HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

Gary Yacoubian Discusses 16-Ultra Subwoofer This year SVS introduced the world to their 16-Ultra subwoofer line at CES. It was so well received that it was awarded a CES Innovation Award. On today's show we speak with SVS President Gary Yacoubian where we discuss this achievement. Here are a few features of the 16-Ultra Subwoofer: 16" Ultra Driver With 8" Edge Wound Voice Coil 1,500 Watts Continuous, 5,000+ Watts Peak Power Sledge Amplifier With Fully Discrete MOSFET Output http://www.htguys.com/storage/content-images/svs/Ultra16Amp.jpg Subwoofer Control And Bass Management Smartphone App For Apple® And Android® Devices http://www.htguys.com/storage/content-images/svs/Ultra16App.jpg

Is Your TV Spying on You? Much has been made about a recent complaint filed by the FTC and the New Jersey Attorney General alleging that while you've been watching TV on your Internet connected Vizio HDTV, unbeknownst to you, it has been watching you back. As Ara and Braden are both owners of Internet connected Vizio televisions, they are both victims of this snooping. But what did Vizio actually do? Is it a terrible invasion, or not really that big of a deal? Are other manufacturers doing the same thing? Let's dive in and find out. The Complaint According to ftc.gov (the below is a direct quote from their website): "VIZIO, Inc., one of the world's largest manufacturers and sellers of internet-connected "smart" televisions, has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the Office of the New Jersey Attorney General that it installed software on its TVs to collect viewing data on 11 million consumer TVs without consumers' knowledge or consent. The stipulated federal court order requires VIZIO to prominently disclose and obtain affirmative express consent for its data collection and sharing practices, and prohibits misrepresentations about the privacy, security, or confidentiality of consumer information they collect. It also requires the company to delete data collected before March 1, 2016, and to implement a comprehensive data privacy program and biennial assessments of that program. According to the agencies' complaint, starting in February 2014, VIZIO, Inc. and an affiliated company have manufactured VIZIO smart TVs that capture second-by-second information about video displayed on the smart TV, including video from consumer cable, broadband, set-top box, DVD, over-the-air broadcasts, and streaming devices. In addition, VIZIO facilitated appending specific demographic information to the viewing data, such as sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and household value, the agencies allege. VIZIO sold this information to third parties, who used it for various purposes, including targeting advertising to consumers across devices, according to the complaint. According to the complaint, VIZIO touted its "Smart Interactivity" feature that "enables program offers and suggestions" but failed to inform consumers that the settings also enabled the collection of consumers' viewing data. The complaint alleges that VIZIO's data tracking—which occurred without viewers' informed consent—was unfair and deceptive, in violation of the FTC Act and New Jersey consumer protection laws. The $2.2 million payment by VIZIO includes a payment of $1.5 million to the FTC and $1 million to the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, with $300,000 of that amount suspended." Our Take When we first heard the news, we thought it was dire. There are, or have been, Vizio TVs with built-in support for video chat apps like Skype, so they have cameras built into them as well. We thought that perhaps Vizio was using the camera to actually spy on you in your home. That might even be what you thought as well if you read the title of this segment without listening to the show or reading the text. But that isn't the case. That's just a sensationalized headline to attract attention. Yes we're guilty of that. Sorry. Ok, not Sorry. It turns out that Vizio wanted to suggest content for you to watch based on other things that you have chosen to watch yourself. Seems harmless enough right? Well, your HDTV doesn't actually know about everything that could possibly be suggested, or the relationships between different shows so it could make the recommendations on its own. To know that, it had to tell Vizio servers in the cloud what you were watching, so the servers could make the relationships and let the TV know what it should suggest for you. On a pure technical level, it sounds quite reasonable and we totally understand why Vizio would do something like that. But from a privacy level, it is super, super creepy. Watching the news? OK cool, no problem. Vizio knows. Who cares? Watching some adult oriented content? Vizio knows that too. They know what you're into. Staying home all day to watch Anime when you should be at work? Yup, Vizio knows that as well. They were tracking everything. But that's not the worst part. If the data was anonymized and scrubbed after it was used, that would be one thing. Creepy sure, but not terrible. But they went a step further. In addition to tracking your viewing habits, they also had data on your sex, age, income, marital status, household size, education level, home ownership, and household value. How did they get that data? Because they had your IP address. They knew who you were. Oh, but wait, it gets worse. Not only were they tracking all this info, viewing habits and demographic data, but they were then turning around and selling this information to other third parties. And of course they would. It's valuable data. What are the viewing

Oppo UDP-203 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player Many of you (us included) have gone out and purchased a 4K TV sets but still have Blu-ray players connected to them. Sure these TVs do a good job at upconverting your 1080p content but we want more. We want native content at full bandwidth! There have been UHD players on the market for about a year that run about $300. Still many decided to wait. Some hoping for lower prices and others waiting for Oppo Digital to release their UHD player. If you were like us and waiting on the Oppo, your wait is over! The Oppo UDP-203 Ultra HD/Blu-ray player is available and it's only $549. We say only because it packs a lot of features in for that $549: Audio and Video Processing that has made Oppo a staple among those who are particular about their entertainment. Oppo has designed a custom quad-core processor for the video processing and they use a 32 bit 8 channel DAC from AKM to support audiophile grade audio. Fast Disc Loading using an optimized laser mechanism. HDR/Dolby Vision, the UDP203 supports the HDR10 format and will support Dolby Vision via a firmware upgrade. Upscaling is what put Oppo on the map in the early days of HDTV. Their new play takes that to a new level with the ability to upscale your Blu-ray discs to 4K. For the audiophile there is support for lossless audio All the latest surround formats are supported 7.1 Analog Output Well integrated with IR, RS-232, third party IP Control system, and HDMI CEC commands. The player also supports Trigger In and Out, so it can automatically turn on and off other devices connected to it for the ultimate convenience. Setup Setup was easy! We pulled out the old Oppo player and put this one in it's place. We did have to swap out all but the Ethernet cable. The HDMI cable only needs to be swapped out if it's not certified as high speed. Since Oppo includes one in the box we just used the one that came with the player. Since our receiver is HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2 certified we went through it. But if you have a situation where you don't have a receiver that supports the latest standards you can use the HDMI 1.4 output on the Oppo to go to the receiver and use the HDMI 2.0 output to go to the TV. This will make it possible for a lot of people to enjoy high quality video and audio without having to buy a new receiver! For our testing we used two TVs. One that was 4K but did not support HDR and another one that did support 4K and HDR. The entire chain is described below: Oppo UDP203 ----> Yamaha RX-850A ---> Vizio 70 inch P-Series UHD TV Oppo UDP203 ---> LG 65UH6150 The Vizio was used for watching HDR content on TVs that don't support HDR and the LG was used for the full experience. BTW, you can find the LG 65UH615A at Costco or Sam's club for about $200 less than the 65UH6150 and from what we can tell they are identical in specs. After everything was connected we updated the firmware which took about 20 minutes. After that we were on our way. The menus are very basic but very functional. There are menus for Music, Photos, Movies, Network, Setup, and Favorites. The only menu we explored however is the network. We were somewhat surprised to see our Plex Server show up. It was a crude implementation but all our content was there. We were able to play some movies but the results weren't very good,. The playback was choppy. This was with a hardwired connection as well. Since that wasn't our main purpose of the review we got a few UHD discs and pushed forward. The Oppo allows you to tweak some video parameters. For our review we did not touch any of them. In fact the TVs were also left in their respective movie/cinema modes. We felt that this is how most people watch their TVs. If you have a professional calibrate your TVs you can expect even better results than what we experienced. Performance Our evaluation was conducted with The Magnificent 7, Independence Day Resurgence, and Keeping up with the Jones. By the way, buy the UHD version of any movies you plan on watching in the future even if you don't have a UHD player since they all have a Blu-ray option for purchase. First up was watching Blu-rays on the Vizio. For this we went back in our vault and pulled out Blackhawk Down. We were really looking at the night scenes and in particular the scene looking through the night scope. In these cases we were looking at how much detail was present. There would be no way to compare it against an HDR version but we were hoping that we would see more than the Blu-ray. And for this we were surprised. It did look better than the Blu-ray. The black levels were deep but not so deep that you couldn't see detail. You could easily make out details in people's faces and see the sweat and grime from a day of fighting. The night vision shot had clarity and a crispness that seemed to be enhanced by the player. The upconverter in the Oppo is very good. When examined up close we could not see any artifacts like in the old days of upconverting SD to HD. We w

Whole House Music with Chromecast Audio and Grace Digital CastDock X2 We've been on a quest for DIY whole house music for nearly a decade. Going all the way back to the Squeezebox from Slim Devices. We even tried a digital media player with a built in FM broadcaster we could pick up on our old school radios throughout the home. Over time, Braden settled in on Sonos while Ara landed on an Airport Express solution. There are other options, though, so we decided to check out what Chromecast Audio from Google can do. About Chromecast Audio The Chromecast technology, sometimes referred to as Google Cast technology, allows you to send audio or video from your computer, tablet or smartphone to a compatible playback device. The original Chromecast was primarily intended for video. You'd plug it into your TV, instantly turning it into a smart TV you could send content to from your other smart devices. For example, watch YouTube from your YouTube app on your phone on your big, beautiful HDTV. It was, and is, a very cost effective way to turn an otherwise "dumb" TV into a smart TV. Then Google came out with the Chromecast Audio. It does just what you'd think, it drops the video part and just plays the audio you send to it from your personal device. Sure you can listen to YouTube on a Chromecast Audio, but it's intended more for the pure listening apps like Spotify, Pandora, Google Play Music or iHeartRadio. There are a lot of benefits to it, the first being the price. You can't get it on Amazon, because they sell competing products, maybe not competing with the Chromecast Audio directly, but certainly competing with the full Chromecast device. So if you want one, you can get it from Google for only $35. But keep your eyes open, because they do go on sale from time to time. If you were to pick one up, you'd be surprised at how diminutive it is. The Chromecast Audio itself is about the size of an Oreo cookie. It has two ports, one on either side. One is a micro USB port for power, the other is a 3.5 mm audio jack for connecting it to whatever audio device you want to use to play the music. You can plug it into any powered speakers or any audio device in your listening room like a receiver, processor or amplifier. It comes with the micro USB cable and plug adapter to power it, along with a really short 3.5 mm cable to connect it to your speakers. About Grace Digital CastDock X2 If you have a pair of powered speakers you can connect the Chromecast Audio to, then you're set. That's all you need. And if you like the look of them enough to put them on display in your kitchen, living room, family room, den, etc. you're golden. You can add whole house audio zones for $35 a pop. Not a bad deal. But what if you don't have the speakers on hand? That's where the CastDock X2 from Grace Digital comes in. It is an all-in-one, 2.1 speaker with a built-in dock for your Chromecast Audio, turning the Chromecast Audio into a standalone audio device you can add as a playback zone to any room in your home. The suggested price is $150, but they're at Amazon right now for $95. The CastDock X2 itself looks very similar to a Sonos Play:1 speaker. It is slightly larger, but also feels a little lighter. But don't let the weight fool you. It packs in a digital 50 watt class D amplifier that can move plenty of sound, but we'll cover performance in just a bit. It has a "lid" of sorts that easily pops off revealing the dock for the chromecast audio. On one side of the dock is the micro USB cable to provide power. On the other side is a digital fiber optical connection to support 24-bit, 192-khz lossless sound from your Chromecast Audio. Setup Setting the whole thing up really is very, very simple. If you're using the CastDock X2 with your Chromecast Audio, you simply pop off the top, plug in both connectors, replace the top, then plug the CastDock X2 into power and you're ready to go. If you decide not to use the CastDock X2, setup is still every bit as simple. You just use the two cables that come with the Chromecast Audio instead: one for power and the other goes into your powered speakers. Once you've then plugged your powered speakers into the wall, you've got yourself a new audio zone, provisioned and ready to start blasting some tunes. After the physical setup is complete, everything transitions over to your smart device or your computer. On your smartphone or tablet, you need to add the Google Home app to control the Chromecast Audio devices in your house. The Google Home app will connect to the Chromecast Audio device and allow you to: add it to your Wifi, give it a custom name like Kitchen or Family Room, and put it into a group if you have multiple Chromecast Audio devices throughout your home. You can create groups like Downstairs, Upstairs, or add all of them into one big group called Whole House. It's totally up to you. If you're going the Chromecast Audio plus Grace Digital CastDock X2 route, every new whole house audio zone is going to

Audioengine HD3 Powered Bookshelf Speakers We listen to so much audio sitting at our computers, whether it be a Youtube video, your music library, or watching something on Netflix, we may as well have some nice speakers to listen on. Sure you can buy bookshelf speakers and hook up an amp and then you need to find room on your desk to fit everything. Or you can buy some speakers designed for the desktop with an amp built in. They range from junk to really good. Read that as cheap to expensive. But if you want small powered speakers that sound good, really good, take at look at the Audioengine HD3 (Buy Now $399) speakers that were recently introduced. Features: High-fidelity Bluetooth® with aptX®, extended range and simplified setup USB audio input Dual analog audio inputs and a full-range variable output Custom Kevlar woofers and silk tweeters Hand-built cabinets with furniture-grade finishes Detachable magnetic speaker grills Threaded brass inserts to secure speakers to floorstands We have always been impressed with Audioengine products and the HD3 is no exception. They are truly well built. The fit and finish are first rate. They are made out of .7 inch (18mm) MDF with real Walnut or Cherry veneer or Satin Black. The amplified speaker weighs 4lbs (1.8Kg) and the passive speaker weighs 3.4lbs (1.5Kg). Each speaker measures 7"(H) x 4.25"(W) x 5.5"(D) so they will easily fit on your desk. Audioengine includes everything you need to get up and going in the box. Of course there is power cables but they also include speaker cables pre-fitted with high quality banana plugs, and 3.5mm audio cables. There is also a Micro USB cable to connect directly to your computer or mobile device. For our testing we used the USB and Bluetooth connections. One of the big selling points of the HD3 is that it's Bluetooth supports AptX technology. AptX is a compression codec that is highly efficient which allows for higher quality audio as well as lower latency. We listened to music that was ripped with Apple Lossless or 256Kbps AAC. For those who connect directly through their computer's USB port, Audioengine has essentially taken their audiophile grade 24 bit D1 DAC (only 48Khz vs 96Khz input for D1) and put it into the HD3. So you can go directly from your computer to your speakers in the digital domain with the highest quality possible. Audioengine has put a lot of technology into these speakers resulting in a higher signal to noise ratio with lower distortion that will reward the listener who uses the USB connection over Bluetooth. The HD3s also have an extended range that allowed us to move throughout the house without any audio dropouts. Finally, if you want to to be respectful of your co-workers or family members within earshot of the HD3s, there is a headphone jack built into the front of the powered (left) speaker. Audioengine says the amp is able to provide low-impedance, high-fidelity audio and a 2-volt output which will drive a wide range of headphones. Performance Before we did any critical listening we let these speakers break in. It is recommended that you play music at low levels for at least 24 hours and then gradually increase the levels for another 24. It seems like a pain but you will notice a huge difference after listening on speakers that have properly broken in. Being a desktop setup we lowered our expectations a little. Audioengine makes great speakers but how much sound could they get out of such a small package? The answer is a lot! First we focused on songs with a lot of bass to test what we thought was going to be a limitation of the HD3. We were pleasantly surprised by how low these speakers can go. The HD3 is ported along the bottom front of the speaker to extend the bass and when we listened to "Sexy and I know it" by LMFAO we were treated to a cool breeze from all the air that driver was moving. The result was some decent low end thump. The specification says the speakers can go as low as 65 Hz which is really good for such small speakers. There is a bass reduction switch that limits the amount of bass to 100 Hz. We activated it on Tin Pan Alley by Stevie Ray Vaughn and immediately noticed the bass tighten up. It also softened up to the point of losing its punch. You may like this feature but for us we prefered the booming full effect so for the remainder of our listening we turned this feature off. To test the mids and highs we some BB King. His Guitar sounded precise, warm, and fluid depending on the song. His voice sounded full and textured. We can easily see working on a project at your computer and listening to the HD3 being a perfect combination Then we listened to some modern "loud" music. Some Swedish House Mafia, Icona Pop, and Imagine Dragons. All songs that we have listened to in the past and enjoy. The results were OK. The audio just kind of got muddy and it was hard to zero in on specific sounds. We know that's how some of this music is mastered but larger speakers were able to deal wi

