Other Tech

You've heard that a digital video recorder (DVR) will change the way you watch TV, and you know you want one. Beyond that, you're at a loss. How do you choose between the different models? How do you even know what to look for? Here are some questions to help guide you on your way to time-shifting bliss.

Despite all the huffing and puffing over copy protection, making your own audio and video recordings is easier than ever. And for audio in particular, recording quality is also better than ever. The tough part is sorting through all the alternatives - a task we'll strive to simplify here.

Click to read PDF More:Flat TVs for Every Room

Been to your local electronics store lately? If you have, you've probably noticed that price tags on HDTVs don't hit you with the same sticker shock that they used to. Even those sleek plasma and LCD models - once reserved for people who spend as much on a TV as a new car - have prices a lot less coronary-inducing.

Back in those crazy, insecurity-ridden early days of my career as a self-taught home theater designer, my recurring nightmare was that I would run out of fresh ideas, that somehow my clients would discover that I was incompetent and pull a Donald on me: "You're fired!" Then, one cold morning in the winter of 1996, my nightmare almost became a reality.

There is a quiet epidemic lurking among us - a disease so awful and destructive that it can kill the thrill and excitement that define home theater. It's the consumer electronics industry's dirty little secret: an ugly mold that festers behind closed media-room doors, eating away at the power and majesty of the best movie soundtracks.