A growing problem facing Hong Kong households is component clutter. Where once a TV and VCR were all you needed, now many people have an amplifier, DVD recorder, PS3, broadband TV box, cable TV box, centre channel speaker, and a bulky subwoofer.
Arcam, a British audio-visual company, can help clear things up. Its Arcam Solo Movie 5.1 integrates a universal disc player with a powerful 5-linear 50 watts per channel amplifier, an AM-FM tuner and an iPod interface. It also supports the high-quality audio systems DTS Digital Surround and Dolby Digital Pro Logic II. And it looks to the future with its internal 720p/1080i video scaler, 1080p high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) switching and universal disc playback. It's the perfect partner for HDTV video displays.
Film buffs will love the Solo Movie 5.1. It's an upgrade of the critically acclaimed Arcam introduced a few years ago that played audio discs only. Now the machine incorporates a true 'universal' disc player. It replays regular DVDs and CDs as well as DVD-Audio and SACD formats. It also plays back DVD-Rs and CD-Rs containing AVI, MP2-3-4, WMA, DivX and JPG files. Several video options are built in, including component and composite circuits, but there are only two video inputs.
HDMI connections let you reduce cable connections from 15 to just three. HDMI also improves audio and video quality. The five internal 50-watt amplifiers are passively cooled, so there's no fan noise. If you usually find on-screen displays baffling, you'll love Arcam's for its simplicity and clarity - just like the minimalist facade of the Solo Movie 5.1.
Plug this into your TV and DVD recorder (shame the Solo Movie is only a DVD player) and voila, you have a home entertainment system. The CR100 remote learns command codes from other brands, so you'll be able to remove remote control clutter. Illuminated buttons enable you to use it in the dark. It memorises multiple keystrokes so that you can program a series of operations in one stroke. In our test, the picture quality was excellent. It was bright, colourful and, best of all, sharp. And the sound was superb.
The Solo Movie 5.1 is expensive at HK$26,800, but it performs so well and is so pleasing to the eye that you can forgive the price, although a couple of extra video inputs would not have gone amiss.
