Darryl Wilkinson

Custom Installation Equipment Reviews
Russound CAV6.6 A/V Controller
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 07, 2004  |  Published: Nov 01, 2004
Outsourcing can be a good thing when it comes to home entertainment.

With a handful of exceptions, truly flexible multiroom entertainment is beyond the reach of most A/V receivers. Sure, lots of manufacturers rapturously talk about their second-zone outputs like they're some sign of the Second Coming. In most cases, however, a receiver's second-zone outputs aren't much better than giving a blind man the keys to your car. Maybe you'll eventually get where you want to go, but not without a lot of anxiety.

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Audio Video News
DualDiscs Do-All Discs Finally Arrive
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Nov 01, 2004
Test marketed earlier this year, DualDisc is now officially here with the October 26th release of two albums from Warner Music Group (WMG). (Two more WMG DualDisc albums are scheduled to arrive in stores on November 23rd.)
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Audio Video News
Home Theater Masseuse
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 25, 2004
Backs and butts strained by the hard work of listening to music and watching movies in home theaters around the United States, rejoice! FAMILY INADA, maker of the world's first shiatsu massage chair, will unveil a new massage chair model, W.1, at the grand opening of its first U.S. showroom in Manhattan (7 West 56th Street) on November 17th. The INADA Chair W.1 is the world's first massage chair to take music and other sounds from sources in your home theater (DVD, TV, VHS, CD, and even your turntable) and synchronize it with a healthy, energizing massage.
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Audio Video News
Peer Into a New TV Network
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 25, 2004
Yet another Internet-related company is looking to bring content - "with High Definition quality" - to your computer and TV screens. DAVETV, an acronym for Distributed Audio Video Entertainment, claims to be "a new kind of television broadcast network offering not only traditional programming such as movies, music, music videos and sports, but also new original content self-published by end users using DAVETV's secure peer-to-peer networking system."
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Audio Video News
Burn, DVD Baby, Burn
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 25, 2004
They say you can't please all of the people all of the time, but Sony's newest DVD burner aims to do just that. Sony's new DVDirect (which Sony asks that you pronounce as "DVD Direct" even though they left out a "D" and a space) is "the first in the world capable of stand-alone, real-time DVD recording, as well as computer-attached burning." As such, Sony hopes it will appeal to those camcorder owners with poor or negligible computer skills who still want to be able to archive precious (and typically quite boring) family memories on DVD while at the same time fulfilling the needs of more computer-savvy members of the household.
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Audio Video News
Digital Cable High-Def Ready Recorders
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 18, 2004
Sony estimates that there are 10 million or so HDTV owners who are chomping at the bit to get access to digital cable high definition content. For those folks, and for people who'd simply like to record local, terrestrial HD broadcasts, Sony is introducing two new HD digital video recorders, the DHG-HDD250 and DHG-HDD500.
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Audio Video News
Sharp Supersizes LCD HDTV
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 18, 2004
Further dashing the hopes of all those who long for a return to the days when a really big big-screen TV occupied more space in your living room than a pair of side-by-side refrigerators (and just about as stylish), Sharp recently unveiled a prototype 65-inch diagonal LCD HDTV - giving them, for the moment, possession of the official "World's Largest LCD Color TV" plaque. Prior to Sharp's announcement, the people who get paid to pontificate on such things ("panel pundits") had proclaimed a probable production-size limitation in the mid-forty inches for LCD TV diagonals. (Stunned by seeing proof that such a large screen size was possible, many of these panel pundits quickly switched to politics or weather forecasting, neither of which require much accuracy or accountability.)
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Audio Video News
High Definition Movie Downloads
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 18, 2004
So you've got HD satellite receivers from VOOM, DIRECTV, and Dish Network plus an HD cable box from your local cable provider, not to mention the biggest, baddest terrestrial antenna sprouting from your roof so you can pick up every local, terrestrial HD broadcast, but you still can't get enough HD content to watch. Now what?
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Tower Speaker Reviews
Definitive Technology Mythos Four Speaker System
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 15, 2004  |  Published: Oct 01, 2004
The totally bearable lightness of being a Mythos.
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Audio Video News
HD Disc Format Orgs Sound Off On Sound
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 04, 2004
We have heard the soundtrack of the High Definition future on DVD, and it's compatible with the jillion1 or so digital surround sound receivers currently delighting home theater owners around the globe - or so says Dolby Laboratories and DTS. In separate recent announcements, each company proudly touted the fact that their audio technologies have been selected as a mandatory part of both the High-Definition Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD) and the Blu-ray Disc high-definition video disc formats. The two rival disc formats are locked in a good-versus-evil, battle-to-the-death struggle to convince studios, manufacturers, consumers, and anyone else who will listen that their format makes the most sense (and cents) for the future of packaged optical media. Although most people immediately think video when they hear about High Definition on disc, the announcement of mandatory audio standards is an excellent reminder to all concerned that audio quality is just as important as video clarity.
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