Home Theater Focus : News

Monday Night Football Buys First 103” Plasma

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 14:10:00 GMT

Remember the monster sized man-eating HDTV? It was Panasonic’s 103” inch plasma the largest production plasma screen made to date. The cost is outrageous, get ready to pay some $70K for the devil’s HDTV. That’s almost as much as the Lutz’s paid for that house in Amityville NY back in the 70s.

The first customer for the giant plasma was NBC for the set of Monday Night Football. Gizmodo has an interesting take on the whole thing. We geeks who would put the 103” monster with a full 1920 x 1080 resolution and 5000:1 contrast ratio have lost. If I took it home I would lock myself in my house and watch whatever I could get my hands on in HD DVD, an Xbox360 game would be next. Watching a football game would be pretty far down my list of priorities. But football won the battle for the 103” plasma and the geeks lost. Pity.

Updates have been few and far between on the HomeTheaterFocus blog. But they will be revving back up later this month of September. Much of my time lately has been taken up with getting a new blog on another website ramped up check out the GizmoCafe blog.

I am about to drop out of civilization for awhile on a week long trek through the wilderness of Algonquin Park by canoe and foot. The only audio I’ll get out there is the sounds of loons and hopefully a chorus of wolves in the distance.

EISA Awards for Electronics Excellence

Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:16:00 GMT

EISA or European Imaging and Sound Association gives out awards every year for excellence in consumer electronics products. Like many awards they announce the winners before the actual event which seems a bit anti-climatic.

EISA is a collective of Editors-in-Chiefs from 52 electronics specialty magazines from 19 different nations in the EU. The awards for ‘06/’07 were announced yesterday although the ceremony, will be held in Berlin in two weeks. The complete list of winners can be seen at the EISA website buried under info about last year’s awards. EISA has troubles keeping the site updated.

Points of interest to me includes Philips taking two LCD HDTV awards. The High End LCD and Green TV. The High End LCD prize was won by a Philip’s Ambilight FlatTV. Ambilight is a clever feature that spreads ambient lighting behind your HDTV that actually matches a primary color on the screen. The feature is said to reduce eyestrain during long movie marathons.

The Green TV award was won by Philips 42” LCD from Philips FlatTV line. It was won for Philips' adopting environmentally sustainable manufacturing practices.

NAD won an award in the high end audio category which is very nice to see being a fan of NAD. Its entire “Master Series” line is a good bed for any budget conscious audiophile.

The category of Personal Media Player was won by none other than Apple’s iPod, surprise! Personally I think iPod is suffering overexposure that will help Microsoft with Zune. You heard it here first - Zune will be made a hit next year by a ‘pod weary public.

The best Loudspeaker was taken by B&W’s CM1 which is a bit of a surprise. Although I’ve never heard the CM1 and I know B&W make very good speakers, I’ve always been of the opinion that B&W is just a tad overpriced. I’ve made head to head comparisons with pricey B&W vs speakers at half the price I’ve never been convinced that you get enough for the extra spent. But hey, who am I to talk about Loudspeakers, I’m just a Loudmouth!

According to EISA the best all around Camera of 2007 is Nikon. Is there really any competition at that level?

I’m not sure why they announce the winners prior to the event at some awards like this. It seems to spoil the event itself. A storm of press releases are dropping right now from manufacturers that were handed awards.

Check out the new blog at GizmoCafe.com.

AMD Buys ATI

Mon, 24 Jul 2006 18:41:00 GMT

Advanced Micro Devices, AMD the world's second largest microprocessor developer and bane of Intel announced that it agreed to buy ATI for $5.4 Billion dollars. ATI Tech is a Canadian graphics processor (GPU) manufacturer who makes many of the world's top rated video cards for PCs. ATI was also awarded the contract from Microsoft to develop the GPU that went into the Xbox360.

AMD has been stealing market share away from Intel for years as the #2 chip maker for PCs. By following Intel and quietly developing its own innovative approach it has recently turned the tables on Intel in the chip making business. Intel behaves lately like a company that's intimidated by its competitor. Intel seems to have stopped innovating and started following AMD. Case in point is the new multi-media processors being developed by Intel and AMD. AMD produced its Live technology and soon after Intel announces its own imitation right down to the name, Viiv.

AMD's processors today can bring more power to your PC with chips that operate with fewer cycles per second than the competing Intel chip. AMD is able to simply do more with less. Intel is still the top chip manufacturer but AMD is now making a power play that could possibly change the shape the business.

