LATEST ADDITIONS

The S&V Interview
HT Talks To . . . Michael Apted
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 08, 2007  |  First Published: Feb 09, 2007
For prolific director Michael Apted, the Up series continues to be a lifelong labor of love.

Before he embarked on a distinguished career in feature films (Coal Miner's Daughter, Gorillas in the Mist, The World Is Not Enough, and many more), director Michael Apted was part of a revolutionary British-television documentary project. It was called Seven Up, and it profiled a group of children in 1964. Apted took over from director Paul Almond starting with the first follow-up, 7 Plus Seven. He rounded up the same subjects at age 14 and has gone on to shepherd the series through to the present day. The films have become increasingly powerful for their ever-expanding scope and their ability to effectively condense entire lives of everyday citizens in a matter of minutes. 49 Up is the most recent installment, on DVD from First Run Features. All of the previous iterations are also available in an extraordinary boxed set.

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HDTV Tech
You've Got TV
Peter Putman  |  Feb 08, 2007  |  First Published: Feb 09, 2007
There's a whole lot of stuff that makes up a digital TV signal. Here's a primer on how it works.

In the beginning, there was analog television. You aimed the antenna, tuned in the channel, and then sat back to watch as the amplitude-modulated pictures flashed on the TV screen and the frequency-modulated audio blared forth from the speakers. Some time later, analog TV added color by shoehorning in a small signal with the necessary information amongst those amplitude- and frequency-modulated pictures and sounds.

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AV GlossaryHDTV Tech
xvYCC and Deep Color
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Feb 08, 2007  |  First Published: Feb 09, 2007
Yet another way your TV is obsolete, sort of.

If you scoured all of the details on the recent HDMI 1.3 release (and who didn't?), you may have noticed the inclusion of xvYCC and Deep Color. These are two different things that together will theoretically make displays' color more realistic. The short version is this: Deep Color increases the available bit depth for each color component, while xvYCC expands the overall color gamut. Sure they do, but why?

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
DVD REVIEW: The Departed
Josef Krebs  |  Feb 08, 2007
Although Martin Scorsese has drawn some compelling performances out of his cast - particularly Mark Wahlberg, who rises to the challenge as never before - The Departed lacks the visual flair of the director's other works.
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Other Tech
Step by Step: How to Position Your Home Theater Speakers
John Sciacca  |  Feb 08, 2007

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Music Reviews
MUSIC REVIEW: Ono
Billy Altman  |  Feb 08, 2007
Yes, I'm a Witch Astralwerks
Music •••½Sound •••½
Granted, most people had little or no inkling of who Yoko Ono
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Music Reviews
MUSIC REVIEW: Charlie Louvin
Rob O'Connor  |  Feb 08, 2007
Charlie Louvin Tompkins Square
Music •••• Sound ••••
At nearly 80 years old, Charlie Louvin isn't about to learn any new tricks.
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Audio Video News
Something Wal-Mart This Way Comes: Mega-Retailer To Offer Movie Downloads
 |  Feb 08, 2007

Could it be that Apple, Amazon and Netflix might face their toughest competition in the movie download space from a brick and mortar retail chain? Wal-Mart is entering the movie download business with deals in place with six of Hollywood's major studios, a claim no other download site can match currently. Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner have all signed on to sell movies and TV shows with the retailing giant.

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Ears On
Studios OK Wal-Mart Downloads
Mark Fleischmann  |  Feb 08, 2007
What's remarkable about Wal-Mart's just-unveiled Video Downloads is not that America's number one retailer is venturing into online distribution of movies and teevee. The real story is that Wal-Mart has convinced all six major motion picture studios and at least some of the networks to pour a total of 3000 titles into the fledgling service. Wal-Mart tells you how to enjoy its downloads on TV, PC, or portable player. Pricing ranges from $1.96 for a TV episode to $19.88 for a fresh movie title. Shop around and you'll find movie titles well under the maximum. For example, Rugrats Go Wild for a mere $7.50. Still, even that's not much of a bargain compared to your basic Blockbuster movie rental fee of less than $5--so much for the "always low prices" slogan. Moreover, there's no mention of HD, compatible portables do not include iPods, and Wal-Mart's web developer is guilty, guilty, guilty of a major gaffe: The service seems to have been optimized for Internet Explorer (I used version 7). In Firefox 1.5, it's an unusable mess. Any Safari or Opera users having trouble with this page? Let me know. In fairness, the service is in beta, and improvements may follow.
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GAME REVIEW: Call of Duty 3
Drew Thompson  |  Feb 07, 2007

Thrusting you into the Normandy Breakout, the spectacular graphics and sound of this game make it one of the most immersive, movie-like World War II shooters yet. Details in the environments will astound you, including some of the most lifelike vegetation ever seen in a game - from individual blades of grass that sway in the breeze to lush trees that let rays of light filter through.

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