LATEST ADDITIONS

Ears On
Google Video Store Open for Business
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 23, 2006
The beta version of the Google Video Store is now online. The surprise is that it offers an abundant amount of free material in the form of short, amusing, amateur video clips. (Pick hit: a video editor ranting on "Why Mac's Suck.") The pay-for-play material includes a motley assortment of movies, NBA games, music videos, and TV shows like The Brady Bunch, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek in two flavors—Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Pricing varies according to the nature and length of the material. Movies cost from $12.99-24.99 while TV shows are $1.99 per episode. In some cases you can also pay $2.99 for a Day Pass that will allow you to download the video and view it within 24 hours on the Google Video Player. Google's software is required for paid material but the free stuff will work on any player that handles AVI files. Picture quality is standard-definition with heavy video compression artifacts, but this being Google, the user interface and search features are user-friendly. Even if you have no intention of paying for anything, the Google Video Store is a great way to while away idle hours. Click on the external link below. Or, from the Google homepage, click on More, Video.
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HP md5880n 1080p HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jan 22, 2006

These days, you can't tell the players in television manufacturing without a scorecard. At every CES, including this year's, new names sprout like kudzu. Some are strange and unfamiliar. Others are old standards, but under new ownership. Many will be gone by next year.

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CES 2006: There's No Business Like the Consumer Electronics Business Introduction
Ultimate AV Staff  |  Jan 22, 2006

<B>Introduction</B>

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Audio Video News
Xbox to sport Blu-ray sidecar?
 |  Jan 22, 2006

Gaming sites all over the web were abuzz last week with reports of Microsoft offering an external Blu-ray Disc drive for its Xbox 360 game console. The hubbub started when Microsoft’s Peter Moore stated, in an interview with a Japanese gaming site, that if Blu-ray becomes the apparent winner in the format war Microsoft could accommodate that format easily with an external drive. By the end of the week Microsoft, staunchly in the HD DVD camp along with Intel, was spinning his comments, and reiterating the computer giant's support for HD DVD.

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Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection—Universal
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 20, 2006  |  First Published: Aug 20, 2006
Alfred Hitchcock in a Box The matured DVD format enables library builders to enjoy the full sweep of a great career in cinema for minimal investment. A perfect example is Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense. Most of his major works are collectible in huge boxed sets that cost less, per title, than a movie ticket. True, the HD DVD and Blu-ray formats may eventually bring high-def reissues. But that would take years, and in the meantime, the standard-def boxes are bargains. Grab them before they slip away.
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CSI: NY The Complete First Season—Paramount
Gary Frisch  |  Jan 20, 2006
Video: 4
Audio: 3
Extras: 3
The third series in the juggernaut forensics franchise brings the police procedural to the city of NYPD Blue, quite literally. In stark contrast to the orange and mango hues of CSI: Miami, NY is bathed in deep, metallic blues and grays, making investigators and killers look as if they could use a good dose of Florida sun. Nowhere is the disparity between the look of the two shows as apparent as in the pilot, which blends both locales as it introduces the new cast.
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Bewitched—Columbia TriStar
Monica James  |  Jan 20, 2006
Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 3
Join me if you will for a walk down memory lane, to a time when women dressed in pastels and got jobs as the leads in TV shows just because they could wrinkle their noses cutely.
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Toy Story 10th Anniversary Edition—Pixar
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 20, 2006
Video: 5
Audio: 5
Extras: 4
Completely unpretentious in its musings on the innocence of youth, Toy Story remains as captivating today as it was a decade ago. For all of its technical innovation, which was a true watershed, the movie put the characters and story first, resonating with emotion and humanity, despite the trappings of virtual plastic and wood.
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Portable Player Reviews
The Best of Everything for Your iPod
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 20, 2006
You've got the iPod. Now find some friends for it.

The Apple iPod was still selling out at stores this past holiday season, with an ever-expanding lineup that now includes the wafer-thin flash-memory-based nano and the fifth generation of the classic iPod, which now offers video playback in addition to music and still photos.

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Ears On
JVC HA-NC100 Noise-Canceling Headphones
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 20, 2006
Flying is brutal. And the cramped seat and substandard food aren't the only things that do you in. Noise is the unseen enemy. You may think you can merely adjust to it and ignore it—but that is physically impossible. Jet-turbine noise gives your eardrums and the other delicate parts of your inner ear a beating, and that messes up both your hearing and your sense of balance. That's why you often feel disoriented after a long flight. The wise traveler is therefore one who carries a good set of noise-canceling headphones or earbuds.
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