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RIDING on a strong net cash of RM142.56mil, Penang-based mainboard printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer GUH Holdings Bhd has initiated a business action plan that will enable its non-electronic business divisions to contribute more substantially to the groups revenue over the next five years.

Although principally a PCB maker, the group, in 2004, entered into the property development business in Negri Sembilan, ventured into the oil palm business in 2006, and the water treatment business last year.

H’ng: ‘We are expanding our oil pa lm estate.’

The rationale for positioning GUH in these areas was to reduce its dependency on PCBs, a volatile business, which generates about 90% of the groups revenue to 70%. Property, water treatment and oil palm businesses are the areas with potential to achieve the objective.

According to McIlvaine Company, an Illinois-based market research company, this years market for water treatment and consumables in China is estimated at over US$25bil.

Group managing director Kenneth Hng says in an interview with StarBizWeek that to boost the contribution of the property division, GUH plans to launch projects worth RM700mil in gross development value (GDV) on a 150-acre in Taman Bukit Kepayang in Negri Sembilan over the next five to six years.

The properties planned for Taman Bukit Kepayang include gated and guarded projects comprising two to three-storey bungalows, semi-detached and terrace houses to be launched in various phases, and three-storey shop lots.

This year, the group is launching 40 semi-detached houses with a RM28mil in GDV in Taman Bukit Kepayang.

Hng says the group expects to see the property division contributing 15% to the groups 2012 annual revenue.

Revenue contribution from the property segment to GUHs annual revenue has increased from 6% in 2010 to 10% in 2011.

White goods: A worker in GUH’s plant Suzhou, China. The group is increasing monthly production of double-sided and mu lti-layered PCB components.

GUH has completed about 375 units of landed residential houses and commercial shop lots with GDV of RM200mil in Taman Kepayang since 2004.

We are looking for opportunity to create a strong brand name for higher-end properties in prime areas especially in the Klang Valley and Penang. The search is on now for land in the identified areas, he says.

Over the next five years, GUH will focus on landed, high rise residential and landed commercial developments, for example shop-lots, Hng says. We are pursuing all kinds of expansion, including joint-venture projects with land owners, buying land or companies with land.

On the water treatment business, the group is now carrying out a feasibility study via its subsidiary GUH International (HK) Pte Ltd on a project in Jiangsu.

Last year we entered into a preliminary agreement with the Gaochun Economic Development Zone in Jiangsu to undertake the construction of a 100 million litres per day (MLD) water treatment plant on a build-operate-transfer basis.

The investment in the project is estimated at 180 million yuan, which includes distribution networks to be implemented in two phases of equal capacity, Hng said.

A Forbes magazine report released in April says that from 2011 to 2015, China will spend US$536bil on water purification and waste water treatment plants, irrigation systems, and flood control projects.

Currently, only 50% of urban sewage is treated. By 2015, the government intends to add 42 million tonnes of daily sewage treatment capacity to increase its urban waste water treatment rate to 85%, the report says.

GUH is completing in June 2012 its takeover of a 70% stake in Teknoserv Engineering Sdn Bhd, a company specialising in the design and building of water treatment plants for municipal water supply and sewage treatment works, which will enable the group to look for more lucrative water treatment business deals in China and Asean.

On GUHs oil palm business, the group is now entering the second phase of its oil palm business in Kedah. We are expanding our oil palm estate in Sungai Petani, to 10,000 acres, after which, we can consider moving into the production of palm oil and palm kernel oil.

In 2006, we started by converting a 385-acre in Sungai Petani for the cultivation of oil palm trees. Over the years, we believe we have acquired sufficient knowledge and expertise as an operator of an oil palm estate to expand the business further, he says.

On its PCB business, GUH is tapping into the market of new power-saving household appliances and also the light-emitting diode (LED) lighting segment with their double-sided and multi-layered PCB products.

The group is investing RM18mil this year to produce the double-sided and multi-layered PCBs.

We are increasing the monthly production of double-sided and multi-layered PCBs to 70,000 sq m this year at our plants in Penang and Suzhou, compared with 55,000 sq m per month a year earlier, Hng says.

The new double-sided and multi-layered PCB range will serve the branded white-goods segment such as air-conditioners, refrigerators, and washers, and also the LED commercial lighting market.

We are seeing orders from customers in Asia-Pacific coming now for the second and third quarters, Hng says adding that GUH was beefing up its white-goods segment due to slower growth in the LCD/LED TV market.

In the first quarter, we expect slower sales for the PCB business, due to slower sales of LCD/LED-backlit TV worldwide, Hng says.

GUHs high-end PCBs generate about 40% of the groups revenue.

Article source: http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/5/19/business/11311176&sec=business

Sony’s bare-bones 32-inch LCD TV brings Sony’s signature picture quality and price premium to go with it.