Predictions for 2017 Time for the HT Guys to look into our crystal ball and try and predict the HDTV and Home Theater landscape for 2017. Our crystal ball is never as clears as a good HDTV but we give it a shot nonetheless. Ara: DirecTV Now will announce more than 250K Subscribers by year's end We have no official number on how many subscribers there are to the satcaster's IPTV product and there are some missing pieces to the offering. I am betting that DirecTV will add a cloud based DVR and sign deals with local channels to really make this a service that you would make cutting the cord worthwhile. Networks will allow streaming of their live feeds without the need for a TV subscription This is the year the networks realize it's about eyeballs! It doesn't matter whether your viewers receive the signal over the air, through satellite/cable or via the Internet. It's about how many people watch your content. And add to the fact that streaming over IP means you can't skip commercials and it becomes a no brainer! I can't believe it hasn't already happened. Apple will introduce a competitor to the Echo and Google Home It wouldn't be a prediction list from Ara without at least one mention of Apple on it. Apple already has all the pieces required for this type of product. Siri for voice, Homekit for automation, and the AppleTV for content. The only thing missing is the actual device. Look for that some time in 2017! Netflix will stream live sports Granted this is a long shot, but Netflix is looking for content and what better than live sports. This year twitter streamed live NFL games so why not Netflix? Then why not stream live network content and voila! Yet another IP based TV service. Virtual Reality will arrive thanks to live events This will be the year that you will be able to experience live events like a concert of sporting event from the comfort of your home. And you will have the best seat in the house!! Virtual reality has come a long way but who wants to watch a movie when the experience is marginally better. But watching a live concert or say the World Series from the best seat in the house. Well that's pretty cool. You would have a full 360 view of the show and venue. And if done right, they could use Dolby Atmos to give you 360 degree sound experience as well! Braden: Day and Date Movie Streaming It's going to happen this year. Either Sean Parker's 'The Screening Room' will finally go live, or someone else will figure out a way to work with theater owners to make this a reality. Could be someone we've talked about like Fandango, or possibly even a big theater chain. It happens this year. I hope. 80" Televisions for under $2000 Going to carry-forward yet again. I think I was just two years too early. Both OLED and 4K will push prices down for 1080p TVs. Wanting to capitalize on the desire for a larger screen, Manufacturers will push prices down for the big 1080p sets to get them flying off the shelves. So the price for a starter series 80" TV will drop to under $2000 at some point this year. Maybe Black Friday, maybe for another event, but it'll drop. Amazon or Netflix content on Traditional TV Either Amazon or Netflix will create and produce an original series, be it drama or sitcom, that will air on a traditional broadcast network using traditional weekly distribution. They already have a ton of customers, so they don't really need the extra advertising, but many of those customers still aren't tuning to Amazon or Netlix for original content. This will help them make that offering more tangible. Next Gen TV (ATSC 3.0) equipment available They've already proven ATSC 3.0 by broadcasting it live in 4K using the ATSC 3.0 standard. LG made the antenna and receiver used in that test. Since the FCC won't give broadcasters a second channel to use for the new format during the transition like it did with 1.0, it's going to be a hard cutover, so some means of introducing the new technology will be necessary. Everyone will need to have the new tuner before the switch flips, and that could take a couple years to fully roll out. Surround Sound from a Single Speaker Sure, we already have sound bars, but this is different. This is one speaker, mounted in your ceiling, that can aim sound in any direction, or all directions. There already relying on, and working to perfect, shifted and reflected sound in technologies like Atmos. Why not use a single source mounted where your ceiling light or ceiling fan used to be, heck maybe even build lights into it, and there you go. Could set the stage for 360 projection down the road.

We go through news about CES

Monoprice Monolith M560 Planar Headphones When we first got into the HDTV thing way back when Monoprice was our goto company for high quality cables that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Since then they have grown into a big company that sells so much more than cables and rock bottom prices. Let's go back to September when Monoprice announced that they were releasing two new Planar headphones, the Monolith M1060 ($299 Not available until February) and the Monolith M560 ($199). Now we have to determine if the they are doing the same thing with headphones as they did with cables back in the early days. Are these high quality and at low price? A planar magnetic driver is a flat membrane that is surrounded by magnets. When current is delivered, the membrane produces sound. The size of the driver in the Monolith M560 is 56mm. Planar magnetic transducers offer numerous benefits: Responsiveness - Since the force created by the magnetic field is distributed across most of the diaphragm surface, the planar magnetic diaphragm moves faster and with far greater accuracy to the input signal. Frequency and Distortion - The magnetic force that drives the lightweight diaphragm delivers rapid acceleration thus achieving a wide frequency response, low distortion and excellent sound quality. Durability - Because the circuit pattern is spread flat across the diaphragm surface it can dissipate the heat generated by the current passing through it more efficiently. Additionally, planar magnetic transducers have few moving parts and can maintain performance without any sonic degradation. Dynamic drivers continuously degrade in performance over their life due to a multitude of moving parts and use of glue joints. Amplifier Friendly - The circuits found in planar magnetic diaphragms present an almost purely resistive load to amplifiers, making it easy to drive. The impedance over the entire frequency range is completely flat vs. dynamic speaker which could have variances in impedance values over the frequency range. Fit and Finish The M560s don't look like your typical headphones, They are bigger than anything I have ever owned. You may have heard the term "Cans" being used for headphones well that's a good description. But they are beautiful cans! They have wooden cups that are held in place magnetically the can easily be removed to give you a more open sound stage. The M560s are well built and look sophisticated. Monoprice includes a nice detachable braided cable and a carrying case. I took these on a recent trip and the case fit in my laptop bag but it was not really something I would recommend for airplane use. However, it was nice to be able to use them in the hotel. Performance I have only had one other set of headphones that I would say was high quality, B&W P5, so my sample size is pretty low. I have listened to some real high end headphones at T.H.E. Show as well so I wouldn't say I am an expert on headphones. My review will be about how good the audio was and the fact that almost anyone can afford these without a lot of heartburn. First word of caution. These headphones need to be broken in. Don't do any critical listening until you have put about 48 hours of audio through them. Your patience will be rewarded. The frequency range of these things is 16 Hz ~ 40 kHz. To verify that I had to employ my daughters and the neighbor dog. Fortunately I can hear the low end! I ran tones through the speakers and was able to hear down to 40hz and up to 16KHz. My daughters could hear the tones clearly up to 18KHz. The neighbor dog didn't really say if he could hear anything past that. Now I know I can get fancy equipment to measure these things but that's not how we work. We just tell you what we experience ourselves. As far as listening to music goes I listened to all kinds of music, Rock, Jazz, Blues, and Classical. All sounded great. I really liked the low end and when I removed the ear cups the bass seemed deeper to me. It did feel more open kind of like I was listening in a room as opposed to hearing the music piped right into my head. The high end was good, not too bright, but not as good as the low end either. I was able to clearly make out the triangles in Ode to Joy. It is clear to me that the low end is where these headphones really shine I also watched some movies and I could hear nuances in the sound track that I couldn't hear even on my Kef Q-Series. I am sure it's because there is no there sound pollution to interfere with the watching experience. Wearing the headphones for extended periods was easy to do. They are very comfortable and not too terribly heavy. Conclusion Can I say these are as good as the Oppo or HifiMan? I can't because I have never listened to those headphones. But it's a good bet that most of you don't want to spend better than a thousand dollars for audiophile grade headphones. However, there are many of you you who do want a high quality experience when listening to your music. And for $200 the Monoprice

Prediction Review for 2016 It's hard to believe that another year has gone by! With that it's time to see how we did with our 2016 predictions. This year's scorecard: Ara ⅖ 40% Braden ⅖ 40% Ara's Predictions: Competitor to Sling.com Sling.com was the first into this market but they won't be the last. Look for one of the major cable or sat providers (or even Apple) to offer competitor to sling.com. And if it's Apple look for local channels as a bonus. This one happened! We have Playstation Vue and DirecTV Now! Off to a great start! UHD Blu-ray player will be available for less than $500 This one is simply a shot in the dark. Rumor has it that the first UHD Blu-ray players will go for more than $1,000. But lack of demand and memories of the whole Blu-ray/HD-DVD debacle will drive prices down. But don't expect to see this until Black Friday. Well this was no contest! The rumors were false. The first players came out at under $500. But hey! I'll still take it! Two for two! There will be a 100 inch 4K UHD with HDR and wide color gamut for less than $10,000 This is my shoot for the moon prediction. If this comes true, I may never upgrade my projector and opt for this solution instead! But realistically, this has about a 10% chance of coming to pass. But I like to dream! You know what they say, 75 is the new 100! No?? This was a long shot. But Sony did release a 100 inch 4K UHD with HDR and Wide color. The only issue is that it's $60K. Two out of three is great if it's your batting average. So I'm still doing OK. Samsung will re-enter the OLED market This is kind of a gimmie. Samsung did have an OLED (KN55S9CAFXZA) but we haven't seen anything commercially available since. With the success of LG's OLED TVs Samsung won't be able to stay out of the market. We'll have a good idea if this is correct next week at CES. Samsung has hinted that they may get back into the OLED game but so far they haven't. So I'll have to say no. Two for four. Apple to stream Hi-Res Audio With so many music streaming platforms out there Apple will look for a way to differentiate itself. It already has the Mastered for iTunes program. Why not Apple Hi-Resolution? Also, look for more radio stations like Beats 1 in the higher resolution audio. No "Hi-Res" Audio from Apple yet. And this may not ever happen with all the streaming they are doing. Why send more data through the pipes to iPhones? Maybe they will offer a special service add on for the AppleTV some day. I started strong but ended up two for five. A solid 40%!! Braden's Predictions: The following review of Braden's predictions is written by Ara in Braden's absence. HDTV and VR mashup With the popularity of the Oculus Rift and the Growing investment by other firms such as Microsoft and their HoloLens, someone will produce video content that takes full advantage of the immersive experience of Virtual Reality. There are apps that allow you to watch movies on the Oculus Rift, but nothing (that I know of at least) that has been produced to provide a native 3D experience within a VR headset. probably nature footage, but it'll happen. And we have a winner! There are at least 7 virtual reality movies that are available now: The Martian Hunger Games The Lion King Wild Batman the Animated Series School of Rock Star Wars Starting out strong… but so did Ara :-) Somebody *will* get into the live TV streaming game, but still no locals Amazon, Apple, Google or Sony - one of them will offer native television streaming from their platform to match the service offering of SlingTV. So you'll either get an iTV app on your Apple TV, or a TV app on your FireTV, you get the picture. Once you pay your fee, you get access to everything on TV right now for a select set of cable channels. And maybe, if you're lucky, a national feed from the major broadcasters. Well yes… But it's important to do your own work. By the way, Playstation Vue and DirecTV do carry locals. Two for Twoish 80" Televisions for under $2000 This is a carry-forward from last year; I think I was just one year too early. Both OLED and 4K will push prices down for 1080p TVs. Wanting to capitalize on the desire for a larger screen, Manufacturers will push prices down for the big 1080p sets to get them flying off the shelves. So the price for a starter series 80" TV will drop to under $2000 at some point this year. Maybe Black Friday, maybe for another event, but it'll drop. I could not find a new 80 inch TV for $2,000. Will we try for three years in a row?? Two for three. Lightbulb speakers for Surround Sound The best way to get the height channel experience from sound formats like Dolby Atmos it to actually have them in the ceiling. The up-firing speakers that bounce sound off the ceiling are cool, just not quite as precise. It isn't always easy to cut holes and run wires to add speakers to your ceiling. Somebody will create a box, either an add-on for your amp, or built into the receiver itself, that lets you send audio from specific surround

Ultimate Home Theater in a Box for 2016 Each year we design a Home Theater setup that is considerably better than a typical home theater in a box. We have seen complete setups for less than $500 from manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic that quite frankly do not sound good. While our system costs more than a name brand HTIB your satisfaction will be dramatically more. Plus we include EVERYTHING you need to actually setup a home theater. Minimum components for our system are a HDTV, Blu-ray Player, Receiver, and 7.1 speakers. For this feature we choose components that we either have direct experience with or have experience with a similar model made by the same manufacturer. This year we have set a maximum price of $5,000. The amount we paid for our first HDTVs. We are defining a system that can had by anyone who is serious about home theater. These systems will look and sound great by anyone's definition! Rodney: Sony XBR65X850D 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart TV (2016 model) $1,498.00 You'll be hard pressed to find a more capable 4K TV at this size and price. It uses Sony's X1 processor which provides some of the best color, contrast, and clarity. It's also equipped with Android TV with Voice Search and Google Cast. Yamaha RX-A760BL 7.2 Channel Network AV Receiver $649.95 This receiver has everything you need to support 4K content and to listen to music streamed from your phone or off the internet. It supports 4K Ultra HD video upscaling with HDCP 2.2, HDR and BT.2020 support. Its features Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround sound processing. It also has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, AirPlay, Spotify Connect, Pandora, Rhapsody, SiriusXM, vTuner, NAS support. BIC Acoustech PL-980 7.1 Home Theater System-NEW!! PL-200II Sub $1,699.00 BIC America isn't as well known as Klipsch, but they've been in the speaker business for over 20 years and have a fan following. This 7.1 set comes with floor standing speakers that incorporate a 3-way multi-driver design rather than the standard 2-way design. The 4 surround speakers also have three way design and are angled so they can add more depth of sound. This set also includes a front-firing 12 inch long-throw subwoofer with BASH amplifier. Xbox One S 500GB Console - Battlefield 1 Bundle $249.00 Instead of throwing in a standard Blu-ray player or a set top box, getting a 4K gaming system that supports HDR is way more versatile. You can watch UHD Blu-ray movies and stream 4K content on Netflix and Amazon Video. You can also play games that will utilize the home theater and put you right in the middle of the action. Logitech Harmony Companion All in One Remote Control for Smart Home and Entertainment Devices, works with Alexa $129.99 Of course a remote is needed to control all the awesomeness. So why not get a remote that can work with home automation and smartphones? You can use your Smartphone or Harmony Remote for one-touch control of your entertainment system and home automation devices. Plus it also works with Alexa. Summary With a grand total of $4,225.94 you will be the envy every man, woman, and child on your block. For that price you've got a complete 4K HDR system, with bombastic audio, gaming entertainment, and a remote that supports home automation. All that and you'll still have money leftover to buy a lots Blu-ray movies and video games. Ara: My theme this year has been 4K HDR and Wide Color Gamut so there is no reason to move away from that now. My Ultimate Home Theater in a Box will serve you well for years to come! LG Electronics 65UH8500 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV $1697 My first HDTV was a 50 inch DLP capable of 720p. This LG gives you 15 more inches and more than 4 times the resolution for less than than half the cost. Not only that, you get better color and contrast! It's a smart TV featuring WebOS 3.0 so you'll be able to stream your 4K content from Amazon and Netflix. We have come so far since 2002. UDP-203 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Player $549 This year I have gone back to Oppo for my Blu-ray player. We have increased our budget this year and since Oppo just released this product we felt why not include it in an ultimate HTiB setup. Since most of your library probably Blu-ray at this time you need a player that can upconvert well. The UDP-203 does just that with a custom developed quad-core processor. On the audio side the player features a 8 channel 32-bit DAC from AKM that will easily handle any hi-resolution format you throw at it. All the latest sound formats are supported. Suffice it to say this is the ultimate UHD Player on the market today! Yamaha RX-A1050 7.2-Channel MusicCast AV Receiver with Built-In Wi-Fi and Bluetooth $898 I went with a receiver from this years receiver buying guide. I kind of cut costs on the receiver this year because I felt it necessary to not skimp on the speakers. From the buying guide: Plenty of power (110W), Auto Calibration, Multidimensional sound, and wireless connectivity. I went with this model over the A850 because in a

