Goo News & Reviews
Festival du Son et Image - Montreal, April 1-3, 2005
Screen Goo was a significant presence at the most recent Festival du Son et Image in Montreal. Three Goo screens were available for viewing. In one of the downtown Delta hotel’s surprisingly well constructed suites, SF Marketing, Canadian distributor of Goo Systems, partnered a rolled and framed Goo Screen with a Runco CL-510 projector, a Genelec 7.1 active home theatre speaker system, B&K Reference 50 S2 pre-amp/processor and an Arcam DV79 DVD player.
Word spread quickly among show attendees about the spectacular quality of image and sound on display at the SF suite and lineups snaked down the sixth floor corridor as home theatre enthusiasts waited for their opportunity to experience a demo. No one left disappointed as the 100″ Digital Grey Goo screen more than held up its end of the home cinema bargain. Many guests graciously commented that they couldn’t understand why anyone would even think of purchasing far more costly conventional screens when “the best screen they’d ever seen” was so remarkably affordable. We blush!
Najeeb Khan of Spectre Audio illuminated a 67″ Goo screen to great effect with a Panasonic PT AE-700 projector in order to complement his demonstration of Crowson Technology’s TES-100 Linear Direct DriveTactile Effect System. Najeeb lost count of the number of the people who wanted to know what plasma display they were looking at.
Some “Doubting Thomases” had to make their own shadow puppets before they could be convinced that they were actually looking at projected video!
Displays at the adjacent Holiday Inn included a special treat sponsored by the show organizers. Reasoning that attendees might appreciate a chance to unwind and simply enjoy an uninterrupted movie, they arranged for the Ambassadeur C ballroom to be the site of continuous screenings of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”. A 130″ rolled and framed Goo screen was driven by a Runco VX-5000d projection system and sound was once again provided by SF Marketing in the form of a B&K Reference 50 S2 pre/amp processor feeding exquisitely detailed and decoded signals to studio monitor versions of Genelec’s active speakers. Wow! The picture and sound on display simply shamed the offerings available at most local cineplexes! Rock solid picture stability, fantastic colour reproduction, rich deep blacks and that special sense of depth and dimensionality that only a Goo screen can provide, combined to make a sublimely engrossing image. So compelling was the experience (even after multiple viewings!) that attendees sometimes had to tap yours truly on the shoulder in order to ask questions. Some guests simply could not believe that a conventional DVD was the source of this cinematic magic. We had to show them that the Runco video processor was being fed a 480 line interlaced signal and not a top secret “unobtainium super-duper” signal. Yes folks, you CAN try this at home!
All in all it was great show and we would like to thank the following people: Michel Plante, Doug Sills and the rest of the SF Marketing team for their yeoman efforts in organizing and staffing the exhibits; Reinhard Goerner of Goerner Communications (Runco representative for Quebec and the Maritimes) for arranging for the Runco projectors, Gary Nicholson of Emerald Audio Resources for providing the Arcam DVD player. A very special thanks to Jennifer Cytrynbaum and Graeme Humfrey of Coup de Foudre Audio Video in Montreal for the gracious loan of their Runco VX-5000d. Last but not least, a shout out to our own KBK for a great job in getting the screens ready.
We hope to see you all at the Home Entertainment Show 2005, April 28 to May 1 in Manhattan!
