LATEST ADDITIONS

Tech2
Bundling the Awesome: Volume Deals from StoryBundle, Humble Bundle, Amazon, and More
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Aug 10, 2012

The Internet has allowed millions of creative people to offer their works to the world, without the gatekeeper of traditional publishing.

This can be good and bad. There’s good in that there are fewer roadblocks for creative people. The bad in that without that gatekeeper, there’s no “pre-check” of quality. Not to say that everything from a publisher is good, just that the assumption is that somebody looked at the thing before it went out. Without this initial eyeballing, how do you sort through the slag to find the gems?

Enter: Bundles.

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Grace Notes
Slacker’s Bass and Beats Radio
Leslie Shapiro  |  Aug 09, 2012

It’s no secret that here at Sound+Vision, we’re fans of Slacker Radio — I’ve been singing their praises since they first launched. Now there’s a new reason to love Slacker. While it’s easy to create your own stations personalized for your own tastes in music, Slacker has just announced a new free station, Bass and Beats, that is designed to showcase “the best low frequency tracks ever.”

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TV Reviews
Samsung PN60E7000FF 3D Plasma HDTV
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 09, 2012
3D Performance
2D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value
Price: $2,530 At A Glance: Crisp resolution and superb color • Full control and calibration features • White uniformity could be better

With all the talk about LCD this and LED that, and the buzz about upcoming OLED sets that are expected to set the video world on fire (a very pricey fire, at least to begin with), plasmas are still very much with us. Samsung remains one of the technology’s biggest supporters, although LCD sets remain its bread and butter.

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Vintage Gear
The Advent VideoBeam 1000 Projection System
Steve Guttenberg  |  Aug 08, 2012
In the early 1970s, the biggest consumer TVs were 27-inch direct-view CRT sets, so people must have been blown away the first time they saw TV projected on an Advent VideoBeam 1000’s 7-foot screen. The first Betamax videocassette recorders were still a couple of years away in 1972, and broadcast and cable TV were the only viewing options.
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New Products
AudioXperts 4TV and EVA: High-End, Done Simply
Michael Berk  |  Aug 08, 2012

Last night we got a chance to check out the first product offerings from AudioXperts, a new lifestyle audio brand from a bunch of industry veterans, led by Eli Harary, formerly of Boston Acoustics and Infinity. The systems we heard were voiced by John Fischbach, Grammy-winning producer of projects from Stevie Wonder, Carole King, and Cassandra Wilson, to name just a few. Safe to say that the consumers AudioXperts has in mind should be well served on both the business and sonic fronts.

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Headphone Reviews
Review: Pioneer SE-MJ591 Headphone
Brent Butterworth  |  Aug 08, 2012

Pioneer’s gotta be a little PO’ed. The storied Japanese company has been making headphones for more than 50 years, yet it’s been overshadowed by upstart brands like Beats, HiFiMan, V-Moda, Phiaton, and others. But Pioneer’s fighting back with a freshly designed new line, in which the SE-MJ591 on-ear headphone is one of the top models.

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Home Theater Geeks Podcast
Podcast 123: Kevin Wines
Scott Wilkinson  |  Aug 07, 2012
Kevin Wines, Image Technology Director at THX, Ltd., talks about the future of display technology in the home and commercial cinema, including increased spatial resolution (4K, 8K), increased temporal resolution (high frame rates of 48 and 60fps), and how these advancements might be delivered to the home. He also discusses 3D, including the 3D broadcast of the Olympics, online distribution versus physical media, THX certification of displays and content, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:08:33

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This Week
New Blu-rays for August 7, 2012: Cowboys, Cops, Monsters, and Martyrs
Josef Krebs  |  Aug 07, 2012

Rio Grande and Johnny Guitar

This week Olive Films are releasing these two classic westerns from the early 1950s. Rio Grande (1950) is part of what is known as John Ford’s cavalry trilogy — along with Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) — based on stories by James Warner Bellah.

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This Week
New Music for August 7, 2012: Tripping The Wing Beat Fantastic
Mark Smotroff  |  Aug 07, 2012

Mike Kennealy
Wing Beat Fantastic

New Release (Exowax)

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Mission: Impossible—Ghost Protocol
Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 07, 2012
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
Tom Cruise returns as IMF agent Ethan Hunt for this fourth film in his big-screen Mission: Impossible franchise, and this might just be the best one yet. Hunt is the sort of fellow I secretly hope we have on the federal payroll: fearless, cool under pressure, and a quick study in almost everything. He’s a good man to have on our side when the going gets rough because he simply will not quit as long as he has a pulse.
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