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Audio Video News
Samsung Debuts New Flagship UHDTVs
 |  Apr 13, 2016
Samsung Sr. VP Dave Das and the new 88-inch KS9800 UHDTV

Samsung officially unveiled its new 2016 SUHD televisions yesterday at its annual spring launch event in New York, offering up claimed advances in both picture quality and their smart TV interface.

Notably, all the new SUHD sets offer 1,000 nit peak brightness for high dynamic range content mastered to the HDR10 open standard, and wide color gamut. (They are not compatible with Dobly Vision HDR programs.) All meet the Ultra HD Alliance's Premium UHD certification standards.

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Audio Video News
Yamaha to Bring MusicCast to Existing Audio Gear
SV Staff  |  Apr 13, 2016
Yamaha announced plans to ship an amp and preamp in August that will enable any brand of audio gear to become part of a MusicCast wireless streaming ecosystem.

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The Connected Life
Are You Ready for Video Nirvana?
John Sciacca  |  Apr 13, 2016
One of the more unexpected non-events of January’s CES 2016 was the soft and lackluster launch of Ultra High Definition Blu-ray (UHD BD) players. While the industry had been expecting hardware capable of spinning new 4K discs to feed the millions of 4K TVs that have been sold, the fanfare at the show was surprisingly ho-hum. In fact...
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Signals
Vizio Pulls the Plug on Free TV
Ken C. Pohlmann  |  Apr 12, 2016
Vizio recently unveiled its new P-series models. And they are pretty impressive, featuring 4K UHD and the very cool SmartCast app that essentially builds in all the capabilities of Google Cast. Since they are Vizios, they are very competitively priced. Very nice. The problem is, if you want to be a stickler for details, these devices aren't actually TVs.

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Audio Video News
MQA Update Now Available for Pioneer and Onkyo Portable Music Players
SV Staff  |  Apr 12, 2016
Starting today, a free MQA update is available for Pioneer’s XDP-100R digital audio player ($700) and Onkyo’s just released DP-X1 ($900).

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Remotely Possible
The Connected Home is Dead. Long Live the Smart Home!
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Apr 11, 2016
Last week, Nest announced they were pulling the plug on all their customers' Revolv smart home hubs. Why am I happy about this?
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Audio Video NewsNew Products
Denon Adds Budget 4K/HDR-Ready Receivers
SV Staff  |  Apr 11, 2016
Denon has announced that it will add two 4K/HDR-ready AV receivers to its budget S Series by the end of the month.
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Audio Video News
Nativ Launches Hi-Res Music System on Indiegogo
SV Staff  |  Apr 11, 2016
Hong Kong-based Nativ today announced the launch of its Nativ Vita high-resolution wireless touchscreen music player and Nativ Wave DAC on the crowd funding site Indiegogo. As of today, the company has 50 backers and has reached 53 percent of its $100,000 goal with 60 days to go.
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Ask S&V
Can I Use My Soundbar as a Center-Channel Speaker?
Al Griffin  |  Apr 11, 2016
Got a tech question for Sound & Vision? Email us at AskSandV@gmail.com

Q Can I use a soundbar like the Yamaha YSP-5600 as a center channel in a traditional 5.1/7.1 or Atmos setup? Would it sound better than a standard center-channel speaker? Also, does it have to be set up on its own first or last to blend in with the rest of the system? —Oliver Johnson / via e-mail

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Gatchaman the Movie
Brandon A. DuHamel  |  Apr 08, 2016
Picture
Sound
Older anime fans in North America will likely remember Gatchaman, the classic 1972 series created by Tatsuo Yoshida, as Battle of the Planets (1978). Battle of the Planets was a tamed-down version of Gatchaman that removed elements of graphic violence and profanity and changed plot points related to the transgenderisim of the villain in order to avoid controversy with parents. It also rode the wave of Star Wars’ success by adding in scenes reminiscent of the space opera to mask deficiencies introduced by the changes and eliminations (only 85 of 105 episodes were used). Slightly younger audiences may be even more familiar with a subsequent mid-’80s adaptation, G-Force: Guardians of Space, which more closely followed the original series.
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