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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Training Day HD DVD
Tom Norton  |  Jun 17, 2006  |  0 comments

<I>Training Day</I> is about a bad cop. A very bad cop who has convinced himself that if he can do good in questionable ways and get a little action on the side for himself (not to mention for a few bad cop buddies), that’s the name of the game. When it comes to breaking in a rookie, however, he gets more than he bargained for.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Van Helsing HD DVD
Tom Norton  |  Jun 17, 2006  |  0 comments

Stephen Sommers, director of a fun ride in <I>The Mummy</I> and an unnecessary, overblown sequel in <I>The Mummy Returns</I>, brings us a whole bevy of uglies in <I>Van Helsing</I>. It's a monster mash, with Dracula getting together with his vampire brides, the Frankenstein monster, Mr. Hyde, wherewolves, and various other hangers on.

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Ears On
Samsung Takes the Wraps Off Blu-ray
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 16, 2006  |  0 comments
Oh so carefully selected reporters swarmed the Samsung Experience store at New York's Time Warner Center to get a first hands-on experience with the BD-P100. The player took one minute to warm up by my pocket watch (vs. a reported three for Toshiba's HD DVD player). Picture quality on a Samsung 61-inch DLP projector was stunning, showing every hair and pore on Guy Pearce's stubbly face in Memento, and maintaining that degree of detail when accompanied by moderate subject or camera motion. Resolution softened when I turned off the projector's DNIe video processing though rapid motion also became smoother. On the whole I found it jolly convincing. Once you've seen 1080p at a high data rate, you'll never want to go back, at least on those releases that are true 1080p (as opposed to line-doubled fakes). Incidentally, there is no truth to the widely blogged (though not here!) rumor that the Samsung player will be delayed to late summer in the U.S.—the delay will be in the U.K. Delays have been confirmed for Sony and Pioneer players but Samsung expects to hit the scheduled June 25 release date.
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Other Tech
Spraying for Mosquitos
David Ranada  |  Jun 15, 2006  |  0 comments

06/16/2006 - The news wires have recently been carrying stories on how teens around the world have hijacked a signal in the near-ultrasonic range originally developed by a company in Wales to disperse groups of loitering youth. The signal has been turned instead into a ringtone for cellular phones.

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LCD TV Reviews
HT's Inaugural LCD Face Off
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Jun 15, 2006  |  0 comments
With prices falling and interest rising, it must be time to do a Face Off.

LCD is coming into its own as a home theater technology, priming itself to challenge plasma and DLP in the larger screen sizes. Until recently, technology and size limitations have caused us to approach LCD as a second-room technology, but you can't ignore the roar of the masses, who are buying more LCD TVs than ever before, especially in the 32- to 42-inch screen sizes.

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Other Source Component ReviewsBookshelf Speaker Reviews
KEF KHT 3005 Speaker System and Linn Classik Movie DVD Player
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 15, 2006  |  0 comments
Go with the intergalactic flow.

Crime in New York gets more and more bizarre. The other day, someone broke into my apartment and redesigned my speakers. I'm not sure if our local burglars are capable of this. No, the KEF KHT 3005 is clearly the product of an extraterrestrial mind. Who else would reimagine a loudspeaker as a glossy-black egg? Indeed, who else would reimagine a subwoofer as a giant, staring eye?

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Other Source Component Reviews
Sony DVP-NS9100ES DVD/SACD Player
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 15, 2006  |  0 comments
Your DVD collection flies first class.

Why pay $1,300 for a DVD player when you can get one for $100? You might as well ask, why fly first class when you can fly coach? Membership in the club of videophiles has its privileges. There will always be people who can afford to pay extra for tangible benefits, like top picture and sound quality, and intangible ones, like pride of ownership.

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Ears On
Bose Cuts the Noise
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jun 15, 2006  |  2 comments
Bose product demos always come with a dash of entertainment. At last week's New York press demo for the QuietComfort 3 headphones, hapless reporters entered the room to find a mannequin wearing a pair of large Bose headphones, only to see the earpieces whipped off to reveal the newer, smaller model. The QuietComfort 3 is the third generation of Bose noise-canceling headphones. They cover the ear without enclosing it. They're the first noise-canceling headphones to use a rechargable battery, a 20-hour lithium ion type, and the charger is a cute earcup-shaped object with flip-down prongs that plug into the wall without a cable. A $39 accessory cable allows users to switch between cell phone and music. Check bose.com to see if your phone is compatible. The demo in New York actually used a Nokia cell phone with MP3 files at 192kbps. The headphones were accurate enough to reveal smeary compression artifacts—no surprise to me, since I already use the original QuietComfort 1, as well as the non-NC TriPort, and thought highly enough of the former to have the earpads renovated when they wore out. If you want full-sized cans, the QuietComfort 2 remains in the line for $299, but the new QuietComfort 3 sells for $349 and is available from the Bose site as of today.
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Fred Manteghian Blog
Tormenting the Plasma
Fred Manteghian  |  Jun 14, 2006  |  10 comments

The Plasma Display Coalition (PDC), a consortium of well known plasma manufacturers, is high on life. According to Coalition’s President Jim Palumbo, 2006 will see over three million plasma sets sold to consumers. So why are coalition members Hitachi Home Electronics, LG Electronics USA, Panasonic Corporation of America, Pioneer Electronics (USA) and Samsung Electronics USA going on the defensive? That’s easy, just ask any of the ill-trained sales employees at the big consumer electronic chains to tell you the difference between plasma and LCD panels, and they’ll blurt out urban legend like it’s going on sale.

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Audio Video News
A TV for All Seasons
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jun 14, 2006  |  0 comments
Since the days when near-humans first descended from the trees (substitute your own particular theory of creation/evolution/intelligent design here), mankind has faced one overwhelming problem: how do you watch TV outside?
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