Fred Manteghian Blog

DVRs are such wonderful devices – except that they won't record three shows at once very well. Two tuners – two shows. Watch one show, record another, or record two and watch something you've previously recorded (I end up doing that a lot actually). Bottom line, you have to plan your viewing pleasure carefully, especially when the new fall season begins as it will in less than two weeks.

One of the biggest ripoffs in the world is from a company that professes to be in business of preventing the commitment thereof. Yeah, I'm talking about the folks at Consumer Reports. For them, it's business as usual and their modus operandi hasn't changed in years. I remember shopping for a car years before the Internet had anything worthwhile on it, and going to the newsstand and picking up a copy of "Edmund's guide to New Cars" for seven bucks. There, in plain English, was a guide that gave me the MSRP, the dealer invoice, the "holdback," the list of options and anything else I might need to drive the best deal I could when I entered the showroom.

As I leave Denver after three days of being under the gun to pump out show reports (don't worry fans, it was only friendly fire), I can sit back and shoot for the bigger picture.

<span style="float:left;color:#D4D4C7;font-size:100px;line-height:70px;padding-top:2px;font-family: Times, serif, Georgia;">F</span>or less than half the price that my BMW dealer wants to hook my iPod to the 530i's stereo, you can use Belkin's <a href="http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductPage.process?Product_Id=257270" target=new>TuneBase FM for iPod</a> to hear your music collection through your car's FM radio. It's not an original idea and it's not a first, but it is extremely well designed and implemented. For the most part.

Don't say "Gesundheit!" That wasn't a sneeze, but it is a mouthful. The company, eWoo, and their amazing not-so-little iPod doc, <a href=" http://www.ewoo.com/products/efizz.html" target="new">the eFizz</a>, all twenty pounds of it, has been holding down my credenza at work for almost six months. Things got off to a grinding halt with this review as the remote control for the first unit became utterly crippled when I tried to up load the latest firmware version as recommended by eWoo's PR firm. Another victim of the Microsoft Vista system I think.

Well, I finally got an HD DVD player. Thanks Shane for helping me decide on a model. In the end, I got the top of the line <a href=" http://www.guidetohometheater.com/hddiscplayers/207toshhdxa2/index.html" target="new">Toshiba XA2</a> and I couldn't be more pleased. 1080p and one of the best upconverting DVD players around. What's not to like? Feeding my also new <a href=" http://ultimateavmag.com/videoprojectors/207jvchd1/" target="new">JVC DLA-HD1 projector</a> and lighting up a 78" wide (89" diag) Stewart Screen (Studio Tek 130 – 1.3 gain), the picture is to die for.

A few weeks ago, DirecTv sent me something that wasn't wrapping paper around my bill - notification that they would be "launching more than 75 HD channels … by year end." I've already talked about the DirecTv 10 and 11 satellites (see <a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/030406Sputnik/" target="new">"Er, no, actually, you're watching them . . . ."</a>) back in March 2006. I've had most of the big local stations in hidef now over the satellite since March 2007 (NBC, CW, CBS, and FOX, MY, but not ABC or PBS!). Add one HBO channel, TNT, HDNet Movies, Universal HD and a couple of sports stations and the existing line up of HD stations on DirecTv still adds up to one big tease.