Audio Video News

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Audio Video News
Home Theater Top Picks iPad App Now Available
HT Staff  |  Nov 16, 2012
Home Theater's new Top Picks app for your iPad is now available for free at the iTunes App Store.

The app provides instant access to our list of Top Picks recommended products across 12 categories. Each pick has a short blurb explaining why our reviewer's liked the product and includes a link to the full review.

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Audio Video NewsNew Products
New Gear: Jamo Announces 360 Series Speaker Systems
Michael Berk  |  Nov 15, 2012

Danish manufacturer Jamo's been making a splash with the spherical speakers we saw back at the 2012 CES, and this week they've announced a pair of 5.0 setups in the appropriately named 360 Series, based around their unique architecture: the S 25 HCS ($649.99), including five of the company's S 25 speakers, and the S 35 HCS ($999.99), which groups four of the larger S 35 units with a C 35 center channel.

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Audio Video News
Coming Attractions
HT Staff  |  Nov 01, 2012
Sennheiser IE 800 Earphones
When a company that’s been making headphones since 1945 announces that its latest earphones deliver “detailed lifelike sound” with a super-wide frequency range of 5 hertz to 46 kilohertz, your ears perk up. The heart of Sennheiser’s IE 800 “ear canal phones” is a miniature, 0.28-inch wide-range driver that’s said to eliminate slight jumps and delays in music repro- duction that occur with the multidriver configuration used in some high-end earphones. Other sound-enhancing features include a venting system that reduces distortion (notice the tiny silver ports) and an absorber that prevents high-frequency resonances from masking quiet sounds in the midrange.

For Any Ear: Sennheiser provides a selection of oval and round silicone adapters to ensure a perfect fit. Price: $787.
Sennheiser • (860) 434-9190 • sennheiserusa.com

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Audio Video News
The S+V Interview: Need for Speed Most Wanted Audio Lead Vanesa Lorena Tate
Timothy J. Seppala  |  Oct 30, 2012

Criterion Games wants wanted their latest open-world crashathon racer Need for Speed: Most Wanted (out today for PC, PS3, Vita, Xbox 360) to be a more film-like experience. So they hired BAFTA Award nominee Vanesa Lorena Tate to take on audio lead responsibilities. She’s been composing since she was four years old and has worked on such films as Hellboy 2: The Golden Army and two Harry Potter flicks: The Order of the Phoenix and The Deathly Hallows part 2 in addition to Criterion’s last Need for Speed, 2010’s Hot Pursuit.

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Audio Video News
Show Report: 2012 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 24, 2012
Denver may seem like an odd place for a high-end audio show. As a medium-sized city, you wouldn’t expect it to be a hotbed of passionate audiophiles. But when you add the attendees who drive or fly to the mile-high city to a core of local enthusiasts you have what has become the biggest consumer audio show in the U.S. Last June's Orange County (CA) show reportedly drew bigger crowds (no surprise given the huge Southern California market). But the RMAF appeared to attract more exhibitors.
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Audio Video News
Chesky's Binaural+ Aims to Recreate the Live Music Experience
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 16, 2012
Chesky Records aims to re-create the experience of listening to live music from the best seat in the house with its new Binaural+ Series of high-resolution 24-bit/192-kilohertz recordings. Specially calibrated microphones implanted in the ear canals of a dummy head are used to capture a “stunningly accurate and realistic” 3D representation of the soundfield. With traditional binaural recordings, which have been around for decades, distinct left and right channels are recorded as they would be heard by a pair of human ears and played back through headphones—left channel to left ear, right channel to right ear—to create the illusion of a 360-degree soundstage.
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Audio Video News
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2012 Report: CanJam
Brent Butterworth  |  Oct 14, 2012

The CanJam section of the annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, which took place this weekend at the Denver Tech Center, is one of the best places in the U.S. for audiophiles to sample headphones and headphone amps.

