Audio Video News

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Audio Video News
Coming Attractions
HT Staff  |  Aug 23, 2004  | 
PSB Speakers
Nothing pleases us more than to hear that the manufacturer of a solid product has introduced a complement to said product. Such is the case with PSB's new SubSonic 9 subwoofer ($1,599), which the company designed to be the perfect complement to their Platinum Series speakers. The sub has dual 10-inch woofers in an opposing-woofer design. According to PSB, this design cancels the opposite directional force exerted by a single woofer so that less energy is lost as the two forces interact with the cabinet. The Class H amp delivers a rated 400 watts of continuous output. Look for the SubSonic 9 early in the fourth quarter.
PSB Speakers
(905) 831-6555
www.psbspeakers.com
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Audio Video News
Latest Software Reviews
HT Staff  |  Aug 23, 2004  | 
DVD: The Girl Next Door—20th Century Fox
Video: 4
Audio: 3
Extras: 3
OK, I'll admit up front I'd give this movie a good review if Elisha Cuthbert sat for two hours reading the 9/ 11 Commission Report. But here we get to see Cuthbert—best known as Jack Bauer's daughter on 24—in the role she was born to play: a porn actress who's house-sitting next door to a sexually frustrated high school senior (Emile Hirsch). As such, she swims, teases, drips and, yes, strips, more than once. Ah, the joys of DVD, and the A-B repeat function.
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Audio Video News
Industry Roundup
Barry Willis  |  Aug 23, 2004  | 

USDTV makes headway: Fledgling over-the-air pay TV service US Digital Television (USDTV) has signed more than 8000 subscribers in its six months in business, according to a <I>Broadcast Engineering</I> report August 16. The startup is the first terrestrial digital subscription TV service in the US to piggyback new digital broadcast channels of local television stations by leasing unused spectrum from participating broadcasters. Based in Salt Lake City, USDTV is also available in Albuquerque, NM and Las Vegas.

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Audio Video News
Sex, Surveys, and Your Home Theater
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 23, 2004  | 
Having nothing better to do with their time after installing FlatTVs with Ambilight technology in George Clooney's (and other cast members') Hotel de Russie hotel room so he (and they) could live better than the average bear while filming the new "Ocean's Twelve", the friendly folks at Philips commissioned Harris Interactive to ask pointed questions about home entertainment of consumers in 13 countries. (Sorry, Iraq wasn't included.) The results of the Philip's Global Home Entertainment Survey are sure to be studied by generations of historians to come for the deep insights they provide into the shallow nature of humans all over the globe.
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Audio Video News
The Sweet Snell of THX Home Theater
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 23, 2004  | 
Snell Acoustics is tightening the grilles and polishing the dust caps on three new upgraded speakers which they'll introduce to the world during the CEDIA Expo in Indianapolis on September 7th. But you don't have to wait to hear about these new THX Ultra 2 Certified models, because we're going to spill the beans here before anyone else does. (Besides, unless you're a dealer or custom installer - or unemployable writer-type like most of us here - you wouldn't be able to crash the heavily armed security at the CEDIA Expo anyway. Just be thankful you've got us working for you. We sure are.)
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Audio Video News
Coming Attractions
HT Staff  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 
LG Electronics
LG's new plasma is available in three different sizes—42, 50, and 60 inches—to suit theaters of any size. The 50-inch DU-50PY10 is fully integrated, with ATSC/NTSC/QAM tuners and a built-in CableCARD slot. The television also features a 1,366 by 768p resolution and a rated 3,000:1 contrast ratio. The TV uses LG's proprietary XD Engine, which, according to the company, minimizes distortion, improves brightness, and enhances the overall picture quality. Inputs are plentiful, including HDMI, DVI with HDCP, RGB, and IEEE 1394. Pricing wasn't available at press time.
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Audio Video News
Latest Software Reviews
HT Staff  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 
DVD: Purple Rain 20th-Anniversary Edition—Warner Brothers
Video: 4
Audio: 4
Extras: 4
The artist currently (and formerly) known as Prince experienced quite the career resurrection in 2004. The year began with his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and he followed that up with his biggest album and tour in ages. With the purple one's place atop the pop world once again secure, Warner Brothers has found the perfect time to release the 20th-anniversary, special-edition DVD of Purple Rain.
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Audio Video News
Cable Stagnant, Satellite Booming
Barry Willis  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 

Cable TV may be nearing the end of a long growth season, yielding subscribers to competition from satellite services like DirecTV and EchoStar's Dish Network. Recently published figures from Kagan Research LLC show that the cable industry overall has lost 900,000 subscribers over the past two years.

