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Audio Video News
Home Theater Magazine Announces RAVE Award Winners
user  |  Mar 26, 2007
The editors of Home Theater magazine have announced the winners of the 2007 RAVE Awards (Recognition of Audio and Video Excellence). Open to all manufacturers, the RAVE Awards, now in its fifth year, recognize excellence in the manufacturing of superior audio and video components that have been reviewed and tested by the Home Theater staff and respected contributors over a 12-month period.
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Ears On
Courts Kill Cablevision RS-DVR
Mark Fleischmann  |  Mar 26, 2007
When you record a program with your DVR, does it matter whether the hard drive lives in your set-top box or on your cable company's network? Yes it does matter, a federal district court has ruled, effectively killing Cablevision's Remote Storage DVR. Soon after Cablevision introduced the innovative device, it was sued by CNN, Fox, NBC, Paramount, and TBS, who claimed the RS-DVR was not merely recording programs, but rebroadcasting them--a violation of copyright law. Cablevision argued in vain that the device was not rebroadcasting because recording and playback were controlled by the consumer. The decision will affect not only Cablevision's three million New York-area subscribers, but also cable consumers nationwide, by preventing other cable operators from introducing their own network-based DVRs. Cable operators like network DVRs because they're less costly to operate than the conventional kind. Cablevision may appeal. If it drags out the fight long enough, and Congress passes the Fair Use Act, the RS-DVR may get a second chance. The proposed law protects devices "capable of substantial, commercially-significant non-infringing use."
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Audio Video News
Multi-Media Server with Mega Memory
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Mar 26, 2007
Bigger is always better, at least when it comes to hard drives - or so thinks Interact-TV. The Linux-based digital-entertainment-device and media-server maker is introducing the company's new T2 Media Server that boasts over 2.25 Terabytes of storage capability. The T2 is a Linux Media Center that includes 720p component video output, new MPEG2 video encoding, as well as DVD and recorded video upscaling to 720p.
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LCD TV Reviews
Sharp LC-52D92U 1080p LCD Flat Panel Television
 |  Mar 25, 2007

Reviewing Sharp's '62 and '92 series AQUOS sets has been an amazing experience- and I'm not even talking about image quality yet. As soon as web entries came up here and at our sister site for <I>Home Theater</I> magazine, declaring these reviews on the way, the emails started. The response to this news was a startling statement on the power of the flat panel. I've never received so much email about any pair of reviews, let alone two that weren't even written yet!

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Projector Reviews
Panasonic PT-AE1000U 1080p Video Projector
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 25, 2007

The introduction of a 1080p projector for less than $5,000 would have been big news early last year. While that field is now getting increasingly crowded, with projectors from Sony, Mitsubishi, and JVC muscling in on the action, it's still big news&mdash;news that now includes the new PT-AE1000U from Panasonic.

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Power Amplifier Reviews
Meridian G61 THX Surround EX Ultra2-Certified Surround Pre/Pro & G55 Five-Channel Amplifier
Michael Fremer  |  Mar 25, 2007

It starts with the box. These components are packaged in boxes that appear to be built with greater precision and care than most of the mainstream home theater <I>electronics</I> you're likely to encounter. A miniature homeless person's mansion, I imagined, lifting these two solid jewels from their form fitting enclosures.

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Audio Video News
HD DVD Player Prices Drop
 |  Mar 25, 2007

Starting April 1st that shiny HD DVD player might look a little shinier still. $100 to $200 shinier, to be exact. On that date Toshiba is dropping the price of its entry level HD-A2 HD DVD player to just $399 and cutting the upscale HD-XA2 from $999 to $799. The 1080p-capable HD-A20, which is to be released this Summer, gets an in vitro price drop too, going from $599 to $499. On top of that, if you buy any of these players by July 31st you can still send in a form to receive <A HREF="http://ultimateavmag.com/news/30807hddeals/">five free HD DVD movies</A>, according to TWICE.

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A/V Veteran
Idol Thoughts
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 24, 2007

We may be gear heads here at UAV, but the not-so-secret secret about the consumer electronics business is that it's about music and movies. In other words, it's Show Biz. Without that connection, our equipment racks would be filled with expensive boat anchors.

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Fred Manteghian Blog
Selling Music by the Pound
Fred Manteghian  |  Mar 24, 2007

According to an AFP article at Breitbart.com, <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070322121539.enwwmbqh&show_artic... target="new">Nielson Tracking</a> reports CD sales for (almost) the first three months of 2007 are down 20% over the same period last year. Only 89 million retail CDs were sold year to date, compared with 112 million sold during the same period in 2006. Downloads of albums were off too, dropping from 119 million to 99 million this year.

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The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio—DreamWorks
Aaron Dalton  |  Mar 23, 2007  |  First Published: Jun 23, 2006
Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 2
Midcentury small-town homemaker Evelyn Ryan keeps her family of 10 kids fed and cared for with prizes from advertising writing contests. Julianne Moore carries the show as the titular prize winner, and Woody Harrelson inhabits his role as a drunken train wreck of a husband to the hilt. But, ultimately, the movie loses steam and becomes repetitive. Harrelson drinks away another paycheck, Moore wins another contest, the kids get to live on the ragged edge of disaster for another week. This harrowing film’s marketing as a “witty and engaging” comedy should be considered seriously false advertising.
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