Audio Video News

Sound & Vision readers who participated in last week’s poll are not exactly falling over themselves to smarten up their homes with the sort of automated amenities Darryl Wilkinson wrote about in his recent blog, “Affordable New Home Automation Systems Put the Smart in Your Home.” Four in ten respondents...

Sony’s PlayStation TV is a set-top box that partners with the new PlayStation 4 console to play games on a secondary TV. But it’s not just a gaming hub—it also bids to be a media hub by accessing movies and TV shows through the PlayStation Store. It plays PS3 titles through the PlayStation Now service, which made its debut on July 31, as well as older PS2 and PS1 titles. Price is $99 for the PlayStation TV itself or $139 for the box with controller, 8-GB memory card, and digital download code for a game based on The Lego Movie.

Classé has announced the availability of its new Sigma Series, featuring the Sigma SSP 7.1-channel surround sound preamp/processor ($5,000) and a pair of amplifiers, the AMP2 ($3,000) and AMP5 ($5,000), rated at 2 x 200 watts and 5 x 200 watts into 8 ohms, respectively.

Dolby Releases Atmos Testimonial Video

Three Blu-ray titles featuring Dolby Atmos soundtracks were announced this week. Paramount Pictures will release Hercules on November 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on December 16. Lionsgate announced the November 4 release of Step Up All In on Blu-ray.

High-resolution audio is getting a big industry push, but until now the category has labored without a definition. The Digital Entertainment Group, the Consumer Electronics Association, and The Recording Academy have teamed up to offer one. They define what they call Master Quality Recording in four ways: MQ-P audio comes from a PCM source with minimum 48/20 resolution, but “typically” is 96/24 or 192/24 in today’s download services. MQ-A is from an analog source, and high-quality analog can still be deemed high-res. MQ-C grandfathers in CD-quality 44.1/16 audio. And MQ-D refers to DSD sources. Taken together, these categories define high-res audio somewhat broadly. Even so, they may give the informed consumer a better idea of what he’s buying (for those of us who still buy music).

Onkyo today announced that the firmware update enabling Dolby Atmos sound on three of its network AV receivers is now available. The free update is available via a network connection or USB download for the TX-NR636 ($699), TX-NR737 ($899), and TX-NR838 ($1,199) receivers. The NR636 and NR838 models are Sound & Vision 2014 Top Picks.