We've all complained about some of the marginal films coming out on HD DVD and Blu-ray. The situation <I>is</I> improving, though not fast enough for most of us. But as I look through my growing HD DVD and Blu-ray collection, I do see more great titles than I imagined.
We’ve been fortunate in the 1080p world in having a variety of test discs available. While a full calibration requires special test tools, such discs can tell you a lot about how your set performs and help get the basic picture settings right. One of the most popular of such discs, and one of the first, is Digital Video Essentials, shown in the photo here.
But while 4K with high dynamic range (HDR) is now here, there’s still a lack of test materials for this format, particularly the high dynamic range end of the equation...
As any serious photographer can tell you, color is a complex subject. There are researchers devoting their careers to it. It's also central to properly setting up a television in a process we call calibration.
My first CEDIA was in Dallas in 1995, and it was held there for the next year or two. But unless my memory deceives me, 2015 was its first time back in the Big D. As I rode the Super Shuttle into the city from the airport, the building that housed that 1995 event was clearly visible next to the expressway. I went to a boatload of classes and seminars that year. There was plenty of time for them. You could cover the main exhibit floor in less than an hourif you lingered. Calling them exhibits that year was a little grandiose; they were simply tables occupied by many new, unknown manufacturers hoping to grab a foothold in the growing but still small home theater custom installation market.
Mark Fleischmann’s recent blog on ways to improve your system’s audio inspired me to do something similar for video. Of course you, the loyal readers of Sound & Vision already know much of this. But for those who don’t, or for (welcome) newbies, those who are helping friends avoid common mistakes, it’s useful to periodically emphasize that there’s more to getting you money’s worth from a flat screen set than merely plunking it down in what may at first appear to be the best location and turning it on. Getting your HDTV to sing is serious business. Here, of course, I’m referring primarily to flat screen sets; a projector with a screen is, in many ways, a different topic.
In addition to its Laser Cast short throw projectors (shown further down in the blogs), Hisense brought along a wide range of flat screen LCD sets. The flagship H10 range consists of the 70H10D 70-incher ($6000) and an upcoming 75H10D ($TBD)...
Chinese HDTV manufacturer Hisense showed a range of new UHD HDTVs. The company claims that it can offer performance that equals or exceeds what you can get from more well-established brands, and at much more competitive prices. But their most interesting demos were of a pair of their “Laser Cast” short-throw projectors...
Recently, I was doing some online research for my review of the new, Extended Edition The Lord of the Rings Blu-ray boxed set, which will appear in the October 2011 issue of Home Theater magazine. A search for director Peter Jackson produced a pile of information. Jackson today doesn't look as much like a slightly oversized Hobbit as he did when the show was in production (Jenny Craig got to him, or something). His earliest cinematic fascination was with gross-out horroran interest clearly reflected in the designs for the Orcs and other nasties in Rings. There's a particularly disgusting added sequence near the end of the Extended Edition of The Return of the King that clearly shows this fixation is far from conquered. If "The Mouth of Sauron" is any indication, Sauron and his minions need a much better dental plan.
High dynamic range is still the hot tamale in today's video world. While it's been around for a few years now, nothing new in video has yet made HDR yesterday's news. Here’s why.
Room correction is a process by which you eliminate (or I should say, attempt to eliminate) the nasty acoustic qualities of a small room. Many variables are at play, not the least of which are the acoustic characteristics of your room, but today’s room correction systems can be very helpful in improving room response. Here I share my recent experience with one of these systems.
In Choosing the Right Projector for a WOW! Experience, we compared the merits of big-screen TV vs. video projection and covered the ins and outs of selecting the perfect projector. Now it’s time to delve into what it takes to choose the perfect screen to go with your new projector.
I recently responded to a question from a reader on proper speaker placement, a complicated subject that can never be given enough attention. It involves not only how you or I might prefer to position the speakers, but also possible veto by the décor committee. Here are some tips on where to put speakers for the best possible sound.
If you don’t understand the pun above, don’t be confused. Even though 30 million viewers in the U.S., and untold millions more around the world, watched every one of the over 70 episodes of HBO’s remarkable series Game of Thrones, most of the world remains oblivious to this noteworthy achievement — or perhaps actively avoiding it…
There's a surprisingly wide range of preferences among audio-video fans. I'll categorize them here into two broad groups: classic 2-channel audiophiles and home theater fans. Not that these groups don't overlap. They often do. But there are listeners in each group who don't intersect with the other. For fans of 2-channel music who are open to adding surround sound as long as it doesn't hamper their enjoyment of listening to stereo recordings, there's a fairly easy way to make that happen.