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Media Server Reviews
AudioReQuest F4.500 Audio Server
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 25, 2006  |  0 comments
Four Jeeveses, serving music.

Let's fantasize a bit. Let's run wild. Let's say your hunger for music has genetically transmitted itself to your kids. Now let's postulate that every member of the family has different musical tastes. Fortunately, your McMansion is big enough to let everyone blast away with impunity. Now all you've got to do is serve up, say, four audio feeds. In your designer home, local systems would be a recurring eyesore—you want your multizone system to do the serving. All you've got to do is find an audio server that'll satisfy four mutually incompatible music lovers in four separate zones at once.

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Ears On
Goodbye WB and UPN, Hello CW
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 25, 2006  |  2 comments
This is the final season for WB and UPN. In the fall their owners, Warner and CBS, will launch a new network as a joint venture. The name is CW and the programming blocks will resemble the current WB. Nighttime programming will run Monday-Friday 8-10 p.m., Saturday 7-10 p.m., and Sunday 5-7 p.m. Daytime programming will run Monday-Friday 3-5 p.m. and five hours on Saturday morning. Pooling current UPN and WB affiliate stations will reach 95 percent of the U.S. TV audience, while cutting costs, making this a logical move for CBS (close to breaking even with UPN) and especially for Warner (struggling with the WB). The fates of many current series remain in doubt but UPN's wrestling programs and WB's Smallville will probably be ported to the CW.
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Geoffrey Morrison Blog
HDAVI
Geoffrey Morrison  |  Jan 24, 2006  |  18 comments
Panasonic was in town showing off some of their newest goodies. I was lured out of the HT Lab/Batcave with the promise of pie and punch. There was neither. They did have a cool demo of what they call HDAVI. This allows you, if you have all Panasonic gear with HDAVI hooked up with HDMI, to turn on all your components (DVD player, receiver, plasma), switch to the right inputs, and start a movie, just by pressing one button. Sounds cool eh? What would be really great is that if all consumer electronics companies adopted the same standard so that this would work with every component. Come on, a boy can dream can’t he?
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Audio Video News
iSee Better iPod Video
Darryl Wilkinson  |  Jan 24, 2006  |  0 comments
Video on an iPod isn't what it used to be.
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Ears On
Fripp in Redmond
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 24, 2006  |  4 comments
Guitarist Robert Fripp recently visited Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington to record sounds for Vista, formerly Longhorn, the next-generation PC operating system. The occasion is commemorated by a 25-minute video on a Microsoft website. Fripp was told to generate sounds for a "clean, connected, confident" operating system with emphasis on the colors blue and green (which he translated as the keys of D and E). The musician’s recent switch from an IBM ThinkPad to a Mac goes unmentioned during the session.
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Headphone Reviews
JVC HA-NC100 Noise-Canceling Headphones
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 23, 2006  |  0 comments
Flying is brutal. And the cramped seat and substandard food aren't the only things that do you in. Noise is the unseen enemy. You may think you can merely adjust to it and ignore it—but that is physically impossible. Jet-turbine noise gives your eardrums and the other delicate parts of your inner ear a beating, and that messes up both your hearing and your sense of balance. That's why you often feel disoriented after a long flight. The wise traveler is therefore one who carries a good set of noise-canceling headphones or earbuds.
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LCD TV Reviews
Sony KDL-V40XBR1 LCD HDTV
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 23, 2006  |  0 comments
Good looking from almost any angle.

Sony is arguably the most powerful brand name in television. The Trinitron is the premiere picture-tube technology known to two or three generations of TV buyers. But what has Sony done for us lately? In front and rear projection, the company has mustered SXRD, a visually credible version of silicon-based liquid-crystal technology. Only in flat panels, the subject of this review, has Sony yet to earn a commanding role.

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Philips 42PF9630A Plasma HDTV
Adrienne Maxwell  |  Jan 23, 2006  |  0 comments
Router-free multimedia TV.

Media servers are a hot commodity right now. Almost every major manufacturer believes they've developed the easiest, best way to stream the music and photos from your computer via a network to your home entertainment system. While this is definitely a cool product category for the network inclined, there are those people who don't have a home network and, more importantly, don't want one. (Yes, it's hard to believe, but it's true.) Should we deny them easy access to vacation photos or their favorite party playlist on their TV?

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AV Receiver Reviews
Onkyo TX-NR1000 A/V Receiver
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 23, 2006  |  0 comments
Chairman of the boards.

A receiver that doesn't handle the latest video and surround formats is a doorstop. A similarly outmoded high-end receiver is a very expensive doorstop. And that's a problem for anyone who bought one during the 20th century. Most DVDs have Dolby Digital and/or DTS soundtracks—those are must-haves. Stereo material usually sounds much better to me in Dolby Pro Logic II than in DPLI or stereo. And, for the largest rooms, Surround EX and DTS ES have added the back channels some people deem necessary. HDMI is on its way in, component video is on its way out, XM and HD radio are knocking at AM/FM's door, and, in a few years, surround receivers will be called on to do things that we can barely begin to imagine today.

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Ears On
Google Video Store Open for Business
Mark Fleischmann  |  Jan 23, 2006  |  3 comments
The beta version of the Google Video Store is now online. The surprise is that it offers an abundant amount of free material in the form of short, amusing, amateur video clips. (Pick hit: a video editor ranting on "Why Mac's Suck.") The pay-for-play material includes a motley assortment of movies, NBA games, music videos, and TV shows like The Brady Bunch, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek in two flavors—Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Pricing varies according to the nature and length of the material. Movies cost from $12.99-24.99 while TV shows are $1.99 per episode. In some cases you can also pay $2.99 for a Day Pass that will allow you to download the video and view it within 24 hours on the Google Video Player. Google's software is required for paid material but the free stuff will work on any player that handles AVI files. Picture quality is standard-definition with heavy video compression artifacts, but this being Google, the user interface and search features are user-friendly. Even if you have no intention of paying for anything, the Google Video Store is a great way to while away idle hours. Click on the external link below. Or, from the Google homepage, click on More, Video.
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