By buying ATI, AMD is committing itself to integrating graphics technologies into future CPUs. This could appear in future AMD CPUs in much the same way AMD already integrates memory controller technology into its CPUs.

How will Intel respond? Some already speculate it could go after ATI's competitor Nvidia the top GPU (graphics processor unit) manufacturer. But to what end? Seeking integration of other technologies into its CPUs would be a departure for Intel. Creating outside architectures into its processors has long been AMD's game. But lately it's been proving so successful that Intel will have to reconsider its status quo.

Speculation has already emerged that AMD may not be finished with high profile acquisitions. Some even say that AMD may go ahead and acquire ATI's primary competitor in the GPU arena Nvidia for themselves. This would be a highly controversial move but Jen Hsun Huaang, co-founder of Nvidia corporation was a designer at AMD. Nvidia and AMD have enjoyed a partnership with Nvidia that resulted in the nForce chipsets which have been a major source of revenue for nVidia and critical success for both companies.

What will the implications be if Nvidia and ATI are united under the AMD banner? A flurry of expert speculation has already begun.

Panasonic 103in Maneater Devours Girl: Are You Next?

Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:59:00 GMT

"The poor girl didn't stand a chance." Witnesses said at the scene.

Panasonic unleashed a monster when it unveiled its world record breaking 103 inch plasma HDTV. Crowds gasped when the monstrosity was first unleashed at a public display. The crowd was horrified when the uncontrollable beast actually devoured the lovely demo model before their very eyes.

Osaka manufacturer of horrors Matsushita, known in North America as Panasonic, now plots to unleash a terrible army of man eaters across the globe. Matsushita will begin taking orders for the TH-103PZ600U in September. The world record breaking carnivore is 1080P capable and has a 4000:1 contrast ratio and 4,096 steps of gradation. It's said to contain over two million razor sharp pixels for a truly lethal 1,920x1080 bite.

Beware! If you attempt to handle the leviathan yourself you'll not only have to face its insatiable appetite but you'll be $70,000 US dollars lighter for the experience.

This new king of beasts stands 1.4 meters across and is said to be bigger than a double sized mattress and almost as heavy as an upright piano. The Japanese monster had its first battle with a similar Korean beast over the Sea of Japan. Locked in an epic struggle with Samsung's own 102 inch Plasma it was Panasonic's monster that prevailed. Now there is nothing standing between the Matsushita's abomination and North America. They are likely to enter the continental United States from both coasts. Expect the reign of terror to begin in New York and California before making its way into the Midwest if it is not stopped.

Remain vigilant and watch out for this High Definition behemoth. It might be coming to your neighborhood sooner than you think.

You can Download - Burn and Watch on TV

Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:50:00 GMT

Hollywood is slowly coming to grips with new economic opportunities to sell content over the internet. Movie and TV studios are actively seeking out contracts to distribute media files through the web. Both download to burn and media files that are playable in mobile media players are starting to crop at some of the big services such as iTunes and it's rumored Microsoft is getting in the on that game with Urge and the rumored project Zune.

But now for the first time you can legally buy downloadable Hollywood movies to burn to DVD or playback in a mobile media player. Was there was any doubt that mainstream Hollywood would follow closely after the porn industry? CinemaNow has unveiled its download-and-burn movie service that now includes mainstream Hollywood films.

It's a new way that studios can make extra money from older titles. That's all that will fill up CinemaNow's content, for now. The service will only include about 100 older movies like "Charlie's Angels", "Full Throttle" and "Scent of a Woman". So, if you're anxious for newer DVD titles that you just burn yourself you'll still have to wait. But this is an important and encouraging step.

CinemaNow and its primary rival Movielink have lacked the download and burn business model thus far. Studios are still concerned that by distributing burnable files they'll widen the doors on piracy as they'll invite users to burn multiple disks when they've only paid for one.

CinemaNow Chief Exec Curt Marvis said of the new product release:

"This is probably the most important product release we've had since we started in 1999. Customers have been asking for a long time to be able to burn disks, and they want to play them on their DVD players."

It was only April that studios started the download to own business that gave new life to services like CinemaNow and Movielink. But back in April they could only sell movies that played back on the computer only. The burn to DVD is a tremendous step even though selection is limited to so few movies.

The DVD downloads will be the film's DVD release in a file you can burn yourself. The download will cost $8.99 and will include extra programming that was part of the DVD such as interviews etc. For most of the movies included in the selection you can probably find the actual DVD in a bargain bin somewhere for less and a lot less effort.

