In theory, I’m a big fan of the all-in-one media center, a single device through which you can enjoy all of your digital entertainment: DVDs, music, photos, and video. In practice, though, I’ve been less than impressed by the Media Center PCs I’ve used, of both the Windows XP and Vista varieties. Nothing ever works quite as seamlessly as it should, I don’t want to keep a keyboard and mouse in my living room, and, most importantly, system crashes make me angry.
The best way to spice up a dull, dark, soundless day.
Here’s how Edgar Allen Poe opens his short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”: “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.” Although trade shows are hardly soundless, and I don’t navigate them on horseback, Poe evokes a bit of the feeling I get slogging through them. But the Usher exhibit didn’t seem all that melancholy when I stumbled on it at the 2007 Home Entertainment Show. In fact, hearing a pair of the Be-718s in action made me want to review them.
A couple of years ago, home theater personal computers were on the cusp of being the next big thing. Everyone wanted to make them to get in on the market, and why not? The ability to put all of your home theater media in one box is incredible. No more getting up to sift through CDs or DVDs only to find that the one movie you want to watch is missing. Instead, you can store movies on a hard drive and access them by remote.
As you can see in the box below, we have completely revamped our video-measurements box. Gone are the plain, boring, and hard-to-understand Excel-based charts. In their place are shiny, easy-to-understand, colorful graphs. Yep, party like it’s 1994.
Tips for selecting and installing a front-projection screen.
What’s keeping you from taking the front-projection plunge? Is it a belief that projection systems are still only for the rich and famous, consisting of $15,000 projectors, movie-theater-sized screens, and elaborate masking systems, controlled by advanced touchpanels? The entry-level projector roundup on page 38 of this issue is proof that there’s a 1080p projector to suit almost any budget, and the same is true for theater screens.
Why does the Vernal equinox always trigger a sudden urge to clean? Who knows? You'd have to read Psychology Today or Discover to find that out. We're not here to lay some heavy scientific anthropological stuff on you. We're here to save your audio/video gear.
That's what my photographer son Tony and I accomplished last Saturday (April 19) on the first annual Record Store Day. As I announced here previously, RSD is an effort (spearheaded by indie-shop organizations) to remind people that, yes,...
Men need a place to be men — a place where we tinker with mechanical stuff, smoke cigars, drink bourbon, and listen to the manly music of our lost youth really frigging loud. Usually we have to go out to the garage if we want to indulge in these...
[IN THE FOLLOWING POST, BLOGGER COREY GREENBERG TAKES HIS FINAL SHOT IN OUR POINT/COUNTERPOINT DEBATE: BLU-RAY - IS IT ALREADY OVER?] Today's New York Times asks the question, "Blu-ray: Do Consumers Care?" but never answers it, which is...
Have you been looking for a way to recapture the glory days of your youth that doesn't involve Botox or having someone cut and paste your face back together? Do you want to return to the days of big hair, glam rock and synthesized sounds that were...