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Black Rhodium HDMI cables hit "every price point" except ours

by Darren Murph posted Jun 27th 2008 at 8:25PM

Actually, we're being too kind. It hits every price point except the one below "absurdly inflated." For whatever reason, Black Rhodium figures it can get away with launching a pricey new line of HDMI cables that are "engineered for optimum performance at every price point," yet the cheapest one is a full £35 ($69)... and that's for a 0.5-meter edition. The sure-to-be-noticeably-faster (ahem) Sapphire HiSpeed cables boast gold-plated connectors, copper conductors and meet the ridiculous demands of HDMI 1.3b . Oh, and they go for £75, £130 and £180 for the 1/5/7.5-meter models. Sure, maybe these aren't quite as baffling as Monster Cables, but they're way too close for comfort.

Sapphire shows off 56-inch QuadHD LCD

by Richard Lawler posted Jun 8th 2008 at 8:03PM


When it comes to QuadHD, if 82-inches is too big, and 52-inches isn't quite big enough, maybe Sapphire's 56-inch, 8.3 megapixel, 3840 x 2160 res LCD is just right. TGDaily pegs the price at around $60,000, a price which might compel us to spring for Astro Systems' pro model. Unfortunately, even a willingness to drop that amount of coin for this HDTV wrangled details on exactly when it will be available or any other specs, but things have come a long way from CMO's demo unit two years ago. The only question now is what to do when 33 megapixel Super Hi-Vision hits airwaves.

Cheaper blue lasers on the way?

by Richard Lawler posted Feb 26th 2007 at 12:13PM

Whether the format war is over or not, one thing that would definitely get more buyers off the fence and owning more high definition players would be lower prices. Aonex Technologies and Kyma Technologies are the latest to announce they've found a better (and cheaper) way to pump out the blue laser diodes necessary in every Blu-ray and HD DVD player. Aonex claims its A-Sapph wafer technology improves on current sapphire based processes, enabling an increase in the number of chips per wafer and improving yields substantially. As fans of lasers in general, and not just in relation to HDTVs and lower prices, we're excited, but without even the hint of an expected release date it will probably be a while before these are ready for the market.

Sony displays prototype "Sapphire" second-gen Blu-ray players

by Richard Lawler posted Jan 8th 2007 at 5:57AM Breaking News

Unfortunately they were only given a passing mention during Sony's CES press conference earlier, but a quick look at the fact sheet revealed a few additional details about these two second generation Blu-ray players with launch and price TBA. Named Sapphire 1 and 2, we don't know what makes them different from each other, but the only features listed are 1080p24 output, and support for x.v.Color, Sony's term for the xvYCC expanded color space. Of course, we're most interested in seeing if they can load a Blu-ray movie as fast as the PlayStation 3, but that remains to be seen. Impress Watch got a look at the two players, but it will likely be a while before we find out more about what the followups to Sony's BDP-S1 will be capable of.

[Via Impress]

Continue reading Sony displays prototype "Sapphire" second-gen Blu-ray players





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