Despite my own reservations about this particular step, it's surprising how fast this area is moving. But it's still going to be a long haul before we're downloading movies you can burn to HD DVD, Blu-ray or Holographic Disks from the Internet. There is still just too much money to be made selling pre-packaged shiny disks.

Circuit City Goes hi-fi with D&M Holdings

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:47:00 GMT

D&M Holdings is the hi-fi collective that owns names like Denon, Marantz and Boston Acoustics. Their products by Denon and Boston Acoustics have been picked up by Circuit City. D&M Holdings is originally a Japanese corporation that formed with the merger of Denon and Marantz and has since picked up several audio / video technology firms. Most notably it owns Boston Acoustics, Replay TV (the hi-fi answer to TiVo) and Rio, makers of fine digital media players.

For every winner there must be a loser. D&M Holdings is making a major push into the retail mainstream with the release of Denon and Boston Acoustics to Circuit City. The shift to D&M Holding's products by Circuit City will displace products already on shelves by Harmon Kardon and Infinity. By September's end Circuit City will have dedicated home entertainment areas of their big boxes in about 500 stores.

As expected Circuit City says it's the result of their commitment to improved home entertainment offerings…excited to add Denon and Boston Acoustics … blah … blah … blah.

A notable quote from all this was that Paul Bente the President of Harman Consumer Group's speaker division says: Harman's parting with Circuit City was very much mutual… “Our take on the situation is that the year long plus R&D sabbatical Harman Kardon took while the industry exploded into HDMI and iPod functionality may have taken a toll on the manufacturer - driving down sales and causing Circuit City to look elsewhere for market leadership.“ - Audioholics.

That's interesting. Once upon a time a company like HK taking an R&D Sabbatical wasn't a bad thing. On the contrary, hi-fi manufacturers who made high-end gear will (and still do) take lots of time off from developing new products. New products lines every year is a sign of a market driven mass production. But that's the game Circuit City is playing. Swim their pools - you gotta' play by their rules.

Denon will be releasing a dedicated line of products to Circuit City stores. So, those of you looking at Denon products at hi-fi shops won't see the same gear at Circuit City. Yamaha apparently does this already with an HTR-line of receivers. In other words, get ready for budget Denon gear. Does this mean the once prestigious Denon line has sold out?

Clint from Audioholics asks: Is this a sign that Harmon Kardon is on their way to becoming the next Sansui?

Xbox Live Retro Summer Games

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 16:15:00 GMT

Well, tie my mullet with a bandana! Xbox Live is throwing an 80s Arcade game revival.

I don't know about where you are right now but it's very hot and humid outside over here in HomeTheaterFocus land. Generally sitting around indoors playing video games is the last thing I'm thinking of when summer arrives. After a long winter it's nice to get outside. But by mid July the sunshine that only a week ago felt warm now feels like a fiery blast from a damp furnace. After more than my share of yard work in the sun I'm ready to cool off in a dark rec room with a cold brew. Apparently Microsoft thinks that's the perfect time for some 80s retro gaming.

Microsoft and Xbox Live has started a new feature specifically for this summer called Arcade Wednesdays. Xbox Live will release a new Arcade game on Wednesday for much of the summer, they have a total of five lined up for release. So, if you remember the old days of going to the arcade and playing hits like Frogger, Galaga and Street Fighter you could be in for a treat if you're an Xbox Live gamer. The final installment of Arcade Wednesday will be the legendary Pac Man on August 9th. Personally I never liked that one very much but I will definitely have to give Galaga and Street Fighter II a look. Some of the games like Frogger that was released last Wednesday will have updated graphics you can choose to play. The graphics shouldn't interfere with game play and might make Frogger a bit more appealing on an HDTV with new illustrated back drops on which you can cross the road with your froggy avatar. Sounds thrilling. Or you can play it in 100% classic mode for you purists. Are there really purists for a game where you have to cross the road without getting squished and eat flies?

Arcade Wednesdays Schedule

July 12 – Frogger
July 19 – Cloning Clyde
July 26 – Galaga
August 2 – Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting
August 9 – Pac-Man

Microsoft has been criticized a bit for not putting up enough content on Xbox Live. It's been decent but not exactly the groundswell of downloads Microsoft had originally promised. Apparently the powers that be at Microsoft has been trying to tie up some content to distribute over its Live service and it seems this is the result. Arcade Wednesday. Oh, and don't expect these thrilling classics to be free as they'll cost from $5 to $10 bucks a shot. It's no different than the other retro games already available on Xbox Live.