Receiver Buying Guide 2016 It is that time of year where we get to spend your money again! This week we concentrate on receivers. Our goal with these guides is not necessarily about getting the latest product. It's about getting a good product at a great price so you may see some of last year's gear on the list. All these receivers are readily available online or at a big box store. Just like last year's Buying Guide, we're going to skip the budget categories jump right to our top picks. We each pick three receivers and one 'money is no object' / 'dare to dream' receiver for you to consider. Braden's Picks I tried to ignore Ara's picks when selecting mine, as to not be biased one way or the other. But his newfound love for Marantz did have an impact on my list. Sony STRDH770 7.2 Channel Home Theater 4K AV Receiver $199 I wanted to pick the Sony STRDH770 as my value option, but for some reason it is limited availability online so I'm not sure what that means. You can get it from Sony for $199. It has 7.2 channel x 145W of sound power, 4 HDMI Inputs / 1 Output with HDCP2.2 compatibility, supports 4K 60p 4:4:4 / HDR, front surround sound technology, Bluetooth and NFC for easy wireless streaming, USB connection for music playback, quick speaker set up with automatic calibration, DSD decoding thru HDMI, pretty much everything. All for under $200. If you want a model that is a bit more available online, you can step up to the STR-DN1070 for $449. It adds a few more watts per channel, a couple more HDMI ins/outs and second zone capabilities. Denon AVR-X3300W 7.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD A/V Receiver $799 No list of mine would be complete without a Denon. They have so many great options for receivers, just looking at them made me feel like a kid in a candy store. This model, the X3300 feels like the perfect intersection of affordable and ultra capable. Let's rattle it off: 7.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD AV Receiver with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, HDCP2.2, HDR, Audyssey MultEQ XT32, 8/2 HDMI In/Out, the list goes on. If you can swing $800 for a receiver, this is the one you get. If you can go higher, check out the Denon candy store. Marantz SR-6011 AV Audio & Video Component Receiver $1399 I've never owned a Marantz, but the way Ara raves about his (and how I've heard it perform), I may have to try one out. You know, for the show. If I was going to dip my toe in that water, I'd opt for the SR-6011. It's a bit on the pricey side, but wow does it pack a wallup. 9.2 channel receiver with 110W per channel with 11.2 channel processing capabilities. 3D and 4K Ultra HD/60Hz full rate pass-through with HDR, BT.2020, 4:4:4 Pure Color support; 8 HDMI inputs (incl. 1 front) and 2 outputs (Main/Zone 2) with full HCDP 2.2 support. 4K/60Hz Up-scaling. Built-in Bluetooth(R) and Wi-Fi. Streaming Content; Airplay, vTuner Internet Radio, Pandora, SiriusXM, Spotify Connect, DLNA. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X, Audyssey MultEQ XT32, Sub EQ HT, LFC (Low Frequency Containment) with Dynamic Volume and Dynamic EQ. Marantz HDAM (Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Module) technology. The works. Ara's Picks Like my TVs, this year's list will only consist of receivers that support 4K, HDR, and the Wide Color Gamut. My list may cost more than you want to spend right now but it will set you up for years of enjoyment! Onkyo TX-NR646 7.2-Channel Network A/V Receiver $389 This is my budget receiver on this years list. But don't let the price fool you, it's a full featured receiver that someone starting out would love to have. The NR646 puts out 170 w/channel supporting Dobly Atmos and DTS:X. The Onkyo has 8 HDMI 2.0 inputs with the first three supporting HDCP 2.2. The only real drawback, and you knew there had to be for the price, is the room correction firmware. Onkyo uses something called AccuEQ which is less demanding than Audyssey and thus not as good. Music streaming and high-res audio round out the receivers features. Pioneer SC-LX501 Elite 7.2 Channel D3 Network AV Receiver $999 I have owned three Pioneers over the years and they all have been great receivers. This receiver is ready to serve you now and well into the future. There is support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X and it has enough power (120W) to fill large rooms with sound. Other features include support for Google Cast, Airplay, Pandora, Spotify, and Hi Res Audio round out this very capable receiver. Yamaha RX-A1050 7.2-Channel MusicCast AV Receiver with Built-In Wi-Fi and Bluetooth $899 This is the next model up from the one that I use in my family room. It has everything you want in a receiver and more. Plenty of power (110W), Auto Calibration, Multidimensional sound, and wireless connectivity. I went with this model over the A850 because in addition to Dolby Atmos you also get DTS:X and and Advanced HDMI switching! You can watch different sources in different zones. Yamaha says that this receiver employs "audiophile grade design that incorporates a rigid chassis and symmetrical am

HDTV Buying Guide 2016 It's beginning to look a lot like whatever holiday you may be celebrating this holiday season. Or that you may not be celebrating - not that there's anything wrong with that. But we grew up celebrating Christmas, so we know what we're hoping to see under the tree with our names on it. If you happen to be lucky enough to have budget for a new HDTV this Christmas season, but still aren't sure which one to buy, we've got you covered. Like last year, we're dropping the budget categories, and the screen size categories and jumping right to our top picks. We each pick three TVs and one ultimate HDTV present for you to consider. If you don't have the HDTV buyer's guide from last year handy, here are couple of the sets we talked about along with their prices. Only two sets from last year are still available for sale direct thru Amazon. And for both their prices went down. If you'd like to make the argument to the finance committee that you don't know what will happen with prices so you should grab one now before the price goes up, we suggest referencing last year's buyer's guide where multiple sets did actually increase in price by one year later. Samsung UN65J6200 65-Inch 1080p Smart LED TV (2015 Model) (was $1198, now $948) Samsung UN75J6300 75-Inch 1080p Smart LED TV (was $1997, now $1498) Braden's Picks TCL 40FS3800 40-Inch 1080p Roku Smart LED TV ($243) Life is all about trade-offs. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. Sometimes you want the best of the best, sometimes you just want the best for the least you can spend. As someone who uses a TCL TV with the built-in Roku smart TV interface on the daily, I can tell you first hand that built-in Roku is solid gold. The TV is mounted to the wall and plugged into power. That's it. We can get to Pandora, et. al. for when we want music or Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, ESPN, HBO for TV or video content. For anyone looking for a super flexible second TV, TCL is a great, inexpensive choice. If 40" isn't the right size, they have a 32" for $169, 48" for $329, 50" for $399, or a 55" for $448. LG 65" OLED65B6P OLED 4K HDR Ultra HD FLAT TV ($2599) On the other hand, if you want the best of the best, OLED is the only option. Better than plasma on color and black levels, excellent detail and motion clarity, with 4K and HDR support. You really can't pick a more high performing screen than this LG. At 65 inches, it isn't the biggest TV you can find, but for most family rooms or home entertainment "dens" a 65 inch TV is the perfect size. This screen will blow you away, and anyone you have over to see it, with any content you put on it. Put some true 4K or HDR video sources up and you'll struggle to hold back the drool. With over a billion rich colors at its disposal, this LG OLED TV delivers a theater-quality experience from the comfort of your sofa. OLED HDR delivers a stunning high dynamic range picture, including support for Dolby Vision content. VIZIO M60-C3 60-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV ($889) Of course, there is a middle ground. You want 4K and some future-proof capabilities without totally crushing your budget and having to eat canned beans for a few months until you can recover from the expense of your TV. We get that. If that's you, check out this Vizio. It's a 4K LED, but lacks HDR. So kinda future proof, but not fully, excellent picture quality, but not the gold standard, and under $1000, not a couple months salary. This TV is an excellent blend of incredible performance and incredible value. Perhaps a bit dated, it was the highest rated TV at CNET for 2015. That was in 2015, but because of the age, you can get it for a steal. A 60" 4K TV for less than $900? Yeah, that should be on your list. Ara's Picks This year every TV on my list is 4K and supports HDR. If you want a budget TV they are easy to find. For 2016 I want the best TV out there for the money. LG Electronics OLED55B6P Flat 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV ($1997) OLED for under $2000! In not the curved model either. Deep plasma like blacks, HDR, and wide color gamut. Watching this TV will be like looking out a window! Other features include WebOS 3.0 and Harman Kardon sound. Just be sure to calibrate this TV to get the best picture possible! VIZIO SmartCast™ P-Series™ 65" Class Ultra HD HDR Home Theater Display ($1999) Amazon sells a lot of Vizio TVs however, if you want this one you won't find it there. You can buy direct from Vizio or at Bestbuy. This TV checks off all the boxes in what you need in a 4K TV. Dolby Vision, HDR, Clean Simple Design, and a Tablet remote!. This version of the P-Series has 128 active LED zones which gives some pretty impressive black levels for a LED based LCD TV. This TV looks great even when it's off. Sony XBR65X850D 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart TV ($1398) This is my "budget" 4K TV and it's a pretty capable TV in it's own right. It's the one I will buy for remodel project I am working on. Like the other TVs it supports HDR and Wide Color Ga

What we're thankful for '16 Each year at this time of year we do a show where we discuss what we are thankful for. There are the obvious things to be thankful for like our families, especially our wives who put up with our home theater obsessions. And of course we are thankful for you, the listener/reader of our show. So as is tradition over the last many Thanksgivings, on today's show we give you our list of consumer electronics things we are thankful for. For 2016: Ara's List: Cord Cutters - It's is because of cord cutters that new TV services like Sling, Playstation Vue, and the upcoming DirecTV streaming services are hitting the streets. These providers know that there are a lot of people that are tired of paying through the nose for channels they barely watch. With devices like the Roku, FireTV, and AppleTV these services have a platform to easily get into your living room. It's because of cord cutters that these services even exists. If we get a few more look for cable and satellite fees to get even lower. Internet of Things - So what is the Internet of things (IoT)? It's the concept that anything with power is connected to the network. Some may find this creepy but I like getting into my car and having it tell me how long ith will take to get to work or home. If your calendar is connected it would know you are going to the Airport for a flight and tell you that you need to leave the office early because there is traffic on the freeway. Or if you are driving home from a vacation it would automatically turn your air conditioner on. And that's just the beginning. There are so many things being developed now that we can't even fathom the possibilities. The whole purpose is to make our lives easier which should give us more time to do things we love. 4K/HDR/Wide Color Gamut - As if I need a reason to buy a new TV??? But the TVs of today are so much better than just a few years ago. Not so much the 4K part but the HDR and wider color gamut makes watching TV almost like looking out a very clean window. The studios are still learning how to create content that makes use of this technology but once they get it figured out it will incredible. Plex - This is the year I dove deep into the Plex swimming pool. Available on just about any device you carry or can connect to a TV, Plex allows you to watch your movie library on your local network or anywhere that has decent Internet connectivity. It's much more than movies too! Plex supports music and there is a DVR function if you have and HD Homerun. They keep improving the software so what's not to be thankful for?? We'll be watching our movies while we are visiting family for Thanksgiving. HomeKit - HomeKit is Apple's proprietary software and hardware smart-home platform, letting you control many of the most popular smart-home devices, including lights, switches, door locks, and thermostats. It started out being a concept with little support but now there are dozens of devices from different companies that all play well together. The Apple Home app is a solid piece of software that ties it all together. It decent now and will only get better. If you have an iPhone and an AppleTV I would highly recommend that Apple Homekit is a great way to get into home automation. Braden's List: Tivo - In years past I've been thankful for the Hopper from Dish. and yes, it is still an awesome DVR and whole house video system. Still love it. But I have a new love that I love even more, and that's my Tivo system with a Bolt and multiple Minis. Not only does Tivo have the most feature rich DVR on the market, it also cut my monthly cable bill by almost two thirds. Save money and get a better DVR? That's a sweet deal. Power over Ethernet - Sure, this seems kinda old school, but PoE is pretty awesome. For whole house entertainment, especially video, Wifi is great, but wired Ethernet is better. And since some devices (we're looking at you Tivo Mini) don't support Wifi, you either need a cable connection or a wired Ethernet connection where you want to install a Mini. Don't have either? No problem, Power over Ethernet to the rescue. Early versions may not have cut it, but today's PoE devices more than fit the bill. Amazon Prime Now - Ok, this is a repeat from last year. But before you judge me on the lack of creativity, Prime Now has come thru for me repeatedly this year and I couldn't be more thankful. Certainly first world problems, but I needed (ok, need may be the wrong word, definite first world problems) needed to get a TV installed quickly for the kids. Got the TV, Tivo Mini and PoE adapters delivered to the house in two hours. Amazon smiles all around. UHD / 4K - This applies both to the television screens and the content you can get from Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc. Not that the 1080p TVs and content we had before, actually still mostly have now, were bad by any stretch, but I'm just thankful we've moved past the 3D obsession. This could have been anything, from smell-o-vision to

Black Friday Preview 2016 If you're going to set up camp and secure a great spot in line for Black Friday sales, you probably want to make sure you're at the right store. There may be one killer deal at one store, but ten almost killer deals at another. We've done all the research so you'll know where to camp out Thursday night. Looking back on years past, in 2008 a 50-inch 720p plasma was going for $900. In 2009 you could get a 50-inch 1080p plasma with a Blu-ray player for $1000. Fast forward to last year when the lowest price for a tier one brand HDTV was a 49" Toshiba 1080p LED for only $149.99. That might be worth camping for. Our research came from our favorite goto sites for Black Friday circulars, including: www.bfads.net, www.blackfriday.com, and blackfriday.gottadeal.com. CNet put together a list of Cheap TV deals of Black Friday 2016 (plus our favorite picks) - in case you don't trust our research. Camp Worthy Deals The lowest price tier one brand HDTV over 40" is at Best Buy Toshiba 49" 4K 60Hz LED HDTV w/ Built-in Chromecast (49L621U), $199.99 (this is $50 more than last year, but last year was 1080p, this year is 4K) The best prices on the largest TVs are at Best Buy Best Buy - VIZIO 70" 4k LED Smart Ultra HDTV w/ Chromecast Built-in, $999.99 Best Buy - Sony 75" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $2,499.98 Other stats The list still has multiple 720p TVs 32 inches or larger, more than we expected to see. There were 12 last year. There are 8 this year. All are 32". There are two 4k Blu-ray players, both at h.h. gregg Samsung 4K Upscaling 3D Wi-Fi Smart Blu-ray Player, $84.99 Samsung 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Player, $199.99 The list has multiple 4K TVs as well. Best Buy - 23 (last year: 10) Wal-mart - 4 (last year: 2) Target - 6 (last year: 3) Sears - 5 (last year: 6) h.h. gregg - 22 (last year: 24) Deal lists: Best Buy Samsung 50" 1080p 120Hz LED Smart HDTV (UN50J5201AFXZA), $299.99 Sharp 55" 1080p Smart LED HDTV (LC-55LB481U), $249.99 Samsung 55" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (UN55KU6270FXZA), $479.99 Samsung 50" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (UN50KU6300FXZA), $397.99 Toshiba 49" LED 4K Ultra HDTV w/ Built-in Chromecast (49L621U), $199.99 Insignia - 32" - LED - 720p - Smart - Roku TV - Black, $99.99 Samsung 50" 1080p LED Smart Black HDTV, $299.99 LG 60" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (60UH6035), $599.99 Insignia 32" 720p 60Hz Smart LED HDTV (NS-32DR310NA17), $99.99 LG 50" 4k LED Smart Ultra HD TV, $399.99 Toshiba 49" 4K 60Hz LED HDTV w/ Built-in Chromecast (49L621U), $199.99 Samsung 55" LED Smart 4K Ultra HD HDTV (UN55KU6270FXZA), $479.99 Insignia 39" 1080p Smart LED HDTV (NS-39DR510NA17), $179.99 LG 65" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (65UH6030), $799.99 LG 43" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (43UH6030), $299.99 Insignia - 39" - LED - 1080p - Smart - HDTV Roku TV - Black, $179.99 LG 60" 4K Smart Ultra HDTV (60UH6035), $599.99 LG 40" 1080p LED HDTV (40LH5000), $149.99 Samsung - 32" - LED - 720p - Smart - HDTV - Black, $157.99 Samsung - 58" - LED - 1080p - Smart - HDTV - Black, $427.99 Sharp 55" 1080P Smart LED Roku HDTV (LC-55LB481U), $249.99 Samsung 55" 4K 240Hz Smart LED HDTV w/ HDR (UN55KS8000FXZA), $997.99 VIZIO - 48" - LED - 1080p - HDTV - Black, $249.99 Samsung 50" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $397.99 Samsung 40" 1080p 60Hz Smart LED HDTV (UN40J5200AFXZA), $247.99 VIZIO 70" 4k LED Smart Ultra HDTV w/ Chromecast Built-in, $999.99 LG 50" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $399.99 LG 65" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $799.99 Toshiba 55" 4K LED Smart HDTV (55L621U) + PlayStation 4 Pro Bundle, $749.98 Sony 65" 2160p 4K Smart TV, $1,399.99 Samsung - 40" - LED - 1080p - Smart - HDTV - Black, $247.99 Sony 55" 4K 120Hz Smart HDTV w/ High Dynamic Range (XBR-55X850D), $899.99 VIZIO - 70" - LED - 2160p - with Chromecast - 4K Ultra HD, $999.99 Samsung 32" 720p Smart LED HDTV (UN32J4500AFXZA), $157.99 Sony 55" 2160p 4K Smart TV, $899.99 Sony 65" 4K 120Hz Smart HDTV w/ HDR (XBR-65X850D), $1,399.99 Sony 75" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $2,499.98 Samsung 65" 2160p 4K Smart LED TV, $1,497.99 Insignia 7" Portable DVD Player w/Swivel Screen, $39.99 Insignia 2.0-Ch. Black Soundbar w/ Digital Amplifier, $39.99 Vizio SmartCast 3.1-Ch. Soundbar System w/ 24.2-in. Wireless Subwoofer, $249.99 Klipsch Reference 5-1/4-in. Bookshelf Speakers (Pair), $124.99 Klipsch Reference Dual 6.5-in. Floorstanding Speaker, $174.99 Klipsch Reference Dual 8-in. Floorstanding Speaker, $224.99 Klipsch Reference 12-in. 400W Powered Subwoofer, $224.99 Logitech Harmony 700 8-Device Universal Remote, $49.99 Samsung White SmartThings Hub, $49.99 Insignia Smart Plug, $19.99 Amazon White Echo Dot, $39.99 Amazon Echo, $139.99 Sonos Play:1 White Wireless Speaker, $149.99 Wal-mart Philips 55" 4K 2160p 60Hz LED Smart HDTV (44PFL5601), $298.00 Samsung 50" 4K LED Smart HDTV (UN50KU6300), $398.00 VIZIO 60" LED HDTV (D60N-E3), $398.00 Samsung 60" 4K HDTV (UN60KU6270), $648.00 TCL 32" 720p Roku Smart TV (32S3750), $125.00 Samsung 32" LED 1080p 60Hz Smart HDTV (UN32J5205), $188.00 Samsung 65" LED Smart HDTV (UN65J6200), $798.00 Hi

