In the latest move in the technology battle to bring the full cinematic experience to the comfort of consumers’ sofas, TV manufacturer Samsung has upped the ante by launching a home cinema system that comes complete with a large head that remains strategically positioned in the centre of the viewer's eye-line throughout the movie experience.
The obtrusive head, which comes with a range of settings including ‘large hat’, ‘unfeasibly voluminous hair’, and ‘interminably snogging teenagers’ also features a motion-sensor that ensures it moves whenever the home viewer does, and actually increases in diameter when triggered by audio commands such as deep sighing, or a frustrated tut.
But the automated heads are just one of a range of features boasted by the new Samsung Multiplex, which was described in a ‘Which DVD?’ review as 'gloriously capturing the soulless, overpriced banality of today’s big-chain cinema.’ State-of-the art sub-woofers, strategically placed behind the sofa, release randomly-timed high-intensity sonic blasts to recreate the experience of being in the proximity a highly-strung back of the seat kicker, and high-specification tweeters provide crystal clear sweet unwrapping and breathy nose-whistling noises, while the mid-range audio channels artfully blend the film’s dialogue with several different conversations about the going rate for babysitters, mundane family gossip, and debates about what other films the supporting actors have appeared in. Samsung also highlighted the environmental credentials of the new product, with all protective packaging made up of stale popcorn and discarded pick 'n' mix that can be liberally distributed over the purchaser's carpet after unboxing.
While consumers have flocked to be the first to own the latest cutting edge audio-visual technology, rivals have been as quick to launch competing products. First to the market was the Amstrad FleaPit, which has been heavily criticised for featuring a slightly seedy torch-wielding pensioner in a bellhop outfit who guides you through a darkened living room to your own sofa while making suggestive remarks about jumbo hot dogs, but won rave reviews for the self-installed Wurlitzer organ that rises majestically through the living room floorboards whenever the system goes on standby.