Let’s be honest: You may have spent weeks or even months researching the perfect TV for your living room, den or home theater, but when it comes to outfitting your small bedroom, kitchen, dorm or play-room with a TV, you are far more likely to make an impulse purchase. You might be shopping for shoes or a lawn mower, but chances are that if you happen to run across a 32-inch TV selling at a price that seems too good to be true, you’ll scoop it right up without a second thought.                        

With that said, we also know that people do have some standards. The woo of the “flat-screen TV” is over. They’re all flat-screens now. So, eventually, we’re all going to come back to caring about picture quality, no matter the size. That’s where the Sony BX330 is meant to come in. At around $330, it isn’t the least expensive 32-inch TV you can find by a long shot. But, it’s got the Sony name on it and, historically speaking, that means a higher quality TV. The question is: Does Sony come through with enough of its legendary quality to make the BX330 worth the extra scratch? In our Sony BX330 review, we aim to answer that very question. Read on to find out how this budget-level TV fared in our evaluations.

Out of the box

The first thing we noticed about the Sony BX330 as we pulled it from its box was its feather-light weight. Lighter can be better for more flexible mounting options, but (and you can call us old-school if you like) we still believe that heft is generally a reliable indicator of superior build quality in the world of electronics, by and large. Based on its weight, we figured this 12.8-pound TV will either change our perspective, or further cement this assumption in our minds.

Along with the BX330 comes a simple, straightforward stand, two AA batteries, a remote control, operating instructions and a quick setup guide.

Features and design

At this price point, we don’t expect much in the way of bells and whistles and the Sony BX330 doesn’t offer any surprises. This is your basic, bread-and-butter 720p HDTV with two HDMI inputs, a PC input, USB input, component video input, analog audio input and analog and digital (optical) audio output.

The TV’s design is pretty much on par with most others in its class. The bezel and stand are made of glossy black plastic. The bezel measures 1.25 inches along the top and sides and a thicker 2.25-inches along the bottom, where a set of touch capacitive buttons allows full control of the TV.

The back of the TV has us a bit puzzled. The BX330 measures just over 1.75-inches thick until you come to the bottom 7-inches of the cabinet where a plastic protrusion boosts the set’s thickness to a bulky 3.25-inches. We can’t figure a reason for this protrusion. It doesn’t appear to hide any circuitry –just the set’s connection bay which, even if necessary, hardly explains why the bolted-on plastic piece is so deep and runs across the entire width of the TV. It’s hard to see this set looking low-profile when mounted on the wall. Then again, competing sets from Toshiba, Vizio, and Samsung all have a total thickness similar to that of the Sony and feature similar cabinet protrusions. The one exception to the 3-plus-inch rule is LG, whose 32-inch model comes in at 2.9-inches. The lesson here is that basic LCD TV’s aren’t slim the way LED backlit TVs are, so expect a thicker cabinet from an entry-level TV.

The remote is pleasantly simple. It won’t learn remote codes or control any other devices (not even Sony Blu-ray players) but it does have large, easy-to-access buttons with all of the basic functions covered and a standard cursor pad for navigating menu screens.

Setup

Attaching the Sony BX330’s stand is a four-screw proposition that took us about 60 seconds to accomplish. Once attached, we found that the super-light plastic stand served its function well by keeping the set sturdy. Though the stand might feel cheap, it’s surprisingly resilient and not likely to break without subjecting it to serious abuse.

Straight out of the box, the BX330 needs some serious adjustments to nearly all available settings in order to wrangle its picture out of what we have to say is one of the brightest, loudest picture presets we’ve ever seen. The “standard” preset is unnervingly bright in its own right and could easily compete in a bright, big-box store display environment. But the “vivid” setting is really something to behold; dare we say eye-blistering. We suggest staying far, far away from the vivid setting as it will no doubt considerably shorten the life of the TV’s compact fluorescent backlight. Speaking of the backlight, we were surprised to see this TV didn’t offer separate backlight control in addition to brightness and contrast settings.

After some time spent with a calibration disc, we were able to get most of the BX330’s settings optimized; however, we never did get the color and hue settings dialed in just right. No matter what we did, the color yellow looked pale and mustardy to the naked eye and, when using a blue filter with certain color-test patterns, we noticed we couldn’t get the set to completely conform to the test’s parameters. While this might seem like a particularly bad thing, it is actually the norm with entry level TV’s, so we weren’t totally surprised. If you’d like to see the settings we arrived at with this set, we have them published at the end of this review.

Performance

As is the case with most entry level TVs, it is wise to temper your performance expectations a bit. A TV at this tier is not going to produce the deepest black levels, some backlight bleeding is to be expected and some motion judder is probably going to show itself to some degree. Even so, one can expect to see some performance variations across various brands of the same level. To be sure, the 32BX330 holds its own against the competition.

