As I watched demo after demo of 3D at CES this year, I kept wondering if 3D is something that consumers really want or if it's being pushed on them by the studios and manufacturers in their quest to sell more products. So I decided to conduct a purely unscientific survey here on <I>UAV</I>. To participate, all you have to do is post a comment on this blog with your responses to any of the following questions, especially the first one:
Scott Wilkinson | Jan 19, 2010 | First Published: Jan 20, 2010
Anthony Grimani, one of the world's leading home-theater designers and consultants, imparts his considerable wisdom about room acoustics, 3D, constant-area screen masking, and more.
Good news for Xbox 360 owners: you might be able to watch live sporting events through your Xbox and ESPN in the future. According to the New York Times, Microsoft and Disney are in talks to potentially bring ESPN content to the Xbox.
The...
At CES, many companies set up shop in off-site hotel suites, making it more difficult to find and experience them first-hand. So it was this year with <A href="http://www.krellonline.com">Krell</A>, which shared a suite at the Mirage with SIM2. Among the items introduced there was the Evolution 555 Blu-ray player, the company's first foray into this product category.
Congratulations! Your new flat-screen TV
is kick-ass! I sincerely admire its tremendous
resolution, its vividly natural colors,
its bright-as-daylight brightness, and its sheer size.
There’s only one problem: It’s flat. No, I’m not...
Price: $2,344 At A Glance: Between Studio and Monitor Series • PBK-1 Perfect Bass Kit fine-tunes sub’s low-frequency response • Five stand-mounts plus subwoofer
Seeing Red in a New Way
I first became interested in Paradigm speakers on the recommendation of a working musician. He was a trumpeter, and he owned a pair of Paradigm Titans. This was 20 years ago, but even today, the Titan is one of the best budget speakers in captivity. Like all Paradigm speakers, it’s gone through one generation after another, acquiring better drivers and improved parts along the way. I completed the circle by donating my pair of vintage Titans to another musician, who loved them.
Price: $2,200 At A Glance: Superb video processing • Improved menu operation and calibration controls • So-so black level and shadow detail on real-world material
LED for the Masses
At the 2009 CES, Vizio took the wraps off of its first LCD HDTV with LED backlighting and local dimming, which consumers have been eagerly waiting for ever since. At $2,200, the VF551XVT is the least expensive 55-inch local-dimming LCD available, which makes it mighty attractive to cash-strapped TV shoppers. How well does it fulfill the promise of LED backlighting? Read on to find out...
One of the visible highlights of this year's Consumer Electronics Show was this massive plasma shown by Panasonic. It measures an incredible 152 inches.
Lexicon did a bad thing. According to Audioholics, the company's $3,500 BD-30 is little more than a rebadged $500 Oppo BD-83. The site says that Lexicon's Blu-ray player is literally just an Oppo BD-83 in an aluminum Lexicon wrapper.
This isn't...