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Pro Meets DIY in New Custom Install Trend
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Oct 09, 2017
When it came to custom installation of home AV gear, automation systems, and security equipment, there used to be two ways of accomplishing it: you could hire a pro, or you could do it yourself. Today, there's a new middle ground option.
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Grace Notes
Tempow Makes Any Smartphone Smarter with Multi-Device Bluetooth Software
Leslie Shapiro  |  Oct 09, 2017
Ah, the freedom and flexibility of wireless Bluetooth speakers. Some companies let you connect several of their speakers together to create a whole-home solution. However, one company has developed a way to potentially connect any and all Bluetooth speakers together, speakers from any company, as well as Bluetooth headphones. Your jogging group can all run to the beat of the same drum. Tempow, a French tech company is making this possible.

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Audio Video News
Onkyo Inks Hi-Res Music Deals with Japanese Labels
SV Staff  |  Oct 09, 2017
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Google Steps Up its Smart Speaker Game
SV Staff  |  Oct 09, 2017
Google announced a more powerful smart speaker last week along with along with an Echo Dot-like device designed to make its Google Assistant more accessible throughout the home.
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Audio Video News
Netflix Raises Prices of Standard and Premium Plans
SV Staff  |  Oct 09, 2017
Netflix has raised pricing on two of its three subscription plans.
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Audio Video News
Hollywood Exec Has Grand Plan to Reinvent TV
SV Staff  |  Oct 06, 2017
Jeffrey Katzenberg, former chairman of Walt Disney Studios and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation, has a grand scheme to reinvent TV for mobile viewers.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Straw Dogs
Josef Krebs  |  Oct 06, 2017
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From the get-go in this hugely provocative and highly challenging essay on violence, there’s a disconcerting, menacing montage of images that tilts you off balance. The setting is a small, insular, isolated, Wicker Man–ish Cornish community where Deliverance-like locals sit and wait.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
F8: Fate of the Furious
Corey Gunnestad  |  Oct 06, 2017
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I never understood why MI-6 always gave James Bond the most expensive and exotic sports cars on the planet to take with him on his missions. Q Branch must know by now there’s no way in hell that thing is coming back in one piece. That same basic logic applies to the Fast & the Furious films: Why would you ever give a Lamborghini to someone who’s going to a demolition derby?
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Focal Launches Lower-Priced Reference Headphones
SV Staff  |  Oct 06, 2017
Focal, the French manufacturer of speakers and headphones, today introduced a new lower-prices set of open-back circumaural headphones aimed at audiophiles.
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Ears On
The Little Book That Could
Mark Fleischmann  |  Oct 06, 2017
It has been seven years since I last wrote a blog shamelessly promoting my book Practical Home Theater: A Guide to Video and Audio Systems. In fact, I've never told the whole story of why I wrote the book, why I update it every year, and why it's lasted so long—the latest edition, dated 2018, is the 17th. Addicted as I am to numbers divisible by five, I might have waited for the 20th edition. But this blog is long overdue. Think of it as a delayed reaction to the 15th.

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