While this TV doesn’t have the premium feel of Sony’s more expensive TV models, it certainly has Sony’s uniquely appealing picture quality. There are a couple of issues worth mentioning, though: The contrast on this set seems a little forced to us. Bright whites are especially bright and have a way of washing out details. Also, colors were a bit intense for our liking at times. Shades of red tended toward the hot side and came across with a slight orange tinge. Shades of blue and green, however, were especially luminous and appealing. All told, the set’s picture is enjoyable on the whole.

We should note that, during dark screens, you can clearly see the backlight turning what ought to be black a dark shade of gray but, again, this is typical of less expensive LCD sets and is to be expected. This isn’t something the average viewer is likely to notice 97 percent of the time because of other things happening on the screen. When we watched a NASA documentary, for instance, we enjoyed the stark contrast of the set and didn’t pay the black levels a ton of attention until a few starry night sky scenes made the lack of inky blacks more obvious. Again, this is to be expected of a TV of this sort.

With a cabinet of this size, though, we expect more out of the TV’s speakers. Granted, LED TV’s and their almost non-existent bezels have somehow excused themselves from the need to offer decent sound (yay for the makers of sound bars!) However, we believe a TV with a cabinet this large has enough room for speakers and an amp that can offer decent sound. Instead, we found a considerable lack of low end — enough to make the TV sound pretty thin. We did find an equalizer in the audio portion of the setup menu which gave us hope that we could coax some better sound out of the TV, but the improvements were marginal at best.

Conclusion

While the 32BX330 won’t be wowing any videophiles, it is a solid performer with Sony’s signature picture quality. This TV stands shoulder to shoulder with competing sets from Toshiba, LG, Samsung and Vizio and well above sets from the likes of Sceptre, Proscan, RCA and Element.

The only trouble is that along with the Sony name comes the Sony price, which averages about $50 more than other big name brands and sometimes as much as $120 more than smaller name brands like Sceptre and Element. Also, considering Vizio offers a 32-incher with Internet connectivity and apps included at this price point, it becomes easy to expect more from a 32-inch TV that reaches above the $300 price point. It all comes down to individual priorities, but if you love that signature Sony picture, the 32BX330 will deliver it

Highs

• Impressive contrast
• High brightness capability
• Rich colors
• Lightweight and easy to mount

Lows

• Overly bright whites obscure detail
• Red colors a little hot at times
• No backlight level control
• Poor sound

Article source: http://www.digitaltrends.com/tv-reviews/sony-bravia-kdl-32bx330-review/

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Toshiba India has launched its first full HD 3D Smart-TV in India, called the Toshiba VL20 LED Power TV, in two screen sizes – 40-inch (Rs. 75,990 – MRP) and 46-inch (Rs. 85,990 – MRP). Commenting on the launch, Mr. Tengguo Wu, Director – DS Division, Toshiba India, said:

“The launch of our first 3D Smart-TV is sure to catapult Toshiba into a new dimension of interactive consumer entertainment. The launch of the VL20 3D Smart-TVs series is a testimony of Toshiba’s continuous endeavour to innovate and our commitment to consumers for an unmatched quality and reliability.”

The Toshiba VL20 LED Power TV features a slim 17mm silver coloured bezel, and slim swivel stand design. One set of Toshiba 3D glasses are bundled along the 3DTV. The ‘smart’ part of the Toshiba VL20 3D Smart-TV comes from the host of interactive content available on the internet, and on the TV, via TV apps from the Toshiba Places store (featuring Music Place, Video Place, Game Place, News Place, and Social Place).

According to Toshiba, this new line of 3D Smart-TVs features Dolby Digital solution, and in terms of connectivity, features MHL technology, wireless LAN (via USB dongle), DLNA, as well as two USB ports, one HDMI port, a PC port, composite and component ports, and digital audio ports.

The Toshiba VL20 3D Smart-TV series is powered by the REGZA engine, and comes with ClearScan 100 Pro, 2D to 3D Conversion, 10-Bit video processing power for 10-bit quality of input data, over 1 billion colours thereby, and 3D Color Management, for automatic adjustment of hue, saturation and colour brightness without affecting the other colours, providing more natural-looking picture. The Toshiba VL20 LED TV, like all Toshiba Power TVs, will come with an Auto Signal Booster, and AutoView features.

