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Richard Shahinian R.I.P.
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 30, 2018  |  2 comments
We lost two greats in the field of high-end audio this past year: Arnie Nudell (co-founder of both Infinity Systems and Genesis Advanced Technologies), and Charley Hanson (co-founder of Avalon Acoustics and more recently of Ayre Acoustics). While neither will be as widely known as those whose name is attached to the companies they helped found (Bose, Marantz, Polk, and others) both left a lasting impact on the audio landscape.

But as the old-wives-tale suggests about things hitting in threes, we also lost a third...

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CES 2018: My Visit to Vegas
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 16, 2018  |  1 comments
My trip to CES this year didn’t begin or end well, but was fun in between. On arrival, my bag didn’t make it with me and didn’t show up for 18 hours. My return the flight from Las Vegas was late arriving in Dallas and I missed my connecting flight, resulting in a night layover in Big D, courtesy of American Airlines.

But despite a rainy first two days in Las Vegas, there was much to see...

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TVs, TVs Everywhere
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 19, 2017  |  1 comments
My first color TV, a Zenith (remember them?) was a 19-inch CRT that cost me somewhere around $350 and weighed a ton (or seemed to). Today, the only display devices you’ll find at that size are computer monitors; they’ll cost you considerably less and can be carried around under one arm.

I was reminded of that as I recently visited the TV department in my local Best Buy. Even with Black Friday firmly in the rear-view mirror, there were, quite literally, stacks of boxed TVs filling the aisles. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many crowded into one space, perhaps not even at CES. And in an area with a population of roughly 100,000, that’s a lot of TVs to sell. Most of them, even the larger models, were well under $1000, reflecting the modest incomes of a primarily middle-class region.

But new TVs are always a hot item, and this is a prime time of year for TV sales...

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Stranger HDR Things
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 05, 2017  |  5 comments
High Dynamic range, or HDR, is perhaps the most exciting of the trio of improvements that Ultra HD brings to the table, the others being a wider color gamut and higher resolution. The images from a flat screen set pop off the screen in a way that the dimensional but often too dim 3D never could. And you don’t need special glasses to see it.

A flat screen set, capable of peak brightness levels of over 1000 nits (just under 300 foot-lamberts) can make the most of an HDR source. HDR program material is mastered for a peak output of either 1000 nits or 4000 nits, with most of that luminance reserved for bright highlights.

But not all displays can hit 1000 nits...

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Energy Star Certification for TV: How Dim Is Too Dim?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 21, 2017  |  0 comments
New proposed Energy Star requirements for TVs are designed to insure viewers are aware of which picture modes/settings meet the Energy Star certification. But that's not all...
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UHDTV or UHD Projector?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 07, 2017  |  6 comments
A recent survey in the AVS Forum about choosing between a flat screen TV and a projector rang a few bells for me. Having just acquired a 65-inch OLED as my reference display, and having recently completed reviews of three new projectors (with a fourth now underway), it’s not a decision I have to wrestle with. For what I do, I need both. But many of you, at one time or another, may have to choose. And with Black Friday (or Cyber Monday) barreling toward us you can use all the information you can get.

Most will choose the flat screen Ultra HDTV. And they’ll inevitably buy an Ultra HD set rather than 1080p HD because the time’s now long past when you can find a good 65-inch or larger set that isn’t Ultra HD. And for a home theater, where movies are king, a 65-incher is likely what you’re looking for...

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Buy it Again, Sam
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 24, 2017  |  8 comments
Every time we get a new video format, studios seem to see it as an excuse to sell their movies all over again to enthusiasts. And we buy them. But is the transition to Ultra HD Blu-ray somehow different?
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Transforming the Transformers
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 10, 2017  |  2 comments
An unexpected copy of the 4K Ultra HD release of Transformers: The Last Knight flew over my transom last week. This fifth entry may well set a new bar for mindless action punctuated by cringe-worthy humor but it's filled with exceptional eye candy...
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UHD by the Numbers
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 26, 2017  |  3 comments
Last month I blogged about the color gamuts used for Ultra HD. But there’s always more that needs to be said. So with a little repetition here where unavoidable, or as needed to set the stage, let’s dig a bit deeper.

