A/V Veteran

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A/V Veteran
Is This the Videodisc Apocalypse?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 26, 2019
The recent decision by Samsung to cease selling Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray players (at least in the U.S.), reported elsewhere on this site, has been taken by many as foreshadowing the death of video on physical media. Add in Oppo’s cessation of player manufacturing last year, and the statistically significant falloff in disc sales (confirmed locally by a recent, dramatic reduction in the shelf space devoted to video discs at my nearest Best Buy), and, the news certainly isn’t encouraging.

But the imminent death of the disc isn’t yet in sight. The disc market is still profitable, and the studios haven’t yet slowed down churning out both new and older titles. Check out The Digital Bits website for their weekly lists of releases and then tell me that video discs are on life support. They may be limping, but as a wise man once said, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.”

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A/V Veteran
How to Use EQ & Measurements to Tame the Effects of Your Room
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 12, 2019
Whether you live in a McMansion, a hovel, or something in between, the most influential component in your audio or home theater system is the room. A look at how it affects performance and what you can do to ensure the best possible sound.
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A/V Veteran
TV at CES 2019, The Sequel
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 29, 2019
With apologies to Samsung and a few others who haven’t made the OLED plunge, and show no signs of doing so, OLED remains today’s hottest flat screen technology. But the battle continues as UHDTV manufacturers scramble to take the next big technological leap. That will likely be Micro LED...
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A/V Veteran
CES and All its Many New TVs...Without the Sore Feet
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 15, 2019
A reported 180,000 eager retailers, custom installers, press, and assorted hangers-on descended on Las Vegas last week for the annual, trade-only CES. Even though I wasn’t one of them, I will still offer up my 2 cents on the many TVs introduced at last week's show.
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A/V Veteran
Double Feature: The Lion King (1994) and Prometheus (2012)
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 18, 2018
An odd but strangely rewarding pairing of two movies on 4K Blu-ray, one of which left my jaw on the floor.
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Other TechA/V Veteran
How I Put Audyssey Room Correction to Work for Me
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 05, 2018  |  First Published: Dec 04, 2018
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.
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A/V Veteran
Black Friday Cometh
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 20, 2018
I have little experience with Black Friday mania, having studiously avoided any contact with Best Buy, Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, or Targea on that frenzied day. Black Friday doesn’t mean a day of mourning, but is rather named for the day of the year when retailers anticipate their annual sales will finally go positive—out of the red and into the black.

And there’s no denying it to be an important day to people with plastic and a yearning for good stuff at fire-sale prices. For them it’s a Holy Day of Obligation. They line up outside at closing time on Thanksgiving (the day before the main event) to spend a cold night bundled up outside hoping to score that new flat screen TV (though Black Friday Vigil sales late on Turkey Day are now a thing)...

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A/V Veteran
Made in China: What it Means for AV Gear
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 06, 2018
I don’t know if you’ve noticed (though how could you not) that a lot of the stuff we buy these days is made in China. It ranges from the remarkably cheap (like the lightweight, pleated jacket I bought last year in Walmart (for less than the price of a CD or Blu-ray) to the very expensive (such as Buick’s new Envision SUV—yes, that’s made in the PRC as well, the first U.S. car made there, by GM Shanghai). It’s difficult to buy anything today without encountering a product made in China as the only viable alternative. And even if it’s manufactured in the U.S., many of its individual pieces were likely sourced in China...
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A/V Veteran
IMAX Enhanced Home Theater Certification: What We Know So Far
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 30, 2018
IMAX and DTS stirred up a bit of a hurricane at September’s CEDIA Expo when they announced the launch of a new home theater certification program called “IMAX Enhanced.” Here’s what we know…
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Speaker TechA/V Veteran
When Is a Subwoofer a Subwoofer?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 16, 2018
A recent product announcement from Amazon touted the launch of a “subwoofer” to supplement the response of Amazon’s popular Echo vocal assistant. Presumably it will work with the even smaller Echo Dot as well. But for me it raised a couple of eyebrows.

Given that the low frequency response of an Echo alone probably doesn’t reproduce any useful output much lower than 100 Hz (admittedly an educated guess), the Echo Sub certainly can't hurt. But given its size and its 6-inch driver, there's no way that such a product it can be considered a subwoofer...

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A/V Veteran
It’s a Jurassic World (After All)
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 02, 2018
While the movers behind the Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek franchises aren’t at risk of losing sleep over dinosaurs just yet, the Jurassic worlds and parks do threaten to chomp on more than a few toes over the coming years.

When Jurassic Park debuted in 1993 it could have been a boom or a bust. Computer generated effects (CGI) were just coming into their own, but with a few exceptions (notably Terminator 2) they still hadn’t eaten the film business alive. Though keenly aware of his problems with the anamatronic shark in 1975’s Jaws, director Steven Spielberg was also aware that CGI, while still in its infancy, had significantly advanced the possibilities for special effects since the (on-set) practical effects of 1975.

So Spielberg went ahead. Using a brilliant combination of anamatronics and CGI he crafted a classic movie with effects that still hold up today. Four other Jurassic films have followed, three of them directed by others...

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A/V Veteran
CEDIA Expo 2018: Sifting Through the AV Nuggets
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 11, 2018
The 2018 edition of CEDIA Expo is now history and, although it may not be as grand as CES, it still left us with plenty to chew on.
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CEDIA 2018A/V Veteran
Hands On with Sony’s New VPL-VW295ES, Part 1
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 06, 2018
For 2019, Sony has further refined the VPL-VW285ES projector I reviewed last year and is now calling it the VPL-VW295ES. I was able to spend some time to spend with it before heading off to CEDIA.
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A/V Veteran
Avengers: Infinity War-When Home Theater Trumps IMAX
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 21, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War was a more compelling experience at home in 4K and HDR than in my local IMAX theater.
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A/V Veteran
An Inside Look at Sony’s Latest TV Technology
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 07, 2018
Last week Sound & Vision editor Al Griffin wrote on this site about Sony’s recent New York event. The subject was the launching of the company’s new Master Series flagship televisions, the new A9F OLEDs (in 55- and 65-inch sizes) and Z9F LCDs (65- and 75-inches). The event was held in a venue that in its past life was an exclusive dinner theater from 1938 to 1951, fell into disrepair in the following decades, and was remodeled in 2013. Since then it has been contracted to Sony, renamed Sony Hall, and used for a variety of theatrical and business events.
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