Sleeper magazine highlights NeosTV in The Dorchester's ongoing refurbishment.

As part of its ongoing refurbishment, The Dorchester has installed a fully interactive business/entertainment system in all its bedrooms, working with London based Neos Interactive to offer a highly advanced all-in-one digital system.

The conventional collection of television and other separate in-room devices such as video, cd player and radio have been replaced with a single, custom built, integrated and upgradeable unit.

The system combines fully equipped personal computers, high-speed Internet access, digital movies and music on demand in one unit, plus printer, fax machine and DVD/CD player in addition to modems for U.K and U.S plugs.

Using a wireless keyboard, guests can collect e-mail messages, surf the Internet, access digital movies (a choice of 60) and music on demand (5,000 tracks), and even listen to local radio stations from cities around the world, like WNYC public radio in New York. Just as if they were watching a digital video recorder at home, guests can pause, rewind and fast-forward the films. E-butlers are on hand for questions.

90 of the rooms are equipped with 42-inch NEC plasma screens and the rest are fitted with Loewe flat-screen television sets that provides all the clarity of a PC without the problem of reformatting pages to fit traditional Web-TV services.

Each of The Dorchester's 87 top guest suites is fitted with a 42-inch NEC plasma screen, with high quality sound delivered through a superbly designed Bose Acousticmass 5 speaker system. The tiny Bose Direct/Reflecting® cube speaker arrays offer open spacious sound, supported by a deep rich bass from a bass module that is tucked away out of sight. So discreet is the Bose sound system, that guests are able to experience pure, lifelike music from CDs and movie-like sound quality from TV and DVDs, achieved without detracting from the design aesthetics of the rooms.

Finally, fibre optic cables provide a high-speed broadband Internet connection (a 2-megabyte line). Guests are charged a one-time fee for unlimited use within a 24-hour period for the various functions. The system infrastructure has been designed to support future developments such as video conferencing and virtual private networks.