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Audio Video News
FCC Adopts Cable Transition Rules
user  |  Sep 14, 2007
Until now the transition to digital television broadcasting has mainly been about antenna-delivered DTV. But what about the 35 percent of viewers who depend on cable? This week the Federal Communications Commission finally decided on "must carry" rules. All channels on your local airwaves must be available to all cable subscribers, whether their TVs are digital or analog.
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On The Outside Looking In With HDMI
Shane Buettner  |  Sep 13, 2007  |  First Published: Sep 14, 2007

Sometimes we say as much by not reviewing one component as we do by reviewing another. There are some components, often made by smaller, high-end manufacturers, that lag behind with technologies that become so essential that lacking them precludes a recommendation for that component by this publication. When we know a recommendation is precluded from the get-go based on a lack of essential technology, there is no point in acquiring the product for review.

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Audio Video News
"No Taste for High-Quality Audio"?
SV Staff  |  Sep 13, 2007
Been meaning to post this link for some time now . . . Fans of DVD-Audio, SACD, surround sound, and so forth are hereby encouraged to check out No Taste for High-Quality Audio, published recently in the British newspaper The Guardian. It's a...
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AV Receiver Reviews
Sony STR-DA3300ES AV Receiver
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Sep 13, 2007
As far as I'm concerned, this is the standard that all other receiver makers should aspire to.

Sony recently announced a trio of new AV receivers in the ES line. The ES stands for "Elevated Standard", a designation that is supposed to indicate performance and features that are a cut above the standard Sony line. Although the marketing and the reality haven't always jibed, Sony appears to be giving renewed attention and vigor to the gear that wears the ES badge.

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Audio Video News
Let's Get Ready to Ringle
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 13, 2007
Here's the deal. The music industry wants to sell you a CD single with three songs and a ringtone. Are you ready to "ringle"? Yes, that is indeed the name.
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Audio Video News
Who Are You and What Have You Done With Sonance?
SV Staff  |  Sep 12, 2007
Can an interior designer learn to love a speaker that's not camouflaged in the wall?  One of the founding companies of the huge in-wall/-in-ceiling speaker market is banking on it and even believes a little visibility might be a good thing. ...
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Audio Video News
Asbury Park: Reborn in the U.S.A.?
SV Staff  |  Sep 12, 2007
Greetings, indeed! The summer may be over, but with all of the anticipation brewing over the October 2 release (less than three weeks away!) of Bruce Springsteen's Magic, his new album with the E Street Band (see my posts below), it's a good time...
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Audio Video News
More Storage for Your DirecTV HD DVR
SV Staff  |  Sep 12, 2007
Ever run out of room on your DirectTV HR20 high-definition DVR? (I don't, maybe because of my HR20's propensity to stop recording episodes of a programmed series for no apparent reason, but maybe your luck is better than mine. Man, do I miss...
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Audio Video News
Led Zeppelin to Reunite for One Show
SV Staff  |  Sep 12, 2007
Rumors were flying last week, but today it's official: Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones will play one concert as Led Zeppelin on Monday, November 26, at London's O2 arena (capacity: 22,000). They'll be joined by Jason Bonham, son of...
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Ears On
Rack Attack V: Toshiba Surround Tricks
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 12, 2007
The last blog detailed the Pioneer BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player's surround properties. What about the Toshiba HD-A2? Dolby's Craig Eggers kindly explained that the player does feature both lossless Dolby TrueHD and lossy Dolby Digital Plus decoding and playback. They are exported through the HDMI jacks as PCM, not as a bitstream, so decoding cannot be done in a surround receiver even if it does have a decoder. But the PCM should still sound good. If you were thinking of using analog jacks to feed surround to an HDMI-less legacy receiver, you're out of luck. The HD-A2 does not have a full set of surround analog outs (just a stereo pair) so it can't export the signal that way. But the translated-to-PCM signal is re-encoded as DTS and sent through the optical output, which also of course handles regular Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1. On the DTS side, the news is not as good. The Toshiba site cites "Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD and DTS support for up to 5.1 channels (DTS HD support for DTS core only)." So full 7.1-channel goodness is not available for Dolby's two new babies. And DTS's two new babies are reduced to the resolution of old-style DTS.
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