— Ultimate-Performance Home Entertainment System Includes 50-Inch High-Definition Plasma Monitor, 7.1-Channel Loudspeaker Package and A/V System Controller, With Exclusive JBL Digital Link Technology —
8 January 2004
WOODBURY, NY — Marking one of the company’s most significant product launches ever, JBL, the leading manufacturer of professional and consumer loudspeakers, today announced the introduction of Cinema Vision — the company’s first complete, integrated audio and video home entertainment system.
Comprising a 7.1-channel loudspeaker package, a 50-inch high-definition plasma monitor and an A/V system controller that includes a DVD Audio/Video changer, surround receiver and digital amplifier, Cinema Vision is designed to deliver ultimate audio and video performance combined with superior ease of use. Cinema Vision incorporates innovative features such as exclusive JBL Digital Link technology, which maintains 100-percent digital audio and video signal paths throughout the system for the best-possible sound and image quality.
Paul Bente, president of JBL Consumer Products, pointed out: “Our design brief for Cinema Vision was clear — to create a complete home entertainment system solution that would combine extraordinary design, high-end performance and total ease of use.” Bente continued, “Cinema Vision truly offers the best of all worlds, in a system that answers the needs of the most discriminating consumers. In addition, all of the system’s components blend harmoniously to create an elegant, unified appearance, and provide a seamless integration of style and function.”
Advanced Technologies for Exceptional Performance and Ease of Operation
JBL Cinema Vision brings all the excitement and emotion of the cinema experience into the home as never before, in a versatile system that offers a wealth of sophisticated home entertainment capabilities, yet is designed for total user-friendly operation. All Cinema Vision components and connected source components can be readily controlled via its “smart,” preprogrammed learning remote and on-screen display, with most functions accessible from a single menu screen.
Although it incorporates the industry’s most advanced video and surround sound audio technologies, Cinema Vision offers streamlined, intuitive system control. Its integrated design anticipates users’ needs and automates many key functions. For example, the plasma monitor automatically displays all video sources in widescreen mode with optimized picture quality, with no user intervention required. Additionally, when DVD discs are loaded into the system’s five-disc changer, disc information is automatically displayed on-screen, allowing a DVD to be selected and played with a click of the remote.
This unified design is exemplified in Cinema Vision’s proprietary JBL Digital Link technology. The JBL Digital Link maintains an all-digital signal path for both digital video and audio signals, from the video source components to the plasma monitor and the A/V system controller’s speaker terminals, respectively.
With the JBL Digital Link, digital video signals such as HDTV broadcasts, and digital audio signals such as the multichannel digital audio output from a DVD player, are kept entirely in the digital domain until they’re outputted, yielding the best-possible digital picture and sound quality, with maximum fidelity and resolution. A further advantage of the JBL Digital Link is that it uses a dedicated, single-cable connection between the A/V system controller and the plasma monitor, which greatly simplifies setup and installation.
50-Inch Plasma-Display Monitor: Getting the Big Picture
Cinema Vision’s 50-inch widescreen (16:9) plasma monitor is designed to offer extraordinary big-screen image quality, with true high-definition-display capability. It incorporates a host of leading-edge plasma-display-panel and digital-video-processing technologies to deliver superlative resolution, color accuracy, brightness and contrast.
The plasma display is compatible with all digital and analog video sources and, thanks to JBL Digital Link technology, viewers can experience digital video content, such as high-definition television broadcasts, with the highest possible resolution and the purest digital-image quality.
Operating in conjunction with the electronics incorporated into the A/V system controller, the monitor automatically displays any video source in full-screen mode, with optimized scaling and resolution for the best-possible picture quality. With Cinema Vision, there’s no need to manually configure each source’s output mode in the setup menu. For example, widescreen DVD movies and HDTV broadcasts are automatically displayed in 16:9 aspect ratio, while standard 4:3 program sources are adjusted to completely fill the screen. This feature can be defeated if desired, to view 4:3 video sources in their standard aspect ratio.
Cinema Vision’s advanced video processing displays images from sources such as DVD players in their native progressive-scan resolution, and upconverts sources such as standard TV broadcasts to the native screen resolution of the plasma display, delivering maximum image quality from any video source.