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Audio Video News
Industry Roundup
Ultimate AV Staff  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 

DirecTV in the north: On August 13, DirecTV Group Inc. has received clearance from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to move one of its satellites into an orbital slot controlled by Telesat Canada, a move that will expand DirecTV's reach to an additional 24 markets. The El Sugundo, CA&ndash;based satellite service should soon be serving as many as 130 markets, and could add as many as 7 million new customers to its existing base of 13 million. The company's new Canadian service should be in full operation by early October.

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Audio Video News
Added to the Archives This Week
Ultimate AV Staff  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 

Thomas J. Norton warms up the <A HREF="/directviewandptvtelevisions/704rca">RCA Scenium HDLP50W151 DLP rear-projection television</A> and settles in for an appraisal, noting, "After a brief flirtation with LCoS, Thomson has chosen TI's DLP for their high-end RCA Scenium line."

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Audio Video News
Wider-Fi
Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 
Wi-Fi is certainly one of buzzier hyphenated words I hear each week, and while my experiences have generally been positive, seldom are they jaw-dropping either. That all changed earlier this month when the team from Belkin Corp. demonstrated their newest products, the Wireless Pre-N Router (F5D8230-4, $179.99) and Wireless Pre-N Notebook Network Card (F5D8010, $129.99). "Pre-N" means that these products are arriving in advance of the upcoming 802.11n standard, but are Wi-Fi certified under the 802.11g standard and are intended to perform closer to the theoretical levels promised in Wi-Fi literature.
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Audio Video News
IT (In-ceiling Theater) Came From Above
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 
Unlike the editors of Home Theater Magazine who live in palatial estates written off their taxes as "business expenses" (note to the IRS: multiroom mansions are a job requirement for product testing purposes; no audits are necessary, really), not everyone is fortunate enough to live in a home with enough floor space to devote to a pair of (or five, six, or seven) perfectly positioned home theater speakers. (You poor, poor, pitiful people, you...) There are even some folks out there who refuse to see the beauty inherent in big, bulky, behemoth speakers dominating the visuals (and the available square footage) of the average living room. (I could mention the standard sexist question about the wearing of pants in the family; but since I'm in the process of installing in-walls throughout the Wilkinson abode, we'll just move on, shall we?) Some people don't even have available wall space for in-wall speakers. Atlantic Technology's two new in-ceiling speakers are the sonic salvation for situations such as these.
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Audio Video News
One More (Free) Reason to Like TiVo
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Aug 16, 2004  | 
As if we all needed another reason to like TiVo's Series2 DVRs with Home Media features (and all the other stuff), now Google (yes, that Google) gives us one more. It all started back in mid-July of this year when Google acquired Picasa, Inc., a Pasadena, California-based digital photo management company. (Well, actually, it all started back some million or so years ago when the last of the Neanderthals got run out of town by some pretty darn mean homo whateverus ancestors we all have in common. Think of it as kind of like a prehistoric Apple vs. Microsoft kind of thing - only, in this ancient case, Apple won.)
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Audio Video News
Industry Roundup
Barry Willis  |  Aug 09, 2004  |  First Published: Aug 10, 2004  | 

Blu-ray progress: The Blu-ray Disc Founders group announced August 3 that it has agreed to standards for read-only high-density discs. The 13-member group, including core members Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd, parent company of Panasonic, claims that Blu-ray DVD players could be available by midyear 2005.

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Audio Video News
One-Speaker Surround Sound
Ultimate AV Staff  |  Aug 09, 2004  |  First Published: Aug 10, 2004  | 

You wouldn't know it to talk to most home theater purists, but there's a market for simplified, easy-to-implement surround sound systems: college students in cramped dorms, for example, or vacationers in summer homes.

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