There’s no such thing as a P3 color gamut in the UHD standards, only BT.2020 (also known as Rec.2020). But there is a DCI/P3 color gamut in the video universe (DCI stands for Digital Cinema Initiative), and it’s used in all digitally projected theatrical presentations (which today means virtually all films in theaters).

Because time is money, film studios use the P3 color gamut today on virtually all of their Ultra HD video releases, since video masters in that gamut already exist. And no consumer displays can do significantly better than P3. 

Manufacturers have made much noise about P3, as have we in some cases...

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Projectors: The Display of Choice at CEDIA 2017
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 12, 2017  |  0 comments
CEDIA 2017 was a great place to be if you have a penchant for video projection, especially short-throw projectors.
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Colors in Space
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 22, 2017  |  4 comments
When it comes to Ultra HD, we’ve heard endlessly about three different color gamuts: Rec.709, DCI-P3, and Rec.2020 (also called BT.2020). But exactly what is a color gamut?
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Light it Up: How Your TV Produces an Image
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 08, 2017  |  1 comments
When it comes to shopping for a new television, manufacturers will flood you with a tsunami of glowing prose hyping all of the advantages their sets offer. But these claims can be a puzzle to potential buyers, who understandably haven’t made a study of TV technology. The latter is perhaps most confusing with regard to how a TV produces a visible image; that is, how it lights up the screen. Here are some of the key facts...
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8 World War II Films Worthy of Any Collection
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 25, 2017  |  10 comments
War is Hell, but it does offer endless opportunities for great (and often not so great) movies. That goes double for WWII. The recently released Dunkirk reminds us vividly of that fact. The reviews have been ecstatic and clearly make it the first film of the year likely to be nominated for Best Picture of 2017, not to mention leaving home theater fans salivating over the release, later this year, of the Blu-ray (and, presumably, the Ultra HD Blu-ray).

While I haven’t yet seen Dunkirk, its release sent me scurrying to my disc collection for other great titles. Some worthy entries aren’t...

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OLEDs Here and There
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 11, 2017  |  3 comments
All of us are familiar with LG’s successful use of OLED technology for flat screen UHDTVs. We also know that Sony is marketing its own OLED sets this year. But Sony buys its OLED panels from LG Display (an independent entity from LG itself, though connected to it in some inscrutable way). In fact, LG Display is currently the only company in the world that manufactures OLED panels for consumer televisions. LG’s arch-rival Samsung is a leader in producing OLEDs for cell phone displays, but a few years back decided against marketing OLED HDTVs, at least for now.

Other companies are also marketing OLED sets, but none of them are currently available in the US. And at present all TV OLED panels come from LG Display. But that doesn’t mean that these sets are identical. Each maker uses its own unique electronics and video processing.

While you can’t yet purchase an OLED display here in the US apart from an LG or Sony, it’s useful to know a little about others offering this technology. The more OLEDs sold worldwide, the more viable the technology will remain and, ultimately, the faster its currently high prices will drop...

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Mummy Musings
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 20, 2017  |  1 comments
I haven’t seen the latest Tom Cruise iteration of The Mummy. And with its crushing reviews I doubt that I’ll even invest in the inevitable UHD Blu-ray version that, judging from the current domestic box office returns for the film, should show up on Amazon in about two weeks.

The subject isn’t exactly a treasure trove of classic tropes, but has its fans. The original was, of course, the 1932 Boris Karloff classic (in Hollywood, anything that old is deemed a classic). Three other entries turned up in the ‘40s, followed by 1955’s Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy (the latter is definitely on my Bucket List). There was also a quadrilogy (did I just coin a word?) of Mummy movies in the ‘50s from Britain’s Hammer Films, and several animated versions...

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