Thanks to its clever waterproof and dustproof concept, you can use Sanyo’s Xacti VPC-WH1 at up to 3 metres underwater (it is certificated IEC 60529, IPX8), and you won’t have problems on sunny beaches. This camera is terrific news for families who spend their holidays near the water - and also for avid divers, who can now not only tell their friends about that fascinating world under water, but actually show it to them. Recordings are in basic HD quality (1280x720p, 30fps), stored in the modest 43MB internal memory, or in extended external memory using SD or SDHC cards. A 30-times optical zoom means that unique pictures can be captured at greater distance. And as the VPC-WH1 is light and robust enough to carry everywhere, parents and youngsters too can enjoy digital video at the simplest level.

Making it the best choice in the plasma arena is the TX-P42V10E’s fine balance of picture quality, functionality and up-to-date technology, and of course a competitve price. This display offers a really enjoyable cinema-like experience, with excellent contrast and natural colour, achieved with no effort from the user thanks to the THX Preset setup feature. It can give you real Full HD pictures from terrestrial broadcasts, thanks to its MPEG4-compatible tuner, while an HD satellite tuner is included too. And it can keep you ‘connected’ with VieraCast, bringing the Internet directly to the display through useful widgets, while DLNA compatibility allows access to multimedia content from the user’s network. Last but not least, the NeoPDP panel guarantees an excellent efficiency in terms of power consumption. It would be difficult indeed to find all these features elsewhere at the same price.

At a price that’s affordable for amateur video enthusiasts, Sony’s Vegas Pro 9 gives you a full professional editing solution. It is easy to use, and at the same time covers an unlimited number of audio/video tracks and a large range of video formats, including DV, HDV and variety of AVCHD formats. Additionally Vegas Pro 9 handles professional formats like XDCAM and RED 4k. You can mix 5.1 audio, and for thorough colour grading you can extend your editing suite with an AJA break-out solution, showing the video picture on a real TV screen. The software works smoothly on a normal, powerful PC. And if price is still an issue, you can choose one of the much cheaper Vegas Movie Studio packages with limited specifications, yet sharing the same professional, but still easy, user interface.

Easy handling, top technology and professional features are combined perfectly in Panasonic’s HDC-TM300 HD camcorder. Its high-resolution, high-sensitivity 3MOS image sensor system, together with advanced optical picture stabilisation, secures good pictures in all kinds of shooting conditions. Effective picture processing is provided along with many sophisticated, fully automatic functions, including an intelligent tracking system. An internal high-capacity memory of 32GB replaces the usual hard disk drive to makes the HDC-TM300 even more reliable, and noiseless. Together with SD memory card recording, this feature makes for simple movie content exchange. Added to its excellent video performance and wide range of manual settings, like sharpness, shutter speed and aperture adjustment, is a fine photo camera performance. A standard hot shoe is fitted, allowing you to use external accessories such as microphones and camera lights.

With its new HDR-XR520V Sony has managed a big step forward, upgrading all the camera’s components. This Full HD camcorder features a super-sensitive Exmor R CMOS sensor with 6 megapixel resolution and a new high-quality ‘G Lens’, with 12-times optical zoom, which is perfectly tailored to complement the resolving power of the Exmor, even in dark scenes.  Thanks to the 240GB hard disk drive combined with a sophisticated AVCHD algorithm, the HDR-XR520V allows an impressive 101 hours of video in Full HD resolution at high bit-rates. It’s also well equipped, with features like Smile Shutter, automatic face detection with skin tone correction, and a highly efficient Optical Image Stabilizer. Finally, a GPS tracking function allows the user to log the position of recorded movies anywhere on earth where there’s satellite coverage.

Competition in the LCD display market is tough, but Philips once again offers a masterpiece for moving pictures. With its backlight now using 224 LED segments and local dimming, the 46PFL9704H/12 will amaze viewers with the deepest blacks ever, making for an impressive picture with high contrast. Thanks to Philips ‘Perfect Natural Motion’ correction system, sharpness of detail is unsurpassed even in scenes with vertical movement. Philips’ unique Setup Assistant makes it easy to find your favourite picture settings, and the set is well-prepared for online Internet use. Some useful websites are pre-installed, but after browsing the whole Internet, you can store favourite places as shortcut icons. With a USB connection or DLNA, you can bring your own media files to the screen from your PC, media server or memory card. Philips’ 46PFL9704H/12 is the most exciting entertainment centre for any home, its great picture performance complemented by Philips amazing Ambilight feature.