The plasma monitor’s refined, understated appearance and rich titanium finish make it the ideal centerpiece for the most elegant home entertainment systems. The slim-profile monitor can be easily wall-mounted, facilitating its use in a wide variety of custom, designer and architectural installations.
Cinema Vision Loudspeakers: Designed for Uncompromising Sound Quality
Many installed audio/video systems are built around high-quality video-display devices, with little emphasis placed on the quality of the audio reproduction. Such compromises in audio reproduction are simply not an option for JBL. Cinema Vision loudspeakers are purpose-designed for the system, utilizing premium-quality drivers, components and technologies directly derived from JBL’s professional cinema and studio loudspeakers. Their sleek, gracefully curved enclosures are engineered to deliver optimum sound quality when wall-mounted, and are finished in titanium, with matching grilles, to perfectly complement the system’s plasma display in performance as well as appearance.
Each Cinema Vision loudspeaker utilizes multiple 5-inch woofer/midrange drivers, which feature massive 1-1/2-inch voice coils and neodymium-magnet motor assemblies, to deliver richly detailed, dynamic and authoritative sound quality. These drivers are mounted alongside a 3/4-inch titanium-laminate-dome tweeter housed in a specially designed waveguide, yielding exceptionally open and detailed high frequencies, along with precise imaging and wide dispersion.
The loudspeakers’ versatile configuration enables them to be used in all positions in a multichannel system to create an expansive, 360-degree sound field with a perfect blend between the front, center and surround channels. The system’s 12-inch, 400-watt subwoofer perfectly complements the loudspeakers, providing the authoritative, extended low-frequency response necessary to convey movie soundtracks and musical performances with thrilling power and realism.
A/V System Controller: Ready Access to Total Home Entertainment
The Cinema Vision A/V system controller combines a five-disc magazine-type DVD Audio/Video changer with a high-performance 7.1-channel receiver section that utilizes a digital amplifier with generous 7 x 100 watts power output. In addition, the controller incorporates JBL Digital Link technology, passing the video signals from connected A/V components to the plasma monitor.
In common with every aspect of Cinema Vision, the A/V system controller is designed for straightforward, intuitive operation. The receiver will automatically deliver 5.1-channel audio output, regardless of the source selected, eliminating the need for the user to program the surround sound mode for each connected audio/video component. In addition, the controller can be configured to provide 7.1-channel operation or other listening modes for all sources. Cinema Vision can accommodate up to eight A/V sources, and includes front-panel component video inputs for connecting game consoles or other products.
The controller offers compatibility with all popular surround sound formats, including the latest Dolby* Pro Logic* IIx processing, all popular Dolby Digital and DTS formats, and Harman International’s exclusive Logic 7 and VMAx surround processing. Its high-efficiency digital-amplifier section implements a full digital-signal path from input to output, in which digital audio signals from sources such as DVD players and CD players remain completely in the digital domain from input to the final amplifier output stage for maximum signal purity. The A/V system controller provides a host of additional performance and convenience features, such as comprehensive audio bass-management capabilities, a precision FM/AM tuner and many additional advanced functions.
JBL Cinema Vision will be available in spring 2004, at a suggested retail price of $15,000, through authorized JBL dealers. Cinema Vision is sold as a system only. The price includes dealer delivery and setup. Cinema Vision is covered by a five-year warranty on the loudspeakers, with one-year coverage on the control unit and a two-year warranty on the plasma monitor.
The Harman Consumer Systems Group (HCSG) is a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a wide range of high-fidelity loudspeakers, audio and video components, and multimedia systems for use in homes and automobiles, and with computers. The group’s brands include JBL, Infinity, Harman Kardon, Mark Levinson, Audioaccess and Lexicon.
HCSG is a division of Harman International Industries, Incorporated. Harman International (www.harman.com) is a leading manufacturer of high-quality, high-fidelity audio products and electronic systems for the consumer and professional markets. The company’s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “HAR.”
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For additional information, contact:
Frank Doris
FM Group Public Relations
631-612-2400
frank.doris@FM-Group.net
JBL and Logic 7 are registered trademarks, and Cinema Vision and JBL Digital Link are trademarks, of Harman International Industries, Incorporated.
*Trademarks of Dolby Laboratories.
VMAx is a registered trademark of Harman International Industries Incorporated, and is an implementation of Cooper Bauck Transaural Stereo under patent license.
DTS is a registered trademark of Digital Theater Systems, Inc.
