Audio Video News

THX is about to take its home theater involvement to a new level with a new program whose working name is Blackbird. If the THX folks pull it off, Blackbird could resolve several issues that plague home theater buffs.

The key is metadata, roughly the same thing that enables your iPod to recognize artist names and song titles. Blackbird would embed it in the HDMI bitstream to bring uniformity to things that are currently all too chaotic, including aspect ratio, volume reference level, picture settings, and surround modes.

For example, anyone sensitive to aspect ratio suffers the tortures of the damned when viewing a DVD. I am sick of adjusting aspect ratio to avoid severe bending of shapes, and if Blackbird solves that problem alone, then all I can say is fly, Blackbird, fly.

The technology was first demonstrated at the past CES in January and is likely to resurface at CEDIA in September. Unlike most other aspects of THX, it will not be tied to the certification model, so it will be able to bring order to the chaos of home theater technology in both certified and non-certified products.