Al Griffin

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Al Griffin  |  Jan 07, 2013  |  0 comments

Breaking with tradition, Sony’s press event at CES was a celeb-free affair. No Will Smith, no Taylor Swift, no that guy who acted in the most recent Spider-Man movie. The star of the show was clearly the company’s new Xperia Z smartphone, but I’m not going to talk about that. What I am going to discuss is 4K, aka “Ultra HD,” as the rest of the industry seems to be calling it. 

Al Griffin  |  Jan 09, 2012  |  0 comments

LG packed info about lots of new stuff into its CES press conference: refrigerators, phones, washer/dryer combos — you name it, they announced it. But the appliances I came to hear about were the TVs.

Al Griffin  |  Jul 28, 2020  |  1 comments
When Emerald recently announced that the annual September CEDIA Expo would be canceled due to Covid-19 concerns, our next thought after taking that news in was, “What about CES?” Well, the answer to that question came today with the Consumer Technology Association’s announcement that its 2021 tech-fest, scheduled for January 6-9, will be an “all-digital experience.”
Al Griffin  |  Jan 09, 2016  |  0 comments
If there’s one thing we know for sure about an Ultra HD broadcast standard, it’s that its still under development. But will TV stations really end up broadcasting 4K-resolution programming? Will the average viewer even care?
Al Griffin  |  Jan 09, 2004  |  0 comments

Will your next TV be wire-free? To judge from the sets on display at this year's CES, models that wirelessly pull in programs using the Wi-Fi standard are the next hot thing in TV tech. Most of the Wi-Fi-enabled sets here, including models from Sony, Sharp, and Philips, are LCD TVs in the 12- to 23-inch size range.

Al Griffin  |  Jun 23, 2016  |  3 comments
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q It’s my understanding that the overhead speakers in a Dolby Atmos system are meant to create diffused sound. I have a pair of dipole surround speakers with a front-facing woofer and side-facing drivers. Could these be used in a 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos system if I hung them from my cathedral ceiling with the woofer facing down and the side drivers firing to the front and back of the room? — Al Erdelyi / via email

Al Griffin  |  Mar 24, 2016  |  9 comments
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q I am looking to buy a Pioneer Elite AV receiver, but I hear that they have problems with 4K/Ultra HD video passthrough. Is this correct? —Charlie F. / via e-mail

Al Griffin  |  Jan 07, 2015  |  0 comments
Ultra HDTV will soon be divided into two tiers: lame, regular old UHD, and awesome, premium-grade UHD. How will you know which grade to get when you fill up at the pump—I mean, visit an electronics store?
Al Griffin  |  Jul 29, 2021  |  0 comments
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q I own a Marantz SR6013 A/V receiver and use it for both video switching and audio amplification. For video, I mostly watch Ultra HD Blu-ray discs. For music, I mostly stream from the Tidal service using the Marantz receiver’s built-in HEOS app. I would like to buy an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) that supports MQA but am confused about the connections and the control app. After checking out my Marantz AVR’s back panel, I see two coaxial and optical digital inputs, but no digital outputs to connect the DAC, so maybe using an external DAC with the AVR is not possible. Am I missing something? —Rod McClaskey, via email

Al Griffin  |  Nov 07, 2013  |  4 comments
Q Can you explain what it is about an asynchronous USB DAC input on a receiver that would enable it to sound superior to an Ethernet connection streaming the same file over a home network? —Chris Hebner / Delano, MN

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