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Audio Video News
Search Begins for New TV Standard
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 26, 2013
Remember the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC)? They’re the folks who spent years hammering out the digital broadcast television standard that has brought high def and standard def to antenna-loving TV addicts around the nation. Now the standard-setting body is seeking proposals to replace the core transmission system for ATSC broadcasting. The ATSC 3.0 standard will use the latest in compression and transmission technologies to accommodate ultra-def video, mobile video reception, and greater efficiency in spectrum use. The process is just getting under way with a call for proposals, and several years will probably pass before the new standard emerges in final form.
SmartStream
Is Google's Chromecast the Streaming Device for Every Home?
Barb Gonzalez  |  Jul 25, 2013
Google's Chromecast will stream video from your smartphone, tablet, or computer and is affordable enough to become the streaming device for every home. Find out how to order now and get three months of Netflix included.
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Audio Video News
TCL Announces Plans to Sell 50-Inch Ultra HD LCD TV for $999
HT Staff  |  Jul 25, 2013
TCL (The Creative Life), a Hong Kong-based multibillion dollar TV manufacturing company, today announced that it will begin selling a 50-inch Ultra HD LCD TV in September for $999, which would make it the least expensive Ultra HD, or 4K, TV on the market. The Ultra HD designation refers to a display resolution of at least eight million active pixels (3,840 x 2,160), which is four times the number of pixels found in standard HDTVs.
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Editor's Eye
Home Theater To Become Sound & Vision
Rob Sabin  |  Jul 24, 2013  |  First Published: Jul 25, 2013
Readers who follow developments in audio/video electronics might have heard back in May that Home Theater's parent company, Source Interlink Media, acquired its chief competitor Sound & Vision. These were the two biggest print magazines serving the A/V enthusiast.

It was announced on Monday that, beginning with the October issue, Home Theater and Sound & Vision will be merged, and only one magazine will go forward under the Sound & Vision brand.

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Tower Speaker Reviews
GoldenEar Triton Seven tower speaker
Mike Mettler  |  Jul 24, 2013

The seeds were planted at CES this past January in Las Vegas. I was ushered directly to the SSS, the Sweet Spot Seat (middle chair, second row) in GoldenEar Technology’s private suite at The Venetian. GoldenEar’s major audio domo, Sandy Gross, had been waiting patiently for my arrival so I could hear the company’s new speaker pair, the Triton Seven towers.

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Audio Video News
Music News: Van Dyke Parks, Julian Cope, More
HT Staff  |  Jul 24, 2013
Rediscovering America with Van Dyke Parks plus a Smashing Pumpkins box set, an Otis Redding archival release, and new releases from Julian Cope, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, Justin Roberts, and more.
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This Week
This Week in Movies & TV, July 23, 2013: Sleepwalking Through a Trance
Josef Krebs  |  Jul 23, 2013

The Ice Storm

This 1997 tale of middle-class conformity and malaise, directed by Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain) tells of the Connecticut suburb of New Canaan circa 1973, a land of bored, half-hearted adult experimentation with long-term relationships and casual sex while their youngsters experience their own first exci

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This Week
This Week in Music, July 23, 2013: Rediscover America with Van Dyke Parks
Ken Richardson  |  Jul 23, 2013

Van Dyke Parks: Songs Cycled

New release (Bella Union)
Photo by Roman Cho

This is the first new album credited to Van Dyke Parks alone since 1989’s Tokyo Rose, but the dozen tracks are actually the A- and B-sides of six singles he released on his own label, Bananastan, in 2011 and ’12. Furthermore, whereas four of the A-sides are indeed new-since-1989 original songs (and another track is a co-write), five selections are arrangements of traditional, folk, or classical material, and the remaining two are re-recordings of earlier Parks compositions.

On paper, then, Songs Cycled is a hodgepodge. But when did we ever listen to Van Dyke Parks on paper? Fact is, the 12 numbers miraculously form a coherent whole — an album that, true to its creator’s longtime ambition, celebrates the glorious sound of music.

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This Week
This Week in Movies & TV, July 23, 2013: Sleepwalking Through a Trance
 |  Jul 23, 2013
This 1997 tale of middle-class conformity and malaise, directed by Ang Lee (Life of Pi, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain) tells of the Connecticut suburb of New Canaan circa 1973, a land of bored, half-hearted adult experimentation with long-term relationships and casual sex while their youngsters experience their own first exciting and troubling attempts at the same.
Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
LG Introduces First Big-Screen OLED TV in the U.S.
HT Staff  |  Jul 23, 2013
Super-Thin, Curved Screen Model Launched at Best Buy’s Magnolia Design Center

In a surprise move, LG Electronics announced yesterday that the first OLED TV in the U.S. is being offered for sale at Best Buy’s flagship Magnolia Design Center store in Richfield, MN.

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