Greetings to the Holiday Spectacular, hosted by Pepcom in San Francisco at the Metreon, where journalists and leading technology companies hit Tinseltown. Photo by Marcus Siu
Article and photos by Marcus Siu
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – DECEMBER 10, 2016: Every time I attend the Pepcom media event show, it always feels like Christmas, regardless of what time of the year it actually is. Their Holiday Spectacular’s “Tinsel & ‘Tini’s” show they hosted at the end of October at the San Francisco Metreon’s City View was certainly no exception, as it was a perfect festive kickoff into the holiday season.
A fun time was had by all, as the latest products received full attention at the booths with media surrounding the company reps on the show floor, inquiring about the latest wares and gadgets.
Wonderful food was served throughout the evening such as dim sum, fajitas, and carved roast beef with a grand assortment of organic veggies, cocktails, such as Lemon Drop Martinis, wine and beer. It definitely encouraged a fun atmosphere with informative conversation with the more than fifty or so companies that came, along with their representatives ,that presented their products to the media, with well over hundreds of new products to show.
This year’s Pepcom festive show put me in the right frame of mind and mood, as it made me wonder what I would want from Santa this year, as if I was to build a brand new home entertainment center from scratch. Glancing at all the booths, like a kid in a candy store, it was pretty easy to choose and pick products that were on display that evening.
Here’s what I would ask Santa for Christmas.
Dolby Laboratories made a rare appearance at the Pepcom Holiday Spectacular in San Francisco in late October to promote “Dolby Vision”. Photo by Marcus Siu.
DOLBY LABORATORIES
The first thing I would have Santa put in his sled is a brand new 4K LG OLED 65″ E6, with Dolby Vision. Yes, your heard me right! Dolby Vision. Dolby Labs, known primarily for their patented sound technology, now has made a mark in what you see with their sound in consumer electronics.
Dolby Vision™ is advanced high dynamic range (HDR) and offers a multitude of benefits such as its astonishing brightness, deep darks, expanded contrast, ultra-vivid colors, refined detail, enhanced dimensionality. In contrast, they make regular standard 4K HDTV’s with standard HDR look pale in comparison.
Dolby have incorporated “Dolby Vision” technology into a few 4K HDR Smart LED TV’s: The LG Super UHD ($1099-$7999) and OLED TV series, Models B6 ($2499-$3999) & E6 ($3499-4999), the Vizion M ($899-$3799) & P series ($699-3999).
Add to that, a Dolby Atmos soundbar found in the Samsung HW-K850 ($999), HW-950 ($1499), and the Yamaha YSP-5600 ($1599) (shown below) and you now have a home version of “Dolby Cinema”.
Sound has never truly looked better and sight has never sound like this clear.
I’ll have to ask Santa for the Yamaha YSP-5600 soundbar, as well to match the TV.
https://www.dolby.com/in/en/technologies/home/dolby-vision.html#4
The LG Super UHD and OLED TV series, Models B6 & E6 (shown here) join the line that features Dolby Vision. Courtesy of Dolby Laboratories.
Yamaha YSP-5600BL MusicCast Sound Bar with Dolby Atmos. Courtesy of Dolby Laboratories
VIEWSONIC:
However, sometimes even a 65 inch screen doesn’t quite do it, regardless of how amazing the picture quality is. A big epic like “Lawrence of Arabia” or “Titanic” was made to be seen on the big screen. This is when we need a projector that can fill up the entire wall.
With the LS820 laser projector ($2999.99), ViewSonic delivers a Full HD 1080p, ultra-short throw projector for stunning home entertainment, this creates the perfect environment. The LS820 features a laser phosphor light source with Rec. 709 calibration for accurate color rendering. With the company’s proprietary SuperColor™ and SonicExpert® technologies, the LS820 delivers advanced color and enhanced sound reproduction, and 3500 lumens of brightness. This projector has a 0.25 ultra-short throw lens allowing it to be placed on your home entertainment stand just inches away from a wall or screen, and project an immersive image up to 150 inches. This projector offers up to 20,000 hours of operation, 100,000:1 contrast ratio, and PortAll® – a hidden MHL/HDMI port that discreetly streams multimedia content from a mobile device to the projector via a wireless dongle. Utilizing the latest laser light technology, the LS820 is virtually maintenance-free, providing years of in-home entertainment.
