Video editor Geoffrey Morrison is a car guy. Me, I drive a Camry. It's 10 years old, and it does everything I need it to do. But I certainly appreciate the difference when I sit behind the wheel of, say, a BMW. That's kind of how I felt when I test drove Samsung's latest SyncMaster LCD monitor, the 244T.
As I speed-dial my cell phone to reach my wife in the kitchen, to ask her to bring me another Dr. Pepper, it hits me: People want it easy. Too often, however, "easy" and "home theater" don't mix, unless, for example, you have the means and the know-how to hire a good custom installer to hook up your gear and configure your universal remote. ZVOX clearly understands the critical anti-work ethic of home entertainment. Their original 315 Sound Console (in our April 2005 issue) connects to a TV or audio source with a comforting "Set it, and forget it!" philosophy, previously applicable only in the realm of Ron Popeil's famous rotisseries. ZVOX's goal is to deliver spacious home theater audio with only one cable connected to a single box.
Some of you may think that I call the LVM-42w2 a "true HD monitor" because I've finally acquiesced to the HDTV conspiracy theorists who insist that only 1,920-by-1,080 displays like this one should be labeled HDTVs. Don't worry—I plan to support 1080i and 720p a bit longer.
The Recording Industry Association of America, better known as the antichrist, is suing XM Satellite Radio for "massive copyright infringement." XM plays 160,000 different songs a month for its 6.5 million subscribers and the RIAA wants $150,000 for each song copied. In the background is the real story: The music industry has been in negotiations with both major satellite operators over payment of royalties, and while Sirius has cut a deal, XM has not. In its defense, XM says it's already the single biggest payer of royalties to the labels. The Consumer Electronics Association has issued a definitive rebuttal to the suit. Another source of heat is Senate bill 2644, a.k.a. the Perform Act, which would prohibit satellite services from allowing programmed downloading of individual songs, even though songs currently are not digitally transferable from the devices that record them (and any analog output from any device can be recorded anyhow). According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Perform Act would also require webcasters to substitute DRM streaming technology for the MP3 streaming many of them use.
