Thomas J. Norton

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CEDIA 2016
QMotion Shows One Way to Darken a Home Theater
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 17, 2016  |  0 comments
t may be unglamorous, but many of us have a need to darken our home theater spaces, particularly when using a projector and a conventional screen. Normally this involves either a tedious process of manually closing the drapes, or buying expensive, custom, powered blinds...
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CEDIA 2015
Quantum Media 4K
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 16, 2015  |  0 comments
Quantum Media showed its full RGB 4K laser projector. The booth was too dark to get a good shot of it, but it’s large (and loud) enough to deserve a small projection booth of its own. In its 4K guise it will cost you between $150,000 and $200,000...
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A/V Veteran
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On Your Head
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 31, 2014  |  0 comments
From a recent article in the Los Angeles Times:

“A South Korean Company aiming to transform the way Americans experience movies at the multiplex is bringing its ‘4-D’ technology to Los Angeles.”

What’s 4-D? The technology is actually called 4DX, and instead of just picture and sound it adds, as needed, moving and vibrating seats, wind, strobe lights, fog, rain, and scents, all of them supporting what’s happening on the screen.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ralph Breaks The Internet
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 15, 2019  |  0 comments
Picture
Sound
Extras
Wreck It Ralph and his new BFF Vanellope have settled into a familiar routine—starring in their arcade games by day, playing other games after work, and hanging out later at Tapper's (root) beer joint. But Vanellope's Sugar Rush game breaks, and to find the part needed to fix it they sneak into a new WIFI portal at Game Central Station. It takes them to the totally unfamiliar world of the Internet, where chaos is inevitable given Ralph's natural talent for wrecking things.
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A/V Veteran
Rampage in A Quiet Place
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 24, 2018  |  3 comments
Back in the Jurassic age movie theaters routinely offered double features. That practice has long since disappeared, but you can recreate it by seeing two movies on the same day. It takes some doing to get the schedule right, with perhaps a half hour between the end of the first film and the beginning of the second—just enough time to see a man about a dog. Of course it will cost you for separate tickets, and you’ll want to be sure you can get good seats for both films.

Then there’s the challenge of making a good pairing...

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CEDIA 2016
RBH Showcases New Drivers
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 16, 2016  |  0 comments
Shown here are two of the new drivers used in RBH’s new Signature Reference speakers, as discussed in a previous blog—a new AMT tweeter (replacing the previous dome) and a new bass-midrange.
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RCA Scenium HDLP50W151
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 15, 2004  |  0 comments

After a brief flirtation with LCoS, Thomson has chosen Texas Instruments' DLP for their high-end RCA Scenium line of rear-projection televisions. Even CRT fans must admit that DLP has some advantages. It usually produces a sharper, brighter image than any but the best, most expensive CRT designs. Big-screen DLP models are smaller and weigh less than their tube-based counterparts. And it's even possible to build DLP sets that are almost as shallow as plasmas. Thomson plans to introduce such thin DLP models this fall.

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A/V Veteran
Rediscovering Movie Critic Richard Schickel's 'Keepers'
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 02, 2022  |  3 comments
A recent 650 mile drive round trip, with a stay at the far end of unknown length, sent me scurrying to my bookshelf to select a few titles that I hadn't yet read, and that's when I rediscovered Keepers, sub titled "The Greatest Films, and Personal Favorites, of a Moviegoing Lifetime by Richard Schickel.
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A/V Veteran
Reel War: 'Midway' Revisits the Famous WWII Battle
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 12, 2019  |  0 comments
Just in time for Veterans' Day (November 11) comes a movie about the WWII battle of Midway. In June 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor, this unlikely American victory over Japan's attempt to occupy a seemingly insignificant American outpost on a tiny Pacific atoll was, if not the turning point in a war that would rage for another 3+ years, at a minimum a major blow to Japan's then formidable naval strength.
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Projector ReviewsVideo Processor Reviews
Reference Imaging CinePro 9x Elite & Teranex HDX Cinema MX
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 30, 2002  |  0 comments

When a video product is arguably the best of its kind, it's hard to find the right words to describe it without blubbering. "The Next Best Thing to Being There" sounds vaguely familiar. "The Real Thing" might perk up your thirst, but doesn't quite gel. And "Must See TV" is only two-thirds right. With the Reference Imaging CinePro 9x Elite CRT projector and Teranex HDX Cinema MX video processor, we're definitely not in TV-land anymore.

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