It has already been an excellent 12 months for house cinema followers. Leap on over to the What Hello-Fi? Awards 2023 greatest TV winners listing and also you’ll see why.
Not solely have we seen a brand new grudge match between Samsung and LG for the way forward for OLED, with each debuting new second-generation QD-OLED and Micro Lens Array (MLA) display screen tech, however we’ve additionally had the pleasure of reviewing some superb units. Highlights embrace the Sony A80L and LG G3, which each earned five-star scores.
Nonetheless, whereas I’m enthusiastic about the way forward for TVs, with different fascinating units together with the Philips OLED908, Sony A95L and Panasonic MZ2000 nonetheless within the pipeline for the What Hello-Fi? assessment remedy, there’s one small pattern I’m much less enthusiastic about – wi-fi.
Wi-fi isn’t something new on this planet of house cinema. Regardless of my and the staff’s love of bodily media, we’ve accepted streaming is right here to remain. As an alternative, what I’m speaking about right here is the inflow of latest house cinema tech aiming to fully take away wires from the equation.
The primary signal of this appeared on the CES tradeshow in Las Vegas in the beginning of January when US startup firm Displace unveiled an idea wi-fi TV. Once I say wi-fi, I imply wi-fi; no ports, no cables. Even energy was dealt with wirelessly by way of rechargeable batteries.
Fascinating? Certain. Sensible? Fudge no.
Placing apart the very fact the quoted six-hour battery life would solely get you two-thirds of the way in which via the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or about midway via a contemporary Scorsese, the massive situation was that it didn’t even work when the corporate tried to demo it on the present.
By the point our intrepid managing editor, Becky Roberts, tried to e book a demo, the corporate had given up after the pre-production idea it was displaying had given up the ghost.
Usually, it might be straightforward to dismiss this as a random fluke at CES, the place bizarre ideas are a fairly widespread phenomenon – does anybody keep in mind the haptic suggestions TV panel idea from many moons in the past?
However the issue is, since then I’ve seen a number of extra established firms leap on the “no cables” house cinema pattern. On the TV entrance, we have now the LG M3. Our employees author, Lewis Empson, had a really temporary demo of this at IFA in Berlin in September. It’s being marketed by LG as “the world’s first wi-fi OLED” and on paper it is fascinating. It options the max-brightness boosting MLA tech seen on the LG G3, Panasonic MZ2000, and Philips OLED908, however comes with an atypical wi-fi design.
The design is the massive advertising level. It successfully replaces all the usual ports with a “Zero Join field”. This can be a wi-fi field that makes use of a customized “Zero Join” wi-fi know-how to transmit audio and footage to the TV from related sources. Successfully meaning you join any bins, consoles, or audio {hardware} to the field after which stream it to the TV with no direct cabled connection. The field itself options three HDMI 2.1 ports (considered one of which is eARC), two USB ports, and an optical port.
Questions on latency apart, which Lewis famous in his hands-on, I don’t actually perceive the attraction. I imply, having a field to wirelessly stream stuff is cool, but when I nonetheless must cable join my audio system, or soundbar to it, all I’m doing is shifting the place the cables are, not fully eradicating them.
That is the place one thing reminiscent of Dolby FlexConnect might step in. Introduced at IFA, the thought behind FlexConnect is fairly easy – it enables you to create a fast and straightforward Dolby Atmos encompass sound setup, by pairing specifically made wi-fi audio system together with your TV’s in-built audio system. We’ve but to see a FlexConnect setup within the wild. as the primary suitable TV and speaker system is ready to reach subsequent 12 months by way of TCL.
And whereas on paper the thought once more sounds cool, we had some massive questions. First is across the truth the setup wants you to make use of the TV’s inbuilt audio system because the central channel – examine our greatest TV information and also you’ll see that even the top-performing units we check nonetheless battle to ship dependable audio utilizing their inbuilt audio system. Wanting particularly on the LG C3 and LG G3, you’ll additionally see poor audio is a standard criticism we had testing each units this 12 months.
However then there’s the issue with wi-fi basically. Everytime you try to use wi-fi audio on a big scale, past stereo, there’s the query of interference and latency creeping into the combo. And so even with the thought of FlexConnect, I’m nonetheless not bought on the thought of utilizing it for a very wi-fi house cinema setup.
It’s this mix of things that makes me fear firms are on the verge of constructing a mistake and leaping on on the thought of totally wi-fi house cinema tech earlier than the {hardware} is prepared, or there’s a lot of a requirement for it – the identical approach many determined curved screens the place an excellent thought again within the day.
Right here’s hoping I’m improper…
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