I know I'm old enough to remember the classics, I already have Gauntlet and Joust downloaded from Live. I look forward to adding Street Fighter and Galaga to my collection and then I'll do some 80s style party gaming. Kick out that Van Hagar and Ozzy, dudes! Let's see if we can find buyer for some jumbos of malt liquor so we can hang out at the arcade - just like old times.

Envisioneering Pronounces CableCard Dead

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:37:00 GMT

A story about CableCard technology ran in the New York Times this month that quotes Richard Doherty of the market research firm Envisioneering Group saying:

"The CableCard is essentially dead, It will go down in history like the Edsel."

Heralded as successor to the Digital Cable TV set top box CableCard is a special plug-in card provided by the local Cable TV Company roughly the size of a thick credit card. The card plugs into a compatible TV slot so you can tune in subscribed Digital Cable TV programming. CableCard currently exists in the standard 1.0 and 2.0 formats but a future version could be on the horizon (if it survives) called OpenCard. CableCard should be one of those no-brainer success stories in new technology, offering convenience to users and making more devices Digital Cable ready should hasten the conversion to HDTV.

According to the New York Times the technology has failed to capture the market and is experiencing a steady decline. Some six million CableCard equiped digital TV sets have been sold but only 170,000 (less than 3%) are actually using the feature. The rest of us are using the trusty old set top box. TV manufacturers have even begun to reduce the numbers of CableCard ready sets they sell. According to Envisioneering 80% fewer models will be released in '06 that include CableCard slots than were released in '05.

The reason for the decline seems to be the lack of a clear beneficiary besides us, the customer. Television manufacturers are only seeing it as an increased cost to producing a TV which reflects upon the price on store shelves. The cable TV companies have little incentive to adopt CableCard because they have a revenue stream in rental fees for the set top boxes they provide. Don't expect the set top box to go away anytime soon. Cable Companies are looking for ways to expand its role. Through it Cable TV has an added presence in the living room can sell services like On-Demand, PVR and the Interactive menu system. Matt Haughey from the PVR Blog says that he and many Comcast subscribers are even discouraged from using CableCard feature in their TVs when they've called to have the service activated.

Matt goes on to say the eulogy for the CableCard standard is premature and that the best of CableCard is yet to come. TiVo Series3 and Windows Vista Media Center PCs will be examples of CableCard ready devices that can record HDTV. There's little incentive for Cable TV nor TV manufacturers to bother with CableCard. But CableCard slots in a third party PVR and HTPC will benefit consumers who want to be free from the box. The success of the standard can only benefit the consumer by adding flexibility to their Cable TV subscription and ability to tune in on any CableCard ready device.

Microsoft Media Player, DRM10 Goes WiFi

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:44:00 GMT

The NY Times put out a convincing rumor yesterday about Microsoft's plans to get into the MP3 player business.

The Times says they received information about a Microsoft digital media player that would be launched by Christmas from:

“…entertainment industry executives briefed on the company's plans ... who did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the device.”

Microsoft is no stranger to manufacturing small PC hardware peripheral items like mice, keyboards and the odd network card. Microsoft really stepped into the hardware biz when it muscled its way into the console game war and went toe to toe with Sony. With confidence in its hardware manufacturing prowess Microsoft now wants to take it to an old adversary that has long owned digital media online sales and the media player markets. It's a fight that one can sense Microsoft has been itching to get into but thus far has had to sit it out on the sidelines while names like Sony, Creative and Samsung dueled against Apple. Each of these iPod competitors has agreed to use Microsoft's media player and compatibility to Microsoft's DRM10 aka PlaysForSure. DRM10 makes devices by Samsung, Creative and many others compatible with the subscription based online music services like Napster, MSN Music and Yahoo Music. But despite the best efforts of the competition 72% of all legally downloaded music is from Apple's iTunes and Apple also holds 77% of the MP3 player market. A popular music service that can take over a chunk of iTunes share is where real profits are to be made and since "entertainment industry execs" are on board with Microsoft you can be sure they're looking at not just music but also TV shows and movies.

So, what's Microsoft going to do differently? Each of Apple's competitors seems content to build iPod clones, add an FM radio and call it a day. Sony has carved some innovation out of the portable digital music player with its Walkman branded players using a unique screen and interface that doesn't try to copy the iPod as close as possible. But so far Sony's Walkman is proving far more successful as a phone than a dedicated digital media player.

