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Tower Speaker Reviews
JBL Cinema Sound Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 24, 2006  |  0 comments
The well-tempered speakers.

Some speakers start communicating immediately. Ten seconds after I got these JBLs started, I was engrossed. Before I set them up, I'd just gotten halfway through the first disc of Vladimir Feltsman's hard-to-find four-disc set of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier. Having just rearranged my reference system to better visual and sonic advantage, I was loath to pull it apart again, but duty called. The Cinema Sound speakers simply picked up where my reference speakers left off. They sounded neutral, substantial, and well able to keep up with both the recording's shifting dynamics and its liquid beauty.

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HDTV TechGeoffrey Morrison Blog
Who Needs Light Bulbs? Part I
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jul 24, 2006  |  0 comments
Bring on the diodes.

Bulbs are so 20th century. You can gussy them up, charge a bunch of money for them, even call them fancy names (lamps), but the fact of the matter is, they're still basically light bulbs. Almost all new RPTVs and front projectors use UHP (ultrahigh pressure) lamps to create light. These lamps are fairly efficient for the light they put out but are very hot, costly, and don't last very long. One new technology that's aiming to replace the UHP monopoly is LED, or light-emitting diode.

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The S&V Interview
HT Talks To . . . Stephen J. Cannell
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 24, 2006  |  0 comments
Televisionary: Writer/producer Stephen J. Cannell looks back at nearly four decades of top-flight programming.

You might known him best as a wildly successful producer with as many as six shows on the air at once. To others, he's a prolific writer who created or elevated many of television's most beloved series. Or you might just recognize him as that guy who yanks the page out of the typewriter at the end of The A-Team. With the release of his feature films Demon Hunter and It Waits on DVD from Anchor Bay, Stephen J. Cannell gave us more than a TV hour (that's 45 minutes to you and me) to discuss his extensive legacy.

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Video Processor Reviews
Can a New Signal Processor Improve Your Image?
Gary Merson  |  Jul 24, 2006  |  0 comments
One of the biggest complaints about high-definition televisions pertains to the poor way they handle standard-definition television signals (broadcast, over-the-air, cable, satellite) and SD DVDs. The culprit? Mediocre to poor source material and the herculean effort needed for an HDTV using as many as 1,920 by 1,080 pixels to calculate all the missing pixels when it upconverts a signal that is interlaced with only 720 by 480 pixels or less. In the words of President Bush, "It's hard work."
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Ears On
Gracenote Adds Lyrics to Database
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 24, 2006  |  1 comments
Gracenote, the leading music metadata provider—for the iPod, no less—has cut a deal with music publishers to deliver lyrics in digital form. The company says possible applications include digital music retailers, mobile providers, search engines, music portals, and of course music players and servers. The prospect of seeing the words to a song scrolling down your MP3 player screen is an appealing and timely one. Once listeners could read lyrics in giant LP gatefolds or CD booklets. But even in the heyday of those formats, that wasn't always a given, and in the age of downloads, lyrics have been relegated to unauthorized websites (which may soon see a crackdown). So Gracenote's move is progress. But in a music industry where artists don't always get their fair share, how much can a songwriter expect to get paid if her lyrics are licensed as a new product? Emails on this subject to Gracenote and Gracenote's publicist went unanswered.
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Tower Speaker Reviews
Focal Profile 918 Speaker System
Fred Manteghian  |  Jul 23, 2006  |  10 comments

Focal, the French speaker and speaker component manufacturer formerly doing business as Focal-JMLabs, has always made a point of getting great sound at shows. While I didn't run into Focal at Primedia's Home Entertainment 2006 show in Los Angeles this June, I did hear some music in the MBL room that morphed into another sale for Amazon. As I work on the final edit of this review I'm listening to the just-delivered Jeff Buckley rendition of "Hallelujah" from his 1994 album <i>Grace</i> (CD, Columbia, CK 57528). The memory of what this song sounded like on the <a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/he2006/060206mbl/" target=new> $47,000/pair MBL 101E speakers</a> is still fresh. At just 1/10th the MBL's price, Focal's Profile 918 speakers get me very, very close to the fire-branded goose bumps I felt in LA last month.

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Audio Video News
Samsung Ships LED DLP Rear Projectors
 |  Jul 23, 2006  |  0 comments

<I>TWICE</I> has reported that Samsung is now shipping 1080p rear projection televisions that use that use an LED array instead of a UHP lamp as a light source. The first model on the streets is the HL-S5697W, a 56" RPTV with an MSRP if $4,199.

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Audio Video News
Super News From Warner!
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 23, 2006  |  0 comments

Hot on the heels of the currently in theaters <I>Superman Returns</I>, Warner Brothers announced a slew of new DVD releases of the original films. There has been no formal announcement of any of these titles appearing on HD DVD or Blu-ray (Warner supports both formats), but we can hope.

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Fred Manteghian Blog
Do Tic Tacs Come In Black?
Fred Manteghian  |  Jul 22, 2006  |  2 comments

<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.

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Ears On
Logitech mm50 Portable Speakers for iPod
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jul 21, 2006  |  0 comments
What's in a name? Logitech bills this iPod accessory as a set of "portable speakers," not a "system." That makes it smaller than such other iPod-compatible notables as the Bose SoundDock, Klipsch iGroove, and Apple's own Hi-Fi. It also signals a reduction in pricing, features, and expectations. The mm50 doesn't try to blow you away. It just provides an intravenous feed of music to keep you from going bonkers. In that respect it should not be underestimated.
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