about-electronics.eu

Navigadget: JVC had already announced the KV-PX9 in the United States at the beginning of year, but nothing for Europe. They fixed this very recently, presenting the KV-PX70 for the European market.It has a good set of features such as the SiRF Star III GPS chipset, a big wide screen, hands free Bluetooth kit and a RDS/TMC receiver. (…)
Here are the features:

• Integrated SiRF Star III GPSReceiver
• Samsung Processor at 400 MHz
• 4.3 TFT touch screen w/ 65.000 colors, 16:9 format and 480 x 272 pixels
• Integrated Traffic Information receiver
• Hands free bluetooth kit
• 5 hour battery life
• Microsoft Windows CE.net 5.0
• Text-to-speech
• MP3 player
• Image viewer
• 1GB SD memory card with maps of France and Europe without borders

It will be released as early mid-December this year and should cost about 500 euros.

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T3: Packing a native contrast ratio of 15,000:1, the projector’s capable of slapping true blacks all over your wall without denting picture brightness. It’s a real boon for film and TV lovers, and means moody scenes look better than ever.

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AVZombie: It continues to be a bumpy ride for JVC. Extensive cost-cutting has improved its profitability, but according to the company’s first half year financials, its consumer electronics business remains under pressure. JVC’s ce business has declined year-on-year in Japan. Sales of hard disk camcorders are up, but it not enough to offset poor LCD TV sales and the junking of its DVD recorder division. (…) . Europe paints a brighter picture: sales of LCD televisions and camcorders are up significantly year-on-year.

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US Newswire: New research indicates that during the first year or two of use, LCD and plasma TVs have been just as reliable as cathode ray TVs, which historically require very few repairs.

The latest ‘Consumer Reports’ product reliability survey shows no repair issues during the first year or two of use for LCD TVs from JVC, Panasonic, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp, Sony and Toshiba. Dell LCD sets have had higher than average repairs.

In plasma, there have been no repair issues for Fujitsu, Hitachi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony or Toshiba. The repair rate for Philips and Vizio plasma sets has been higher than average.

According to the report, long-term reliability for flat-panel sets is not known, and cannot be estimated, at this time.

“With more and better TVs now available from an ever-growing list of brands, it’s a great time to purchase a new high definition LCD or plasma set,” according to Paul Reynolds, electronics editor of the report.

See the full report at Consumer Reports.

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EETimes: To better compete against flat-screen TV sets, JVC has developed an optical engine that allows a 60-inch class rear projection TV to have a depth of just 10 inches.

Liquid crystal display (LCD) or plasma display (PDP) TVs are considered flat screen, but these TVs measure 14 to 16 in. deep if the stand is factored in. JVC said its rear projection TV stands by itself and can be placed flush against a wall or on a table, or mount directly on a wall due to its light weight.

JVC is one of the companies that founded the Micro Device Display Consortium to promote microdisplay-based rear projection TVs. (…)

JVC intends to introduce the slim rear projection TVs early next year for the North American market.

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AV Zombie: JVC has developed what it calls “Near Speaker Surround Technology” (NSST) for 2-channel front surround sound systems. 

NSST applies proprietary signal processing to audio reproduced at low volume from a single active-speaker enclosure placed close in front of the listener. 

Using traditional components and placing a speaker close to the listener, sound volume can be turned down to reduce ambient noise leakage, but this typically results in a reduction of “spatial broadness” and impact.   However, NSST restores this spatial awareness.

JVC says the result is a surround sound experience on par with a conventional multi-channel speaker system, all without any heavy noise leakage into the surrounding environment.

The Japanese giant says NSST can create a soundfield equivalent to a sound pressure level of 70dB even if it reduces the ambient sound pressure by approximately 56 percent.

The company, which has three patents pending on the tech, will exhibit it for the first time at the four-day A and V Festa which opens at Pacifico Yokohama, Japan on September 21.

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Reuters: The world’s top consumer electronics maker is enjoying tremendous plasma TV demand, but Matsushita Electric still has a few concerns.

Loss-making unit JVC accounts for about 8% of Matsushita sales, but has been hit by falling demand for traditional cathode ray tube TVs and audio systems, although new Matsushita President Fumio Ohtsubo says JVC should return to profit this year.

See video report. 

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And here are the best gadgets in Europe – according to the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA).

EISA is Europe’s biggest multimedia press organisation. The winners are voted by Editors of the top leading speacialist magazines from 19 countries.

The competition is tough. If this were the Olympics (or Eurovision, if you like) of the Electronics Business, the winning companies would be ( based on the number single products awarded first place):

All the winners are here.

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Light-years ago – say: the Seventies – people wanting to buy a video recorder were faced with a difficult choice. On the one hand, Sony had its Betamax standard. JVC however promoted the VHS. All other manufacturers were divided into those two camps. In the long run, a practical matter (longer tapes) made most consumers decide in favour of VHS.

Now, in 2006, a similar war seemed to start between Blu-ray and HD-DVD producers, both boasting to be the real successor to DVD.

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