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Ears On
AT&T Enters TV-Over-IP Market
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 18, 2006
AT&T has snuck into the television-delivery market on silent cat feet. Without fanfare, the company formerly known as SBC has begun providing TV-over-IP service to a lucky handful in its hometown of San Antonio, Texas. Ironically, that's the same state where arch-rival Verizon has premiered its own television service. Unlike Verizon's capital-intensive all-fiber-optic approach, which extends fiber directly into the home, AT&T is building fiber only as far as "nodes" in the neighborhood, then compressing the signal into copper lines for the final leg of the journey. AT&T's initial offerings include 200 channels, including all the major networks, and some on-demand programming. This is a huge story and I'll get back to it as soon as I know more.
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A/V Veteran
"High Definition" Audio?
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 18, 2006

If you're an old hand at this home theater audio business, you know that both Dolby Digital and DTS first appeared in theaters, then on laserdiscs, and finally moved on to DVD. Because of the limited data space for audio on all of these delivery systems, the audio had to be heavily compressed—not in dynamic range (a common misconception) but to reduce the space it takes up on the film or disc. Both DTS and Dolby Digital use sophisticated encoding schemes to allow them to save space by discarding data that are not deemed audible. This "perceptual coding," together with other clever tricks, allow full-bodied, powerful sound to be squeezed into that itty-bitty living space.

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Geoffrey Morrison Blog
Tuesday is the new Friday
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jan 17, 2006
Ok, so Friday meant Tuesday. Here are two more items I saw at CES that were cool and a bit different.
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Projector Reviews
Panasonic PT-AE900U LCD Projector
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Jan 17, 2006
What's not to like?

This may very well be one of the easiest reviews I've ever done. Within five minutes of watching HDTV through Panasonic's new PT-AE900U LCD projector, I was hooked. I fully expected, as the review process progressed, to have to play the standard "on the one hand; on the other" game we play with most mid- or entry-level projectors: On the one hand, this projector has nice detail; on the other, its color points aren't very accurate. On the one hand, this projector has a surprisingly good black level; on the other, it's so dim, even the LEDs on your A/V gear will wash out the picture. Happily, the other hand never presented itself here.

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HD DVD and Blu-ray at CES 2006
Shane Buettner  |  Jan 17, 2006
Shane Buettner covered developments in the HD DVD and Blu-ray format wars at this year's CES. This is his report. And for our wrap-up of all the other goings-on at CES, watch this space for our final report on CES 2006 this coming week!—TJN
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Ears On
Levi Redwire Jeans Cuddle Your iPod
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 17, 2006
Levi Strauss has redesigned its iconic jeans for the iPod. The Redwire DLX Jeans have a "docking cradle" to hold the music player—while concealing the telltale bump—plus a red ribbon to allow easy removal of the iPod, a joystick track-navigation control built into the watch pocket, a wire retractor to manage the earbud cable, a distinctive white leather patch, and bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching. Pricing and pictures were not available at presstime but the new product probably won't look much like this picture of my 550s with a nano stuck in the watch pocket.
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Ears On
Format Change
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 16, 2006
This blog has a new name. What was formerly the Diablog has become From the Edge. The new name fits in more neatly with Maureen Jenson’s From the Top and Geoffrey Morrison’s From the Lab. It also signals a change in content. Starting this week, short news items will start appearing in this space several times a week. Now you’ll have an excuse to stop by more often. The news briefs will join the short reviews that have been appearing every third week. The longer, quirkier, dual-voiced Diablog commentaries, my labors of love, will continue at the rate of about one a month. So there you have the new format: news, reviews, and commentaries. Or as it says in the subhead, dispatches, demos, and diablogs. Please visit and comment often.
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Audio Video News
Portable Personal Surround Sound
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 16, 2006
JVC is coming to the rescue of all those multichannel-challenged folks wandering the planet listening to two boring channels flowing from iMP3 players to their ears through a standard pair of headphones or earphones. JVC's new SU-HD1, about the size of a typical wallet (bifold, not trifold), will accept analog (via an analog input cord that can be stored in the bottom of the slender gadget) or digital (courtesy of an optical digital mini-jack input) audio. Built-in Dolby Headphone technology provides a 5.1-channel surround sound experience through standard cheap or really good two-channel headphones. The SU-HD1 runs off of two AA batteries and weighs a mere 3.5 ounces when fully loaded.
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Lexicon RT-20 Universal Disc Player
Steven Stone  |  Jan 15, 2006

When you own a component, discovering it has been replaced by a newer version is always distressing. Suddenly, overnight, you've been saddled with obsolete gear. I've owned a Lexicon RT-10 universal DVD player since fall of 2004 when I bought my review sample. When Lexicon announced the RT-20, a month before the 2005 CEDIA show, I was bummed. The RT-10 had been on the market for slightly over a year when, WHAMMO, it was history. This is not typical Lexicon behavior. Usually they keep a product in their line for several years before they give it the old heave-ho.

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AV Receiver Reviews
Pioneer Elite VSX-74TXVi THX Select2 AV Receiver
Lawrence E. Ullman  |  Jan 15, 2006

Remarkable. That's the word that best describes the THX Select2 approved Pioneer Elite VSX-74TXVi AV receiver ($1500). This gloss-black beauty is remarkably sophisticated, remarkably flexible, and remarkably easy to setup, thanks to an amazing auto calibration function called Advanced MCACC. The feature set is remarkably deep and includes HDMI switching/processing, a built-in XM satellite radio tuner, a dedicated iPod input with fully integrated controls, and a full suite of THX functions. Even the unit's designation is remarkably long, so I'm going to refer to the VSX-74TXVi as the "74" for the duration of this review.

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