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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Polk Launches Entry-Level Home Theater Speakers
SV Staff  |  Sep 02, 2015
Polk Audio has introduced the T Series, a mix and match collection of entry-level home theater speakers of modeled after the Monitor Series that launched the company 43 years ago.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Jupiter Ascending
David Vaughn  |  Sep 02, 2015
Picture
Sound
Extras
Born under the stars crossing the Atlantic while her mother immigrated to the United States, Jupiter Jones was told she was destined for great things. Unfortunately, it looked like her destiny was to clean toilets as a poor immigrant teenager in Chicago until Caine, a genetically engineered alien, arrives on Earth to save Jupiter from a band of Keepers (alien hit men). It turns out that Jupiter’s genetic markings label her as intergalactic royalty—she’s the reincarnation of the matriarch of the House Abrasax, who was murdered and somehow reborn on Earth. This upsets the balance of intergalactic politics, and Jupiter’s now in mortal danger.
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A/V Veteran
Let the Ultra HD Game of Thrones Begin
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 01, 2015
Last year the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) laid down what it considered the minimum standards for a 4K Ultra HD set. A few months later it introduced a voluntary UHD logo program that manufacturers could use in advertising and labeling sets that meet the standards. This logo also clarified the name to be used for these sets: 4K Ultra HD. While manufacturers are free to make and sell 4K Ultra HD sets of any description (the CEA has no legal authority to stop them), they can’t use the logo if their sets don’t meet these standards. The logo will read either 4K Ultra HD or 4K Ultra HD Connected (though there’s nothing to stop a manufacturer who doesn’t meet the standards from calling their sets simply 4K, or Ultra HD)...
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Audio Video News
HDMI 2.0a: What, Again?
Mark Fleischmann  |  Sep 01, 2015
HDMI 2.0a is almost upon us. But why? Didn’t A/V manufacturers just assimilate HDMI 2.0?

The answer is that HDMI 2.0a will further improve picture quality, firming up 2.0’s Ultra HD support with complementary HDR (high dynamic range) technology. Does that mean 2.0a will transmit video in a new way?

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Vote
How Much of Your Home Entertainment Viewing Is Disc-Based?
SV Staff  |  Sep 01, 2015
In a recent national survey Nielsen found that as popular as streaming is, discs still play a key role in home entertainment.

How much of your home entertainment viewing is disc-based as opposed to streaming from a subscription service such as Netflix, buying/renting digital content online, or video on demand via cable or satellite?

As always, we encourage you to leave a comment.

How Much of Your Home Entertainment Viewing Is Disc-Based?
25% or less
33% (380 votes)
Between 25% and 50%
18% (204 votes)
Between 50% and 75%
29% (328 votes)
All of it (100%)
20% (224 votes)
Total votes: 1136
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Audio Video News
Discs Hold On in Our Streaming World
SV Staff  |  Sep 01, 2015
It should come as no surprise that nearly three quarters (73%) of Americans age 12 and up are “actively consuming movies and TV shows for home viewing,” according to Nielsen statistics. What may surprise you is that only 12% of consumers are “digital-only consumers of entertainment.”
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Audio Video News
Smartphones and Tablets Are Transforming Audio
SV Staff  |  Aug 31, 2015
The global audio market is being profoundly reshaped by smartphones and tablets as they become go-to devices for wirelessly streaming music, according to a new study from IHS Technology.
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Audio Video News
Pirates Crack 4K Copy Protection on Netflix
SV Staff  |  Aug 31, 2015
Pirates have found a way around the High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection (HDCP) scheme used by Netflix and other content providers to prevent copyrighted 4K content from being copied, according to a post on Torrent Freak.
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Editor's Eye
Can Object-Based Audio Save the AVR?
Rob Sabin  |  Aug 31, 2015
Dolby Atmos and DTS:X may not be enough.

We are finally starting to see the new 2015 model year AV receivers trickle in, the first generation to more or less universally include HDMI 2.0 connections along with HDCP 2.2 copyright management.

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Tech2
On Critics and Creators: Bad Ideas Poorly Implemented
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 29, 2015
For as long as there have been movies, there have been movie critics. I’m sure 100 years ago there was some proto-Ebert giving a thumbs up to A Fool There Was and a thumbs down to The Cheat, angering fans of both in equal measure.

Art, especially when offered for sale, begets criticism. Such is the nature of the world. As much as I eschew, and actively dislike, traditional movie reviews, I can see their place.

But what you can’t do, as a creator, is attack your critics. Trust me, you want to, but you can’t.

It’s especially bad when your spouse does it. Which is exactly what happened between a fellow reviewer and the spouse of the writer of, I’m not kidding, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2.

Let the fireworks begin. This will be amusing.

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