Tuesday May 01, 2007 Installer of the year 2007
While there's something rewarding in doing it yourself, the idea of dedicated install teams coming in and building your dream home cinema from the ground up is so appealing. Here's HCC 's run-down of the best in the business: DSE Digital, Musical Images,...
Innovation of the year 2007
To qualify as innovative, each product tested must either bring something new to a traditional sector of consumer electronics or wow with ideas and aspirations otherwise untouched. The three nominees here are of the former, but boy did Logitech, Sky and...
Accessory of the year 2007
As a category, Accessory of the year rewards the gadgets, gizmos and doohickies that are often overlooked but remain an essential part of a home entertainment set-up: Alphason's plasma and LCD stand, the APX50/4-B, PixelMagic's MB100 HD Mediabox, Microsoft's...
Best Receiver over £1k 2007
There's an unwritten rule that the more you invest on a receiver, the more power it will allow you to wield. The three nominees in this category, by that token, should bestow all the Grayskull has to offer. Yamaha's RX-V2700, Marantz's SR7001 and Arcam's...
Best Receiver under £1k 2007
No home cinema set-up is complete without an all-singing, all-dancing receiver, and a decent one can turn a flimsy soundtrack into one with more beef than a Desperate Dan cowpie. The three that impressed HCC the most in the last year were Onkyo's...
Best Digital recorder 2007
There was a time when DVD recorders were the next big thing, along with Pop Tarts, Magic The Gathering, Pilates and New Labour, but hard disk drives have put paid to recording straight onto DVDs and the humble Freeview PVR is just as important as the dual...
Best DVD player over £300 2007
DVD, as a format, is ten-years-old and it's going as strongly as it has ever done, but these three high-end super-decks may be the very best spinners we're likely to see before the new order comes sweeping in. Denon, Arcam and Marantz don boxing gloves and...
Best DVD player £300 and under 2007
The high-definition formats are all well and good, but everyone still has a massive DVD collection and in the age of the budget DVD player, it's possible to have a brilliant quality deck in every room. Players fro Kiss, Sharp, Denon and Samsung have all got...
Best High-def player 2007
The format war has finally gotten underway, albeit with a few near misses and battles more akin to Dad's Army than Kelly's Heroes. However, some players have stood out amongst the crowd, and the big question is which one wins; Blu-ray or HD DVD? Toshiba,...