Unlike the traditional rear projector, it’s nice to know that the “child-like” audience members in the screening room will no longer be able to use their hands to create shadows of flying birds or barking dogs between the projector light and screen. It’s also nice to know that there is no more danger of kicking or tripping over exposed cables.
Add this to the sled, too, Santa…
http://www.viewsonic.com/us/ls820.html
No need to have to have the projector all the way back to the wall any longer. The ViewSonic projector is just inches from the screen and can project a 150′ image. Photo by Marcus Siu.
PLEX:
After hooking up the TV or the projector, it would be wise to get some real entertainment to enjoy. Since, I enjoy watching my own media, rather than live TV, I would add Plex into my Home Entertainment pyramid. Plex lets you access your own media stored on your computer by connecting the Plex Media server, which can be installed on either your computer, NAS, or even router, so you can stream it to any of your devices that contain the Plex player app; be it your Smart TV, a tablet or a smartphone, regardless of where you are.
Your Plex media can be hand chosen from the media from your computer (photos, videos, movies and TV shows, etc). You have total control of what to put into the server; any media that is stored on your hard drive.
You can also share them with friends or family who are also Plex users and everyone can give each other access to their collections, as well.
Plex organizes your entire media collection through a simple interface and enhances it with descriptions, plot summaries, film posters and more. Their tagging software gathers all the pertinent information on the server such as the movie studios graphics and credits, or photos tags with the shooting information of your photos, so you can easily navigate instead of squinting to read your files.
Even Santa could enjoy Plex on his tablet or smartphone, if he or any of his reindeer need a break. I still believe there are animal cruelty laws against reindeers not taking a break.
Access your media files anywhere from your computer, tablet, or smartphone, regardless where you are with the help of Plex. Photo by Marcus Siu
WESTERN DIGITAL:
Unfortunately, having your own media means needing lots of storage to put them on, and with HD and 4K video becoming more commonplace for video enthusiasts and filmmakers, the need for more storage continues to climb at record rates. Luckily storage prices have been dramatically decreasing over the years, where as the capacity of hard drives have been going up. 3TB and 4TB drives are now becoming typical and more affordable as time goes on.
Even with the new re imagined designed change this year on their My Passports, Western Digital has been consistently producing the most reliable hard drives over the years, and I would prefer to stick with them, especially with their 3 year warranty. As well as the auto-backup featured on My Passports, it’s password protection has a built-in 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption to keep your files safe, in case you need it.
List prices for the 3TB & 4TB drives are $119.99 & $139.99.
These would be perfect stocking stuffers.
https://www.wdc.com/products/portable-storage/my-passport.html
LINKSYS:
With all this media, one would need a top of the line router that can handle 4K streaming and HD video with ease, especially with multiple users and devices around the home.
The Linksys Max-Stream AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit Wi-Fi Router (EA9500) is powered by a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor and delivers speeds up to 5.3 Gbps through Wi-Fi. MU-MIMO stands for Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output) technology. It provides Next-Gen Wi-Fi AC technology capable of handling multiple simultaneous data streams to multiple screens and Wi-Fi devices without lag or buffering.
In other words, this router would be perfect for 4kTV streaming and online multiplayer gaming and when multiple devices are being used, as it has 8 Gigabit ethernet ports. ($349.99)
Santa, “I think we’re gonna need a bigger sled”.
This Linksys EA9500 is truly a monster in a box. Photo by Marcus Siu.
http://www.linksys.com/us/p/P-EA9500/
Happy holidays!
mlsentertainment 