LATEST ADDITIONS

Portable Player Reviews
Insignia IS-PDVD10 Portable DVD Player
Nikhil Burman  |  Jul 19, 2006
It folds open like open like a book, but there's no literacy required.

Summertime for many of you means travel time. And let's face it, folks—long plane flights can be a dreary hell. A good book helps, and, if you can sleep, that's the best way to kill time, unless of course drink carts and people headed to the bathroom keep bumping your shoulder every five minutes. But a portable DVD player can really help the time pass, and perhaps even help you forget about the tight space you're packed into.

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Media Server Reviews
Nyko Intercooler 360
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 19, 2006
The most important Xbox 360 accessory you'll ever own.

Remember the buzz shortly after the launch of the Microsoft Xbox 360 last year regarding concerns of the super-powered system overheating amid all of that heavy bit-lifting? Nyko has stepped up and done something about it.

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The 2006 DVD Hall of Fame Inductees
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 19, 2006
These DVD champions are going to a better place.

As the annually updated list of the top 100 DVDs of all time hits stands in the August issue of Home Theater magazine, we thought we'd take a moment to honor the number-one picks from each category in last year's ranking. We purge these "best of the best" titles each year to help keep the list current, although they still receive our highest recommendation: Buy them all as part of your own ultimate DVD library. Best Music DVD

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Ears On
Students Shun Legal Downloads
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 19, 2006
Students at Cornell, Purdue, George Washington University, and other schools won't download music from university-approved services even if it's free, according to The Wall Street Journal. These and other schools began offering free (often meaning subsidized) downloads to prevent illegal downloads from attracting lawsuits and choking servers. But these experiments have flunked for several reasons. Onerous DRM restrictions are often attached. For instance, the download may be free, but transferring to a music player or burning a CD may not be. At Cornell, students lost interest in Napster when they discovered they'd lose the right to use their downloads upon graduating. The non-iTunes services have also met resistance from iPod and/or Mac users, the latter an estimated 20 percent of the student population.
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Ears On
HD DVD Fakes Film Grain
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 18, 2006
HD DVD has adopted a Thomson-developed technology that would insert simulated film grain into high-def movie releases. The problem: Digital video compression codecs tend to lose the natural grain in film-based cinematography. The, um, uh, solution: "Thomson has come up with a way that allows the film grain to be put back, or at least simulated, into the movie after it's been compressed and decompressed," says Gavin Shutz of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers. Film Grain Technology™ will appear in two HD DVD players from Toshiba and one from RCA. It has also found its way into Sonic Solutions HD DVD production tools. So even if you shun the fakery in players, it will still find its way into at least some movie titles. OK, I haven't seen it yet, but isn't fake film grain the aesthetic equivalent of artificial edge enhancement? What ever happened to the idea of reproducing the source as accurately as possible?
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Test Tool Reviews
ISF HDTV Calibration Wizard
 |  Jul 17, 2006

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The Imaging Science Foundation teamed up with Monster Cable for this setup DVD, which is designed to allow even novices to adjust and setup their HDTVs without fear of techno-intimidation. In other words, although the ISF is involved, this isn't a test disc made by and for ISF calibrators. It's a quick and easy to use tool for the average Joe to simply and easily take his TV as far as it can go short of a full ISF calibration. Educational, effective and relatively easy to use, even for non-techies who want to get the most out of their movie and TV watching at home.

Test Tool Reviews
Digital Video Essentials: Short Take
 |  Jul 17, 2006

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The latest iteration of video expert Joe Kane's <I>Video Essentials</I>, the <I>DVE</I> DVD is already an industry standard. Revised and updated, <I>DVE</I> has everything you need to dial in your home theater, and more than a few patterns we use in our reviews at <I>UAV</I> to evaluate the performance capabilities of source components and displays. In addition to providing the test patterns, it also tells the less initiated how to go about making adjustments in a clear, concise fashion. For just $25 you can elevate the performance and accuracy of your entire system.

New Products
Richard Gray's Power Company 400 Pro and 1200 Custom: Short Take
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jul 17, 2006

$400 Pro- $795, 1200C- $2,195

RGPC's staple device is the four outlet 400 Pro, and it stands out in a very densely crowded category as a no BS product that actually works. Inside each RGPC is a large inductor core, or choke, and a fast-blo fuse. Unlike so many of the surge protectors or line conditioners out there the RGPC is wired in parallel with the incoming AC, which means there's no current limiting, and components don't have to be plugged directly into the RGPC units to receive the full effect. The RGPC simply has to be plugged into an outlet on the same circuit as your gear. Several RGPC units can be "star clustered" in groups for improved performance, and the 1200 Custom is in fact two 400 Pro devices in a single box with 12 outlets. Inductive power filtering is becoming very popular in many high-end products, and the results that can be reaped from the RGPC devices with both audio and video systems can be noticeable, if not staggering (especially with power hungry components like CRTs and plasmas screens). RGPC devices are the only PLC devices in SB's reference system.

Stewart Filmscreen Studiotek 130: Short Take
 |  Jul 17, 2006

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Audio Video News
Downloads to Burn
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jul 17, 2006
It had to happen, but it's not quite reality yet.
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