LATEST ADDITIONS

The CalMan software has become a de facto standard among the TV reviewer elite. Using a pattern generator and a measurement device, we can learn most of what we need to know about a TV in just a few minutes.

Among professional calibrators, use of the software is even more widespread, since it allows the printout of elaborate graphs and charts in a custom report for customers, showing them what their calibration money paid for.

With CalMan 5, SpectraCal has upped the awesomeness.

Back in June we got to check out the premiere of guitar legend Pat Metheny's unique new concert film, The Orchestrion Project, featuring Pat performing "solo" - with an orchestra of robots, captured in glorious 7.1 (and 3D) by director/producer brothers Pierre and François Lamoreux. 

Well, the film's come to Blu-ray - and not just in Dolby TrueHD 7.1, but with the company's new Advanced 96k Upsampling feature, to deliver lossless audio - no extra hardware required - of the highest possible quality along with the pristine visuals. And we've got a couple of copies to give away.

Two years ago, the initial launch of Google TV on the Sony TV and Logitech Revue media streamers was a real disappointment. I was excited to try out the first of the new generation of Google TV devices, but found them plagued by a preponderance of blocked content and haphazard navigation. Vizio's Co-Star media streamer is among a couple of products (along with Sony’s NSG-GS7) now taking the lead as the Google TV platform inches closer to Google's goal of pulling together content from online, home media libraries, and live TV in a single device.

It was just a year or so ago when I first noticed that most of the movies I looked forward to experiencing on my home theater projection system were ’Scope films—productions with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 or 2.40:1. Comedies, documentaries, art-house fare, and virtually all HD broadcasts are mainly limited to 1.85:1, 1.78:1 (16:9), or 1.66:1 (European widescreen). Classic films, of course, are 4:3.