Ray Super Remote Just like a conductor's baton a good remote control is mandatory to conduct and direct the use of your home theater. We've reviewed so many over the years. Ara has settled on the Simple Control application running on an iPad Mini while Braden uses the Logitech Harmony Remotes around his home. But today we are taking a look at the Ray Super Remote (Buy Now $249) which creators bill as the "the ultimate touchscreen universal remote control". Features Fast setup, responsive interface, high resolution display Sophisticated recommendation engine Rechargeable battery Support for Hue Lights and Nest Thermostats The Ray Super Remote is a nicely built piece of hardware. The fit and finish remind us of a high quality smartphone. In fact it's about the size of a smartphone of yesterday. It's a bit thicker and heavier. No biggie since you won't be carrying it around with you. Front and back are made of gorilla glass so it should stand up to wear and tear of daily use. And the occasional fall off the coffee table. The charging cradle also feels substantial and will sit firmly on your end table. The remote slides in and out with ease. We have gotten about two days battery use out of one charge with typical usage. But if you really go into the guides and recommendations pages you will probably get less. Fortunately it is simple to place the remote on the cradle every evening and have a fully charged remote in the morning. Setup This is an area where the remote excels. Setup up takes about 10 to 15 minutes. First you connect to Wifi and then let it download updates and codes. Next you tell it how you watch TV. For this portion you have to be in front of your TV and have it on. In our case we turned on the TV, AV Receiver and Satellite box. The remote asks you tell it what kind of TV you have. Then it tells you that it will perform an action and you need to respond with yes it happened or no it did not. After a few of these it decides on a command set for the device and you are done. You do this for all your devices. You also tell it what input the TV and receiver are on so it can switch them for you. We setup our Blu-ray, AppleTV, DirecTV Genie, Receiver, and TV. The remote does not have FireTV capability. You can request that Ray adds the commands for equipment you have that is not supported through their website. In addition to lack of support for the FireTV there currently is no support for PlayStation, Roku stick, or Chromecast. Plus there is no support for multiple rooms. So if you want to use the remote in another room you will need to buy an additional remote. Use The remote works well! Although it took us a little time to get used to pointing the remote towards the TV. The Simple Control remote works from anywhere and you wouldn't think that is a big deal but it did become a bit annoying to have to remember this. That also means if your equipment is out of sight you will need an IR repeater. But you probably already have one anyway. The commands went out quickly and the user interface is responsive. The volume control is done via a rocker on the side of the device. Nice tactile buttons to make raising the volume easy without having to look at the screen. There is also a physical mute button as well as a sleep/wake button. To activate an activity you go to the home screen and select it, DVR, Blu-ray, or AppleTV. The remote fires off the appropriate commands and in a few seconds you are watching what you want. The shutdown process is simple to. You hit the power off button and you are given an option to turn off any device that is currently on or all of them at once. We were concerned that a small screen with limited buttons would be difficult to use. We wouldn't call it difficult but it's a bit cumbersome. The main screen for the DVR has the transport controls, which while important are not used as often as changing channels or bringing up the guide and recordings list. For that there are customizable soft keys on the bottom of the screen. There are a few that are always visible but to get to all of them you have to swipe up. We found that the small form factor means you have to hit a few more screens to get to what you want. Still better than using four remotes. When setting up your remote it asks you questions about what you like to watch and which channels you subscribe to. It then makes recommendations for you. To access these recommendations you hit the TV button on the home screen. You can swipe through your different categories, Movies, News, Sports, Etc, and find something to watch. If the show is currently on pressing the button will tune to that channel. If it's not on you can set a reminder or setup a recording. Note - The remote is capable of controlling Hue lights and the Nest Thermostat. We do not have these devices in our homes so we were not able to test these features. Conclusion You have a lot of choices out there for universal remotes. Some are pretty basic while others not only c

Kodi There has been an explosion of devices recently, or perhaps going back a couple years, that are based on the Kodi Media Center software or include Kodi as a standard app you can run along with other the other apps available on the device. A simple search at Amazon for 'Kodi' yields pages and pages of options for devices. Intrigued by this streaming platform that seems to have taken off like wildfire, we decided to pick up one of these little boxes and see what all the fuss is about. History Kodi is the current name for a streaming software application formerly known as XBMC, short for Xbox Media Center. The initial release of XBMC dropped in 2004. It grew out of an earlier project, called Xbox Media Player, into a full player and streaming platform, thus the name change. When XBMC dropped support for the Xbox as a platform, they had to change the name again; that's when it became Kodi - in August of 2014. The current version of Kodi runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, iOS and Android. Linux and Android support make it ideal for the inexpensive streaming boxes you find at Amazon. Back in the day, you would get XBMC running on your original Xbox by jumping through a few hoops and taking advantage of a software flaw or vulnerability in the native Xbox software from Microsoft. It sounded more complicated than it was - including having to get your hands on one of the specific games that would exploit the vulnerability, like Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, but if you had an old Xbox laying around, it was well worth it. Lifehacker even published an article called Transform Your Classic Xbox into a Killer Media Center back in 2007 and walked you through all the steps. Now you just install it. Use Because Kodi is free and Open Source, you can create your own home media server using pretty much any hardware you'd like. Simply download, install and configure. Then add the add-ons and plug-ins you need to make it do what you want, and you're off to the races. If you want to save a bit of time, or you don't have an old computer sitting around to play with, you can buy a dedicated Kodi streaming box and skip some of the steps. We chose the RBSCH M96X Android 6.0 4K TV BOX with KODI 16.1 for $36.99. Not because we knew anything about it, but just because we could get free Prime Same Day shipping. The box arrived a few hours later and we were ready to go. It is pretty small, a bit smaller than an Apple TV, but in the same ballpark. It came with a power cord, an HDMI cable and a remote, but no batteries for the remote. We plugged it in and powered it on - it took a minute or so to boot up and we were ready to start playing. This model, being Android based, has a bunch of apps like the Chrome browser, Pandora and Facebook that you can use in addition to the Kodi app. The browser was very cumbersome to use with the included remote. But we bought it for Kodi, so we skipped all the other apps and loaded up the Kodi interface right away. As a local media player, Kodi worked quite nicely. You can play a wide variety of audio and video formats either from local drives (in our case attached via USB) or from somewhere else on your home network. For network streaming, you can use shared folders (SMB/SAMBA/CIFS), DLNA, DAAP for iTunes or stream from ReplayTV DVRs/PVRs. Kodi can also stream content from the Internet from sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix, or music from apps like Pandora. Unlike some other media platforms, Kodi does not include a tuner for watching live TV, but you can get a PlayOn app to DVR content from your favorite streaming services like Netflix for viewing offline. Not super important in our case, but good if you think content may disappear from Netflix before you'll be able to watch it. But the not-so-guarded secret about Kodi, and where it gets into a bit of a gray area, are the apps that allow you to stream movies you would otherwise download via sharing applications like BitTorrent. You can use Kodi as a front end to get access to new release movies, including movies still in the theater, for free. In many cases they are terrible Cam videos you wouldn't want to sit thru for two hours. Other times they are DVD rips or even Blu-ray rips. You have to make your own value judgement on the ethics here, but as we understand it, this is one of the main reasons people want to get their hands on a Kodi streaming box. The user experience with the BitTorrent style videos was pretty bad. According to the Internet, it isn't Kodi that has the issues, but each of the individual apps that allow access to the content. They have their own quality issues that leave the experience lacking. Often times we'd click on a menu item and nothing would happen, or we'd try to play a video and it would fail with some cryptic message about checking the logs to see what happened. When we did get a movie to play, even the ones that claimed to be DVD quality looked really rough. It would be hard to watch a full film like that. Conclusion Over

Room Acoustics On today's show we have an Interview with David Kroll KEF's World Wide Ci Product Manager and we discuss room acoustics. What are some simple things you can do to improve your sound and what are things to avoid. Acoustic Panels ATS Acoustic Panel ATS Acoustics Coffee Bag Panel Acoustimac Acoustic art Panels Diffuser Ultimate Acoustics Pyramid Diffusor Auralex Acoustics GeoFusor Sound Diffusor JOCAVI Acoustic Diffuser Panel Bass Trap Acoustic Foam Soundproof Bass Trap Corner Kit Auralex Acoustics LENRD Acoustic Absorption Bass Traps Speaker Isolation SVS SoundPath Subwoofer Isolation System Auralex Acoustics SubDude Auralex Acoustics Isolation Pads Sewell Speaker Spikes

Vudu Movies on Us You'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't think Netflix totally changed the game in home entertainment. First, with the unlimited DVD rentals for a small monthly fee. They essentially ended the video store business. Then, with the shift into unlimited streaming movies, anywhere, anytime, again for a small monthly fee. It has changed the way most of us watch movies, and in some cases, television series. They've been so succesful, others, like Amazon, have tried to copy their model. But you can't be king forever. Someone will eventually come along with a different game changer and dethrone you. Vudu, the on demand movie rental service from Walmart, has never really been competition for Netflix. The two services are quite different. Vudu offers newly released movies for a per movie fee, very much like a streaming version of the old school rental stores. They compete with Apple, Google, Amazon and the like for your new(ish) release rental dollars. Netflix on the other hand, offers older catalog titles and doesn't charge per movie. The movies aren't as fresh, but you can watch as many as you want for a fixed monthly fee. On Tuesday, Vudu rolled out a brand new service they're calling Vudu Movies on Us. They're going right at Netflix, but they've dropped the monthly fee. They have thousands of movies and TV shows available for streaming for free. No charge. The only catch? You have to watch some commercials. They are paid for by the Ads you have to watch. This leaves us with two choices for streaming catalog titles, do you want to pay a fixed monthly fee to avoid watching ads, or pay nothing at all and have to sit through a few commercials? Of course Vudu wants you to sign up so that when you want to rent a newly released title, you'll select Vudu as your service of choice instead of any of the other options out there. They don't really need to make any money on the new Movies on Us service if it brings in a deluge of new accounts. They just need to find a way to convert those free accounts into rental customers. If they can do that, the new service is a huge success. For many people who pay monthly for a Netflix account, but perhaps don't use it all that much, Vudu Movies on Us could be a great option. Historically there has been a pretty decent gap in the video quality you get from the various streaming services, with Vudu and specifically their HDX format, being hands down the best experience available. That is changing with some services starting to offer 4K streaming, and the gap for HD or so-called 1080p, has gotten much smaller. But, it is pretty awesome that Vudu will allow you to stream movies in the HDX format for free. They aren't crippling the quality if you choose to watch for free. The experience is exactly the same. For most titles, you can rent them for $3.99 if you don't want to watch the commercials. If you watch the ads, you get the same video you get if you pay for it. And the titles aren't all random, artsy, independent flicks you've never heard of before. They are the same catalog titles you'd find on Netflix or Amazon Prime. Titles for whatever you're into, like the western remake of True Grit with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, comedies like School of Rock with Jack Black or The Love Guru with Mike Myers, action movies like Out of Time with Denzel Washington, or romantic stuff like Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. We didn't have the opportunity to watch any of the titles all the way through to the end, but for those we did watch, we sat through three, 30 second ads then watched the movie like normal. It's possible they insert more ads in the middle of the movie, but we didn't see any. Doing the math, you've got a minute and a half of advertisements to save $3.99 per title. Of course most people would opt for Netflix for those titles, so they'd get them included in their $9.99 or $11.99 monthly fee. But if you watch less than three movies per month on Netflix, it's actually cheaper to just rent them on Vudu. And now, it's totally free. You can have up to 8 devices associated with your Vudu account, and computers, like laptops or desktops, don't count against that 8. From what we can tell, there's no limit on how many of them can be streaming simultaneously like you have with Netflix. The Competition Looking at the competitive landscape, Vudu Movies on Us gets the Walmart streaming service in a head to head with Netflix and makes them more competitive against Amazon. All things considered, the Amazon service is probably still the best deal. You get the unlimited catalog streaming as part of your Prime subscription that also gets you the great deals on shipping and other Amazon perks. Of course, if you don't do lot of shopping at Amazon, the need for Prime shipping goes away, so the streaming fee would be measured against the Netflix monthly fee. And you'd compare that with the free, ad supported offering from Vudu. Like Vudu, Amazon has both newly released titles f

Tivo Mantis...Cord Cutter's Dream box? We have read countless emails from listeners who have cut the cord over the years and many of them have turned to Tivo to become the center of that process. With an antenna and a Tivo box you can cut your TV subscription services to almost nothing. Tivo boxes support Hulu, Netflix, Youtube, Plex, and Amazon Prime so you really don't have to give up everything. Yes there are cable channels that you may miss, but many of those have an app where you can watch some of the programming for free. Worst case you may need to buy a few season passes of a couple of TV shows that are not available through an app. Regardless, you should be able to watch everything you want and dramatically cut your yearly bill. Tivo even has options for those who want to connect multiple TVs through a network connection. The $150 Tivo Mini will connect a bedroom TV to the main Tivo Unit bringing the full Tivo experience to any room in the house without any additional fee. A typical multi room setup can run about $750 including a year of the TV service. Compare that to $1,200 ($50/month 24 month min required) for a basic level of DirecTV service. For some this is still a bit steep because you have to come up with the money up front. Well we have heard that Tivo is working on a new box called the Mantis. It is a headless network DVR box that may change everything for the cord cutter. It's a box that isn't much bigger than than Roku or AppleTV that connects to an antenna and then transcodes the signal for viewing by other devices. It's not clear if it will come equipped with a hard drive or will require an external drive for storage. Tivo will also include an app for viewing what's on the Mantis for AppleTVs, Rokus, and the FireTV as well as the apps for tablets and smartphones. That means that you can now bury the Mantis in any room that has a network (or within range of Wifi) and antenna connection. With minimal details at this time we can only speculate on the feature set. Our wish list would include: Online viewing of live and recorded content - This is kind of like a personalized Aereo service and slingbox all rolled into one. Offline viewing of recorded content - It would be nice to be able to catch up on all the TV that is piling up on your DVR without needing an Internet connection. Cloud Support - No need to open up ports on your router. This makes setup and use much easier. Content Archiving - It would also be nice if the content on your local drive could be archived to iCloud, Amazon, or Google Drives Tivo has not confirmed or denied that the Mantis actually exists. The information has been gleaned from an FCC filing. Look for the Mantis to be announced at CES in January. Or you can pick up a Tablo (Buy Now $199) right now. It doesn't have all the features we discussed but it will give you access to your DVR from anywhere you have a network connection.

