A controlling interest in your home theater can turn into a wholehouse-friendly takeover.
Silly girl. My wife thinks our home theater system ought to sound great and be easy to operate. She also wants one remote control to work the gear, the lights, and whatever else she desires dominion over.
It's 26 percent more compact, packed with easy-to-use features, and more affordable than its predecessor. Oh, yeah, and it lets you record high-definition home videos.
Would I stoop to running a news item just because it comes with a cool pic? If you thought otherwise, how little you know me. Congratulations to the Blu-ray family on the birth of the quad-layer disc, first shown in prototype at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show. Existing Blu-ray discs (inasmuch as they can be said to exist) use a single layer for capacity of 25 gigabytes or two layers for 50GB. Double the number of layers yet again and what do you get? A 100GB quad-layer disc that can store up to nine hours of high-definition video, at least in situations where digital rights management would so permit. As the picture shows, the disc actually has nine layers if you count the spacers, the second-from-top cover layer, and the Durabis layer—that's the name TDK has given the specially formulated top layer. Blu-ray players read data at a much shallower depth than regular DVD, so the top layer has to be both thin and hard. Otherwise it would need a protective caddy, like 2003-vintage Blu-ray in Japan. The quad-layer prototype is a write-once disc (not rewritable) and there's no word on when it will become available.
This past week two stories circulated around the Internet that dramatically illustrate the confusion surrounding the next-gen optical disc formats. The first rumor had both formats being delayed due to failure to agree to the finalized standard for the AACS copy protection that will be employed by both formats. The second was that Toshiba will kick off a 40-city promotional tour this coming week to hype HD DVD's March launch. Well, is it on again or off again?!
While my <A HREF="http://ultimateavmag.com/videoprojectors/1205sony/">December 2005 review of this video projector</A> was complete in most respects, the absence of our Photo Research colorimeter (in the shop for repairs) did leave a few holes in the formal measurements. These were promised for this Part II.
MovieBeam wants a piece of the $10 billion U.S. movie-rental industry, and they think they can do it by charging you $199.99 for the box (after $50 introductory rebate), a one-time service activation fee of $29.99, and between $1.99 and $3.99 per movie (add a $1 surcharge for HD - that's right, HD - titles).
Whenever I see the five interlocked Olympic rings, I think of one thing: Audi cars. Okay, they have only four rings, but I'm definitely more interested in driving cars than watching the Olympics, particularly the winter Olympics. Bryant Gumbel noted last week that it's the "paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention." Of course, we all know that's a lie. Bryant Gumbel has never even been to a Republican convention!
