LATEST ADDITIONS

Audio Video News
TiVo + Domino's Pizza; Never Leave the Couch. Ever.
SV Staff  |  Nov 17, 2008
Oh happy day. We reported last week that lucky Aussie's were getting pizza through their TiVos. But, starting today, TiVo broadband subscribers can order Domino's Pizza, right from an on-screen widget on their TiVo menu. The service is...
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Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
Energy RC-Micro Speaker System
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 17, 2008
Price: $999 At A Glance: Tweeter isolated in separate chamber • Aluminum drivers in satellites • Hand-applied piano black lacquer finish

Building a Better Satellite

Energy has always taken satellite/subwoofer sets seriously. The Canadian speaker brand, recently acquired by American-owned Klipsch, got into the sat/sub game early with the now legendary Take Five package. As successive Take products became steady bestsellers and proceeded through multiple generations, Energy established itself as a major name in sats and subs. It also helped turn the sat/sub set into a respectable product category. This especially applies to décor-conscious households that like to have surround sound but balk at the prospect of five to seven bulky speakers hogging a room.

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Blu-ray Player Reviews
Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray Player
Kris Deering  |  Nov 17, 2008
Price: $400 At A Glance: Affordable BD-Live performance • Great DVD playback performance • Lacks multichannel analog audio support

More Blu for Your Budget

The BDP-S350 is Sony’s follow-up to the popular BDP-S300. One of the most inexpensive standalone players on the market, the BDP-S350 includes some great new features that the BDP-S300 design didn’t have. Sony overhauled its form factor, with a case that’s nearly half the size of the company’s earlier players. The player also employs a sleek new interface that uses Sony’s popular Xross Media Bar. While player prices have not headed farther south yet, the bang-for-the-buck factor is going up, as players at the lower end of the market add more essential features. Sony’s $400 player is BD-Live ready (firmware update pending), Bonus View PiP capable, and includes bitstream support for the next-gen lossless audio formats from Dolby and DTS.

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Audio Video News
Movielink.com Closing, Absorbed By Blockbuster
SV Staff  |  Nov 17, 2008
Movielink has been part of Blockbuster for months now, but their own website was still up and running. Well, until now, that it. Movielink.com is officially closing on December 15, 2008. No more downloads through them, but all those movies will...
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LCD TV Reviews
Samsung LN55A950 LCD TV
Lawrence E. Ullman  |  Nov 17, 2008

Samsung's LN55A950 seems destined to generate controversy among the videophile community. Some will insist that it's the best-looking LCD TV on the market; others will say, well, otherwise. Both arguments are likely to revolve around the LED-backlighting technology that differentiates this high-end model from nearly all other currently available LCD TVs.

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Audio Video News
FCC Green-Lights DTV Range Fix
Mark Fleischmann  |  Nov 17, 2008
As the DTV transition looms in February 2009, some TV stations are worrying that their signal dispersion pattern may shrink or change shape. To deal with that potential problem, the Federal Communications Commission has green-lighted distributed transmission systems (DTS). This is essentially a fix that would allow the usual single broadcast tower to be supplemented with additional transmitters.
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AV Receiver Reviews
Where the Elite Meets to Greet the Beat
Daniel Kumin  |  Nov 16, 2008
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Paris, Je T’aime—First Look (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.75/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 2/5
In "Paris Je T'aime", celebrated directors from around the world have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in one of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Jewel of the Nile—20th Century Fox (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.75/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3/5
In the blockbuster "Romancing The Stone", novelist Joan Wilder and wanderer Jack Colton went sailing off into the sunset together. In this thrill-packed sequel, Ralph is back on their trail and they're back in the fast lane on a perilous trek through the fierce North African Desert. Not even treacherous tribes, deadly dungeons and seemingly endless villains can stop this trio from finding, once and for all, that mysterious "jewel".
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heathers—Anchor Bay (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 2.5/5
It made overnight stars of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, shocked film critics everywhere and became one of the biggest cult classics of the '80s. Twenty years later, "Heathers" remains the only brilliantly black comedy about peer pressure, malicious croquet and having a brain tumor for breakfast. At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jerk jocks dominate and the most popular girls are all named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and the mysterious and possibly psychotic new kid J.D. to give teen angst a body count.
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