As mentioned in the liveblog, Philips has stumped up a new home theatre system that's as small, and almost as round as, a soccer ball—for those of us bored of boring, standard rectangular entertainment gadgets. Though it's tiny, it fits in an iPod dock, a five-channel amp, six speakers and a subwoofer built into the base. It must be pretty cramped inside, since it's just 27cm across, and only 17cm high. The DVD player can cope with DivX, MPEG-4 and WMV, and upscales to 1080p over HDMI and the CD player can read MP3 discs, and it's got USB-in. If that's whetted your appetite, you'll have to wait as there's no info yet on timing or price. But the press release is below.

Berlin, Germany - Philips has found a new way to put a complete home theatre system into another surprising form factor without compromising on quality: The Philips CinemaOne (http://www.philips.com/ambisound) combines a DVD and CD player, an iPod dock, a five channel amplifier, six speakers, and a subwoofer all into a single stylish box of the size of a football, This small, stylish all-in-one home cinema system is the perfect fit for small spaces and budgets.

Measuring just 27.3 x 17.2 x 27.3cm (wxhxd) the Philips CinemaOne surprises with a great surround sound experience caused by six precisely angled speakers which are positioned around the body of the CinemaOne. The 4" subwoofer is built into the base of the unit whereby the installation is clutter free without the need for extra power cables and speaker wires. With the Philips CinemaOne a cinema like experience can be created also in smaller spaces like the living room of a student appartment, the bedroom, or in the office.

Technical details
CinemaOne's five channel amplifier and DSP (Digital Signal Processing) unit can process Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG2 multichannel or stereo sound tracks and uses Philips' proprietary sound and array processing technology to create a realistic and immersive cinema sound effect with distinct and clear dialogue, a convincingly wide sound stage and powerful deep bass.

The CinemaOne is compatible with nearly any format of movie - including DivX, Mpeg and WMV - from just about every type of DVD, CD or iPod. The dock also allows an iPod to be controlled via the units remote control while all track information can be accessed via the TV screen.

Movies can be upscaled to 1080p HD resolution with a pristine digital quality transfer to the TV via the HDMI connector. The CinemaOne also offers the high quality display of jpeg photos and includes flip, rotate, slideshow and zoom functions.

A hi-speed USB port and MP3 link allows connection to a huge variety of portable devices - using PCM, WMA or MP3 - while Philips' unique Fullsound technology uses the CinemaOne's DSP to restore the emotion, warmth and dynamics to compressed MP3 music tracks.

[Philips]

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