LATEST ADDITIONS

Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Alien Anthology (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Oct 27, 2010
On its return trip to Earth, the Nostromo intercepts a distress call from a distant planet. The crew is awakened from cryo-sleep by the ship's computer and goes to the planet to investigate. It turns out the signal wasn't a call for help; it was a warning to stay clear. When one of the crew is attacked by an Alien lifeform, the other crew members have no idea what they've unleashed upon themselves by letting the man back on the ship.

In the excellent sequel Aliens, we catch up with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) after her harrowing escape in the first movie. Fifty-seven years have past when she's found floating in space in cryo-sleep and no one from "the company" believes her horrific tale of survival until all contact is lost with the colonists from planet LV-426, which is introduced in the first movie. Soon she finds herself headed back to the dreaded planet with a team of Marines to investigate.

Continue Reading »
Home Theater Geeks Podcast
Podcast 39: Jeremy Kipnis
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 27, 2010
Home-theater consultant Jeremy Kipnis discusses the gear in his own theater space—deemed the most expensive and technically complex in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records for the last three years—as well as his pursuit of absolute accuracy in audio and video reproduction, 4K vs 3D, projection screens, and answers to chat-room questions.

Run Time: 52:25

Update: Photos of the theater added to this post; check 'em out!

Continue Reading »
Review: Sony NSX-32GT1 32-inch Google TV
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Oct 27, 2010

Google has finally invaded consumer electronics, and by extension, your living room. For most of us, Google had already taken a firm hold of our Internet and cell phones. Now, with Google TV, Google has created a hardware and software platform that brings its searching awesomeness (and big-brother creepiness) to television.

Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
Fee Fights Starve Online TV
Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 27, 2010
Efforts by broadcast TV networks to get higher fees for cable transmission may reduce TV-show content online.
Continue Reading »
Premiere Design
Panamorph Anamorphic Lenses
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 26, 2010
Also on hand last week at Stewart Filmscreen was Panamorph with a new flagship anamorphic lens. The DC1 features fully sealed optics as well as a new optical coating and light path, all for $10,000 including a motorized sled. It's in the prototype stage, so we didn't get to see it in action.
Continue Reading »
Custom Installation How-To
Western Digital TV Live Hub Has 1 TB of Built-In Storage
Stan Horaczek  |  Oct 26, 2010

Logitech's Revue Google TV box is quickly approaching, but that hasn't stopped the recent influx of boxes designed to get the Internet (or at least parts of it) onto an HDTV. The latest effort from Western Digital sounds like an impressive one. Inside, WD has packed a full terabyte of storage, to which you can add media from networked PCs and Macs or via its pair of USB ports.

Continue Reading »
Audio Video News
Netflix Streaming Is Huge
Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 26, 2010
Netflix streaming is not just an up-and-coming mode of video distribution. It's become huge.
Continue Reading »
Custom Installation How-ToHome Movie Theaters
The Stargate Theater
Kim Wilson  |  Oct 25, 2010
When you have a vision as big and bold as the recreation of the set design in Stargate Atlantis, you need a systems integrator that is right with you all along the way. Fortunately, for the client they discovered Visual Concepts Home Theater and Automation, whose motto is "we can build anything you can dream".
Continue Reading »
3D Tech
Stewart Silver 5D Screen Material
Scott Wilkinson  |  Oct 25, 2010
Last week, I attended a meeting at Stewart Filmscreen, where I learned about a new screen material called Silver 5D. It's a clever name, since this material is designed to work well with both polarized 3D and 2D images (3D + 2D = 5D).
Continue Reading »
Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Pacific (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Oct 25, 2010
Executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, who brought us Band of Brothers, deliver another WWII masterpiece about the battles in the Pacific. The 10-part miniseries follows the true-life stories of Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale), John Basilone (Joe Mazello), and Eugene Sledge (Jon Seda) as they fight their way across the Pacific Theater from 1941 to 1945. It all starts with the horrific conflict of Guadalcanal, continues to Cape Gloucester and Peleliu, then to the famous combat at Iwo Jima, the terror of Okinawa, and finally their return home after V-J Day and how the mental scars of battle aren't easily forgotten.

Given its massive budget (estimated to be $195 million), I expected the battle scenes to rival those in Saving Private Ryan—which they do in their scope and visceral impact—but it's the psychological struggles of our three heroes that kept me riveted. Not only do they have to fight a relentless enemy in the Japanese, but they must cope with the elements—suffocating heat, malaria, tropical rainstorms—and somehow keep a grasp on their own humanity. If they're fortunate enough to survive and return home, how will they acclimate to the civilized world after spending four years in hell?

Continue Reading »

Pages

X