the best DVD picture
I have ever seen. No scan lines, no dot crawl, no hot spots, just
an incredibly smooth, high resolution picture. Just for a comparison,
for those who have the top of the line Sony DVP-S7000 DVD player
and top of the line Pioneer Elite Pro-119/1009W rear projection sets,
this will be an eye popping experience - a hugh improvement.

Do not demo this unit hooked up to a regular 35" direct TV or a
rear projection set. You must use a data grade front projector that
will accept an RGB input at SVGA resolution. By the way, you do not
need to have a Runco IDP-800. This will be an overkill as it can
deal with RGB feeds upto 1600x1200 pixels. You will not be able to
take full advantage of the DVX8000 unless you are willing to use
a data grade front projector and throw an image 80" or larger.

I was very impressed with the Snell & Wilcox Interpolator I and II
that was shown at the WCES earlier this year. It was a display
processor that could drive your projector at its golden scan rate.
The on-screen menus were slick, the picture was razor sharp, and
it blew my mind the way it could simultaneously display a web page
and scale a window showing a video feed from a laser disc. This
was true multimedia. The catch - the price was $32,000.

Well, guess what? The DVX8000 does the same function for $5000.
With a modem hookup, you can surf the internet on an 80" wide
screen and simultaneously watch TV, or a video feed from your
laser disc/VCR, or DVD on a scalable window. The unit comes
with the Marantz RC2000 universal learning remote. You do not
need to program the buttons one by one. Simply identify the
component - laser, DVD, DSS, etc., and the manufacturer - Sony
RCA, etc., and download the file from its database. It also
comes with a handy wireless keyboard. The DVD player can also
play CDROM and audio CDs.

It is a blast to play CDROM Video games on an 80" wide screen
with progressive SVGA resolution. Once you get a taste of this,
there is no going back to interlaced NTSC signals on 35" direct
view sets and 60" rear projection sets.

The audio is also processed in the digital domain and decodes
Dolby prologic, Dolby Digital, and several surround modes like
Hall, Matrix, Movie, with adjustable parameters via on-screen
menus.

Having said all the good things, here are the words of caution.

1. This is just a pre-amp. You will have to hook up an external
five channel power amp.

2. This is not the complete "Home Theater". You would still have
to buy speakers, front projector and a high gain screen.

3. The units lacks a DTS decoder.

4. The DVD player will not play DTS encoded DVDs when they come
out in April. As of now, all DVD players out there will not be
able to play DTS encoded DVD movies. Not even the new Sony DVP-S3000,
with the exception of the new Meridian DVD player (list $3500).
Somehow, Bob Stewart always manages to be one step ahead of his
competition.

However, I am hoping DVD manufactures will be kind enough to
offer a factory upgrade for existing DVD customers. The DTS encoded
DVD discs will be priced $5-$10 higher than regular DD encoded DVD
discs.

5. On the computer side, this unit is powerful enough for
surfing the internet, playing video games, and doing light
scale home computing. It comes with a 233MHz Pentium MMX processor,
32MB RAM, 3.1GB hard drive, floppy drive, Data/FAX modem, 2 USB ports
and a 16 Bit wavetable soundcard.

Unlike a regular PC clone, you cannot upgrade readily to a Pentium II,
swap hard drives or add in several new cards. There is space for
only a single half height card.

So what is the selling point for this unit? The exceptional
picture quality. To keep things in perspective, a decent line
doubler like the DWIN LD5 will set you back $4900.

Here with the $5000 DVX8000, you are getting the line doubler
plus the DVD/CDROM player, an audio/video preamp that decodes
DD, an FM tuner, the RC2000 universal remote (the remote of the
Gods), a multimedia PC for surfing the internet and the wireless
keyboard and soundcard.

I have to give two thumbs up to the R&D division of Philips/Marantz
for bringing out a revolutionary product with a perfect balance
between price and performance.

Check out http://www.mmhometheater.com for more information.

For comparison, I also checked out the Compaq PC Theater 9100 demo.
For $5200, you get a multimedia PC with a 200MHz MMX Pentium processor,
40MB RAM, 3.8GB hard drive, DVD video/DVD-ROM player, data/FAX modem,
and the 36" TV is bundled in. In PC mode, it can go upto VGA resolution
(640x480), while in TV mode it displays 720x480 pixels.

After the DVX8000 demo, this was a dissappointment. How could I go
back to a 36" TV after seeing the spectacular picture on an 80"
screen? No competition.

The ultimate picture at the show was put up by the Zenith Pro900
graphics grade projector. In HDTV mode it could display 1280x720
progressive, or 1920x1080 interlaced both in 16x9 aspect ratio.
They used a HighDef analog feed from a JVC HighDef VCR (using
the Japanese analog HDTV format). Almost film like quality.
Ok, enough of teasing demos...I want my HDTV now!

Tapas Das
td...@esri.com