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Working with a Pro Page 2
Rob Medich  |  Oct 15, 2005

Guy walks into a Tweeter (no, this isn't a dirty joke) and asks if they can design a multiroom entertainment system for the house he's building. So an installer visits the construction site and comes up with a plan. But then the guy blows him off, taking the installer's ideas and having his own electrician do the work instead.

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Custom Installation Equipment Reviews
SkipJam iMedia
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 15, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2005
Any signal, anywhere? Yeah, pretty much.
Increasing droves of con-sumers are installing networks in their homes to accomplish boring feats such as sharing printers or perhaps more diverting applications like music sharing. But, not until I reviewed the offerings from SkipJam did I fully understand how much entertainment a home network can provide. SkipJam has designed a platform-agnostic networking system in which a single wholehouse configuration can work seamlessly with an existing CAT-5 (Ethernet), Wi-Fi, coaxial cable, or power-line network—or any combination of these different standards. You will need a properly functioning network in place, independent of the SkipJam installation. But, if you want to add one more location wirelessly, for example, it's no problem.
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Bookshelf Speaker ReviewsSoundbar Reviews
Yamaha YSP-1 Digital Sound Projector
John Higgins  |  Oct 15, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2005
Bouncing off the walls.

In a time when housing prices are rising at an exponential rate, making affordable square footage scarce, one of the major challenges to having a home theater system is space. The home-theater-in-a-box phenomenon has attacked this problem by packaging smaller, matched speakers together with a receiver, but there's still the issue of finding space for proper speaker placement and the messy wiring that follows. Yamaha offers the YSP-1 Digital Sound Projector to alleviate this problem.

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Projector Reviews
Optoma H27 DLP Projector
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Oct 15, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2005
Value, and then some.

Let's talk value. Super-sizing may no longer be en vogue in the fast-food realm, but it's alive and well in the world of home theater. If you're trying to put together a dedicated theater on a budget, remember this simple formula: More screen size for less money means greater value.

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LCD TV Reviews
JVC LT-32X776 LCD HDTV
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Oct 15, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2005
Embrace the digital age.

The CEA recently conducted a study to figure out how many people will be affected when analog broadcasts are no more. (We're still taking bets as to whether or not that day will ever truly arrive.) Their research determined that about 12 percent of the 285 million TVs in the U.S. receive programming via an over-the-air signal, while 94.4 million TVs are connected to a cable box, satellite receiver, or both.

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Projector Reviews
Hitachi PJ-TX100 LCD Projector
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Oct 15, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 30, 2005
My, what a big eye you have.

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, we were introduced to HAL 9000—a plucky computer that likes long walks at night, organization, and things not named Dave. In 2010, we found out that we were going to need a bigger boat and that HAL had a sibling: Bob. Or it may have been Phil. It certainly wasn't Knight Industries Two Thousand. It turns out that four years after and five years before, a middle sibling has been discovered: PJ. (Lame, I know. I'm sorry.)

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Audio Video News
John Landis, Uncensored
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 14, 2005
The October issue of HT featured our one-on-one interview acclaimed director John Landis, but those pages were scarcely adequate to contain his boundless enthusiasm, and who are we to restrain the mind that perfected the R-rated comedy? We hereby present this unfettered version of our discussion with the man behind Animal House, The Blues Brothers (celebrating its silver anniversary this year with a new special edition DVD from Universal Studios), and An American Werewolf in London, to name but a few, in addition to Michael Jackson's groundbreaking video "Thriller," which once ruled MTV.
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Audio Video News
China To Launch Next-Gen DVD Format
 |  Oct 13, 2005

The strange and twisting-turning saga of the next-generation optical disc format war just got stranger with reports that China announced plans to develop and launch its own next –generation DVD format in 2008, seemingly placing China's massive manufacturing infrastructure at odds with the emerging Blu-ray and HD DVD standards.

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Sharp 56DR650 DLP HDTV
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Oct 10, 2005  |  First Published: Oct 22, 2005
A rear pro from the front-pro experts.

Someone at Sharp noticed a gap. They make all sorts of flat-panel LCD units, from dinner-plate size to plasma size. Then they have two DLP projectors that handle the huge-screen market. (In fact, we gave the XV-Z12000 our Best Overall Projector RAVE Award for last year in our May 2005 issue.) But there's this gap, you see, above 45 inches for flat panels and below 80 or so inches for front projectors. What to do? How about rear projection?

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Projector Reviews
BenQ PE7700 Single-chip DLP Projector
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 10, 2005

While separate projectors and screens are not for everyone, for many of us they define the essence of the true home theater video experience. A big-screen television is fine as far as it goes, and certainly appeals to a wide market. But nothing quite matches the thrill of watching a theater-like image on a really big screen in a darkened room.

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