Geoffrey Morrison Blog

Sorry, but I just can't get excited about the Xbox 360. I know many of you lump gamers together in some sort of homogenous, pasty, bunch, but in fact there are many sub-categories. In my mind, there are two main genera in the gamer family; console, and computer. I, am one of the latter.

In the November issue I reviewed Sony’s new 1080p LCOS rear-projector, the KDS-R60XBR1. In just about every way, it was a terrific TV. It wasn’t, however, terribly accurate.

Ok, it's been a month since the re-launch of the shiny new hometheatermag.com. It seems like everyone likes it, which is good. I’ve gotten some responses about HTGamer, but I’d like to hear more. Like:

See, I told you. Once a week is far too often to be interesting. For the moment, go check out HTGamer, we've put up a few new games in the past week. I'll post some more blog stuff tomorrow. Maybe it will even be video related.

We had our 3rd bi-annual RPTV face off yesterday. It will be in the February issue, which you subscribers should be getting in about 7 weeks. As I mentioned previously, all the sets were 1080p. They ranged in size from 50 to 62 inches diagonal with an average price just over $4000. We had a panel of 5 judges rank each of the 6 TVs on a variety of factors and on a variety of material. What is perhaps most interesting is that the TV that came in last place this year was better than at least half of the TVs from the 2004 face off. TV competition is fast and furious, and the buyer/enthusiast profits the most from this. For example, the average full on/full off contrast ratio was right around 5000:1, a vast improvement over the digital sets from two years ago. And as far as CRTs go, well, CRT is dead. Sorry. We loved you dearly.

One other thing that I want to talk about in this space is HD TV shows. While I won't force anyone to watch some of the movies I watch, I do however know good TV. One of the most distressing aspects of television watching is falling in love with a show, only to have it cancelled by an incompetent network (Firefly) or lack of viewers (tons of shows). So occasionally I'm going to put up a few shows that you should check out, if you haven't already. With few exceptions, they'll be HD, or at least widescreen. Trust me, if I'm watching them, they're worth watching.

We frequently get e-mails from readers asking why they should spend big $s on a home theater product when they can get a similar product for much less. Good question! So, this is the first in a series of GearWorks in which we'll discuss that very topic. We'll start with perhaps the easiest component to track: projectors. Where does the money go?