ATSC 3.0 In the United States and a few other parts of the globe, the standard that defines how digital television transmissions work over terrestrial, cable and satellite broadcasts is called ATSC, named after the Advanced Television Systems Committee. ATSC 1.0 is in use now as the current standard, adopted by the FCC in 1996. But the committee is actively working on the next generation of broadcast standards and has released both 2.0 and 3.0 versions - neither of which are actually in use yet. Some feel that ATSC 3.0 may leapfrog 2.0 and make it obsolete before it even gets any serious mileage on it. One of the great characteristics of the ATSC 2.0 standard is that it is fully backward compatible with ATSC 1.0. This could, in many ways, make it a great bridge to the newer 3.0 standard. It has a ton of new functionality, like interactive and hybrid television experiences that connect your television with Internet content and services and actually merge the interactive elements directly into the broadcast stream. You don't have two separate/disjoint experiences running side by side or on top of one another. But while it is cool, it doesn't actually match the experience most viewers would be looking for in today's world, so the odds are it will never make it over the airwaves. The ATSC 3.0 standard is actually a collection of 20 individual standards. This week, on October 5, the Advanced Television Systems Committee gave its formal approval to 3 of those standards. This brings the overall picture to 5 published standards, 11 candidate or proposed standards and the remainder still in the documentation phase of development. Of the other 17 standards, many of them are quite noteworthy. Along with the interactivity features that build on the ATSC 2.0 spec, 3.0 adds support for 4K video, High Dynamic Range content and H.265 compression. The plan is to take the best of what modern technology has to offer, from 4k TVs to smartphones and tablets, and deliver it to you in a unified television broadcast. New Standards One of the three standards that received approval is the ATSC 3.0 Link Layer Protocol. Bear with us here, because this might go full geek for a bit. For those familiar with the protocols used to make the Internet work, the standards that deliver websites from servers in the cloud to your browser at home, you'll recognize the term Link Layer as the lowest layer in the Internet Protocol Suite, more typically referred to as TCP/IP. As it turns out, ATSC 3.0 Link Layer Protocol serves the same purpose for digital broadcasts as its namesake does for Internet communication. It is responsible for moving data between the network layer and the physical layer or the hardware itself. On the sending side data moves from the network layer to the physical layer to be sent out as a broadcast. On the receiving side in your TV set at home, it is also responsible for moving data from the physical layer to the network layer so it can be processed. Two other standards also approved were both Audio and Video Watermark Emission standards. As you would probably guess, they specify the audio and video watermark encoding used in ATSC 3.0 broadcasts. The Audio Watermark Emission Standard (A/334) specifies the audio watermark encoding for use with systems conforming to the ATSC 3.0 family of specifications. And the Video Watermark Emission Standard (A/335) specifies the emission format for video watermarks used by systems that conform to the ATSC 3.0 spec. Audio watermarks are signals embedded in the audio portion of the broadcast, typically inaudible, they are primarily used to identify ownership of a copyright. Video watermarks are more obvious, but the ATSC spec places them in an ancillary stream so they can survive any issues in video compression, transcoding or transmission. The two streams are brought together on your TV. This week, the ATSC Technology Group 3 members also began the voting process to elevate three other ATSC Candidate Standards to the elevated Proposed Standard status. If they were a bill on Capitol Hill, this would be the last step before ATSC member approval. The three are: A/332 Service Announcement - More Info The Service Announcement function enables ATSC 3.0 Service providers to describe the ATSC 3.0 Services that they make available. From a user's point of view, the Service Announcement function enables an on-screen Service Guide that can be seen as an entry point to discover ATSC 3.0 services and to select services. Service Announcement provides descriptions of the content offerings and also may provide a filtering capability based on user preferences and content properties, such as the presence or absence of captioning, interactive enhancements, video formats (3D, SD, HD, UD), audio formats (stereo, 5.1, immersive), caption formats (IMSC1 text or image), content advisory ratings, genre, accessible audio tracks, alternate languages, etc. In the case of scheduled services, Service Announcement also pr

Plex Interview Today we interview Elan Fiengold CTO of Plex and Jason Williams Director of Product and Growth of Plex. For those of you who do not know what Plex is, Plex is a media server and client suite of applications that organizes your multimedia content from personal libraries and streams it to their player both on a local network and across the Internet. There are two pieces to the Plex System, the server and the client. Plex Server - The server is the portion that organizes and catalogs your content and delivers it to your clients. The server can run on Macs, PCs, NAS, and the NVidia Shield. Plex Client - This is where you can watch your content. Pretty much if it has a screen you can watch. Tablets, Phones, Computers, TVs and on and on. Features Any Format - Support for all file types (well, virtually all), including hi-fi music and video formats. Available Anywhere - Stream all of your media to all your devices, anytime, anywhere, with the same beautiful experience on all of them. Library Organization - Organize all of your media–videos, photos, and music–and make it beautiful with artwork and info like plot summaries, bios, and more. Privacy and Security - Enjoy your media while away from home, knowing your connection is securely encrypted. Sharing - Effortlessly share libraries among friends to all discover and enjoy even more content together. Recommendations and Discovery - Enjoy beautifully organized libraries that help you find and re-discover great gems in your collection. No Storage Limit - Store and stream as much as you have on your server or storage device, without sacrificing quality, security, or performance. Online Channels - Get online content from various sources, like TED Talks, NPR, Spike, Comedy Central, and Soundcloud, right in Plex. Remote Control - Use the Plex app on your phone or tablet to control any Plex player. Casting - Cast content from your smartphone, tablet, or computer to your TV for large screen viewing via Chromecast. Flinging - Start content on one device and fling it to another app to continue enjoying it. Media Optimizer - Create optimized versions of your media for seamless streaming on whichever device you choose. Watch Later - Save online videos to watch later or recommend videos to a friend. Plex Cloud NEW - Plex Cloud and your Amazon Drive is the simplest way to run Plex, without the need for an always-on PC or network-attached storage device (NAS). Plex DVR NEW - Record free television broadcast channels and watch your favorite HD shows, movies, news, and sports, on any device, anywhere in the world. Mobile Sync - Sync your videos, music, and photos to your mobile device for offline enjoyment wherever you go. Cloud Sync - Sync content from your library to supported cloud storage providers to enjoy even if your server is offline. Audio Fingerprinting - Manage your music with song identification via audio fingerprinting, get world-class album reviews and artist bios, as well as the best cover art available. Lyrics - See timed lyrics to your favorite songs when available. Mood Mix - Find tracks in your collection based on mood to help you wake up, wind down, and everything in between. Plex Mix - Kick off playback of similar tracks from your collection at any time — it's like your own personal radio station. Premium Music - Enjoy lyrics, automatic Plex Mix and Mood Mix playlists based on mood or similar tracks, and premium metadata matching for high quality art, album reviews, artist bios and more! Multiple Users Create customized, managed accounts, and make user switching fast and easy with Plex Home. Parental Controls - Enable parental controls to keep the kids away from inappropriate content. Trailers and Extras - Automatically see high quality movie trailers, cast interviews, and other extras for movies in your library. Camera Upload - Wirelessly sync your phone or tablet photos automatically to your Plex Media Server. VIP Discounts NEW - Get exclusive access to discounts on partner products Early Access - Be the first to get exclusive access to new features and enjoy awesome premium ones.

CEDIA 2016 Each year CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) holds an event where the industry gathers to show off their wares. It is akin to a mini-CES, but also for many of us represents a best of CES of sorts. When we've been to attend the show, we tend to enjoy it more than CES. It takes the parts of CES that we are interested in and compresses it down to a more manageable show. We didn't go this year but that won't stop us from talking about some of the products we think are interesting. This year the show was from September 13-17 in Dallas, TX. High-Def Digest: Top Six Highlights from CEDIA 2016 Sony UBP-X1000ES Sony has their first entry into the world of Ultra HD Blu-ray players. But there is catch, this ES model is only for integrators. Even so, it's a pretty clear view of what we can expect when the consumer version is finally announced. The Ultra HD Blu-ray was just one part of Sony's booth, but, at least for this event, Sony made it clear that HDR is an important focus in the current line, both in the Master Drive TVs and in projectors like the VPL-VW5000ES. KEF Blade Two With good reason, most of the serious audio demonstrations at CEDIA 2016 required at the least a demonstration enclosure, and at the most indulgent, a suite. The KEF Blade Two, however, stood in a pair right in the open middle of the KEF booth. That stereo image, produced by two Blade Twos running off of a Hegel H360 (and networked FLAC tracks), was so poised in the din of the convention center and the booth, I had trouble even thinking of places in homes and well, luxury hotels, that wouldn't be made better with a pair of the large but not intimidating speakers. Naturally, the rest of the booth, which housed gems like the KEF Ci Series, had that kid in a toy store feel. LG Signature OLED77G6P Not only is the OLED65G6P basically breathe-taking in that undeniable beauty time of way, but the undeniability applies to both the picture and form. And here, in mid-to-late 2016, what could LG do to top this show-stopper? That would be to debut a 77" version. This new model exudes the same lines, but in a greater size more apropos of in-home cinema. The reason I say that now is a good time to make the trek to see the Signature line is that the 77" (and its even bigger $20k price tag) is already ready at certain showrooms in the States. Modulus Media Hub The Modulus Media Hub promises a lot, including DVD and Blu-ray archiving, a wealth of streaming service support, a base 6TB capacity with external expansion, 4K support, remote media access, and a DVR capability that applies to everything (including streaming). But what struck me is that the Modulus has the hardware (apparently) to also host Ultra HD Blu-rays. Unfortunately, that particular capability is not a certainty. CEDIA: Seven Trends We've Seen at CEDIA 2016 (we will discuss 4 of them…) Voice is the New Mouse and/or Swipe Given the Friday Keynote and a number of CEDIA Talks, it was easy to predict VUI would be a pretty hot topic. But as more and more manufacturers in the CEDIA channel explore integrating some manner of voice control into their products – from whole-home audio to security systems – it's pretty clear that the entire industry's betting on the next step in computer interaction. Everybody's at the Table OK, maybe it's not quite time to dump the term "DIY" yet – but seeing products that are pitched directly to the consumer side-by-side with pro models is an incredibly interesting trend. Back to VUI – yeah, you can buy your own interface device, but that same technology is going into gear used in big integration projects. It seems that there's a parallel development at work — and a realization that as a broader spectrum of the populace gets really interested in this stuff, that rising tide will lift every boat. The Home Needs an IT Pro We've heard more stats about the Internet of Things than devices that are actually on the Internet of Things. Alright, that's a total exaggeration, but still – the challenges that the IoT is presenting when it comes to interoperability, security, and network troubleshooting will translate into ever larger opportunities for that less-than-artful acronym "RMR." Speakers Should Either Be Gorgeous or Invisible Not a new trend per se, but the difference between the "buried in the sheetrock and still sounds amazing" and the speaker-as-sculpture philosophy really struck your humble scribe over the last few days. Both the aural effects of the invisible speakers and the visual impact from those who treat this gear as high-end design has been jaw-dropping. CE Pro: Editor's Pick: 12 Great New Products from CEDIA 2016 Stewart Filmscreen Phantom HALR Screen The top manufacturer in CE Pro's Brand Analysis in the screen category reinforced its standing with its Phantom HALR black screen. Available in sizes up to 40 x 90 feet, with specification options for rollable installations, and acoustically transparent applications, dealers c

Home Theater Seating We've had media/projector rooms in our homes for a few years now. We've talked about our electronics, our content, and even some of the decorations that go into those rooms. But we haven't really discussed seating. That's because for many of us the seating is simply your tradition couch or recliner. Going back a few years if you wanted home theater seating you had to spend a lot of money to buy seats that were designed for actual theaters. Then we saw a company at CES (2009) that was showing off seats that had electro-mechanical actuators that made them move in unison with the movie. The D-BOX seats were stuff that only the rich could afford. To seat four people with this system could easily run you over $30,000. Plus only certain movies provided the codes to actually move the seats. Fast Forward to 2016 and the Derderian's need a new couch in the media room so for grins we looked around at what was available. To our pleasant surprise, there is plenty available and while not cheap, it's a far cry from costing $30,000 to comfortably seat a family of four to watch your favorite movies. Manufactures There are plenty of manufacturers out there selling "Home Theater" seats. They range from the traditional theater style to more family style. Here is a partial list: Seatcraft - Started in 1978 in California as a manufacturer of automotive seating they began selling home theater seating 2001. They have many styles and different pricepoints. Pricing ranges from $399 to over $1000 a seat. They come in different fabrics and styles. From single recliners to rows of 2,3, and 4. Options include neck pillow, tablet holder, and wine caddy. They even include in seat USB charging ports and power recline. You'll never want to watch a movie in a theater again! Lane Home Theater Seating - Lane has been around for years and the know a trend when they see one. Their home theater seating offerings are limited to a two arm recliner as well as row seating. Pricing ranges between $500 and $650 a seet. Options include power recline, in arm storage, and cool LED lights at the base of the seats. Higher end models include USB charging. Barcalounger - Founded in 1941, Barcalounger is one of the highest regarded furniture companies in the USA. Translation, you will pay for the quality, but that's not a bad thing in our opinion. Barcalounger sells row seating that ranges in price from $600 to $1000. Power recline, USB charging, Lighted Cupholder and base are the main options available. There are many other manufacturers including Southern Motion, Coaster, Jaymer, and Berkline selling options that include curved seating, seatbacks that flip down into consoles and storage for your remote controls. There is a style, color, and option somewhere out there that will make even the toughest aesthetics committee chairman happy. Oh yeah! Don't forget the seat shakers. Everyone one of the above seats can be fitted with sound shaker amp kit. There are even wireless versions that make setup simple. Now you have a reason to buy a 7.2 receiver even in a small room! Multimedia Sofas So let's say that you are married to someone who just doesn't like theater seating. I'm not going to mention names but Ara knows someone like that. In fact his entire family is someone like that. They just can't seem to wrap their minds around home theater seats. They say you can't snuggle up during a movie. I say that's what the downstairs TV is for… but I digress. There is a line of seating called Multimedia Sofas. These are home theater seats without the armrests in between seats. These seats come in multiple configurations including wedge and console options. Sofas, loveseats, straight, curved, and L-shape designs. Essentially like the couch you have today! But these have many of the same options as actual theater seats like USB charging, fold down console, LED lighting, power recline, and lighted cupholders on the edges or in the wedges. And yes you can add sound shaker amps! Prices range from $1000 to $2200 depending on options. Whatever happened to D-BOX Well they are still around. Their seats are popular in high end theaters around the world. They still are doing well in the home theater market. Not the theaters that we own (at least most of you who listen to this show) but the theaters that you read about in Electronic Home or on AVS forum. For us, it is in the realm of possibility to spend $2500 on seating for our theaters. We'll have to wait and see what gets approved in Ara's family. There are three committee members who are really standing in his way right now. Stay tuned!

Home Theater News and Talk Apple introduces iPhone 7 ($649), iPhone 7 Plus ($769), and wireless earbuds The company later revealed the new devices would come in 32GB, 128 GB, and 256GB sizes. Prices start at $649/£599 for the iPhone 7 and $769/£719 for the iPhone 7 Plus. Pre-orders begin on Friday, September 9, and devices will ship on Friday, September 16. iOS 10 will arrive on September 13 to support the new releases. Sony unveils new versions of PlayStation 4 Sony Interactive Entertainment, a division of Sony Corp (6758.T), unveiled on Wednesday two new versions of its PlayStation 4 Console in an effort to help Sony maintain its sales lead over Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.T). The PlayStation 4 Pro, which will launch Nov. 10, will support higher resolution and more realistic imagery by enabling 4k resolution and higher dynamic range (HDR), said Andrew House, chief executive of Sony Interactive Entertainment, at a PlayStation event in New York City Tuesday announcing the new products. The console will cost $399. Additionally, the company unveiled a slimmer, lighter and more energy efficient version of its PlayStation 4 Console, which will come out Sept. 15 and will cost $299. IBM aims to weave Watson smarts into the home IBM plans to integrate its Watson intelligence into gadgets and appliances such as washing machines, security cameras and wireless headphones. The company has partnered with Panasonic, Whirlpool, Nokia and Bragi to create Watson-equipped internet of things devices for the home. LG readies new OLED, quantum dot TVs LG is preparing to debut an OLED TV with "an exclusive hardware platform" at CES in January, and is readying a lineup of quantum dot TVs to compete with Samsung at a level below LG's most premium sets. The quantum dot TVs will utilize a quantum dot filter on an LCD TV and sell for approximately $1,000 less than LG's OLED TVs. Amazon updates Fire TV features Amazon on Tuesday announced a software update for its Fire TV and Fire TV Stick that adds features to the devices. New features include voice search on apps, recommended viewing options from HBO and Netflix, and sports updates from Alexa.

