David Ranada

Other Tech
JVC GR-HD1 HDV Camcorder
David Ranada  |  Jul 29, 2003  |  0 comments

So there I was, in the middle of a crowded and hectic Times Square, right when all the Broadway shows let out, shooting all the bright lights and action with this ultra-brand-new $3,500 camcorder.

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Denon AVR-2803 Digital Surround Receiver
David Ranada  |  Jul 14, 2003  |  0 comments

Photos by Tony Cordoza As much as we'd all like to own a flagship model receiver, they aren't for everybody. Though well equipped and high powered, they tend to be massive and extremely expensive. If you set your sights just a little bit lower - especially when it comes to power - you can get an awful lot of receiver for substantially less money.

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NAD L70 DVD Player/Receiver
David Ranada  |  May 12, 2003  |  0 comments

Photos by Tony Cordoza Anyone interested in an ultra easy-to-set-up home theater system usually has only one recourse: a system-in-a-box, comprising a combination DVD player and A/V receiver, five satellite speakers, and an optimistically designated "subwoofer." The weakest links in most of these systems are generally the speakers.

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Custom Installation How-To
Bravo D1 Upconverting DVD Player
David Ranada  |  Apr 29, 2003  |  0 comments

Photos by Tony Cordoza Just when you thought you had mastered the intricacies of video connectivity-having sorted out composite video, S-video, and the two flavors of component video (interlaced and progressive-scan)-V Inc.'s Bravo D1 comes along to make life complicated again.

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Custom Installation How-To
Samsung DVD-V2500 DVD Player/VCR
David Ranada  |  Mar 25, 2003  |  0 comments
Most of the Samsung DVD players we've tested have had something "different" about them. There were, for example, a couple of models with Nuon game-playing capability, and the last one we looked at could reproduce still pictures stored on Memory Stick flash-memory cards.
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Custom Installation How-To
Toshiba SD-4800 DVD-Audio/Video Player
David Ranada  |  Jan 13, 2003  |  0 comments
Finding a product that performs better than its price would lead you to expect is always a pleasure for a reviewer. Toshiba's SD-4800 is just such a product-a relatively inexpensive DVD player that's packed with all the latest features. For example, it plays DVD-Audio discs through its multichannel analog outputs, which also serve for Dolby Digital playback.
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Other Tech
Digital Audio's Last Frontiers
David Ranada  |  Jan 13, 2003  |  0 comments
This CES saw the official introduction of what used to be called the IBOC (in-Band, on-channel) terrestrial digital radio system, freshly renamed HD Radio (for high-definition) by its promotor, iBiquity.
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Other Tech
A Hard Day's Mix
David Ranada  |  Dec 02, 2002  |  0 comments
Within seconds of firing up Miramax's DVD release of the classic Beatles movie A Hard Day's Night, I knew that the Fab Four had been deep-sixed by the new set's producers. The image quality is excellent-the movie appears for the first time in a widescreen (1.66:1) video transfer-but the music is another story.
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Custom Installation How-To
A DVD Christmas
David Ranada  |  Nov 10, 2002  |  0 comments
Photos by Tony Cordoza

Like Santa descending a chimney every year with an ever-larger bag of goodies, DVD players have been coming down in price while their bundles of features have expanded.

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Custom Installation How-To
Pansonic DMR-HS2 DVD-RAM Recorder
David Ranada  |  Oct 21, 2002  |  0 comments
Photos by Tony Cordoza

At a glance, you'd probably think that Panasonic's $1,000 DMR-HS2 looks pretty much like every other DVD recorder out there-including the Panasonic DMR-E30 that I reviewed just last month. But the DMR-HS2's chassis carries clues that something more is going on here.

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