If your doctor was getting up to speed on a new surgical procedure via video footage, you'd want that video to be in HD, right? Thanks to Dr. Diethrich, a co-owner of VAS Communications in Phoenix and also Medical Director at Arizona Heart Hospital, that's now a possibility -- VAS Communications recently rolled out its HD production truck, complete with its own 2.4-meter antenna for satellite uplink. Also onboard are a Panasonic HD video switcher and an Yamaha digital audio console for putting everything together. The "HDMD" is the first HD production truck in Arizona, so you just know that between medical telecasts it's been pressed into action for local news work.

Not everyone has been won over by Toshiba's XDE upscaling, but the company has no plans of abandoning its in-house developed tech; at least that's what key folks behind XDE said in an interview with Home Cinema Choice mag. Not surprisingly, there's a lack of specific sales figures or technical detail on how the adaptive processing works -- there's nothing wrong with holding on to the secret sauce, after all -- but the interview definitely shows that Toshiba is feeling pressure from falling Blu-ray player prices. We've got to wonder how the company is going to deliver a model cheaper than the $150 XD-E500, though -- the gap between standard DVD spinners and cheap Blu-ray players is getting awfully thin, even for pixie dust.

Getting bass out of a soundbar that conveys proper theater impact is asking for a bit much, so Polk Audio has wisely chosen to add a standalone subwoofer and name the package the SurroundBar SDA Instant Home Theater (IHT). Of course, soundbar shoppers are likely concerned about stringing wires across the living room floor, ceiling, or what have you, so Polk has added a wireless connection between the SurroundBar and the 6.5-inch subwoofer. Nice and tidy, and it'll ship this month for a buck under $600 $500.

Sure, this week's CES could net Samsung some bragging rights over Sony if rumors of a 6.5-mm thin LED-backlit LCD display come true, but that's just about corporate pride (and Sony's XEL-1 is a shipping product to boot). The real hurt comes in the form of new numbers from DisplaySearch that show Samsung widening its lead in US sales, moving up to 26.7-percent of the US market compared to Sony's 14.8-percent. Those figures are through November, and it's pretty amazing that more than one in four digital TVs sold in the US were Samsung.

The idea of gesture-based remote control isn't new, but GestureTek has added in 3D tracking to the mix for, you guessed it -- even more expressive interaction with your TV. After all, you don't live in flatland, so why should your remote control gestures? Of course, adding in depth perception requires the use of more than one webcam, but maybe that's not a big tradeoff in our age of six and more speakers in the living room. The setup will be on display at CES (sans Xpletive), so we'll try and swing by for a, um, hands on while we puzzle over how to add voice commands to this system. Watching the big game with your buddies just might get even more entertaining yet.

Without a doubt, loudspeaker design leaves a lot of room for new ideas (especially at the high end), and the disadvantages of typical box-like enclosures have been recognized for a long time now. Curvy shapes are not new, and at CES, Kruger Audio Technologies will toss its hat into the ring with designs that mimic instrumental shapes. If the unique form isn't enough to win you over, how about the added feature of indirect sunlight and rain resistance? Seriously, avoiding diffraction effects and standing waves is all well and good, but getting overly literal -- with a saxophone-like shape, for instance -- only holds up if you only listen to saxophones. We're not saying that the Krueger speakers won't sound great and aren't well-designed, but let's give engineers their due and not confuse a specific instrument shape with an audio panacea, okay?

Apparently still stinging from its MPEG-LA licensing tussle, VIZIO is throwing its weight behind the Coalition to Terminate Financial Abuses of the Television Transmission ("CUT FATT," and no, we're not sure where the "U" came from). Claiming excessive and unregulated patent fees related to FCC regulations for producing DTV-ready sets that have already exceeded a Dr. Evil-esque one-billion dollars, the crux of the argument is that since 2007, US consumers have paid 20-30 times the licensing fees as compared to European and Japanese consumers for "essentially the same technology," and CUT FATT would like to see the FCC rein in these fees to competitive rates. VIZIO is claiming this is an effort to stand behind the American consumer, but we'd like to know how much the company would cut retail prices on its already relatively strong sales. Still, we can't argue with the company's rights to do what it can to seek higher profitability as it balances value and upscale marketing messages.

