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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Nowhere Boy—Sony Pictures Classics
Kris Deering  |  Jan 31, 2011
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 2.5/5
"Nowhere Boy" captures and conveys the crucial formative teenage years of John Lennon. For the first time on screen, it depicts the events and personal circumstances that led to the formation of the Beatles - and the underlying family currents that shaped and molded the creative and inspirational qualities of John Lennon. Qualities that had a revolutionary impact on the world during his brief 40 years of life - and that continue to have immense effect 30 years after his death.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Middle Men—Paramount Vantage
Kris Deering  |  Jan 31, 2011
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 1.5/5
In 1995, everyone had a VCR, music was sold in record stores, and the world wide web was a newfound discovery. Businessman Jack Harris had the perfect life - a beautiful family and a successful career fixing problem companies. Then he met Wayne Beering and Buck Dolby, two geniuses but troubled men, who had invented the way adult entertainment is sold over the internet. When Jack agrees to help steer their business, he soon finds himself caught between a 23-year-old porn star and the FBI, all the while becoming one of the wealthiest entrepreneurs of his time. Witness a story so outrageous, you won't believe it's true. A story that proves business is a lot like sex: getting in is easy, pulling out is hard.
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Streaming Device Reviews
Google TV: Logitech Revue and Sony Internet TV
Kim Wilson  |  Jan 31, 2011
Does Google TV’s Android-based media hub deliver as promised?

Both the computer and consumer electronics industries have spent years trying to find the perfect solution for the connected home. Late in 2010, Google jumped into the fray with Google TV. Its purpose is to let you search and watch your pay TV services, schedule TV shows for your DVR, surf the Internet, and play media from a USB hard/flash drive or from networked computers. At the core of both the Logitech Revue and the Sony Internet TV Blu-ray player is Google’s proprietary Android OS running on an Intel Atom processor. Like the Android-based smart phones, Google TV will have its own app store, although it wasn’t open at the time I was reviewing these two early models.

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Premiere Design
B&W P5 Headphones
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 31, 2011
Bowers & Wilkins is well known for its superb high-end speakers, so it's really no surprise that this British company would enter the headphone market. However, I'm a bit surprised that its first offering in this arena—dubbed the P5—is a set of portable headphones intended for the iPod and other MP3 players.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Alice in Wonderland - 60th Anniversary Special Edition (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 31, 2011
While dozing off, young Alice dreams about falling down a rabbit hole that is populated by a peculiar series of misadventures. The always sensible Alice whirls through a world of contradictions, imagination, and surprises where she encounters amazing creatures including a pocket watch-toting White Rabbit, the imperious Queen of Hearts and her army of playing cards, and a Cheshire Cat with a lingering smile.

Walt Disney was one of the most influential movie makers of the 20th Century and had considered adapting Lewis Carroll's famous story in 1933, but shelved the idea after Paramount released its version. He later had artist David Hall create some concept art for the project, but WWII intervened and his animated version didn't hit the screen until 1951. On a recent visit to the Walt Disney Museum in San Francisco, I discovered that Walt wasn't too keen on the results of the film and complained that it had no "heart." I tend to agree with him and as a kid this was one of my least favorite Disney productions.

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Audio Video News
Pioneer Elite Is Now Sharp Elite for TVs
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 31, 2011
Pioneer has licensed its Elite brand to Sharp as a prelude to the joint marketing of Elite-branded LCD TVs.

Historically the brand has applied to all of Pioneer's higher-end products, including plasma TVs, audio/video receivers, Blu-ray players, and speakers. For instance, Pioneer maintains two receiver lines, called Pioneer and Pioneer Elite. The deal with Sharp covers only TVs, and will allow Sharp to introduce a line of high-end Elite-brand LCD TVs this year in North America.

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Custom Installation Equipment Reviews
Two Screen Solution
Kim Wilson  |  Jan 30, 2011
The emergence of 3D movies on Blu-ray presents more of a challenge than just a new Blu-ray player, you'll also need a new display. If you are using a projector, you also have to consider the screen you are using. For optimum performance your current screen may or may not be adequate. In fact, a screen optimized for 3D doesn't always provide the best 2D image. However, Stewart Filmscreems has come up with the Daily Dual, providing a solution for optimum 2D and 3D viewing.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Almost Famous (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 30, 2011
William (Patrick Fugit) is a 15-year-old music fan who gets a dream assignment to travel with an up-and-coming band and write a cover story for Rolling Stone magazine. His mother (Frances McDormand) isn't thrilled with the gig, but the young man hits the road with the band and learns there's more to write about than just music.

Writer/director Cameron Crowe burst on the scene in 1982 by penning Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which went on to become a hit with the teen audience. He wasn't a one hit wonder by writing/directing Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, and then the film based on his own youth, Almost Famous. While I can't particularly relate to the era (I'm more of an 80s guy), there were certain aspects of the film that gave me a chuckle. For example, my daughter is almost 15 and I couldn't imagine her going on the road with a band, so I certainly empathized with his mother's reaction.

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Vote
Is the End of Physical Media Inevitable?
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 28, 2011

With the rise of iTunes, Netflix, and other online sources of streaming and downloadable audio/video content, many now predict that physical media such as CD, DVD, and Blu-ray will soon go the way of the dinosaurs. According to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times, sales of CDs and DVDs are down 57 and 33 percent, respectively, over the last four years, but Blu-ray disc sales have grown by almost 19,000 percent in the same time frame. Still, there are those who see Blu-ray as the last physical medium in the face of the online onslaught.

Others believe that physical media will never disappear altogether, in part because it's human nature to collect physical objects, and the sense of ownership is greater when you have something to hold in your hands. Additional factors in this argument include physical media's permanence—there's no chance of losing the data in a hard-disk crash—and generally superior sound and picture quality.

Which side of this argument are you on? Do you believe that the end of physical media is upon us, or will it survive the rise of online distribution, perhaps with the development of a future technology such as holographic crystals with terabytes of capacity? Or will it become a niche market as vinyl LPs are today?

Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice. Is your vote a real prediction or wishful thinking?

Is the End of Physical Media Inevitable?
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Blu-ray Review: Inception
 |  Jan 28, 2011

British director Christopher Nolan wants to mess with your head. Memento, the film that put him on the map, moved backward in time to disorient viewers and subvert conventional storytelling. Ten years later, Inception feels like a follow-up, even though Nolan made movies like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in the interim.

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