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Audio Video News
TiVo Gets IP Savvy
HT Staff  |  Oct 08, 2012
IP-based video is finally getting the attention it deserves from America’s favorite DVR company with two new products. The TiVo Stream set-top box transcodes video from a Premiere or Premiere Q DVR, whether live or recorded, and sends it to a secondary TV, tablet, or smartphone—even outside the home. It can stream or download shows simultaneously to multiple mobile devices without interrupting the main show on the primary TV screen. There’s also an IP set-top box that works with the TiVo Premiere Q to allow access to live or recorded TV, video on demand, and broadband-delivered content on every TV in your home. In other TiVo news, TiVo Premiere XL4 is the new name of the TiVo Premiere Elite. The company says this will “alleviate consumer confusion as they shop among TiVo Premiere products.”
Audio Video News
MHL Takes Your Smartphone to the Movies
Bob Ankosko  |  Oct 02, 2012
Ever wish you could connect your smartphone to the TV in your living room while you’re lounging around so you could browse your apps on the big screen or watch that hilarious video you shot of your buddy impersonating Mitt Romney? Or maybe you’re on the road and want to kick back and stream a movie or watch a couple of crazy YouTube videos on the TV in your hotel room (assuming you’re not staying in a ’60s-era motel complete with the vintage Philco set). Or just think how cool it would be if instead of lugging your laptop to the boardroom, you could jack into the projector and run a PowerPoint presentation from your phone. If nothing else, you’d certainly impress the boss.
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Audio Video News
Show Report: TAVES 2012
Al Griffin  |  Oct 02, 2012

Regional hi-fi shows are sprouting up all over North America. We now have the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver, T.H.E. Show in Newport Beach, AXPONA in Jacksonville, and NYC’s New York Audio and A/V show. And each year Montreal gets its own event, Salon Son & Image. Wouldn’t it be great if they also held one in Toronto?

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Other TechAudio Video News
UltraViolet: Building a Movie Library in the Cloud
Bob Ankosko  |  Sep 24, 2012
I half expected an ordeal as I walked into Walmart carrying a small shopping bag with several movies, ready to take the new Disc-to-Digital service for a spin. I was directed to the electronics department where I was greeted by a large placard that read: “Access your movie collection. Any time. Any place. 3 Easy Steps...” Offered in Walmart stores across the country, the service is operated through the chain’s online streaming service, Vudu, and is intended to provide an easy way to set up a cloud-based digital movie library with DVDs and Blu-ray Discs you already own.
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
New Gear: Phorus Play-Fi Wireless Music System
Michael Berk  |  Sep 20, 2012

Another day, another dock - but wait. There's no dock on the new Phorus PS1 ($199). It's just a shelf. And the little Phorus PR1 ($149). That's no dock either. . .

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Audio Video News
Coming Attractions
HT Staff  |  Sep 18, 2012
Panasonic TC-L55ET5 3D LCD HDTV
Images are said to be bright and clear from almost any seat in the room thanks to a new high-efficiency LED-backlit LCD panel that maintains brightness over a wide viewing angle, while consuming 25 percent less power than Panasonic’s 2011 LCD HDTVs. A Web browser and built-in Wi-Fi make it easy to access online content, select apps from the Viera Connect Market, and video chat (optional camera required). The TV supports passive (polarized) 3D viewing and can convert any video to 3D; four pair of 3D glasses are included.
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Audio Video News
SIM2 M.150 3D LED Projector
Bob Ankosko  |  Sep 17, 2012
We tend to think of high-end video projection as the cornerstone of a larger-than-life home theater experience—you know, the kind that puts the local cinema to shame—rather than a source of creative lighting or fine art. But for SIM2 Multimedia, the Italian company known for high-style/high-performance projectors, the M.150 represents the intersection of home entertainment and interior design.
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Audio Video News
The Great Skywalker Ranch Adventure
Corey Gunnestad  |  Sep 17, 2012
Cue Indiana Jones theme.

To celebrate the release of the Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures on Blu-ray on September 18th, the good people at Paramount and Lucasfilm were kind enough to invite us to a once-in-a-lifetime press shindig at Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, California and what an experience it was.

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