Shane Buettner

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CEDIA 2009
Focal Went Upside My Dome
Shane Buettner  |  Sep 12, 2009  |  0 comments
Audio Plus’s John Bevier totally brown-bagged me. He grinned unabashedly and led me to a darkened demo room. To see what? To hear what? Soon, I was watching a 2.35:1 image on a really big screen. Universal’s Wanted on Blu-ray, an absolute guilty pleasure, roared into its dynamically brutal train crash sequence. The sound was spacious, articulate, and punchy. You figured it out before I did, but the cute little Dome system pictured above, with speakers the size of grapefruits, is where all that sound was coming from. Walking among Focal’s impressive (and sometimes imposing) line of speakers had been a setup from the start. The Dome costs $2,500 for a 5.1 channel system, and in addition to the splashy colors, they can be mounted on stands, on wall, or plopped onto a piece of furniture. They can be swiveled any which way for optimal sound. This is a design solution that rocks!
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Fox and MGM Blu-ray '07 Releases
Shane Buettner  |  Jan 09, 2007  |  0 comments

Fox and MGM joined the Blu-ray studios in ramping up its support for the HD format in a major way. It announced that its major release titles will be day and date with DVD from now on, including movies currently in theaters like <I>Night at the Museum</I> and <I>Eragon</I> when they're released to home video later this year.

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Fox' Blu-ray Blame Game Not Driving Consumers to HD
Shane Buettner  |  Oct 13, 2007  |  23 comments

As many of you are undoubtedly aware, Fox recently jumped back into Blu-ray Disc, which is certainly welcome news. But as many are also aware, Fox' participation was apparently contingent on BD+, which to our knowledge is used for additional layers of copy restriction. Among other titles the day-and-date-with-DVD release of <I>Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer</I> and <I>Day After Tomorrow</I> came out, which also feature some BD-J encoded interactivity features. And that's where the problems started for owners of standalone Blu-ray players.

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CES 2009
Foxy Idea: Wireless HDMI
Shane Buettner  |  Jan 07, 2009  |  0 comments
Last, wireless HDMI is also coming from LG in a big way. At the press event the company didn’t elaborate on too many details, but did suggest it can pass signals as high in resolution as 1080p/60 “uncompressed.” I’m guessing in this context that means the wireless system itself doesn’t apply on the fly video compression to restrict bandwidth requirements while moving the HD signals around. No mention was made of the other side of this equation, which in the case of Blu-ray is bandwidth intensive lossless audio. I’ll visit LG on the showroom floor once the show opens and find out more. While single wires are great, no wires is even better- as long as it’s really the free lunch LG is claiming it to be!
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Projector Tech
Front Projector Technology Primer
Shane Buettner  |  Aug 03, 2007  |  0 comments
Two (And A Half) Basic Flavors
I'd love to regale you all with stories of the CRT front projectors of yesteryear. These beasts were bigger than a VW, but cost a lot more. But that's not why I'm here. Thanks to the digital revolution, high quality front projection is now as affordable as premium rear projection TV in many cases, and less expensive than many premium flat screens.
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Further Revel-Ations
Shane Buettner  |  Sep 16, 2006  |  0 comments

I know- that’s a badly overused pun. But at the insistence of editor Tom Norton and contributing writer/reviewer Randy Tomlinson I found Revel’s off-site demo of its new Salon2 loudspeaker, which is targeted to come it at around $22K/pr. And will be joined in the Ultima line by matched center and surround speakers.

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Bookshelf Speaker Reviews
Genelec 6020A Powered Monitors and 5050A Sub: On the Bench
Shane Buettner  |  Sep 13, 2006  |  0 comments
  • 5.1-Channel System Price As Reviewed: $4,320
  • 6020A L/R/LS/RS: Two-way bi-amplified active speaker with one 4" woofer and one .75" tweeter, $545/ea.
  • 5050A Subwoofer: 70-Watt powered sub with one 8" woofer and two 8" passive radiators, balanced and single-ended line-level inputs, $1,595
Genelec is a big name in the pro side of the business and is hoping to make a name in the consumer world with small, self-amplified systems like this one. The 6020A monitors are Genelec's smallest speaker yet, but still carries an amplifier for each driver in these two-ways. The 5050A sub fills on the low-end, but does so with a footprint that's just 13" around. Check our December issue to find out how it sounds.
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Goodbye DirecTV, hello Comcast.
Shane Buettner  |  Mar 22, 2007  |  Published: Mar 23, 2007  |  6 comments

The first bitter disappointment associated with moving into my new home and reconfiguring my AV system came to fruition earlier this week when it was discovered that I can no longer use DirecTV as my source of TV and HDTV programming. While the southern exposure at my new place is good, a beautiful little patch of fir trees across the street blocks one of the satellites critical for HD programming. Looks like Comcast is the only game in town for me now. Ugh. Can't say I'm looking forward to it. Let me tell you why.

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Shane Buettner Blog
Grindhouse Blu’s Party Like it’s 2006
Shane Buettner  |  Oct 09, 2010  |  8 comments
So, here’s a little slice of the Editor’s life. I live in the Pacific Northwest and work from home, traveling to Home Theater’s Los Angeles offices about a week per month to close each print issue. Last week and next week are back to back closes for HT’s December issue and the massive Buyer’s Guide annual. Coming home from these work trips, after catching up with the family my favorite ritual is opening up my stack of packages that inevitably arrive in my absence, which always includes my supplementary/impulse buys from Amazon. Yes, movies and music.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Halloween 35th Anniversary Edition
Shane Buettner  |  Feb 05, 2014  |  0 comments
Picture
Sound
Extras
Interactivity
Widely credited as the first “slasher” movie, 1978’s Halloween is a horror trailblazer and a modern classic. It was a highly successful independent film prior to people knowing the term; and before Jason and Freddy could turn horror schlock into movie franchises (or vice versa), the genre’s way was paved by writer/director John Carpenter’s boogeyman, Michael Myers. The story is deceptively simple with fictional Haddonfield, Illinois, terrorized on two Halloween nights 15 years apart.
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