IFA 2016 Each year in Germany consumer electronics manufacturers come together to display their wares at IFA. The IFA or Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (International radio exhibition Berlin, aka 'Berlin Radio Show') is one of the oldest industrial exhibitions in Germany. Kind of like a mini-CES, manufacturers announce new products and services. We haven't covered the show for a few years, but this year we thought it would be pertinent to run down some of the announcements as they pertain (mostly) to Home Theater. General Worldwide revenues from consumer electronics are projected to drop 5 percent this year to $906.55 billion, according to market research firm GfK and reported by Hans-Joachim Kamp, chairman of gfu Consumer & Home Electronics, during the inaugural IFA 2016 keynote presentation. However, many product segments will show significant growth this year. According to Kamp and GfK, global sales of UHD TVs will hockey stick 75 percent this year to 54 million units UHD sets, while OLED set sales will spike an even more vertical 120 percent to 600,000 units. Even unit sales of smart TVs in general are expected to rise a modest 1 percent to 96 million units. Other growing products markets include wearables, forecast to rise 58 percent to 122 million units; Bluetooth speakers, projected to grow 23 percent to 41 million units; and, worldwide sales of smartphones, still the 800-pound gorilla of consumer technology, will expand by 5 percent to 1.4 billion units. While revenue from gadgets are expected to be down this year, the IFA show in general will celebrate its 10th straight year of growth. According to Dr. Christian Göke, CEO of the Messe Berlin fairgrounds and convention space, the number of exhibitors will rise to 1,800, a 5 percent rise, occupying 158,000 square meters, also a 5 percent rise. Whether or not the show attracts more than last year's 40,000 visitors – both trade and consumer – remains to be seen. Source: IFA 2016: Global CE Revenues Projected To Fall 5% in 2016 Samsung Samsung reinforced its commitment to Quantum dot display technology at IFA 2016. Samsung revealed a new Quantum dot TV, the 88-inch KS9800, offering the ultimate in picture quality, brilliance and, as with all of Samsung's SUHD TVs, a display capable of producing up to one billion colors. Samsung now offers the largest range of SUHD TVs in Europe, with 19 available sizes from 43" up to 88", capitalizing on the limitless flexibility of Quantum dot in terms of screen size and definition. Samsung also announced the world's first curved Quantum dot PC Monitors – the new CF791, with a 34" Ultra Wide QHD screen and the stunning new CFG70, the first curved monitor with a one millisecond moving picture response time and 144 hertz refresh rate for smooth, flawless gaming. As the first curved quantum dot gaming monitors, Samsung's CFG70 and CF791 express brilliant colors across a 125-percent sRGB spectrum, while employing an environmentally-safe cadmium-free design. This luminance emphasizes a range of otherwise-hidden game details in both light and dark settings, offering unprecedented visual realism designed to capture the attention of even the most hardcore gamers. Ever mindful that great television is about amazing content as well as outstanding picture quality, Samsung said it was strengthening its collaborative relationships with global partners, such as Amazon and Netflix. Netflix in particular is expanding its range of HDR content for European customers, with film titles such as Marco Polo, The Do-Over and The Ridiculous Six. European partners including RTVE and Insight TV will also begin to offer HDR content in the second half of 2016. Samsung also showcased the capabilities of the Samsung Smart Remote, which allows users to easily navigate all of their connected devices with one single remote control. The Smart remote is designed to auto-detect any and all external devices connected to the TV, making it simple for consumers to switch between and use them – without having to hunt around for multiple remotes. Lastly, Samsung underlined its position as the leader in European home audio and the number one soundbar manufacturer in the region. On display were products including Samsung's Wireless Audio 360 line-up and HW-K950 Soundbar featuring Dolby Atmos® audio technology for cinematic, multi-dimensional sound. Combined with its SUHD TV, UHD Blu-ray Player, and HDR content ecosystem, Samsung believes this makes them the only company capable of providing the complete 4K home entertainment experience. Source: Samsung Redefines the Consumer Experience at IFA 2016 Sony The Sony 'Signature Series' goes one step further than any audio product they've made before. Comprised of the MDR-Z1R headphones, NW-WM1Z Walkman and TA-ZH1ES headphone amplifier, it's a formidable trio of products, intended for those who have no budget and will only accept the very best sound quality. The Z1R headphones combine unbelievable sound quality a

Plex Server on the Nvidia Shield Since the beginning a video server has been high on the HT Guys list of gear that everyone should have in their setups. Back then there was a product that did exactly what we wanted but it cost upwards of $50,000! The Kaleidescape was THE video server we all wanted. It had a great user interface with best looking experience. Over the years there have been many media center products come and go and we have tried many of them. There was Windows Media center which at one point had third party manufacturers building hardware with the player software installed. You still needed to buy a PC that had the server side. On the open source side was Xbox Media Center (XBMC) which turned your xbox into a media center. The XBMC (now known as Kodi) software was ported to many platforms with variants that included Media Portal, Tofu, and what we are going to talk about today, Plex. Our discussion consists of two parts, the hardware (in this case the Nvidia Shield) and the software Plex. By the way, this is not a full discussion on Plex or a full review of the shield. We did do a review of Plex in January of this year. You can check it out here. Plex On the software side is Plex. Plex is a free client-server media player system and software suite comprising two main components. The Plex Media Server organizes your content and streams it to the Plex Player. The players can either be the Plex Apps available for mobile devices, smart TVs, and streaming boxes, or the web UI of the Plex Media Server called Plex Web App. Although the free version of Plex is quite capable, you'll want to buy the Plex pass ($4.99/ month, $39.99/year, and $149.99/lifetime) to really get you the Kaleidescape killer. With the PlexPass you get: Offline Access, Music Enhancements including lyrics, trailers and extras, and early access to new features and updates just to name a few. The full list is available on their site Nvidia Shield On the hardware side is the Nvidia Shield (Buy Now $199). The Shield is an Android TV based set-top box targeted for both home entertainment and gaming. We will strictly be focusing on the entertainment aspect of the shield and specifically Plex. But for completeness the shield does offer android games and entertainment apps like Netflix (4K HDR supported), Hulu, Pandora, Youtube 4K and others. Two Products in One A big advantage the Shield has over other setups is that it can be both the server and client. In Ara's setup he has the Plex Server running on his Mac mini and he uses the AppleTVs as clients. Not a big deal, but what if you want a simple solution. Take the Shield, you can buy the stripped down model for $199 and add an external hard drive for say another $50 and you have server and client that you can connect to your HDTV in about 30 minutes. If you have other TVs you can add an AppleTV, Roku, or FireTV and you'll have access to your media on every TV in your home. Plus there are mobile apps for access both inside and outside the home. For more info on Plex go to their website at Plex.TV Setup This is not a step by step tutorial. There are plenty of resources available online for that so we decided to document our process to give you an indication of the effort required. We also created a video of the process that helps in conveying this information. It's embedded below. We copied the movies that we had onto a 3TB Western Digital hard drive ($115), connected that to the Shield, connected ethernet, and power and started the process. The process consisted of signing into our Google account and then upgrading the firmware. This took about twenty minutes. Then we signed into our plex account and finished configuring the server. That took about five minutes. The plex setup requires you make a connection with another device like a laptop or tablet. The last thing we had to do was point our server to the content. That also was done with an external device. The interface for the server is HTML so you need a browser to communicate with it. Once that was done, the server began cataloging the movies and adding the meta data. One thing to consider about using the 16GB Shield is that it does not have a lot of space for files. Fortunately you can add a SD card for this information. The shield can't write to a PC formatted disc which is how the WD drive is formatted. You could allow the shield to format the drive and then it will be available to the shield to for metadata but then is becomes a pain to copy your content to it. Because of this we decided to go with the SD card. You can also buy the shield with the 500GB internal drive for an additional $100 (Buy now $300). If you want to add more content to the drive you'll need to disconnect it and take it to a machine that has the movie on it and manually copy it over. You can also use networked storage which may be the way to go but that adds cost. Use Plex looks beautiful! Here is a slideshow of what it looks like on our system. We did noti

New TV Shows for Fall 2016 Christmas. the Super Bowl, Fashion Week in New York, Taco Tuesday … Few things in life are as highly anticipated as television premier season every Fall. There isn't much we look forward to more. All of your favorite shows coming back for another season, and a ton of new shows to potentially add to the DVR queue. Who knows, one of them could be the next Grey's Anatomy or Ally McBeal, some of our favorite shows of all time. If you're interested, Cinema Blend has a great post with all the Fall TV Premiere Dates by date, time, and Network. ABC American Housewife Premieres: Tuesday, Oct. 11 at 8:30 PM Stars: Katie Mixon, Diedrich Bader, Ali Wong Producer: Sarah Dunn Premise: Mixon stars as Katie Otto, an unapologetic mother of three raising her family in the wealthy town of Westport, Connecticut that's full of "perfect" families. HT Guys Preview Score: Meh Conviction Premieres: Monday, Oct. 3 at 10:00 PM Stars: Hayley Atwell, Eddie Cahill, Shawn Ashmore, Merrin Dungey, Emily Kinney, Manny Montana, Daniel DiTomasso Premise: Former ne'er-do-well first daughter Hayes Morrison (Atwell) gets blackmailed into working for New York District Attorney Wayne Wallis' (Cahill) Conviction Integrity Unit, where she has to turn over wrongful convictions. HT Guys Preview Score: Meh Designated Survivor Premieres: Wednesday, Sep. 21 at 10:00 PM Stars: Kiefer Sutherland, Natascha McElhone, Maggie Q, Kal Penn, Adan Canto, Italia Ricci, LaMonica Garrett, Tanner Buchanan Producers: David Guggenheim, Simon Kinberg, Kiefer Sutherland, Mark Gordon, Nick Pepper, Suzan Bymel, Aditya Sood Premise: Sutherland stars as Tom Kirkman, a lower cabinet member who becomes president after an attack on Washington kills everyone ahead of him in the line of succession. HT Guys Preview Score: Jack Bauer as President? Yeah, we're in. Notorious Premieres: Thursday, Sep. 22 at 9:00 PM Stars: Piper Perabo, Daniel Sunjata, Ryan Guzman, Kevin Zegers, J. August Richards, Aimee Teegarden Premise: Inspired by the lives of criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos and cable news producer Wendy Walker, the drama examines the 24-hour news cycle and the relationship between the media and criminal law. HT Guys Preview Score: Mark Geragos the TV show? Pass. Speechless Premieres: Wednesday, Sep. 21 at 8:30 PM Stars: Minnie Driver, John Ross Bowie, Mason Cook, Micah Fowler, Kyla Kennedy, Cedric Yarbrough Premise: Driver stars as Maya DiMeo, a mother of three, one of whom is a special needs child. HT Guys Preview Score: Meh CBS Bull Premieres: Tuesday, Sep. 20 at 9:00 PM Stars: Michael Weatherly, Freddy Rodriguez, Geneva Carr, Chris Jackson, Jaime Lee Kirchner and Annabelle Attanasio Producers: Paul Attanasio, Dr. Phil McGraw, Jay McGraw, Steven Spielberg, Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank Premise: NCIS alum Michael Weatherly stars as Dr. Phil on the series, which will follow McGraw's early career as a trial consultant. McGraw will produce with his son Jay. HT Guys Preview Score: Sounds like loads of Bull The Great Indoors Premieres: Thursday, Oct. 27 at 8:30 PM Stars: Joel McHale, Stephen Fry, Chris Williams, Shaun Brown, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Christine Ko, Susannah Fielding Premise: An adventure reporter (McHale) must adapt to his new job managing millennials in the digital department of a magazine. HT Guys Preview Score: Joel McHale is super funny and millennials are easy to make fun of. If you need a new sitcom in your life, this could be worth a look. Kevin Can Wait Premieres: Monday, Sep. 19 at 8:30 PM Stars: Kevin James, Erinn Hayes, Taylor Spreitler, Mary-Charles Jones, James Digiacomo, Ryan Cartwright Premise: The King of Queens star returns to CBS, this time playing a retired cop who realizes that home life is tougher than anything he faced on the street. HT Guys Preview Score: Meh. Have you seen Mall Cop 2? MacGyver Premieres: Friday, Sep. 23 at 8:00 PM Stars: Lucas Till, George Eads Premise: Till plays the titular problem-solver in the reboot, which follows 20-something MacGyver as he starts a clandestine organization to prevent disasters from happening. HT Guys Preview Score: Uh, what's next, an A-Team reboot? Man With A Plan Premieres: Monday, Oct. 24 at 8:30 PM Stars: Matt LeBlanc, Jessica Chaffin, Matt Cook, Grace Kaufman, Hala Finley, Matthew McCann Premise: A contractor (LeBlanc) becomes a stay-at-home dad when his wife returns to work and discovers that his kids are the worst. HT Guys Preview Score: meh Pure Genius Premieres: Thursday, Oct. 27 at 10:00 PM Stars: Augustus Prew, Dermot Mulroney, Brenda Song, Reshma Shetty, Ward Horton, Aaron Jennings, Odette Annable Premise: A Silicon Valley millionaire (Prew) taps a veteran surgeon with a controversial past (Mulroney) to head a hospital that will employ groundbreaking but potentially risky new procedures. HT Guys Preview Score: Doesn't sound like it'll last the season Training Day Premieres: Midseason Stars: Bill Paxton, Justin Cornwell, Drew Van Acker, Katrina Law, Lex Scott D

FireConnect Since almost the beginning we have been looking for ways to ditch wires. They are a pain to run across rooms, create unsightly bulges in carpet or even require drywall cutting. There are a few technologies that have been out for some time now. We have AirPlay by apple, Chromecast by Google, Bluetooth, and few other lesser known technologies. They all work pretty well and have support from various receiver manufacturers. A newer technology was brought to our attention by a listener called FireConnect. FireConnect is the brainchild of San Francisco based Blackfire Research Corp. Fireconnect has the usual feature list but goes beyond what the typical wireless protocols support today. Features: High-res and multichannel - Streaming of up to 24-bit/192kHz audio, and multichannel 2.1, 5.1 or 7.1 audio. Lossy or lossless BT and Aux Input Rebroadcast - Auxiliary inputs and Bluetooth devices will be rebroadcast wirelessly. Multi Source Play - You can sync zones or play them independently. Video streaming - Currently if you want to stream video you need an add on device. FireConnect is hoping to make streaming video as simple as sending it to your A/V Receiver or TV. Their spec supports the ability to stream HD Video and lossless 24-bit/192kHz Studio Quality HD audio to any device. Google Cast included - Why not? It's open to the world! To keep everything running smooth and in sync, Fireconnect gets down to the packet layer of your network data. RPM (Real-Time Packet Management) Delays in receiving packets is one of the most challenging issues in real-time video delivery over wireless networks. A late packet becomes useless for the decoding and display even if it is received correctly at the receiver. RPM allows Fireconnect devices to stream HD Video and lossless 24-bit/192kHz Studio Quality HD audio to any device in any room - it's how they make sure that there are no gaps or drop-outs in your music and video. TIS (Traffic Independent Synchronization) No matter how busy your network is, your content stays in sync. Delays are adjusted in real time so that a speaker in the family does not drift too far off from the rest of the zones. These adjustments are happening constantly and are not noticeable by the listener. DSB (Dynamic Stream Balancing) When streaming to multiple devices, DSB keeps it all in balance. - Not quite sure what this is but keeping things in balance is always a good idea! The goal is to wirelessly transmit your audio and video to your media devices, which include Multi-Room smart speakers, A/V Receivers, smartwatches and smart TVs across different manufactures so long as they use the Fireconnect technology. The technology will be able to turn your smartwatch into a music hub that can wirelessly send audio to your wireless headphones or music zones throughout your house. Video does not have to be point to point. You will be able to stream a video signal to multiple screens. So you'll be able to watch the same video throughout your home whether it's on the big screen or tablet. Where can I get it? Pioneer and Onkyo have receivers that support this tech. Pioneer VSX-1131 7.2-Channel AV Receiver with MCACC built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi $539 - Firmware update required Onkyo TX-NR555 7.2-Channel Network A/V Receiver $449 Firmware update required. Multi-room audio enabled by this technology requires an optional Onkyo wireless speaker scheduled for release in late 2016. Onkyo cannot guarantee the compatibility of its A/V receivers with other devices featuring FireConnect. Uh-Oh!! HTC One Play music simultaneously to multiple Blackfire compliant speakers from HTC One M9. As far as speakers go we couldn't find any. That's not saying there aren't any, but a simple search revealed nothing. So pretty much as best as we can see it. You'll be able to send audio from your HTC One to an Onkyo or Pioneer receiver and have it play through your wired speakers. This technology was announced in 2010 and may only be coming on the scene. We'll keep our eyes on it for you and see how it develops. But right now we have a hard time seeing how it will be able to beat Google and Apple's entrenched technology.

