Scott Wilkinson

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Ask S&V
Balanced Output to Unbalanced Input
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 21, 2012  |  4 comments
I am very close to pulling the trigger on an Oppo BDP-95 Blu-ray player. Is there any benefit to using the XLR stereo outputs even though my Marantz SR7005 A/V receiver does not have such inputs? Is it worth buying XLR-to-RCA cables to take advantage of those connections?

Emmanuel Margetic

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The Big Picture
Balancing Act
Scott Wilkinson  |  May 13, 2009  |  4 comments

<I>There are some awesome AVRs out there, but I think it's a big compromise to run long speaker cables all around the room. Nearly every speaker manufacturer recommends using equal-length speaker cables. So unless you use monoblocks for each channel, you defy that logic.</I>

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Premiere Design
Bang & Olufsen BeoVision 10 LED-LCD TV
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 15, 2010  |  4 comments

When <A href="http://www.bang-olufsen.com">Bang & Olufsen</A> hosts a press event, it doesn't mess around. Last week, the king of Danish A/V design unveiled a new member of its flat-panel lineup at the Kopeikin art gallery in Los Angeles, and journalists got to see the BeoVision 10 in action as we sipped Dom Perignon and nibbled on gouda-apple pizza and other delicacies.

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Ask S&V
Bass Management in Blu-ray Player
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 22, 2012  |  20 comments
I am contemplating a 4.0 setup with two subs in the left and right front speakers using just the bass management of an Oppo BDP-95 Blu-ray player. If I set the left and right front speakers to Large, is the LFE channel redirected and divided between the left and right front channels? Can the center channel be totally re-directed and divided between left and right front? If the surround and back left and right speakers are set to Small, can the low frequencies from those channels be re-directed to the left and right front? Finally, can all these conditions be met simultaneously?

Michael Soderback

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Ask S&V
BD Burner, Poor Vision, Ambient Light
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 30, 2009  |  10 comments
Burning Desire
I have a pretty fancy home-theater system, and I use DirecTV as my broadcast source. I would love to be able to burn widescreen HDTV shows to a DVD. My first choice is to burn DVDs in widescreen high def. My second choice would be to burn DVDs in widescreen, even if not high def. At this time, is there a good high-def DVD burner I could buy? Price is not an issue.
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The Big Picture
BD-Live: Worth the Hype?
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jun 17, 2008  |  9 comments

Last Tuesday, I attended a demonstration of the BD-Live capabilities that will distinguish Disney's Blu-ray release of <I>Sleeping Beauty</I>, the first Disney animated title with these enhancements. Of course, to take advantage of them, you need a BD-Live (aka Profile 2.0) player, of which there are very few so far. In fact, the only ones available as of this writing are the Sony PS3 and Panasonic DMP-BD50, with the Sony BDP-S350 and S550 expected to ship soon.

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Premiere Design
Behind the Curtain
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 24, 2009  |  9 comments

Who doesn't love <I>The Wizard of Oz</I>? No one I know. Rated as one of the best films ever made, this timeless classic has been released on various home-video formats no less than 16 times since 1980. Now, 70 years after its theatrical debut, <I>Oz</I> is getting its first high-def treatment on Blu-ray for the 17th iteration. I was fortunate to be invited to a press event celebrating this milestone at Warner Brothers' Burbank studio, and I learned a lot about what went into making this ultimate version.

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CEDIA 2011
Belkin ScreenCast AV4 Wireless HDMI
Scott Wilkinson  |  Sep 07, 2011  |  1 comments
After Belkin's first attempt at a wireless HDMI system several years ago—which never got off the ground—the company is trying again with its new ScreenCast AV4. The system uses the 5GHz radio band and consists of a transmitter, shown here in the lower right, and a receiver (upper left) that can be up to 100 feet away in the same room. The transmitter has four HDMI inputs, which are selected with the included remote, and it can pass full-resolution 1080p and 3D signals. Available this fall, the list price is $249.
CES 2012
BenQ W7000 3D DLP Projector
Scott Wilkinson  |  Jan 10, 2012  |  0 comments
After flying under the radar for awhile, BenQ is back with a new home-theater projector, the W7000 ($3999, currently shipping). Like all BenQ projectors, this one is based on DLP, but it's the company's first 1080p model to offer 3D, using active glasses with DLP Link instead of IR or RF sync. The W7000 is said to produce the Rec.709 color gamut and 2000 lumens of light output, and its dynamic iris is available in 3D mode. I watched a bit of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides presented on a Screen Innovations Black Diamond II screen, and it looked quite good, even with some room light, though darkening the room completely certainly looked better.
Premiere Design
Beography
Scott Wilkinson  |  Apr 16, 2009  |  2 comments

Danish A/V manufacturer <A href="http://www.bang-olufsen.com">Bang & Olufsen</A> is undoubtedly one of the most innovative companies in the world when it comes to industrial design. Founded in 1925 by engineers Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, its products not only offer superb performance, they are works of art in their own right.

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