Onkyo Announces New Features For 2012 Receivers

Onkyo has announced a couple of new features for new receivers to be launched in 2012. Two technologies from Silicon Image, InstaPrevue and MHL should make input selection much more simple and provide convenience for those using a mobile device to play back video.


InstaPrevue creates a live preview of HDMI and MHL video inputs on screen to simplify choosing inputs. This should do away with the guesswork of "Is my Blu-Ray on HDMI1, or HDMI3?" and create a much more intuitive interface overall. There's a video of the folks at Silicon Image explaining InstaPrevue in more detail here.


MHL is short for Mobile High Definition Link, a standard which enables mobile devices charge as well as transmit full HD video with 8 channels of audio over a cable with just 5 conductors. This is much more convenient from a cable point of view as there is no need for additional power leads when using your mobile to play back 1080p video which quickly drains battery power. This allows the cables to be much thinner than HDMI which has 19 conductors.

MHL also allows for dual-purpose sockets - the micro-USB port on new devices can double as an MHL port, doing away with the need for a separate video socket somewhere on the phone or tablet. MHL can even support controlling the attached phone with the receiver's remote control.

MHL has been adopted by all the major mobile manufacturers, with the exception of Apple. Samsung's Galaxy S II and Galaxy Tab range, HTC's Evo 3D and Sensation and Google's Galaxy Nexus all have MHL support and expect to find it in other products from LG, HTC, Samsung, Nokia and Sony. Other adopters include computer manufacturer's Dell , Acer and Lenovo. Click here for a video from Silicon image explaining how MHL works.