The History of Format Wars and How Sony Finally Won

QLED Explained A few weeks ago we mentioned that Samsung would be investing in QLED technology and we (Ara) thought that QLED was just a clever branding name for Quantum Dot technology. It was quickly pointed out that QLED is indeed a separate technology and one that may give OLED a run for it's money. QLED is an acronym for "Quantum Dot Light Emitting Device" and are a form of light emitting technology and consist of nano-scale crystals. The structure of a QLED is very similar to the OLED technology. But the difference is that the light emitting centers are cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanocrystals, or quantum dots. A layer of quantum dots is sandwiched between layers of organic materials. An applied electric field causes electrons and holes to move into the quantum dot layer where they are captured in the quantum dot and recombined emitting photons. What???? In short, when these tiny molecules are hit with an electric charge they absorb light and then give off a different color light. QLEDs advantages (according to QLED trade group) : Pure color — Will deliver 30-40% luminance efficiency advantage over organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) at the same color point. Low power consumption — QLEDs have the potential to be more than twice as power efficient as OLEDs at the same color purity. Low-cost manufacture — The ability to print large-area QLEDs on ultra-thin flexible substrates will reduce luminaire manufacturing cost. Ultrathin, transparent, flexible form factors — QLEDs will enable designers to develop new display and lighting forms not possible with existing technologies. QLED disadvantages (according to OLED trade group) Lifetime and emitting efficiency - When mass producing QLED, pin holes occur and reduce device lifetime, and as the hole and electron are not balanced the emitting efficiency falls. No TVs in production - The first QLED TVs are expected in 2018 and will be expensive. In the mean time OLED production is improving and costs coming down. Who Cares?? Seriously who cares? Let's assume that everything the QLED trade group is saying about QLEDs advantages are true and that everything the OLED trade group is saying about the QLEDs disadvantages are false. Then we have yet another great choice for TVs. And it will be lower cost, lighter, and use less energy. We the consumer wins! On the other hand let's say the opposite is true and QLED flops and Samsung is forced to go the OLED route. Then OLED gets better and we the consumer wins again. Since margins are so small on the lower end TVs manufacturers are looking for a killer technology to warrant higher prices for videophiles. As a result, our TVs keep getting better. You may not be a videophile and can never see yourself spending more than $1,500 of a 50 inch TV but… keep in mind, today's videophile technology is tomorrow's $1,500 50 inch TV!!

2016 TWICE VIP Award Nominations The VIPs are TWICE's (This Week In Consumer Electronics, a weekly trade magazine for professionals in the consumer electronics field) annual products awards, and only retailers and distributors can vote to honor the products that have made the biggest difference in their business. The awards are based on product features, product design and value to consumers. After voting is completed, ballots will be compiled and reviewed by TWICE editors. Winners will be announced in the Aug. 22 print issue of TWICE. Product categories are vast, anything you can imagine in consumer electronics, ranging from refrigerators and washers and dryers to dash cams, from computers to networked window coverings. And of course a few categories are in the home theater and audio visual categories. Those are the devices we'll take a look at. Remember that these are the products deemed best by retailers and distributors and they have a slightly different point of view than the rest of us who simply use the products. A/V Receivers $699 or less Onkyo TX-NR757 Stepping up to THX® Theater Reference Sound is easy with Onkyo's Dolby Atmos® and DTS:X™-ready powerhouse, the TX-NR757. Behind the sleek front panel is Onkyo's Dynamic Audio Amplification which include discrete hi-current amplifiers delivering 180 watts/ch. of distortion-free power. AccuEQ room acoustic calibration features AccuReflex to clearly focus the latest object-based soundtracks for an immersive movie experience. Music lovers can stream audio from mobile apps such as Spotify, Pandora or Tidal via Google Cast™, AirPlay, and Wi-Fi®. As well as controlling your home theater entertainment, the Onkyo Remote App lets you send any audio source wirelessly from the receiver to a compatible speaker in another room using FireConnect technology by BlackFire. The TX-NR757 is also ready for easy custom installation with features such as RS232, IR Input and a 12 V Trigger. Sony STR-DN1070 7.2 Channel Home Theater AV Receiver Take your home entertainment up a level with the STRDN1070. 4K and HDR-compatible HDMI inputs/output support the latest video standards, including HDCP 2.2 content protection for 4K content from broadcast, the Internet and UHD Blu-ray Discs. High-Resolution Audio delivers immersive sound, while Wireless Multi-room and Front Surround let you flexibly create your audio environment. This AV receiver is compatible with wireless surround, front surround, and, of course, 7.2ch real surround. Choose your preferred surround audio mode to flexibly suit the room environment. Don't forget to download the free SongPal and Network Audio Remote apps from iTunes® or the Google™ Play Store to use on your iPhone® or Android™ devices. The SongPal app allows you to control receiver functionality including volume and input selection. Price: $599.99 MSRP A/V Receivers $699+ Onkyo TX-RZ810 Engineered for immensely powerful yet refined THX® Theater Reference sound, the TX-RZ810 7.2 Ch. A/V receiver also deftly streams wireless audio with Google Cast™, AirPlay, Wi-Fi®, and Bluetooth. Enjoy different a host of audio sources in different zones with Powered Zone 2 and Zone 3 line outputs or wirelessly with FireConnect powered by BlackFire. Zone 2 HDMI® shares 4k video on a second display, making the TX-RZ810 not only a wall-shaking movie-room powerhouse at 200W/Ch, but also a hub for housewide entertainment. True to the Onkyo RZ Series, the TX-RZ810 seamlessly integrates with control and home automation systems and excels on audio quality featuring Vector Linear Shaping Circuitry, which removes digital pulse noise for a smooth analog signal on all channels for crystal clear audio reproduction. Built with separate analog and digital processing, massive transformer, huge capacitors, and discrete non-phase-shift amps—the TX-RZ810's sheer agility and dynamism exceeds the highest expectations. Sony STR-ZA5000ES – 9.2 Channel 4K AV Receiver The perfect center to your automated home entertainment universe now with just the right amount of: flexible, multi-zone, high-definition connectivity, easy IP integration with leading control systems, powerful browser-based configurability, and well-renowned ES build quality. With 130W per channel, the STR-ZA5000ES delivers cinema-like surround sound and crystal clear music reproduction for an incredible Audio/Video experience that you won't easily forget. Price: $2,799.99 Soundbars Sony HT-NT5 Sound Bar with High-Resolution Audio/Wi-Fi The ultimate Hi-Res sound bar for your 4K home theater experience. The NT5 packs power and performance worthy of any home theater into a sleek, beautiful design. Experience the sonic details of every movie, playlist, and videogame thanks to the clarity of Super Tweeters and support for Hi-Res Audio playback. And connect your compatible device wirelessly to stream music from all your favorite services. It's an easy way to expand your home theater setup. With three HDMI inputs, one HDMI ARC output, a

Value Electronics HDTV Shootout 2016 Each year Value Electronics, a Scarsdale NY Electronics Retailer, gathers HDTV experts from across the nation and pits some of the best HDTVs against each other in order to determine which TV is the "King of TV". This was the thirteenth year the competition took place. Five Mini Overview TV Shootout sessions and Two full voting TV Shootout evaluations were held over two days on Wednesday, June 22 and Thursday, June 23, 2016. All TVs were set-up on an equal playing field, positioned next to each other in alphabetical order, and professionally calibrated in Day and Night modes. The TVs were judged on nine criteria: Black Quality Perceived Contrast Color Accuracy Sharpness Off-Axis Performance Screen Uniformity HDR/WCG Performance Overall Day Performance Overall Night Performance The Contestants Sony XBR75X940D 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart TV $5998 The Sony comes with full-array local dimming technology for better contrast, HDR, and wider color gamut. The TV is only 2 inches (5cm) thick which should make mounting a snap. It's rated 4 ½ stars at Amazon Samsung UN78KS9800 Curved 78-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV $9998 The Samsung KS9800 is a Curved 4K SUHD TV that uses Quantum Dot color technology and supports a High Dynamic Range (HDR) picture. One person bought this from Amazon and rated it 5 stars LG Electronics OLED65G6P Flat 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart OLED TV $7997 The OLED 4K 65G6 features a flat 65-inch screen with HDR and LG's webOS 3.0 Smart TV Platform in a thin (2.6 inches) design. It has a 5 star user rating based on 6 reviews. VIZIO Reference Series 65" Class Ultra HD Full‑Array LED Smart TV $6000 The Vizio is one of the lower cost TVs on the list but 10 inches smaller than the similarly priced Sony. Not available at Amazon so there is no star rating on this TV. The Results http://www.htguys.com/storage/content-images/HDTVShootout.png

Samsung HW-K450 Soundbar Review Braden recently upgraded some of the gear in his loft because his boys were demanding a 4k television. There's something to be said about raising a new generation of home theater enthusiasts, especially when they can help you gang up on the finance committee. They were approved for the purchase of a Vizio E70u-d3, but since we've already reviewed the Vizio P702ui-B3, we'll skip the TV review and talk about what the boys decided to buy to upgrade sound in their loft, the Samsung HW-K450 Soundbar. About the Soundbar Despite the higher quoted MSRP, you can pick up the Samsung HW-K450 for just under $200 pretty much anywhere it is sold, including Amazon or even direct from Samsung. Prime shipping will save you some money and get it to you faster, unless you head out and pick it up (for the same price coincidently) from Best Buy or another brick and mortar retailer. At $200, we knew it wasn't going to blow us away, but when you're already $1600 in on the TV, you don't want to push your luck. And the Samsung does have a few features that made it a better choice than similar priced models from other models from other manufacturers. The spec sheets lists the features as: 300W nominal output power for dynamic sound. Wireless subwoofer for powerful bass. Dolby Digital decoder reproduces multichannel audio to deliver a cinematic audio experience. Sleek appearance fits seamlessly along most HDTVs for a streamlined look. Includes HDMI input and output Built-in Bluetooth makes it easy to enjoy tracks from on a compatible Bluetooth-enabled device. Supports a variety of file formats including WAV, WMA, AAC, MP3, FLAC and OGG, so you can enjoy your favorite media. Wall-mountable with the included bracket. Setup If you aren't wall mounting the HW-K450, setup is a breeze. The soundbar is small enough to sit below many TVs; we have it sitting on the table below the Vizio and it doesn't interfere with the picture at all. You plug it into power, add the cables you need for sound from your various devices, and that's it. Then you plug the wireless subwoofer into the wall somewhere and when they start up, they locate each other and pair automatically. This all happened for us without issue and we had the soundbar in service in about 5 minutes. If you want to mount the Soudbar to the wall, you can using the included wall mount brackets. However, the soundbar doesn't include the screws or drywall anchors needed to secure the brackets to your wall, so you'll need to make a quick run to your local home improvement or hardware store for those. We didn't wall mount ours, but it is pretty small and light, so we wouldn't anticipate any issues hanging it above or below your wall mounted TV. Just a couple screws and you're set. Performance and Use We know what you're thinking: you bought a Samsung for audio? What were you thinking? Samsung isn't exactly world renowned for audio gear and sound quality. While that is true, we were pleasantly surprised by how much better it sounded than just using the TV. Audio had much more punch and we could get much higher volumes without the audio distorting or everything blending together into one big mush of sound. For music, it probably wouldn't delight your ears, but for television and movies it does a really solid job. Without the included subwoofer, it would have been pretty lackluster. The sub certainly adds the boom you need to feel the experience of an action movie. There were times when watching high action movies that the dialog could get lost in the rest of the action. This happens with a lot of lower end audio gear, not just soundbars. Delivering crisp dialog even among a mess of other noise and sound effects isn't easy to do. And as most have probably experienced, simply increasing the volume doesn't solve the problem. While we don't think the Samsung HW-K450 is the best audio solution out there, or even the best soundbar out there, it actually does sound really good and makes movie watching better for sure. While Samsung talks about a feature called Surround Sound Expansion, saying it "delivers more realistic and immersive audio experience that feels like it's coming right out of your TV". We didn't get any sort of surround sound at all. The sound coming from the front of the room was great. To say we heard anything to the side or behind us would be a stretch. To solve that, Samsung offers the optional SWA-8000S Wireless Surround Kit for $130. It includes a little wireless surround sound amp and two speakers so you can truly have sound all around you. The unit includes Bluetooth so you can stream audio to it from your smartphone or tablet. Like we already said, it isn't a super impressive device for music, but if you're starting with compressed audio and running it over bluetooth, you don't really need much. When we tested it out, we'd get the occasional hiccup in the music, most likely due to interference from the Bluetooth subwoofer, but perhaps from other i

THX Discussion On today's show we discuss THX, the history and what it means to you and your home theater, with David Kroll Global CI Product manager for KEF. The THX Story Born out of the Star Wars legacy and tied to one of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers, no other brand resonates with consumers as deeply, and with greater trust than THX. One week after "Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back" debuted in theaters, George Lucas hired audio scientist, Tomlinson Holman, to design the audio mixing facilities at Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in Northern California. To begin the project, Lucas gave Holman one year to examine film audio throughout the entire production chain—from the set to the theater, and everything in between. Holman's goal was to find a way to improve cinematic sound production and create specifications to design the state-of-the-art audio mixing rooms that would eventually house Skywalker Sound. During that year, Holman was shocked to discover the state of most commercial cinemas. While Dolby Laboratories had made significant contributions to how sound was recorded and played back on film, no one had control over what happened on the production set or in the theater itself. Holman found that most commercial theaters had not seen significant technology improvements since World War II. Viewing angles were poor, inadequate light levels distorted images, and the quality of sound systems and auditorium acoustics made it impossible to hear the dialogue, let alone experience the filmmaker's vision. THX Deep Note THX Deep Note was first composed by Lucasfilm sound engineer Dr. James 'Andy' Moorer in 1982, making its public debut in the THX trailer Wings, screened before the 1983 premiere of Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi. Since then, Deep Note has permeated the industry to become one of the most iconic audio logos in the world. In late 2014, over thirty years after the release of the iconic original, Dr. Moorer returned to the historic Skywalker Ranch and regenerated THX Deep Note using modern technologies and mixed it in current cinema audio formats. The rejuvenated Deep Note was released in early 2015 with the debut of the THX trailer Eclipse.