[Bacon briefcase image courtesy saynotocrack]

Wallets all over the world are getting thin, and DisplaySearch says that displays will match that vanishing act in an effort to hang on to product differentiation. Calling for negative sales growth in 2009, the prognosticators still see sales of ultrathin (less than 40mm thick) displays reaching 14 million units in 2012, with the profile being even more important than LED backlights in product differentiation. We'll admit that styling is a big feature, and we rank thin profiles above the "Hertz race" we see spiraling out of control, but honestly we'd rather see emphasis on image quality -- LED backlighting included. Tell us your take, and try not to spill the beans on this "thin is in" trend to LaserVue.

[Via TGDaily]

If your high end setup is going on a New Year's resolution diet of clean power, Torus Power has a little something to show you in its AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation, not "audio video receiver") lineup. The brand is distributed by high end fave Bryston and there are six models stretching from the 2U RM10 (2U height, 10A supply) all the way up to the RM60 BAL (4U and 20A, requires dedicated 240V, 20A service). As you'd expect, full power can be delivered to the taps so your amp won't run out of steam, but there are extras, too -- plenty of condition monitoring, 12V triggers and a web-accessible interface will ensure you never have to run to the rack once you've set everything up. But seriously, would you really want to hide this unit in the back room? Prices to be announced, which gives you some time to make space in the equipment rack.

If you've gone through the trouble and expense of putting audiophile-approved speakers in-wall, there's a good chance you're a "separates, no receivers" kind of purist. Carrying out your streamlined install to the next level will require you to put the amplifiers in wall, too, so you might be a candidate for Pragmatic's HideAway Stereo Audio Amplifier 248. Your audiophile side will like the promise of dual monoblock amplifiers in the little 2x3.5x3-inch box, but while you might typically associate monoblocks with triple-digit power, this $550, 15V-powered unit pumps out 48-Watts continuous and 60-Watts peak and Pragmatic specs flat performance from 10Hz to 50kHz. Like all things custom install, you can accessorize here -- volume controls, rack mounts and even a junction box install await your pocketbook.

The small footprint and point-source radiation of a concentric driver setup (tweeter mounted on the dust cap of a mid/woofer) make a lot of sense for installed use, so it's no surprise to see Tannoy -- a longtime proponent of its Dual Concentric drivers -- would use the technology for its CVS4 Micro in-ceiling speaker. The 0.75-inch tweeter is paired up with a 4-inch bass unit in a can-type enclosure for easy in-ceiling installation, even in low clearance installs. Better still, these you can feed these either 70V or 110V and everything will be ok thanks to the built in transformer. Bad news for the bassheads, though -- the low end only reaches to 90Hz.

New two-channel gear aside, you just know NAD wouldn't turn its back on components for this fad of moving pictures with audio. Sure enough, New Audio Dimensions is bringing out updates to its T-series of AV receivers (T 785, T 775, T 765), T 175 AV Tuner-Pre-Pro and Master Series M15HD Pre-Pro. The most notable new tech here is the use of Modular Design Construction (MDC) -- a design that allows NAD to build new functionality into products module-by-module for tasks like audio decoding and image processing. The $4,000 T 785 receiver packs in the top of the line AM 200 and VM 200 modules for audio and video, respectively, and things step downward to the AM 100 and VM 100 modules by the time you get to the $3,000 T 765 receiver. Follow the link for full model line pricing info.

Honestly, we picture the typical Meridian customer as the "if it breaks, I'll just buy a new one" type, but we honestly don't know any Meridian owners who we can hit up for hand-me-downs. More importantly, everyone is looking for a value-add these days, so Meridian is offering an extra two years of warranty coverage for purchases made between now and February of next year. So if you've been on the fence about that $35,000 DSP7200 speaker setup, now is a great time to jump in; if you're looking for a way to pitch the $185,000 Reference Video System to your "finance committee," this could be the deal-closer. Heck, even if you're just curious to dose your kitchen countertop with a little Ferrari-approved luxe, you can do so now with the assurance that the "flawless craftsmanship" will hold up an extra couple of years. Kind of puts Bryston's long-standing 20-year warranty in perspective, doesn't it?

Swinging to an opposite extreme from its $1,600 T587 Blu-ray deck, NAD is aiming for the budget-conscious stereophiles with the Classic Series set to appear at CES 2009. In the lineup are three amps, a pair of CD players, a stereo preamp and even an old-style stereo receiver. Trickle down tech from the top-of-the-line Masters Series components in the form of Class A gain modules, beefy chassis construction and other goodies is promising, but you know these pieces can't carry rock bottom prices with that kind of circuitry. Still, NAD has always been about "audiophile approved" sound at a fair price, and the spec-obsessed would be wise to consider the power ratings as conservative. If you've still got a foot in the redbook two-channel world, hit the link for details.