Stories by: Ankur Badhwar

By now we've all heard of Tivo, an American television technology that allows you to watch what you want, when you want, rather than being constrained by the timetabling of television networks. But lately, many people have been asking, 'where's our tivo?'

The EMP-765 is Epson's latest portable projector and includes an ultra-bright lamp as well as 802.11g network capabilities, a feature not seen in any other model. Users with sensitive eyes are often dissuaded by DLP enabled projectors, as the rainbow effect, present in some single chip DLP projectors can be very distracting.

Mitsubishi's XD110U is a portable projector with a solid set of features - but retailing at around half the price of similar models we have seen. With a 1700 ANSI lumen lamp rating, this unit is capable of projecting ultra bright images with ease. Other impressive traits include its low noise operation and low running costs, although we did notice some display issues which lowered visual acuity.

Controversy rages in the consumer market about the merits of buying an LCD or a plasma television. The general consensus seems to be for cosumers to sit back patiently and wait for LCDs to become cheaper. Although this may prove to be a wise decision in the long term, some buyers are in the market for a display today, and at this moment plasma still seems the best option for quality images at screen sizes of 42" or larger. In fact, there are still a couple of plasma's that will give future LCDs a run for their money, one of which is the Samsung PS42S5H.

Over the past year, the demand for high quality LCD screens has surpassed the demand for plasma displays and much of this can be attributed to the fact that LCD prices are finally dropping to a viable mark for consumers. Avatec, a local distributor of LCD panels, have recently released a series of LCDs at competitive price points that should satisfy the average buyer.

Anyone who was watching Arrested Development last week might have encountered Buster's love affair with a robotic vacuum cleaner... we don't blame him.

Viewsonic's NextVision 27" Entertainment Display is a versatile LCD unit with superb computer and HDTV support. Easily configured, the NextVision is a relief for computer users looking for a large and capable multifunctional display without the large price tag.

The Mitsubishi XD480U is a bright and high resolution projector, boasting a long life bulb rated up to 5000 hours. With specifications such as a 3000 ANSI lumen brightness rating, this is a projector that could be expected to perform well, even in bright lit environments. In our tests, the XD480U stood up to these claims and more. We did notice a significant amount of the rainbow effect in the projected image however, which might deter viewers with sensitive visual perception.

We have always wondered if there was a reason people didn't use LCD TV's or Plasma displays as their regular PC monitor. Newer HD capable televisions support resolutions of up to 1920 x 1080, and with prices steadily being driven downwards, this has become more of a feasible solution.

With an optimum resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, users will be astounded by the amount of available desktop real-estate the Apple 30" Cinema Display affords. Having the ability to view three maximised Web pages and a plethora of other applications at once is just one of the pleasures of a 30" display.

Epson are not strangers to the projector market, with projectors ranging from the ultra-portable EMP-765 to the home theatre capable EMP-TW200. The EMP-S3 projector, an entry-level model, sports a native resolution of 800 x 600, a bright but low-power lamp and almost instant power-on/off.