LATEST ADDITIONS

Premiere Design
T+A E-Series Music Receiver
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 26, 2011
Founded in 1978, German maker T+A is well-known for high-performance, high-value audio products. New to the company's E-Series is the Music Receiver, which combines the other two products in that series—the Power Plant integrated amp and Music Player CD/digital-file source—into one chassis.
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Large Screen for a Bright Room
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 26, 2011
Is the picture brightness greater on a Mitsubishi 75-inch LaserVue or 82-inch lamp-based rear-projection TV? I have a room full of floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides with skylights, and I want a larger screen TV (I now have the last 72-inch Toshiba made), but none of the current LCDs or plasmas are available in a large size at a reasonable price (e.g., the B&O 85-incher is $85,000!).

Henry Hollander

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Projection Screen ReviewsOther TechProjector Buying TipsProjector SetupProjector Tech
Screen Innovations Black Diamond II HD Projection Screen
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 26, 2011
Price: $2,199 At A Glance: Image pops with room lights on • Minimizes room reflections with lights off • Fixed frame—no retractable version

Lighten Up

Many of us will tolerate a projection system that requires a totally darkened room for movie watching. But when other family matters make this impossible, or when your buddies come over on a Sunday afternoon for the big game, how many of us are willing to totally blacken the room and leave everyone to stumble around in the dark?

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Audio Video News
The Droids you're looking for?
Michael Berk  |  Apr 26, 2011

Sony's PSN and Qriocity network outage may be ongoing, but the company's pressing forward on the mobile hardware front.

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Audio Video News
My, Netflix, How You've Grown
Mark Fleischmann  |  Apr 26, 2011
Was it only yesterday when Netflix was a babe in the cradle, with giant Blockbusters and cable operators looming over it? My, Netflix, how you've grown. You've all but defeated Blockbuster and now you're bigger than the country's largest cable TV and satellite radio operators.

The latest Netflix quarterly earnings report shows 23.7 million subscribers. While this is short of estimates, it's still enough to propel Netflix past Comcast, with 22.8 million subscribers, and Sirius XM, with 20.2 million subscribers. This has got to make the cable industry in particular nervous.

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Audio Video News
A hostile and retaliatory measure with great hubris
Michael Berk  |  Apr 26, 2011

The Beastie Boys have struck back against bootleggers (who've been distibuting an unauthorized copy of the final mix of the upcoming Hot Sauce Committee, Part 2), posting a full stream

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Oppo BDP-95 Settings
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 25, 2011
I recently bought an Oppo BDP-95 Blu-ray player, and I already have a Pioneer PRO-110FD Kuro plasma TV. Which video setting should I use in the player, Auto or Source Direct? I've tried both, and the picture looks great either way. I've also tried 1080p, and that looked great as well, though I understand this is far from an ideal setting for 1080i sources. Is there anything I should be looking for to see which setting is better? I have a Denon AVR-4308CI receiver, but I set it to pass the video signal through without any processing.

I use the AVR's HDMI 1 input for movies, but I also hooked up the player's 5.1 analog outs to the receiver's Ext. In. This is for listening to music (CD, SACD, DVD-Audio). For Blu-ray music, should I use the analog out when the signal is PCM? Is the HDMI out better for the lossless forms of Dolby and DTS? As an aside, the player's manual hints that it is better to output SACDs from the analog outs as PCM rather than DSD. Is this because the player likely does a better job at decoding the DSD signals?

Stephen Beney

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Got an A/V Question? Ask Scott!
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 25, 2011
Welcome to UAV's latest blog, in which I answer your questions about anything related to audio and video technology—equipment setup and optimization, wired and wireless connections, room environment, content creation, digital cinema, cable/satellite/terrestrial broadcasting, online streaming, Blu-ray, 3D, 4K, future technologies, and anything else in the ever-expanding A/V universe. Even better, other readers can add their two cents in the comments, which I invite and encourage—after all, you might think of something I didn't. Also, I know a lot about this stuff, but I don't know everything, so sometimes I'll post a question and throw it open to readers who might know more about it than I do. And if an answer I provide proves to be inadvertently incorrect or misleading, I want to know, and I'll update it immediately.

All you have to do is send your question to askscottwilkinson@gmail.com. Try to keep your questions as short as practical, but don't skimp on any details you think are important for me to provide a suitable answer. If you're asking about specific gear, please include the makes and model numbers.

My goal is to help you get the most out of whatever A/V system you have and better understand the complex world of current and coming technologies. So let the questions begin!

Editor's Eye
Defining The A/V Enthusiast
Rob Sabin  |  Apr 25, 2011
In recent months we've received a number of letters at Home Theater complaining about our coverage of the new 3D video technology and of the Web-streaming capabilities appearing in everything from TVs to Blu-ray players to set-top boxes. Most of our video reviews now have a dedicated section describing 3D performance and a short discussion of what content is available on each product's streaming platform. Some readers who are skeptical or not interested in these new part-time features think we shouldn't be wasting their time by writing about them, while others have defended us and acknowledged our obligation to report on any significant new features and assess their performance.

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Music Reviews
Reissue Roundup: Barleycorn Lives! Page 2
Mike Mettler  |  Apr 25, 2011

How much do I love reissues? Let me count the ways. Well, let me NOT do that, else I'll never get around to the subject at hand…

Anyway, this is the first in a regular series of postings about cool reissues that are coming down the pike - or ones that have already come down the pike and may have passed you by.

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