LATEST ADDITIONS

Out Of The Blu
Pixar Short Films Collection 2, Copper Season One, Step Up Revolution
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 13, 2012
A classy animated menagerie, a harsh, unexpected police drama and a 3D dancefest shuffle their way onto Blu-ray.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Lorax
David Vaughn  |  Nov 12, 2012
Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
L ooking to impress the girl of his dreams by finding her a real-life Truffula tree, Ted Wiggins follows the advice of his grandmother and ventures outside the walls of Thneedville in search of the Once-ler. At first, the reclusive old man wants nothing to do with the teenage boy, but he eventually tells his story of how greed and ignorance led to the destruction of the Truffula forest and how he should have listened to the warnings of the mystical Lorax—the protector of the trees. Looking for a chance at redemption, the Once-ler put his faith in the teenager to correct the errors of his ways, although the ruthless Aloysius O’Hare will stop at nothing to deter the young lad from fulfilling his destiny to restore the trees and get the girl.
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Custom Installation Equipment Reviews
Somfy TaHomA Home Automation System
Bob Ankosko  |  Nov 12, 2012
When we home theater enthusiasts dream about automation, we envision pushing a button and sinking into the sofa, beer in hand: The lights dim, a huge screen descends from the ceiling, and a magnificent picture magically appears onscreen as your speakers come to life. But why stop there? With Somfy’s TaHomA system (and the help of a professional installer), you can bring window shades, drapes or blinds, and climate control into the fold and create automated scenes for a single room or the entire house.
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Headphone Reviews
Review: MartinLogan Mikros 70 In-Ear Headphone
Brent Butterworth  |  Nov 12, 2012

We’ve learned one thing from our past investigations into the new wave of headphones made by speaker companies: Headphone engineering has little in common with speaker engineering. Because the physics of headphones are so different from the physics of speakers — and because few, if any, speaker companies actually build their own headphones — it’s rare for a company’s headphones to mirror the sonic character of its speakers.

Tougher still for MartinLogan, which built its brand on 5-foot-tall electrostatic speakers.

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A/V Veteran
Sony 3D Glasses: A Tale of Two Pairs
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 09, 2012
In our experience, most active 3D glasses are sensitive to head position or, more precisely, head tilt. With most of them, however, the effect is minor and limited to a slight darkening of the picture.

But Sony's active 3D glasses, up to now, have been different. When using the company's HDTV 3D glasses, a 3D image on the Sony displays we've tested doesn't darken as you tilt your head from side to side. Instead, the left and right images break up, producing significant 3D crosstalk or, as this artifact is more colorfully known, ghosting. In addition, the Sony's 3D color varies with head position, shifting reddish with a tilt in one direction from vertical and bluish in the other. The latter effect makes it impossible to do a reliable 3D calibration; one eyepiece of the 3D glasses has to be placed over the lens of the measurement meter for a 3D calibration, and even a slight tilt can affect the result. Fortunately, the Sony 3D sets we've tested recently have produced visually satisfying 3D color even without a 3D calibration, though it's unlikely to be accurate. Nevertheless, the head-tilt ghosting and color shifting are annoying.

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3D Blu-ray Player ReviewsBlu-ray Player Reviews
Oppo BDP-103 Blu-ray 3D Player
David Vaughn  |  Nov 09, 2012

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $499 At A Glance: Impeccable build quality • 4K x 2K video output • The first Blu-ray player with HDMI inputs

We’ve come a long way since Blu-ray hit the market in 2006. Back then, players retailed for over $1,000, took more than a minute to boot up, and as long as two and a half minutes to load a disc. Thankfully, those days are behind us and the user experience with Blu-ray is now approaching that of a DVD player—although we’ll never get rid of the frequent firmware updates thanks to Hollywood’s piracy fears.

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Tech2
Review: XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Nov 09, 2012

I have to admit, I didn't think I'd get into this game. I like my action games actiony, and my strategy games real-time. A turn-based action game? What kind of unholy chimera is that?

I never played the original X-COM (the 1994 version had a hyphen, and an incredible following), so the excitement surrounding this remake was lost on me.

Once I tried it, though. . . wow is it easy to get sucked in.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
American Reunion
Corey Gunnestad  |  Nov 08, 2012
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
I saw American Pie in the theater and enjoyed it enough to stick it out through two sequels: American Pie 2 and American Wedding. By that point, though, I felt the creative teat had pretty much been sucked dry and it was time to call it a day. Imagine my astonishment when I discovered that the success of those films had spawned no less than four direct-to-video sequels: American Pie: Band Camp, American Pie: The Naked Mile, American Pie: Beta House, and American Pie: The Book of Love. Not done by a long shot, the original cast now reunites for another go-round in American Reunion. As the title implies, it’s been more than a decade since our fresh-faced and inexperienced teenagers graduated from high school and made the awkward transition into adulthood.
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Vintage Gear
Onkyo TX-SV7M Surround Receiver
Steve Guttenberg  |  Nov 08, 2012
The Onkyo TX-SV7M is said to be the first Dolby Surround A/V receiver sold in the U.S. and Canada, way back in the all-analog days of 1987. Dolby Surround was the consumer version of the theatrical Dolby Stereo format that was used in movie theaters in the 1980s. Dolby Surround soundtracks were matrix-encoded into stereo formats such as VHS tapes, Laserdiscs, etc. The TX-SV7M was a four-channel receiver, with front left, right, and two surround channel amplifiers (the surrounds were monophonic).
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Headphone Amp/DAC Reviews
There's an App for Jazz: The Blue Note App
Michael Berk  |  Nov 08, 2012

The Blue Note label has, over the course of its history, managed to put out some of the most challenging, beloved, and genre-defining records in jazz. Now a new Blue Note app brings that rich heritage to your tablet.

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