According to the execs, Microsoft is going to sock it to Apple's market share with real innovations. They say an "advanced video screen" and wi-fi capabilities will give the upcoming Microsoft Media players an edge. Exactly what constitutes the "advanced video screen" is unclear. Perhaps a higher resolution or larger screen than the iPod Video is what Microsoft has planned. But wi-fi is definitely a plus. The leaked information suggests Microsoft's MP3 players will be able to download music wirelessly from the Internet - no computer, USB or Firewire cables. Hopefully the Microsoft wi-fi MP3 player will include WEP/WAP security compatibility. Without it the actual networks you'll be connecting to using Microsoft's new MP3 players will be severely limited. Most people who want to use a wireless handheld will likely want to use it in a variety of hotspots for a hassle free connection. Hassle free connections discounts the local Starbucks that charges for its wi-fi bandwidth, unless Microsoft can include a browser that will let you enter an access code.

There is a wireless MP3 player already on the market that's certainly worth a look. It's called the MusicGremlin and has its own online music service from which you can download via wi-fi. It also lets you interact with other MusicGremlin subscribers over the Internet letting you beam a song to any other wi-fi connected subscriber. There are many wi-fi possibilities in a handheld digital media player. If Microsoft can keep the costs down and integrate with its existing services like MSN it'll could potentially let you message and then share playlists with subscribers on your friends list. Apple hasn't even touched this area yet. Conventional wisdom in the digital media business has been that people don't like to subscribe to music, we subscribe to TV but buy music and that's why people like iTunes but shy away from the subscription music services. Perhaps people's minds will change if wireless possibilities open new a relationship with music and connectedness with your friends. Many already have an MSN account, add music to that, add wireless compatible hardware that connects you from any wi-fi hotspot (so much cheaper than the cell phone wireless network) now throw in the possibility of an MSN / Xbox Live connection and the mind boggles.

It's been long speculated that a bridge between MSN Music services and Xbox Live's marketplace is a future possibility. A portable media player with its connections to the "entertainment industry execs" that provide the media - might just close that gap between MSN and Live. How many Live members would jump at the chance to download music and movies using the Xbox 360's remote control? Or just synchronize with the Xbox Live Marketplace when the latest episode of your favorite TV show is available, then stored on your Xbox 360 or through Managed Copy to your Vista PC and if you like - synched wirelessly to your Microsoft MP3 player.

Welcome to the world of end to end Microsoft DRM compatibility. Soon a user should be able to download media to their home entertainment system and then offload it to Microsoft's own mobile device. As cool as it all is, does all this DRM and Managed Copy give anyone else the feeling that big brother is watching just over our shoulder?

Was the PS3 CPU Built for Gamers?

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:57:00 GMT

It comes as no shock that most people employed by Microsoft believe the Xbox 360 is the superior console to the upcoming PS3. But Matt Lee engineer with Microsoft's Game Technology Group digs a little deeper than the average Microsoft artillery lobbed at the Sony camp. His recent expose of weaknesses in the PS3's Cell Processor for gaming are either an elaborate PR job or perhaps there is something behind it.

Matt Lee says the Cell Processor architecture doesn't appear to be designed with gaming in mind and says: "Some aspects of the SPEs, such as the lack of branch prediction, make them particularly unsuited to running most game code, which contains a lot of branches."

Matt believes the PS3's Cell Processor was designed more for serialized streaming math code, more common in video codecs and audio processing. He adds that significant differences between PS3's Cell and Xbox360's CPU cores handling of graphics memory means porting a game from the Xbox360 to the PS3 will be extremely difficult for developers. Xbox360 has more flexible processing power and can be allocated where needed most. All the memory can be accessed equally by all of the Xbox 360's CPU cores. Sony's Cell architecture is designed asymmetrically and that will probably lead to unbalanced allocations of processing power.

Matt sees the PS3 Cell Processors operating with a limit of 256MB graphics textures at any given time. He says you'll never see more due to the system memory banks and split graphics. Matt believes Sony customers will endure compromised graphics quality in PS3 games due to this split in graphics memory. Xbox 360 boasts 512MB of unified memory that is valuable to both games developers and graphic artists.

Because of the design of the PS3 Cell, Matt Lee has verified that the processor could have been designed for other uses as well as gaming. Being a market leader in almost all consumer electronics, Sony could use the Cell in other places such as audio or video signal processing chips. Matt Lee's observations about the Cell Processor are actually confirmed by Sony that says the Cell will be appropriate to be used in all types of consumer electronics. Does this represent trouble for the PS3 knowing its Cell Processor was built to be a jack of all trades but master of none?

