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Tech2
Review: Epson MegaPlex MG-850HD LCD Projector Page 2
Geoffrey Morrison  |  May 21, 2012

There's a coffee cup on the remote, an icon unmistakably a cup and saucer. Maybe it's tea. It's the largest button. It's backlit. It might be taunting me.

So begins my time with the Epson MegaPlex MG-850HD Projector, a plucky little PJ that makes me question the logic of every flat panel in existence.

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Vote
Is Your Flat Panel Wall-Mounted?
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 18, 2012
I'm starting to commission more reviews of soundbars from long-time home-theater writer Lawrence Ullman. Recently, he asked me how many people wall-mount their flat-panel TV and would therefore want to wall-mount a soundbar, which is easier said than done in some cases. The last time I saw any stats on this, the vast majority of flat-panel owners did not wall-mount their set, but rather attached the stand and placed it on top of a sturdy cabinet of some sort.

But I don't really know, so I'm asking you—is your flat-panel TV wall-mounted? If so, is it close to seated eye height, or do you have it mounted higher—say, above the fireplace? Did you do it yourself, or did you hire someone to do it? How did you hide the cables? Let us know in the comments.

Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.

Is Your Flat Panel Wall-Mounted?
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Out Of The Blu
A Bullet for the General, The Aggression Scale, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Chris Chiarella  |  May 18, 2012
Spaghetti Westerns don't come more delicious than this edition's lead title, while audiences partial to contemporary domestic thrillers won't be disappointed with the little-seen Aggression Scale, either. But seriously: No Oscar love for Kevin?
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Surround Sound System ReviewsBlu-ray Player ReviewsHome Theater Systems ReviewsPower Amplifier ReviewsSurround Processor ReviewsTower Speaker Reviews
Dreaming the Not-Impossible Dream
Michael Fremer  |  May 18, 2012
Do you dream in surround sound? Since you’re reading this magazine, the answer is probably yes. Psychiatrists say dreaming is good for you. Thumb through any issue of Home Theater and you’re more likely than not to encounter components, systems, and lavish, dedicated rooms equipped with the latest 4K projectors and high-powered, surround-sound systems that most of us can only dream about.
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Tech2
Fixing the Other Car Audio Problem
Geoffrey Morrison  |  May 18, 2012

Carmakers have a problem. OK, I’m sure they have a lot of problems, but as this one has to do with sound, it’s relevant to us here at S+V.

As cars have gotten quieter, and as turbocharging finds its way onto more vehicles, we’re losing the sonorous soundtrack of the engines themselves.

So the engineering wizards are using technology to combat the progression of... technology?

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Vintage Gear
Sony D-5 Portable CD Player
Steve Guttenberg  |  May 17, 2012
Sony introduced the world’s first portable CD player, the D-5, in late 1984, just a year after its first home player, the CDP-101, revolutionized the audio market. In the 1970s, Sony Walkman cassette players were as ubiquitous as iPods are now, and the new Discman players were poised to be the next big thing.
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New Products
New Gear: Earthquake Sound Revamps MiniMe Sub and iQuake Speaker Dock
Michael Berk  |  May 17, 2012

Applying lessons learned in the car audio arena, Earthquake Sound has been delivering high-powered, high-quality products in the active deskop stereo and 2.1 market for a suprisingly long time.

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SmartStream
Are Smart TVs a Dumb Idea?
Barb Gonzalez  |  May 17, 2012
In a recent article by Patrick Nelson on the Tech News World blog, he makes the case that Smart TVs are a dumb idea and that they will go the way of the LaserDisc. For anyone unfamiliar with the term, a "Smart TV" refers to a TV that connects to the Internet and your home network, using built-in apps for streaming video, music, photos, games, and more.
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Tech2
New Format News: Dolby TrueHD with Advanced 96K Upsampling
Geoffrey Morrison  |  May 17, 2012

Announced today, Dolby has added a new trick to their TrueHD encoding. It allows studios and authoring houses a way to upconvert standard 48 kHz content (the sampling rate of most movies) to 96 kHz for Blu-ray.

At an event at Dolby headquarters in San Francisco, I got a chance to hear the results. Interestingly, it was quite... interesting.

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Wide Angle
A 3D Audio Update from SRS
Al Griffin  |  May 16, 2012

SRS, a company best known for audio processing used to improve the sound of on-board TV speakers — and one that was recently acquired by movie sound bigwig DTS — has been steadily promoting its Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) concept over the past two years, demoing the audio creation/distribution platform to movie studios, music labels, and journalists alike. This spring saw the establishment of version 1.0 of the MDA spec, along with the release of MDA Creator, a plug-in designed for a range of popular audio workstations that enables sound mixers to store audio in the MDA format. Now, the company has added the MDA Director app to its list of new things for 2012.

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