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 Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on and the Calibre VantageHD Scaler are all nominated...
The Winner
Calibre VantageHD Scaler
£2,000 (approx)
01274 394125
Reviewed: HCC #139
The company’s first foray into home cinema, and the first British-designed scaler we’ve seen, the Vantage is built around Silicon Optix’s acclaimed Realta HQV chipset. The Vantage itself looks unassuming, with its almost featureless black case, lack of display and cunningly-concealed controls, but power lurks within. Sockets on the back include two HDMI inputs, two composite, two S-video, two component/RGB, VGA, four analogue audio, two optical digital audio, and two coaxial digital audio, and there are options for further HD/SD-SDI and HDMI sockets. The processor defaults to a 480p output mode for easier setup, and has a simple menu to configure your system. Output options include 50Hz or 60Hz refresh rate, audio delay, gamma correction, projection mode (front/rear, ceiling/table), placement warp, input naming, brightness, contrast, saturation, picture format, aspect ratio, sharpness, detail, colour temperature, black level, overscanning and filtering. Usefully, a split-screen mode lets you compare unprocessed and processed video.
Testing with a range of sources and projectors suggests that the Vantage offers users better detail, reduced banding, improved deinterlacing and smoother movement for images.
Overall, the VantageHD is a flexible and highly-performing processor that proves conclusively British design and engineering has its place in high-end home cinemas.
Pauline Jarrett from Calibre UK gratefully accepts top prize
Also nominated
Xbox 360 HD-DVD Player
£130 (approx)
0800 5871102
Reviewed: HCC #138
An affordable way of getting into HD DVD (particularly if you already have an Xbox 360), this add-on drive is simply an external optical disc drive with a USB 2.0 port. You could even use it as an add-on to a PC or Mac system, given the right drivers. But it really comes into its own as an HD disc spinner for the Xbox 360; it can be positioned horizontally or vertically, has three USB sockets, and supports 1080p via VGA. Although the combination of Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive doesn’t rival a dedicated HD DVD player – it lacks HDMI connectivity, is slightly noisy and doesn’t upscale SD material well – you’d be mad to ignore this opportunity to get into hi-def movies on the cheap.
Alphason APX50/4-B
£300 (approx)
01924 885600
Reviewed: HCC #140
Alphason knows as much as anybody about the necessity of having AV equipment properly supported, ventilated and isolated. Its innovative Apex series is based on a central column with space for cable guides and plug sockets, and features a choice of silver or black finishes. It comes with four 5mm thick toughened glass shelves for equipment, supported by steel bars running through the central column; and a universal fixing bracket for attaching a plasma or LCD display up to 50in in size.
The screen mount will support up to 40kg, and can pivot independently from the rest of the stand, up to 90 degrees in either direction. It is an ideal product for anyone with a modest amount of nice-looking ‘lifestyle’ equipment.
PixelMagic MB100 HD Mediabox
£300 (approx)
01423 359054
Reviewed: HCC #132
A high-definition media player with its own scaler/deinterlacer, the Mediabox solves the problem of the shortage of HD material to play while we’re all waiting for HD DVD and Blu-ray catalogues to really expand. The hard disc drive device can store and replay digital video, stills and audio, act as an intermediary between your sources and screen, transparently up- or down-scale and deinterlace as required. Affordable, flexible and powerful, the Mediabox is a pointer to our server-based, HD future.