Philips Rushes to Wi-Fi with Draft-N

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:26:00 GMT

Royal Philips Electronics just announced what might be a royal blunder for consumers. The Dutch electronics company cut a deal with French semiconductor manufacturer Metalink Ltd. The deal will give Philips access to Metalink's 802.11 draft-N chipsets for wireless home theater devices. Philips plans to bring out a new line of wi-fi aware home theater products including HDTVs and set top boxes with built in high speed wi-fi. The enhanced bandwidth of draft-N using Metalink's new WLANPlus chipset will deliver MIMO technology that was adopted for 802.11n to deliver multiple HDTV streams to receiving Wi-Fi devices within 100 feet in the 5GHz band.

Philip Solis, senior analyst at ABI Research says: "We believe that in 2007, driven by the adoption of the 802.11n standard, Wi-Fi chipsets will be widely used by consumer electronics manufacturers for products such as HDTV displays and DVRs (Digital Video Recorders)"

Wireless home theater is a great idea that will eventually take off. The rush to put high definition ready wireless products on store shelves is tempting but Philips does consumers no favors bringing them out in the current draft-N iteration. 802.11n will be the next step in wireless protocols. Its enhanced bandwidth and speeds will be capable of multiple streams of high definition video and uncompressed multi-channel audio through MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) wireless feeds. But the new protocol must first be defined by the Wi-Fi Alliance (the technical body that defines wireless protocols) before it is considered complete. Products on store shelves right now calling themselves 802.11n are only "draft-N" or "pre-N", meaning they're only 802.11n inspired. Philips will hurt early adopters by using the protocol in expensive devices like set top boxes and even HDTVs. It'll be bad enough when unlucky consumers have to replace a draft-N Linksys router when the real 802.11n protocol is released. But draft-N in your next HDTV will be downright frustrating. Philips announcement to use draft-N arrives at the same time new draft-N problems were exposed.

Draft-N almost certainly won't be compatible with the final 802.11n protocol. Testing has already demonstrated troubles getting current draft-N products made by different manufacturers to communicate with each other. New information shows that draft-N routers will actually jam 802.11 b/g wireless signals.

The new problems discovered with some draft N equipment should technically make them illegal to operate under the guidelines of the FCC. Interoperability and interference tests were conducted with various draft-N routers using all the major chipsets available today. It seems draft-N routers using chipsets by Airgo, Broadcom and Marvell not only had problems communicating with 802.11 b/g routers at high speeds but would jam their transmissions. The problem was most serious using routers featuring the Airgo chipset and was described as "obliterating any 802.11 b/g router in the vicinity". Although present, interference problems were less significant using Broadcom and Marvell based routers. To be fair, no routers using the Metalink chipset that Philips will use had been tested. But you'll probably have to use Philip's own Metalink based routers. It would be very difficult to get one device to work with all the conflicting draft-N products on the market today because as mentioned, the protocol isn't even complete. The need for faster wireless technologies and appetite for buying so called "future proof" technologies will prompt unwary consumers to buy products they don't realize aren't ready.

Getting out of the jam.

The best advice for someone wishing to prevent being jammed by noisy neighborhood routers using the wireless draft-N would be to upgrade to 802.11a at 5GHz. The 2.4 - 2.5GHz bands are getting overcrowded with interference and are best avoided.

Samsung Blu-ray Players Ship

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:04:00 GMT

Samsung Electronics America Inc shipped North America's first consumer Blu-ray disk player to retailers today. The playback device is scheduled to be sold to the US market on June 25th, that’s about the same day as the first Blu-ray movies. Samsung's Blu-ray disk player is the BD-P1000 and will retail at $999. Blu-ray will be the most powerful disk media format available to the public with the ability to store 50 Gigabytes on a dual layer disk.

Blu-ray movies will be mastered in 1920x1080P and will send this high resolution video through the BD-P1000's HDMI output. Samsung's BD-P1000 will up-convert standard DVD movies to 1080P. The BD-P1000 is backward compatible to DVD, CD and can playback DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD+R. Supported audio formats include Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, DTS, MP3 and 192KHz LPCM. For playback of your own high resolution still image slideshows Samsung included a 10-in-2 memory card reader that can read all the major memory card formats. Let's hope it runs a lot quieter and less buggy than early reviews have demonstrated of Toshiba's HD DVD player.

