CES 2002

Bye Bye Vegas

Paris – 14th January: After four days of trade show we’re back on European soil with our bags along with documentation, CD-ROM’s and other visuals that we hadn’t seen until now. So before going through these goodies one by one in a show and tell session, I’d like to come back to some of the major happenings at CES and to conclude in saying that this show will have, as usual, allowed us to discover that a large number of manufacturers had managed to present new products that are as innovative as they are useful.

While the evident trend for the year 2002 will have been the democratisation of "all digital", we also noted that multi-channel audio formats have become so common that they are applied to all new "latest generation" amplifiers, and above all, to the Car audio market, which now includes Dolby and DTS formats in numerous models.

Digital amplification is also being applied by numerous Audio/Video manufacturers. Yamaha, Panasonic, Tact and Daewoo are part of this elite movement, being some of the first to use this amplifying technology allowing for a delivery of almost 94 dB with instantaneous response time. Music servers, 61 inch and 32 inch plasma screens, the new DMD HD1 chip from Texas Instruments, the DVD Recorders and DVD Players with Integrated Hard Disc or Memory Stick port, as well as the new DVD-VHS Combis were all prominent, and will be making it to the shop shelves in Europe in March 2002, after being presented at the "Mondial Image et Son" which takes place in Paris.

So for those of you who want to see the machines, it suffices to zap over to the Reports section or to click HERE.