Article source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/TVs/Toshiba-VL20-3D-Smart-TV-series-launched-in_9575.html

Toshiba India, a 100 percent subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation, Japan has announced the launch of its first Full HD 3D Smart TV – Toshiba VL20 for the Indian market. Outlined with a 17mm silver colored bezel, the VL20 3D Smart-TV has a slim swivel stand design that complements your living space. Engineered in Japan the VL20 allows easy access to interactive content via TV applications – Toshiba Places. Commenting on the launch, Tengguo Wu, Director – DS Division, Toshiba India, said, “The launch of our first 3D Smart-TV is sure to catapult Toshiba into a new dimension of interactive consumer entertainment. The launch of the VL20 3D Smart-TVs series is a testimony of Toshiba’s continuous endeavor to innovate and our commitment to consumers for an unmatched quality and reliability.” 

This new line of 3D Smart TVs feature Dolby Digital solution and MHL technology and can satisfy those searching for vibrant and sharp 2D as well as 3D visuals. The ‘Toshiba Places’ interface in the VL20 series, enables viewers to use social networking services and view content online. With many smart applications available, consumers can watch their favorite programs in 3D on TV, play their favourite games and surf the Internet, chat with friends and check updates on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites.

Smart and sleek!

Upping the bar on ‘staying connected’, the Regza VL20 3D Smart TV comes with a host of connectivity features.

• Wireless LAN – VL20 is a wireless LAN ready TV that offers a wireless Internet experience to the consumers, without having to worry about messy lines. The 3D Smart TV comes with a USB wireless dongle to enable consumers to simply plug and can enjoy convenient wireless function.
• MHL, Mobile High-Definition Link, allows digital content, including 1080p HD video and digital audio to be uploaded to and played back on VL20 TVs, simply by connecting simply one cable with a 5-pin interface. It supports playback from mobile phones and other devices that are MHL compliant and allow consumers easily access, share and enjoy a wide range of content, including their own movie.
• DLNA, the Digital Living Network Alliance’s standard, gives VL20 series TVs integrated home network connectivity, allowing content to be streamed to the TV from PCs, the internet and other sources not necessary limited within Toshiba products but also other makers as long as the products support DLNA.
• VL20 series also include two USB ports that not only support audio formats, JPEG playback, and up to 28 video formats (DivX, MKV), but also provide support for external devices, including an HDD. An HDMI port can play uncompressed multimedia streams from any HDMI enabled HD source. A PC port, composite and component video ports and digital audio output complete the broad connectivity feature set.

At the heart of the Toshiba VL20 3D Smart TV series is the REGZA Engine technology, which aims to offer great picture quality. It features vivid and vibrant picture quality, with improved colour accuracy compared to conventional LED TVs. One set of Toshiba 3D glasses are bundled along with the product. The TV comes with ClearScan 100 Pro and 2D to 3D Conversion and offers dynamic picture quality in full HD resolution while watching 3D content.

The 10-Bit video processing power of VL20 maintains the 10-bit quality of input data quality during video processing, which produces over 1 billion colors thereby, resulting in a more natural picture creation. The VL20 3D Smart TV series also has a feature called “3D Color Management” that adjusts hue, saturation and color brightness without affecting the other colors, providing a more natural-looking picture.

The VL20 LED TV, like all Toshiba Power TVs comes with the “Auto Signal Booster” and “AutoView” features. Auto signal booster improves signal sensitivity and allows viewing in areas with weak signal strengths while the AutoView feature monitors the room brightness and adjusts the backlight and various picture parameters accordingly. It also continually analyzes image lightness and darkness, adjusting it to maintain maximum contrast and reduces the running costs by lowering power consumption.

The Toshiba VL20 LED Power TV is available in 102cm (40) and 117cm (46) screen sizes, priced at Rs.75,990 and Rs.85,990, respectively. The company has expanded its network of service centres to 195 cities across India with a total of 202 service centres.

Article source: http://tech2.in.com/news/3d-tvs/toshiba-launches-its-first-3d-smart-tv-in-india/307842

A closer look at a 4K Television

It’s not as massive as the 103in display from Panasonic but LG’s Ultra Definition TV which was announced in December 2011 and showcased at CES earlier this year, is still a cracking piece of technology.

We went very close, up and personal with the model on display at the World IT Show 2012 in Korea. Unfortunately, still no details as to when or whether it will come to the UK and if yes at what price.

The display panel can reach up to eight million pixels, that’s four times the resolution of normal full HD displays at 3,840 x 2,160 pixels.

The TV also features an ultra thin frame (relative to the size of the panel) and is thinner than many TVs half the size. It is wall mountable and has four HDMI ports.

Add in 3D capabilities (albeit passive) 3D Depth Control, Cinema 3D that uses Film Pattern Retarder, 3D Sound Zooming, LG’s own Smart TV ecosystem, LG’s Magic Remote and an embedded 2D-to-3D conversion, and you have a very promising, stunning-looking, awe-inspiring display. Check the pictures of the beast below.

Article source: http://www.itproportal.com/2012/05/17/exclusive-pics-meet-lgs-84in-ultra-definition-led-tv/