Why do I care?

The next generation disk media is seen as a boon for anyone who owns an HDTV and demands disk media that can produce images up to the capabilities of the new television technology. Currently DVD only offers image quality at a resolution of 480P through a progressive scan DVD player. So, the DVD is a serious bottleneck in image quality when using an HDTV. Even so called up-sampling DVD players cannot exceed the source material's limit of 480 lines of resolution. Most HDTV owners know that the image quality they receive from digital cable, satellite TV or over air HD broadcasts are far superior to what they get on DVD. HD broadcast television sends video signals to your HDTV at resolutions of 1080i or 720P. An HD DVD or Blu-ray disk is capable of delivering video at a resolution of 1080P, that's about five times the resolution of the original 480i video that is stored on a DVD movie disk.

The biggest benefit to Blu-ray over HD broadcast TV is that it's free of many imperfections inherent in Mpeg2 compression used by broadcast television. Macroblocking occurs when high definition images move too fast for the decompression wall of Mpg2 video. Highly compressed broadcast TV diminishes sound quality affecting frequency response, separation and soundstage in your audio. These problems should not be an issue when using the new high def disk formats. Newer compression and audio formats (Dolby Digital Plus) will provide your audience with audio that is superior DVD and video superior to broadcast HDTV. It's more than the best of both worlds!

Clouds of War

Although the Blu-ray format is locked in heated competition with rival HD DVD, Blu-ray has received favorable industry support and appears to be in the lead. Blu-ray, developed by Sony, was able to get more movie studios on board its format securing more movie titles. The perception of Sony's Blu-ray being ahead in the format war is partly due to its greater numbers, it can hold more information per disk. A single HD DVD can hold 15 Gigabytes of data. A single layer Blu-ray disk can hold 25 Gigabytes of data. Although both disk formats are a considerable leap from DVD's 9 Gigs. The storage capabilities of both formats are enough to meet the increased demands of movies in high definition.

Top Home Theater Websites Announce: "Its show time!"

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 19:34:00 GMT

It's the biggest union of Home Theater on the web since the Home Theater Alliance opened the balcony doors on its A-list of HT. Two Home Theater websites dedicated to consumer help have formed an uncommon bond that makes both bigger and better than ever.

The HomeTheaterShack is the new kid on the web. It's a dedicated home theater and hi-fi forum created by Sonnie Parker who claims to be a bona-fide hillbilly from south Alabama and John Mulcahy formerly of TAG McLaren, developer of the Room EQ Wizard software. Since opening its lobby doors in April the HomeTheaterShack already boasts over a thousand users and over four thousand posts. Sonnie, co-founder of the HomeTheaterShack, says they took a different approach to building a dedicated forum community:

"We immediately acquired several administrators and moderators. These staff members are heavily involved in forums and respected throughout the home theater communities."

SVS Speaker Contest

The 'Shack has a limited promotional contest compliments of SVS Speakers. Members who post 50 or more times with at least one product review are entered into a drawing for a complete 5.1 speaker system by SVS.

"Our mission is to provide a friendly home theater forum where people can find genuine help in a respectful environment without all the lame or snobby responses you might get elsewhere. Home Theater Shack is a forum for the novice as well as the elite audiophile." Says Sonnie, lead Shackster and developer of the popular bass EQ guide called BFD Guide now hosted on HTS.

The 'Shack's mission statement couldn't have been a better fit with HomeTheaterFocus.com. HTF has gained momentum as one of the most popular home theater news blogs on the web. The HomeTheaterFocus forums have provided help for beginners with audio / video questions for years. But emphasis on helping first time A/V shoppers become familiar with the terms and technology isn't conducive to creating a bustling community of rabid home theater and hi-fi fans. Long stretches where the only sounds out of the forums were virtual crickets HTF's admins decided it was time to retire the forum to a home where beginners to the technology are sure to get the attention they need.

Enter the partnership of two sites that represents more than a link exchange. HomeTheaterFocus gets a home for its beginner community to live on and HomeTheaterShack gets yet another moderator with one of the hottest HomeTheater Blogs on the web.

Whether you're looking for front page news, information or you just want to sound off about the latest technology - the merger between the hometheatershack and hometheaterfocus boasts one of the few family friendly environments with a commitment to helping people through the web.

TiVoCasting is Here; Is Anyone Impressed?

