OTHER TECH

You've probably seen them outside the supermarket. You know - those big red vending machines. But instead of a soda for $1.25, you get a movie. For $1. Swipe your credit/debit card, and the disc is all yours for the night. That's Redbox, and the machines are popping up everywhere, ready to supply the masses with low-commitment, impulse-rental DVDs. With 20,000 machines, each holding about 500 discs, Redbox is making tons of money. And some Hollywood studios are going ballistic.

To disregard the hi-fi end of what we do is wrong," says Tom Petty of his decision to include a Blu-ray Disc with 62 live tracks mixed in 5.1 as part of the Deluxe Edition of his career-spanning boxed set with the Heartbreakers, The Live Anthology (Reprise). That edition, is impressive indeed. Besides the Blu-ray, it comprises five live CDs, two DVDs with two previously unreleased shows, one vinyl LP, a book, lithographs, and other goodies.

Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they're willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing. Yet all the hot technology seems to go into those sexy flat-panel TV sets that people who don't know a pixel from a pineapple buy at discount stores while they're picking up tube socks and army-size bags of Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos.

Call it the projection paradox. Projector owners are so devoted to their pursuit of a cinematic effect that they're willing to spend thousands of dollars more than the average TV buyer and endure lights-out viewing.

Another year, another roundup of 20 amazing products. Yes, for those of us who regularly write about and test the best that the A/V world has to offer, life can get pretty repetitive - until we step back from the test bench and take a look at the big picture. What we're seeing in our 2009 Editors' Choice Awards assortment is gear that ranges in price from around $300 on up to $85,000.