European Webmedia-TV 2009-2010 -> Samsung UE46B8000
Television enters new dimensions of entertainment with Samsung’s ultra-slim UE46B8000 edge-lit LED-backlight LCD display. Today’s customers look for high grade picture quality and stylish design, but they also want the options and benefits of web services and home networks. The UE46B8000 offers it all, with easy access to Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and various news services, by wired or wireless Internet. Its USB and DLNA connectivity allows it to handle any kind of media from streaming home servers, camcorders, portable music players, and external FAT or NTFS drives, covering most sound and video formats, even in High Definition. Meanwhile, the UE46B8000’s own on-board content library offers an exciting collection of games, fitness exercises, cooking recipes, art gallery and much more.

A great Full HD viewing experience at an affordable price - that’s what the LG 42SL8000 brings to every customer’s home. This new LCD TV convinces viewers with its natural-looking colours, amazing contrast and deep blacks. It also looks great, with its unique seamless glass-front design and concealed speakers. LG’s integrated ‘TruMotion 200 Hertz’ technology grants smooth motion reproduction on all material, including 24p sources such as Blu-ray. For home cinema enthusiasts, the 42SL8000 offers a rich choice of sophisticated options and adjustments, with practical presets reached through clear and simple menus. While the average customer will be able to set up the 42LS8000 very effectively using LG’s ‘Picture Wizard’, it’s also ISFccc Ready, for professional calibration.

Beautifully finished and comprehensively equipped, Pioneer’s BDP-LX91 is one of the very first BD players with sufficient on-board processing power to decode both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. It’s also one of the first to offer a full 7.1 channel analogue output – perfect for direct connection to the multichannel analogue inputs of new and legacy AV receivers alike. Naturally, the BDP-LX91 also offers HDMI 1.3a connectivity and the full flexibility of Profile 2 BD Live functionality with its 4GB of internal memory. Powerful DSP is included, offering audio bass management and Pioneer’s own ‘adaptive bit expansion’ which interpolates BD’s native 8-bit per channel to 16-bit colour. Picture and sound quality are spectacular, being both vibrant and hugely detailed. The very brightest whites look pure, free of spurious colour and any suggestion of dynamic crushing, while the multichannel sound is amazing, the most dense acoustic imaginings depicted in seemingly intricate detail. The BDP-LX91 is the jewel in Pioneer’s AV crown.

Trying to find a cost-effective BD player that will fulfil all your needs? The LG BD390 can! Its unique appeal is based on wireless connectivity plus complete compatibility with all the standard interfaces (USB, HDMI 1080p, S-Video, YUV), and it even provides 7.1-channel analogue outputs. For the Internet, you can hook up the player with an Ethernet cable or go wireless via 802.11n Wi-Fi. You can enjoy multimedia content from your local DLNA net or PC stream, download BD-Live content, or connect to YouTube. You can also play media files from external FAT and NTFS drives. The BD390 offers comprehensive handling of compressed audio, video and photo codecs, and formats like DivX, DivX HD and even MKV. Last but not least, this extraordinary player comes at a very attractive price.

Billed by Samsung as ‘the world’s slimmest’, the 42mm-high BD-P4600 is also the world’s first wall-mountable Blu-ray player. Its black glossy finish blends into platinum-grey to complement Samsung’s Crystal TV range, and the curvy chassis looks great when mounted vertically on its special hidden bracket below a wall-mounted flat screen. Wireless internet access is provided simply and painlessly by connecting Samsung’s accessory Wi-Fi dongle to the player’s USB 2.0 port. Alternatively, you can use a cable Ethernet connection. The BD-P4600 supports Bonus View for picture-in-picture movie extras and BD Live (BD profile 2.0) for a wealth of interactive entertainment features, with 1GB of internal storage for downloadable content. You can also stream multimedia from your PC to the BD-P4600. Finally, this sleek and effective Blu-ray player offers 1080p upscaling when playing a standard DVD disc. A genuinely innovative design with ‘must have’ visual appeal.

The announcement of Philips’ Cinema 21:9 HDTV was greeted with great enthusiasm by home cinema buffs. And for a good reason, for as more BD releases are offered in their original cinematic aspects of around 2.35:1, this is the first set that gets close to offering the widescreen impact intended by the director. Philips’ 56PFL9954H, named in full, still partially scales the BD’s 1080p output to fill its 2560x1080 pixel screen but the results are both natural and compelling. Philips’ own BDP9100 Blu-ray player with subtitle-shift function is the ideal partner. This is a Profile 2.0 machine that handles Dolby and DTS HD audio formats with 1GB of internal memory to accommodate BD Live extras. Philips is the first to offer a truly cinematic widescreen experience from a TV, but you can bet others will follow!