LATEST ADDITIONS

Premiere Design
Wolf Cinema SDC-15 3D Projector
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 21, 2011
Wolf Cinema is known for its extremely high-end home-theater projectors, several of which I've profiled in this blog. Now, the company has announced its latest offering, the SDC-15—also known as "the Cub"—a 1080p projector with full 3D capabilities and a surprisingly affordable price, at least for Wolf.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Kill The Irishman—Anchor Bay
Kris Deering  |  Jun 21, 2011
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3/5
Over the summer of 1976, thirty-six bombs detonate in the heart of Cleveland while a turf war raged between Irish mobster Danny Greene and the Italian mafia. Based on a true story, "Kill The Irishman" chronicles Greene's heroic rise from a tough Cleveland neighborhood to become an enforcer in the local mob. Turning the tables on loan shark Shondor Birns and allying himself with gangster John Nardi, Greene stops taking orders from the mafia and pursues his own power. Surviving countless assassination attempts from the mob and killing off anyone who went after him in retaliation, Danny Greene's infamous invincibility and notorious fearlessness eventually led to the collapse of mafia syndicates across the U.S. and also earned him the status of the man the mob couldn't kill.
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Ask S&V
DVR Hum
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 21, 2011
I have a Dish Network Model 722 DVR (pictured above) connected to a Vizio E420VO HDTV via HDMI. When I turn the TV's volume up above 0, I get a slight low-level hum, almost like a 60Hz hum, which does not increase as I raise the volume level. If I turn the volume down to 0, there is no hum. The audio from TV programs is loud enough to mask the noise when listening at a normal volume level. I tried another HDMI cable with no change. It doesn't happen with my LG Blu-ray player; I even swapped the inputs, and the noise followed the DVR. The cables are 6-foot HDMI and not expensive. Everything is plugged into an APC uninterruptible power supply unit, though the hum happens with or without the UPS unit in line with the AC outlet.

Am I making a big deal out of nothing? Should I just ignore it or try to cure this low-level hum?

Dan Roy

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Audio Video News
The Big Man Joins the Band in the Sky
Mike Mettler  |  Jun 21, 2011

The Big Man has left the building.

Clarence Clemons, the powerful tenor saxophonist of the E Street Band and onstage foil for Bruce Springsteen for 40 years, died Saturday at age 69 due to complications from a recent stroke.

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Audio Video News
Facebook May Stream Music
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 21, 2011
Facebook has nearly 700 million users. Think about that. It's close to a hundred New York Cities. So it's big news that the social networking site may be about to launch music streaming.

Rumor has it that Facebook users will soon have access to a Music Dashboard page. In addition to telling you what your friends are listening to, it may also allow streaming.

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Music ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
A Talk with "Keeping Score" co-director Joan Saffa
Robert Ripps  |  Jun 20, 2011

Robert Ripps: From your perspective, how has Keeping Score evolved since its 2004 premiere, both artistically and technologically?

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Audio Video News
Decide aims to eliminate buyer's remorse
Michael Berk  |  Jun 20, 2011

The mysterious Decide launches today. The service, founded by MetaCrawler and Farecast vet Oren Etzioni, aims (like Farecast) to use historical pricing and product release schedule data, rumours, and predictive algorithms to take the sting out of shopping.

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Ask S&V
Archiving the Work of John Saxon
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 20, 2011
My husband is John Saxon, and we have many of his movies on commercial VHS and DVD, while others and some of the TV shows he has appeared on are recorded on a DirecTV DVR. We'd like to make DVD copies of the tapes and DVDs as well as archive the TV programs from the DVR. What would you suggest for a DVD recorder?

Gloria Saxon

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Subwoofer Reviews
REL T5 Subwoofer
Michael Fremer  |  Jun 20, 2011
Price: $599 At A Glance: Compact cube houses 8-inch long-throw woofer • 125-watt class A/B amplifier • Simultaneous high-level and LFE inputs with independent level controls

Small Acorn, Big Tree

In a 1970s television commercial, storm clouds brewed and thunder rolled ominously after an embarrassed Mother Nature tasted Chiffon margarine and pronounced it butter. “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature,” admonished the announcer, Mason (“with a name like Smucker’s”) Adams.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hall Pass (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 20, 2011
Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) have both been married for a long time and even though they love their wives, they just can't help checking out every hot woman in their view. Fed up with their rubber-necking, their wives take a different approach to revitalize their marriages by giving them a "hall pass": one week of freedom to do whatever they want with no questions asked. Be careful what you wish for guys.

While I was never a huge fan of Something About Mary, at least I found its humor to be somewhat amusing and I can see why it was a hit. Unfortunately, Farrelly brother's formula hasn't worked as well since then. I thought the premise had potential but unfortunately it's another stinker filled with sophomoric humor by middle-aged men who think they're still in high school.

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