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 19:31:00 GMT

TiVo, that little PVR service that keeps on ticking after repeated beatings is continuing to find new services for its customers. TiVoCasting is the new name of the feature unveiled yesterday by TiVo that will allow online content providers to send video feeds directly to your TV through TiVo. Funny thing about the name, it had been previously called Video PodCasting but TiVo wisely decided the name was too tied to Apple's brand.

Subscribers with TiVo's Series2 hardware can now watch video from online sources like Cnet, Rocketboom, even special highlights from the NBA and other online video sources. Integration with TiVo's menu system couldn't be easier. You access TiVoCasts through the Showcase area on TiVo Central. From here all the videos are offered at no extra charge. Of course you won't escape advertising. TiVo's partner content providers have the ability to integrate advertising into their TiVoCasts.

TiVoCasting is interesting but not exactly revolutionary. Grainy online video blogs and selected content through your TV isn’t going to bring a whole new wave of customers over to TiVo like something truly unique might. If TiVo could pull off IP streams to the TV with movies and video content in an OnDemand style service, that would be something special. The real potential for web integration with Home Theater is nothing short of a true alternative to Cable and satellite TV services. Perhaps the phone companies will answer that call with broadband IPTV which is just on the horizon. Consumers really want quality feeds of only those movies and TV shows they want to see instead of having to subscribe to an entire network or package. Now that would be truly interesting! But that's out of TiVo's reach. For now TiVoCasting is likely to be relegated to occasional curiosity for most subscribers.

Anyone with a Windows XP Media Center PC has played with the Online Spotlight that is similar to TiVoCasting. The web content on TiVo's new service is limited now but will but should grow quickly. We can only hope it will broaden public exposure to online only media sources. Would you be willing to sit in front of the tube to watch a video you're not already watching from your PC?

Circuit City Home Theater Support Forum Hacked

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 22:50:00 GMT

Learn to protect yourself from the latest wave of Russian hackers!

Mega-store Circuit City was unwittingly distributing a virus for the past two weeks before it was discovered and cleaned up yesterday. Circuit City's Home Theater message boards were hacked and had been distributing a virus. It's a good excuse to have better taste in forums. The forum’s URL is part of forum.circuitcity.com and is not part of the greater www.circuitcity.com website. So if you’ve visited the regular Circuit City site lately, don’t worry.

Visitors of the message boards using an unpatched Internet Explorer browser were liable to have the virus installed on their PCs. The virus routed victims to a website out of Russia that installs a harmful back door on your computer. This opening gave hackers control over the Circuit City Forum user's computer that could be used to steal secure financial information from the user.

Only visitors with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser that hadn't been updated with last January's patch were susceptible. This is a good reason to keep up with those Windows Updates. The .biz website where the virus was sending victims is hosted by a Russian Internet service provider. This website happens to be on the same block of IP Addresses as a serious Internet fraud attack earlier this year that hit thousands of computers worldwide.

The Washington Post reported on this infamous attack in March. It has been identified as among the most sophisticated cases of Internet fraud yet. This keylogger hack also exploited Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Victims of this scam were duped into clicking a link to a Russian website that let perpetrators record user’s keystrokes. This opens the door to a world of your secure information including credit card numbers and other sensitive data.

The method behind the hack was a clever one and worth filing away for your personal rip-off detector. A victim name Graeme Frost in England received an email summarizing a digital camera purchase with his credit card. A link within the email was specifically for disputing the bill. Now is when the red flag should go up! Graeme clicked it and was taken to a web page that installed the password stealing program that transmitted personal and financial information that presumably he typed in himself trying to get to the bottom of the purchase. The keylogger logs his keystrokes and the hackers make off with the loot.

Dasvidanya!

Edit June 4th: I understand that some who use CircuitCity forums and shop at the store might have taken offense to the remark that they have bad taste in forums. It's not my intention to offend anyone using a forum to learn more about electronics or to rave about an exciting product they bought at CC. There are lots of valid reasons for using a forum.

But I consider a forum to be a place for unbiased advice which a forum run by Circuit City would not be. CC forums are an infomercial for its products and services. Far better to use one of the many quality forums out there populated by real HT enthusiasts including forums at www.audioholics.com, www.avsforum.com , www.avforums.com and www.hometheatershack.com

Circuit City might be a great place to buy gear with a big selection and good products. People who frequent the CC Forums would seem to me to be the kind of people who like to watch Cher in a lab coat talking about skin care products. I could be wrong, as always it's just my opinion.