A digital lifestyle experience to suit any pocket

Most consumers already have some of the building blocks they need to craft a complete home entertainment centre, says John Silver, Audiosure MD and also acknowledged as one of South Africa's leading lights on the digital lifestyle experience.

Barry Neethling, IT director of First Technology and colleagues from sister company Audiosure will use Futurex & Equip Cape Town this month to show consumers how to achieve top-quality home theatre at an affordable price.

The Cape Town demonstration is a preview to what will be on show at the Futurex & Equip show in Johannesburg in May next year, when visitors will not only be able to experience thrilling home theatre but also buy all the elements they need to replicate the experience at home.

The two companies will be showing the top end of the home theatre experience but will also offer consumers advice and tips in setting up their own living rooms to take the best possible advantage of the available technology.

Barry explains that they will show users how to achieve the best possible quality within their budgets - and how to spot poor quality and thus avoid making expensive mistakes.

"Visitors to the show will be able to experience a sample of home theatre that will blow their socks off. And, contrary to popular belief, they can have it for themselves," he says.

There is a prevailing belief that home theatre systems are expensive, difficult to set up and deliver questionable quality. However, Barry and John believe the demonstration at Futurex & Equip will blow that perception out of the water.

The team will show visitors how to choose the best available products such as cables and screens and configure them for the best quality output. And it's important that quality products be matched to quality products… hooking up a top-of-the-line system via poor-quality cables simply degrades the output to that of a lower end-of-the-market system. And incorporating a screen that is not up to scratch can lead to eye strain and tension headaches, for example.

Barry warns consumers not to be fooled by the test images on television screens, and to understand what to look for in a high-quality screen.

"It's easy to be fooled by test images which have a lot of bright colours; you need to look at the monitor using images that are dull and don't have a lot of colour. Never evaluate a screen based on a cartoon or pictures of flowers; and never evaluate with images you aren't familiar with."

A range of technologies will be on show at Futurex & Equip Cape Town, being held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre from 26 to 28 September 2007. For further information and stand bookings contact Linda Kruger at Exhibitions for Africa on 011 886 3734, email or go to http://www.futurexequip.co.za or http://www.securexcape.co.za to pre-register.