At the recent Showest trade show for the commercial-cinema industry, one the most important announcements was a $315M deal between Sony and AMC, one of the country's largest movie-theater chains, to install Sony 4K SXRD digital-cinema projectors for all 4628 screens in its 309 theaters over the next few years. Currently, AMC has 150 Sony 4K projectors in 11 theaters.
How Do I Know? Love my new Pioneer VSX-03TXH receiver. Love my new Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player. But how do I know if Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio is working? I have changed settings on both units and actually read the manuals of both units. Pioneer's website has a picture of the receiver with TrueHD lit up on its front panel, but I have yet to see it on my front panel. My units are connected together only with an HDMI cable. Also, as knowledgeable as I am about home-theater stuff, what is PCM?
As part of megaconglomerate Harman International, <A href="http://www.revelspeakers.com">Revel</A> has access to some of the finest speaker-design and development facilities in the world. And yet it retains its identity as a separate, relatively small company whose sole focus is producing the best possible speakers without compromising or cutting corners.
<I>I am building a dedicated home theater, and I have completed most of the design work. One of the last details is the projector position. I have a 100-inch 16:9 screen and the Panasonic PT-AE3000.
Best Buy is voluntarily recalling one model of its house-brand Insignia LCD TV, the 26-inch IS-LCDTV26, 13,300 of which were sold from August 2005 through June 2006.
What Black Dots? I enjoy your segments with Leo Laporte on The Tech Guy radio show and podcast, but I really must disagree with your comments on plasma versus LCD. I agree that plasma blacks are blacker and that colors are more vivid. But I just cannot stand the matrix of black dots on plasma screens. I also dislike the reflective screenthe distraction of reflections more than offsets any loss through a non-reflecting screen.
You Can't Get Better Than Perfect A reader of your column posed the question whether he should buy a Pioneer Kuro now that they have been greatly discounted. I want the best too, but this raises another question. Do the new Panasonic G10, V10, or Z1 plasma TVs surpass the Pioneers' picture performance, and at what price? The dilemma is thisif one waits too long and the Panasonics disappoint, the Pioneers may be sold out forever.
After 60 years of making some of the finest audio components available, <A href="http://www.mcintoshlabs.com">McIntosh Laboratory</A> is celebrating its quadquindecennial with the reissue of two classic models—the C22 preamp and MC75 monoblock power amp that were first introduced in the early 1960s. Both units have been updated with the latest features and manufacturing techniques and will be sold as a limited-edition "Classic System" including one C22 and two MC75s.
As you probably know by now, 3D movies are all the rage in commercial cinemas these days. In most cases, however, these presentations require a special screen, and the image can't be larger than about 40 feet wide due to the loss of light that polarized systems inflict. To address the first problem, Dolby has developed a 3D system that can be used on any screen, and a new partnership with Barco addresses the second problem. Using two stacked projectors, the combined light output is enough to fill screens up to 70 feet wide.
For many, online distribution of high-def video and audio is the Next Big Thing. There's just one small thing impeding the flood of content—bandwidth. An incredible solution to this problem was quietly demonstrated at CES this year by a company called R<SUP>2</SUP>D<SUP>2</SUP> ("Twice the Research, Twice the Development"). Founded by hippie love child Leia Organic Skydancer, R<SUP>2</SUP>D<SUP>2</SUP> has developed what it calls Hypernet, a system that bypasses the Internet completely, offering nearly unlimited bandwidth and instantaneous transmissions using the principles of quantum physics.