News

360¡ Entertainment: The Harman Kardon Digital Lounge (29/6/2006)

CEDIA UK Expo 2006

In a move that expands the company's position as a leading supplier of complete, high-performance home entertainment solutions, Harman Kardon(r) announces the introduction of the Digital Lounge. Digital Lounges are single-branded, sophisticated, integrated systems that combine a DVD-Audio player/receiver, a flat-panel display, loudspeakers and floor stands. The components feature Harman Kardon's renowned audio and video performance, ease of use and striking design, with remote control via one dedicated system remote control.

The Digital Lounge offers a full bandwidth of digital entertainment: You can watch movies with superlative picture quality, listen to subtly reproduced music, or plug in game consoles, MP3 players, cameras and PCs to enjoy the complete 360¡ entertainment. The Harman Kardon Digital Lounge 532, the first high-performance system solution in the series, includes a 32-inch LCD, a DVD-Audio player/receiver, a 5.1-channel home theater loudspeaker system, two floor stands and a system remote control. Harman Kardon Digital Lounge 532 will be available in June, distributed through qualified dealers in Germany, UK and France. The Digital Lounge series will expand in the near future to include 40-inch and 46-inch LCD screens.

Digital Lounge Display: Superb Image Production

For the first time in the more than 50 years of Harman Kardon history, the premier audio/video brand is launching flat-panel displays in its product lineup. These LCDs, with their unique, contemporary design, complete Harman Kardon's array of home entertainment solutions. The liquid crystal display monitors, which are only a few centimeters deep, incorporate a glossy, black- aluminum chassis, resulting in an elegant appearance that blends inconspicuously with any dŽcor. Furthermore, in addition to stand-mounting, they can be hung on a wall.

Harman Kardon displays feature a motion-adaptive deinterlacing algorithm that covers the entire range of signal resolutions up to high-definition standard 1080i. The diagonal edges that often mar picture quality are corrected to appear in a smooth and natural manner on the Digital Lounge LCD; the deinterlacing process takes special care on this commonly weak aspect of a digital display. Moreover, the components offer a viewing angle of 170 degrees. This allows a larger number of viewers to enjoy proper image production. Also, the Digital Lounge can be upgraded with a Digital Video Broadcast (DVB(r)) tuner module to deliver digital television to customers.

Of course, Digital Lounge displays are HD Ready(r), and include a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMITM), inputs for component video, S-video and composite video SCART (one with RGB and one with S-video), and a Digital Visual Interface (DVITM) for flexible, high-speed digital connectivity, enabling customers to also use their Harman Kardon Digital Lounge display as a PC monitor.

The Harman Kardon system offers independent picture calibrations for each particular video input, allowing the adjustment of brightness, contrast, color, tint, sharpness and aspect ratio to achieve extraordinary picture quality for all individual video sources, rather than using an average setting that is applicable to all sources. Digital Lounge displays also use Advanced Analog Signal Conversion (AASC) technology to optimize the picture coming from analog tuners. The result is a very smooth picture that is comparable to digital images coming from higher resolution, digital tuners. Digital Lounge LCDs are able to change the picture brightness to perform best with each ambient light condition. Another advantage is the fanless cooling system, which is as quiet as a conventional television set. The Harman Kardon Digital Lounge is excellently suited for residential rooms and home theaters.

Digital Lounge DVD Receiver: Exceptional Performance and Intuitive Operation

The Digital Lounge DVD receiver is designed for unmatched ease of use, requiring only minimal setup. All of its functions can be readily accessed using the supplied system remote control and streamlined on-screen menus, and key functions are preconfigured to anticipate the way most consumers will use the system. Connection to the Digital Lounge screen requires only two cables.

The DVD receivers are full-function, audio/video system control centers that combine a 5.1-channel receiver section with a progressive-scan DVD-Audio/Video player. They include an HDMI output and built-in video processing that upconverts video to 720p or 1080i high-definition video to deliver spectacular image quality. The system's progressive-scan DVD player utilizes advanced digital-video technologies, such as an integrated digital-signal processor that employs pixel-by-pixel video processing to provide exceptional image clarity and color accuracy.

Harman Kardon's Digital Lounge offers versatile capabilities for enjoying movies, music and images. It features an exclusive, intuitive navigational interface with an on-screen display that guides users through setup and operation, and provides ready access to favorite DVD titles and chapters, CD tracks, files and folders.

The players can play back a host of disc types and formats, including DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, Windows Media(r) Audio (WMA), MP3 discs and more. It is also playback-compatible with DivX(r)-encoded video discs, and (HD) JPEG still-image files. In addition, they can simultaneously play MP3 tracks and display JPEG images, and automatically change images with each MP3 track played in slide show presentations.

In addition to their versatile disc-playback capabilities, Digital Lounge receivers feature two USB inputs that enable connection to portable mass storage devices such as ThumbDrives, portable hard disks or other compatible devices. This connectivity enables direct playback of MP3, WMA, MPEG, JPEG and AVI music.

The Harman Kardon DVD receivers are designed to deliver superlative audio and video performance. They include popular surround sound formats such as DTS(r), Dolby(r) Digital and Dolby Pro Logic(r) II, incorporating a 5x 65-watt digital-amplifier section to deliver clear, richly detailed sound quality. The digital audio signals from the internal DVD player and from digital-audio sources such as an HDTV set-top box remain completely in the digital domain from the source, to the final amplifier output stage, to the loudspeakers - yielding outstanding sonic purity.

The systems are stunning and totally distinctive in design. The DVD receivers are sleek and ultraslim, with a clean, minimalist appearance. The glossy black front panels have no controls other than a centered volume control with blue illumination; the power indicator and the buttons to operate key functions are located almost invisibly along the top surface of the chassis. The front panel's dot-matrix display and illumination can be dimmed, if desired. The Harman Kardon component's enclosures feature gracefully curved sides, with a stylish, elegant appearance, and the side panels are accented by a repeating pattern of small rectangular cooling vents.

Harman Kardon components have already won various design awards such as iF Design, Red Dot, and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design. The forerunner of the Digital Lounge DVD receivers, the HS 100, received the CES(r) Innovations 2006 Design and Engineering Award, the ADEX Platinum Award and the iF Design Gold Award.

Digital Lounge Speaker System: Powerful, Captivating Surround Sound

The 5.1-channel speaker system included in the Digital Lounge system includes four two-way, magnetically shielded satellite speakers, a two-way shielded center channel speaker, and a subwoofer, all matched for a seamless sonic blend. Wall-mounting brackets for the satellite speakers are supplied, as well as all necessary cables.

Although compact in design, the system delivers powerful multichannel sound. The satellites employ dual high-output, premium-quality 3-inch woofers and a 3/4-inch titanium-laminate-dome tweeter. The center channel speaker features the same dual 3-inch woofers and a 3/4-inch-dome tweeter for articulate reproduction of dialogue, music and effects, and is precisely voice-matched with the satellites to create an expansive surround sound listening environment. The subwoofer features a 10-inch woofer and a built-in 200-watt amplifier to deliver superb low-frequency performance, and provide optimum sound quality in any room.

The speaker system offers a host of installation options. The satellites can be wall-mounted or placed near a TV or on a shelf; they can also be used with the included pair of floor stands. The stand for the Digital Lounge LCD has a dedicated place for the center channel speaker, for excellent sound coverage.

For total user convenience, the Harman Kardon Digital Lounge offers a ready-to-operate display and a DVD player/receiver with a system remote control.

www.harmankardon.com