Visual Grand Prix 2005 SUMMARY

Purpose

Visual Grand Prix was launched to promote the home entertainment industry, which primarily involves sound and images. The selections made serve as guidelines for users, helping them to select excellent products. Major shops and makers consider Visual Grand Prix to be highly influential at the actual point of sale.

Among the domestically-marketed digital AV products manufactured in Japan and abroad, Visual Grand Prix focuses on those designed for home entertainment purposes and selects products that embody superior performance, technologies, and concepts.

Visual Grand Prix SUMMER makes selections from among products that were marketed during the first half of the year. The addition of Visual Grand Prix SUMMER is intended to stimulate the market in this summer’s sales competition.

Target products

Any products that satisfy each of the following requirements are included in the screening process:
  1. Audiovisual home theater-related consumer products sold in Japan by the manufacturer or distributor
  2. All products that appear in any issue of AV REVIEW from January (published on December 17, 2004) to July (to go on sale on June 17, 2005)
  3. All products that go on sale on or after the date of the Visual Grand Prix 2005 screening, which have not been selected previously in the Visual Grand-Prix (except for the Golden Long-Run Prize)

Entry

All products that appear in any issue of AV REVIEW from January (published on December 17, 2004) to July (to be published on June 17, 2005) are automatically entered.

Relationship with the annual award

Visual Grand Prix SUMMER is the first half of the year’s equivalent to Visual Grand Prix 2006. Consequently, all products selected are included in the screening process for Visual Grand Prix 2006.

Product Genres

Display
CRT type TVs, projection TVs, flat TVs(plasma, liquid crystal)
Hometheater
Projectors,screen,hometheater systems
Digital players
DVD players,HD players,digital audio players(DAP)
Digital recorders
digital Hi-Vision video decks,DVD recorders(including HDD or VHS hybrid models),HDD recorders,digital videocameras,digital still cameras
Media
tapes,discs
Sound
speakers systems and subwoofers,multi-channel sound systems(AV amplifiers & processors, multichannel amplifiers etc.)
Hometheater accessories
cables,insulator,boards,racks,speaker stands,antennas etc.

Prizes

After the winner of Grand Prix 2005 SUMMER is selected from each of the above genres, products qualified for the following prizes will also be selected:
Visual Grand Prix SUMMER Gold Prize/Silver Prize/Bronze Prize/Prize
Home Theater Prize/Hometheater Accessory Prize
Golden Longrun Prize
Special Jury Prize

A panel of judges

Chairman/Tomohiro Kaiyama
Judges/Chitake Inoue,Hirotsugu Saito,Masanori Hayashi,Ryoichi Matsuyama, Takaya Murase,Shintaro Ohashi,Mitsuharu Nagai

Screening method

Three major prizes, special prizes and other prizes will be selected on the basis of evaluation by leading distributors nationwide and the consensus or poll of judges.

Date of screening

May 30, 2005

Announcement

June 17,2005
the July issue of"AV Review" issued on June 17,2005
"Hometheater phile Vol.30"issued on June 20,2005
the December issue of "Senka 21" issued on June 25,2005
and "Phile-web"

Relationship with the annual award

Visual Grand Prix SUMMER is the first half of the year's equivalent to Visual Grand Prix 2006. Consequently, all products selected are included in the screening process for Visual Grand Prix 2006.

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