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Fred Manteghian Blog
Posed Thumbs
Fred Manteghian  |  Apr 12, 2006  |  1 comments

I've got the next hot product for Apple, the hardware cum music company, not the Music company the Beatles conceived or even the fruit that ultimately made Eve conceive.

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Accessory Reviews
Philips RC9800i Touchscreen Universal Remote Control
John Higgins  |  Apr 12, 2006  |  0 comments
This Isn't Your Grandfathers Remote Control.

Say the words "universal remote" to some, and disturbing visions of programming a remote button by button fill their minds. Quite often, after these long, intimate sessions between you and your remotes, the universal remote doesn't perform exactly as expected, and you find yourself keeping the old remotes within reach in case something doesn't work as planned. After some time passes, the old remotes are used more often and the universal remote eventually disappears beneath the couch to be forgotten. So, why bother with another remote that supposedly does everything?

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Ears On
Netflix Attacks Blockbuster Online
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 12, 2006  |  2 comments
Blockbuster's online DVD rentals have attracted a patent-infringement lawsuit from Netflix. At issue are two patents. The first one, granted in 2003, concerns the method of letting users choose and return titles. The second relates to the waiving of late fees, obtaining new discs at no extra charge, and prioritizing want lists. For Netflix, the timing is interesting—that second patent was granted just last week! For Blockbuster, it's disastrous. The company is a billion bucks in the red, spent $300 million to set up Blockbuster Online, and has only one million subscribers, versus four million for Netflix. Compulsive letter writers, here's a hot question for your senators and congressthings: Why is the federal government granting business-methodology patents that squelch competition and raise prices for consumers?
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Audio Video News
Editors RAVE About the Best Gear
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Apr 11, 2006  |  0 comments
The editors of Home Theater magazine have announced the winners of the 2006 RAVE Awards (Recognition of Audio and Video Excellence). Open to all manufacturers, the RAVE Awards, now in its third year, recognize excellence in the manufacturing of superior audio and video components that have been reviewed and tested by the Home Theater staff and respected contributors over a 12-month period.
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The S&V Interview
HT Talks To . . . Robert Rodriguez
Chris Chiarella  |  Apr 11, 2006  |  0 comments
Cinematographer/Editor/Visual-Effects Supervisor Robert Rodriguez might well be the hardest-working man in show business.

Much like the guitar-playing hero of his Mariachi trilogy, Robert Rodriguez is a one-man army—a veteran moviemaker well versed in all of its disciplines. Success born of unending creativity has led to unmatched creative freedom at his own Troublemaker Studios, far from the stodgy bureaucracy of Hollywood. Somehow, he found some time to talk to me about his work, including the ceaselessly stunning Sin City.

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AV Glossary
Surround Revisited
Mark Fleischmann,  |  Apr 11, 2006  |  0 comments
Dolby and DTS help renovate high-def DVD digs.

Have you ever heard wine lovers obsess about the bottle? Of course not. True oenophiles care most about what's in the bottle. There, in a nutshell, you have what's most peculiar about the high-definition-DVD format race. All we hear about is the vessel. What about the contents?

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Geoffrey Morrison Blog
Sharp's Two-Way Viewing-Angle LCD
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Apr 11, 2006  |  0 comments
See double. (No booze required.)

Every once in a while, a new technology pops up that is so cool and so different that it has to create its own market. Sharp's sexy-sounding two-way viewing-angle LCD technology is just such a thing. It allows for diverse and unique uses that were previously not possible—or at least difficult.

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Ears On
If the Remote Ain't Broke, Don't Replace It
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 11, 2006  |  5 comments
Consumers junk millions of remote controls each year. But 20 percent of remotes deemed defective can be returned to service with a simple reset routine, according to MrRemoteControls.com. Here are the instructions verbatim:
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Geoffrey Morrison Blog
Mits Line Show 2006
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Apr 10, 2006  |  4 comments
It's 61 miles from our Studio to the Huntington Beach Hyatt where Mitsubishi was holding their line show. It's all highway driving, which in most parts of the country would constitute a drive time of about an hour. Thanks to the fickle nature of L.A. traffic, it took 2.5. A colleague who lives near our studio left 10 min later than I did, and it took him 3 hours. Gotta love it.
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A/V Veteran
King Kong Musings
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 10, 2006  |  3 comments

I saw <I>King Kong</I> &mdash;twice&mdash; theatrically, in the "standard" auditoriums of the Arclight Cinemas in Hollywood (not the Cinerama Dome where it was also playing, for reasons I described in an earlier blog, "<I>King Kong: Peter Jackson's Production Diaries</I>," below). It was, without question, the best theatrical film presentation I've seen in years. I wrote about the DVD in our most recent e-Newsletter, which will show up in your mailbox in a few days. (You do subscribe don't you? It's free, just go <A HREF=" http://www.ultimateavmag.com/newsletter_subscribe/?Your%20E-mail ">here</A>to sign up.)

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