You gotta love Blaupunkt's mettle for coming out with a portable active speaker system that can shuttle between the car, the home and the street. It's a clever engineering feat, but you'll need a lot of muscle to lug it around. Dubbed Velocity...
Last week, I asked readers to weigh in on whether they want more audio-product reviews without objective measurements or fewer reviews with measurements. I've gotten quite a few responses so far, for which I'm grateful, but I'm going to wait one more week before revealing the results and <I>UAV</I>'s policy in this regard. If you haven't voted yet, feel free to do so by adding a comment to <A href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/scottwilkinson/021008question/">last week's blog</A> or e-mailing me at <A HREF="mailto:scott.wilkinson@sourceinterlink.com">scott.wilkinson@sourceinterlink.com</A>
According to a report today from NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, Toshiba has decided to stop production of HD DVD players. The company said it would continue to sell its current products, but there will be no further development, and its related factories in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan will be closed. Market analysts expect the company to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's been less than a week since we <A href="http://www.ultimateavmag.com/news/208badhd/">reported</A> that Netflix will stop renting HD DVDs in favor of Blu-ray discs and Best Buy will promote only Blu-ray, even though it will still carry HD DVD products in its stores. Now, an <A href="http://checkoutblog.com/entries/2008/2/15/wal_mart_chooses_a_hi_def_plat... blog</A> by some Wal-Mart Associates reveals that the über retail chain will carry Blu-ray discs and players exclusively as of June, 2008. As blogger Susan writes, "If you bought the HD player like me, I'd retire it to the bedroom, kid's playroom, or give it to your parents to play their John Wayne standard-def movies."
HD DVD proponent Toshiba is expected to wave the white flag in the next few weeks, according to an article in The Hollywood Reporter. The move would surprise few following the announcement by Warner Home Video last month that it would support...
A Hollywood trade publication suggests that the end may be near for HD DVD, quoting a combination of on- and off-the-record sources. Update: That report has been confirmed by two other news outlets. See last graf.
It's Oscar time! And since no one on the Sound & Vision staff actually belongs to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (our applications keep getting kicked back to us), we're celebrating this past year's best pictures our own way - by declaring which films (and TV shows) actually have the best pictures . . . and sound!
Since 2006 we've offered RSS feeds of Sound & Vision's industry leading equipment reviews and test reports, but now we've made it easier than ever for you to customize our content to match your specific needs. Choose from any or all of the feeds below:
Apple Computer may not give us 50-inch plasmas, rumbling surround sound, or the Beatles catalog for MP3 download (which many music lovers are waiting for), but at this year's MacWorld Expo, Apple CEO Steve Jobs did make news with iTunes. During his keynote address, he introduced a new high definition iTunes movie rental service, and second-generation software for Apple TV to go with it.