ViewSonic PJD5255 DLP Projector Review We typically have some sort of backyard or outdoor theater discussion every summer when the weather is nice and we'd all like to take our movie watching to the great outdoors. We'll probably do a more in-depth feature on the topic later in the summer, but as luck would have it, we found ourselves as the proud owners of a new ViewSonic PJD5255 DLP Projector ($339), a perfect backyard theater projector. But it's good for much more than just outside, so you can even use it during the cold or rainy season. The ViewSonic PJD5255 is a DLP projector with a built-in speaker, making it a great all-in-one portable movie theater, just add content. We ended up with this particular ViewSonic model for a couple reasons. First was that we needed it fast for an emergency presentation and it was available from Amazon Prime Now, second was that it's a great price. ViewSonic has other models that are less expensive, or more expensive and more full featured, so we encourage you to do some research to find the right model that fits your needs. Features SuperColor technology delivers superior, richer colors; Up to 3200 ANSI lumen brightness and 15,000:1 contrast ratio for clear viewing even in brighter settings Native XGA 1024 x 768 resolution Integrated HDMI input and 3D Blu-ray ready; Choice of 5 view settings for a variety of usage scenarios Extensive connectivity including HDMI, 2 x VGA, Composite Video, S-Video, 1 x VGA output and Audio in/out Enhanced sound with enlarged speaker chamber and a powerful amplifier Intuitive interface includes tactile keypad, top lamp door, and optional cable management system Industry-leading warranty: 3-years limited on parts and labor, 1 year on lamp, and free 1st year Express Exchange Setup The ViewSonic PJD5255 really is plug and play, we had it up and running and showing videos in under 5 minutes It doesn't have any lens shift capabilities, so the projector really wants to be centered with your screen for the best overall experience. It has keystone adjustment buttons right on the top of the projector, so you don't have to hunt through menus to make your image square on-screen, assuming the projector is a bit above or below the center of the screen. Zoom and focus are manual adjustments as well. The whole prep time for first use was very simple. We didn't need the manual nor the remote. Didn't even use any of the menus. Performance One of the first things you notice with the PJD5255 is that it is quite bright. The specs boast a 3200 lumen output and it doesn't disappoint. We used it on several different screens and even projected right onto a white wall and every time had a nice, vivid movie experience. The brightness does feel like it comes at a cost though, the color representation feels a little washed out. It's a DLP projector, and DLP has its drawbacks, but we weren't overly distracted by any of them. The only area that disappointed us was resolution. Admittedly we knew going into it that we bought the projector on the cheap and it was only XGA (1024x768) native, so we shouldn't have been expecting too much, but after getting used to the native 1080p projectors we both use, the inferior resolution was quite obvious. For a quick and easy projector, it absolutely fit the bill. If you plan to use it to play back DVDs or streamed content, you should be fine. If you want it for HDTV, you may want to pay a bit more to get a native 1080p resolution projector. On the audio side the 5255 is designed with ViewSonic's proprietary SonicExpert technology that incorporates an enlarged speaker chamber and a more powerful amplifier to deliver a full 20Hz – 20Khz sound range. The integrated speaker isn't any worse than other projectors we've tried with built-in speakers - it's better than a few of them, but not by much. The built-in audio will work in a pinch, but unless it's totally quiet, you'll want some speakers with more power and volume to really delight an audience. We ended up hooking up come Creative speakers and sub to juice the volume level a bit. Conclusion This ViewSonic model reviews incredibly well at Amazon. It has a four and a half star rating across 367 customer reviews. For applications like we'll be using it for, it was a toss-up on choosing a DLP model or a 3LCD model. The Amazon reviews pushed us over the edge and we decided to bite the bullet on the PJD5255. We don't have the others to compare with, but we're satisfied with the ViewSonic PJD5255 for sure. It isn't meant to be installed as the centerpiece of your home theater, but if you want a projector you can store in the closet for a quick backyard movie, or a garage movie, or a bedroom movie for a sleepover, it's worth taking a look at.

Hi-Res Symposium 2016 Representatives from Universal Music Group, The Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing and Sony Electronics met recently to underscore the variety of marketing and educational programs that are currently underway to promote the benefits of Hi- Res Audio devices, content and services to a broader audience. The event, which was sponsored by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group was held at Capitol Studios in LA. It featured a number of speakers, presentations and demonstrations that were conducted by these organizations' representatives. A research study conducted by Music Watch and the Consumer Technology Association was presented at the symposium that showed that nearly 90% of 18 to 54 year olds want higher sound quality, and over 60% of them are willing to pay more for it. So there is a market for the content and further, the industry is willing to produce such content. Currently there are about 10,000 titles available from 12 online providers and more than 100 manufacturers offering hi-res capable devices. But the question is, how does the industry educate consumers about hi-res and convince them that the higher quality is something that they want to spend money for? Look for manufacturers and retailers to create Hi-Res listening centers within stores to demonstrate the difference. There are also new logos to identify Hi-Res content and players: So the question is why? From the point of view of the content creators it's all about more revenue. Likewise, manufacturers would like you to upgrade your equipment as well. We have discussed at length that we don't think Hi-Res is any better than CD so we won't go into it here. If you are interested we have a video that covers the topic analytically which is available on Youtube (https://youtu.be/8xotaf4aN_g). It's clear to us that the music industry is learning from the movie industry. Create a "Better" format and charge people a premium to buy their music again. If you decide to go down the path to Hi-Res recordings consider a few things: Digital equipment today is better than when CDs first came out - This means that you may hear a difference in digital music that is remastered today. Don't confuse that with hi-res audio. Many songs in the early digital days were not necessarily mastered very well. Fixing those errors alone and putting it back on a CD will do more than simply taking the same master and adding bits. Don't let your eyes do the listening - If you know that you are listening to a hi-res audio product there is a very good chance your eyes will tell your ears that they are hearing superior sounding audio. Double blind is the best way to test. If you can hear a difference then, congratulations! You are in the top 2%. SACD sounds better and it's higher quality - From Wikipedia: In September 2007 the Audio Engineering Society published the results of a year-long trial, in which a range of subjects including professional recording engineers were asked to discern the difference between SACD and a compact disc audio (44.1 kHz/16 bit) conversion of the same source material under double blind test conditions. Out of 554 trials, there were 276 correct answers, a 49.8% success rate corresponding almost exactly to the 50% that would have been expected by chance guessing alone. If you hear a noticeable difference with SACD it may be due it being a 5.1 mix vs a 2 channel mix. Be careful not to draw the conclusion that it sounded better because of the higher bit and sample rates. Before you spend a lot of money setting up for Hi-Res audio do yourself a favor. Make sure you can hear a difference at home. You can buy a decent headphone DAC for about $250, then you'll need to allocate about another $250 for headphones but then you'll just be scratching the surface of the gear you will buy in the future. Do some serious A/B test on your own with no one pressuring you. ABX Shootout is a great SW package that can help you do this. If you don't want to spend at least $500 on gear to help you decide whether Hi-Res is worth it, then you may as well stay with what you have.

This week Ara and his daughter Stephanie discuss the winners and losers of the 2015- 2016 TV Season.

Father's Day Wish List QNAP TS-453A 4-Bay Professional-Grade Network Attached Storage $600 Let's face it, our lives are digital. Whether it be photos, home movies, music, TV or Blu-ray rips, we need safe storage for all our files. A Network Attached Storage unit is one of the best ways to do that. You'll need to add drives but it's worth it because this unit is extremely versatile. In addition to storage, you can also run a Plex Server to stream your files at home or away. A little on the high price side but aren't we dad's worth it?? Ray Super Remote - Touchscreen Universal Remote $250 You know we are big fans of universal remotes! But this one looks so cool! We don't have any experience with the device but it checks all the boxes on our list so we'll go with it! Ray has an integrated guide that looks gorgeous! There are built in apps for the AppleTV, Roku, and Xbox. There is even a Kids app that is easy for the little ones to use. Look for a review on this remote in the future. Deconovo Black Thermal Insulated Blackout Panel Curtain $16.50 Whether it be glare or ambient light that washes out the picture, nothing ruins a movie watching experience like light! Blackout curtains are a great, and inexpensive, way to enjoy your home theater in the daytime. These curtains are heavy and work as sound and heat insulation as well. It's $16.50 well spent! Kuna Outdoor Home Security Camera & Light $199 Kuna is a smart home security system built into an outdoor lighting fixture. The camera detects movement at your door and sends an alert to your smartphone, allowing you to see and interact with visitors no matter where you are. It's like a doorbell camera but more versatile. These lights can be placed anywhere that you would place outdoor lights, front porch, back porch, or the driveway. Simple to install, all you need is a wifi connection and you can monitor outside your home from anywhere.

Google I/O 2016 Google has dabbled in the Home Theater and Home Automation arenas for quite a while - going all the way back to the Logitech Revue and Google TV in 2010, and there were a few devices before that failed experiment as well (review in Episode 452). Even with the success of the Chromecast, it still feels like Google is just toying with us, but that all may change soon. Some of the announcements out of this year's Google I/O conference are pretty exciting, and very promising. Plus, they have something called Project Ara - how can we not talk about that? Google Home Perhaps the most relevant announcement to our show and everyone listening was the Amazon Echo competitor simply called Google Home. The device itself was the big announcement, but they followed that up with an expected delivery date of later this year. However, they didn't specify a price. The man behind the project, Mario Queiroz, also happens to be the same man who launched the only other successful home product in the Google portfolio, the Chromecast. Google Home is exactly what you'd picture if you were told someone was going to launch an Echo competitor. It's a small speaker you plug into the wall with always-listening, far-field microphones that can hear you from across the room. Just like the Echo, Google Home will answer your questions, play your music, and control some of your home automation components. Of course Google will tell you that their device is better at most of those things than the Amazon device, but they have to say that. While the Echo isn't great at multi-room, Google Home is designed with multiple rooms and speakers in mind from the start. It's built on the Cast standard, so you can talk to any speaker and tell it to play music on other speakers, just like you can with Google Cast Audio. Not sure if it'll support synchronized music in multiple rooms, but if it doesn't at launch, we can't imagine it'll be too far off. Google has said they don't plan to be as open a platform and the Amazon Echo, so you can expect less home automation devices to work with it. Their focus is on quality, not quantity. Queiroz made the statement that other platforms may support more devices, but when you actually try to use them, it doesn't really work all that well. We cannot confirm nor deny that claim, but Google's spin on less device support is that each home automation component that is integrated with Google Home will behave just as you'd expect. That's a tall order, but if it is true, it'll be pretty awesome (and probably a historical first). Google Assistant Google Now is getting an upgrade to the new Google Assistant in an effort to take on the Siri, Cortana and Alexa's of the world. The uniques feature that sets Google Assistant apart from the rest is the ability to remember prior questions and apply context to new questions. For example, you could say something like "show me what action movies are playing in my area" followed by a statement like "I'm a fan of anything with vampires in it" to further narrow the search. That sounds more intuitive than most of the digital assistants on the market right now. And could have a nice tie-in with voice controlled home automation. Google Assistant on your Google Home device? That could be pretty sweet. Daydream Farewell Android VR, hello Google Daydream. Quite similar in approach to Google Cardboard, Daydream is built by Google, but it's up to the developers to create the apps, games and experiences that really make it compelling for consumers. At Google I/O, they showed off sketches of a reference VR headset and a remote reminiscent of the Nintendo Wii, that together will provide motion-controlled gaming and simple user interface navigation while using the Daydream headset. Google also announced that several phones that are "Daydream-compatible" from companies like HTC and Samsung should be hitting store shelves later this year. Project Ara So what is Project Ara? For those who don't know, it's actually pretty cool. The idea is a totally modular cell phone, basically the marriage of cell phones and legos. Your phone, instead of being one solid piece of electronics, is a bunch of smaller pieces of electronics your put together, where each of the small pieces is replaceable. You could buy a phone, which is basically all the parts you need pre-assembled, or just go out and buy the parts you want and build your own. For anyone who has seen a commercial about a new phone with a super awesome camera, or crazy long battery life, or a killer screen and wished your phone, the one you just bought six months ago, was that cool, Project Ara solves that for you. Want to add a better camera? Go for it, just replace that module and you're set. No reason to replace the whole phone. Or want to add a better battery, or a louder speaker? Go for it. That's pretty freakin' cool. At the I/O conference, Google announced that Project Ara is coming out of the cool, futuristic idea phase and will be making

Tivo Bolt Review Cord cutting is all the rage, but for many of us, it simply isn't an option. There's way too many members of the household that can't do without TV, you're too far from the transmitters to get over-the-air TV, or the shows you really want to watch aren't available from streaming, or you really like watching live events you can't get over-the-air. Whatever that case, cutting the cord is a non-starter. Slimming the cord, however, could totally work. And the Tivo Bolt (buy now) might be the perfect device to do it. Bolt Features From the Tivo website: "The TiVo BOLT is the shortest distance between you and your entertainment, because it combines all your options into a single box. No more switching devices, toggling inputs or juggling remotes. Whether it's from TV, available on-demand libraries or streaming apps like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HULU, YouTube or Pandora, TiVo BOLT delivers it all in an instant. OneSearch™ scours multiple platforms like TV and Netflix simultaneously, so your search experience is always fast, simple and seamless. No more drilling down into each app and doing multiple hunt-and-seek searches. Find shows and movies by title, actor, director or keyword—and start watching in seconds. OnePass™ tracks down every available season and episode of a show—whether it's on television or a streaming app—and creates a customizable watchlist for you. Start with the pilot episode or jump in anywhere mid-season. OnePass automatically records upcoming episodes and adds them to your list. TiVo BOLT is 33% smaller than any other product in its category, but it packs a mightier punch. With 3x the speed of our previous box and up to 3x the memory, TiVo BOLT satisfies your entertainment appetite… and your need for speed. All that power is packed into a slender, elegant package that runs your entire entertainment center. Oh, and that distinctive, arched design isn't just for looks, it serves as a clever cooling system. No more waiting for commercial breaks to be over. With a single press of a button, you can continue watching your recorded show. SkipMode works with the top 20 channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, AMC Comedy Central, Discovery Channel, TBS, FX, TLC, History Channel, TNT, The CW, Food Network, USA, Bravo, ABC Family, Syfy, Lifetime and HGTV. QuickMode lets you zip through your recorded shows—and shows with a buffer—30% faster than normal speed with pitch-corrected audio. You zoom along and nobody sounds like a caffeinated chipmunk. It's the ideal way to power through slow-moving news shows, sports and long-winded political debates. TiVo BOLT can handle the biggest entertainment jones. It records up to four shows at once and provides up to 1 TB of recording capacity—enough for roughly 150 hours of HD programming. Need even more? Add an external hard drive or a TiVo-ready NetGear ReadyNAS. And if you've got a new 4K Ultra HD TV, then get excited, because TiVo BOLT is 4K-compatible right out of the box." The Bolt can be purchased in three different options. The 500 GB model goes for $199, The 1 TB model is $299, and the 2 TB option is $499. The big knock on Tivo as a cord cutting device is that it isn't free. There is a monthly or annual subscription fee associated with each DVR. There is a new Tivo Roamio OTA that doesn't have the subscription fee, but it only supports Antenna tuners, not CableCard. The Bolt includes the first year of service for free, but after the first year, the cost goes to $150 per year or $15 per month if you pay monthly. Not great, but honestly, not that bad. Cox charges $28.49 per month for a DVR, so the Bolt is less than half the annual cost of a Cable DVR, at least in our area. Installation The saga of getting our Bolt up and running wasn't really anything to do with the Tivo device itself, but it was quite an ordeal, so we'll tell you everything we went through so you have an understanding for what you may be in for if you decide to go the Tivo route. Since we both are (or were) Satellite TV customers, one of us had to get Cable activated to do the review. So Braden stopped by a local Cox Solution Store, activated a basic Cable package for about $40 per month, added a CableCard for an additional $2 per month and left the store quite satisfied. The whole process took about 15 minutes. What is supposed to happen is you get home, plug the CableCard into the Tivo, connect the Bolt to Coax for Cable service and you're all set. If only that was the case. First thing that happens is you call the Cable provider to pair the CableCard with your account and activate it. This was easy, but it didn't work. The tuning adapter Cox provided couldn't lock on, so the Bolt couldn't pick up any channels. The phone representative suggested a visit from a technician, so we got that scheduled. The technician arrived the following day and found the signal to the Bolt was both weak and dirty. He did some rewiring, added a signal booster and retested the line. All looked good,

Yamaha RX-A850 Review Last October Ara bought a Pioneer Elite VSX-90 7.2 Channel A/V Receiver for his family room. He was looking for something that would allow him to switch 4K content through to his Vizio P-Series 4K UHDTV. The receiver was able to do that and provide good quality sound but he was never happy with the reliability of the receiver. It wouldn't turn on at times requiring a physical reset and it took as many as 8 seconds for it to switch inputs. One day a few weeks ago Ara had enough and decided to swap it out with a new receiver. Since he hadn't bought a Yamaha in quite some time and was really interested in the Aventage line and decided that he RX-A850 had all the features he wanted at a decent price (Buy Now $900). It needed to support HDCP 2.2, 4K, HDR, and sound good! While not needed for Ara's family room, the 850 does support Atmos as well. If you want DTS:X support you'll need to move up to the RX-A1050 which will run you $300 more. The full feature list is listed below: Features: Aluminum front panel and Anti-Resonance Technology Wedge MusicCast wireless multiroom audio support Bluetooth®, built-in Wi-Fi and Wireless Direct for wireless music streaming AirPlay®, Spotify®, Pandora® music streaming service and AV Controller App DSD 2.8 MHz / 5.6 MHz, FLAC / WAV / AIFF 192 kHz / 24-bit, Apple® Lossless 96 kHz / 24-bit playback YPAO™ - R.S.C. with multipoint measurement Dolby Atmos® Support Multi-zone audio support (Zone2) Phono input for vinyl playback Virtual Surround Back Speaker for playing 7.1-channel content with a 5.1-channel system HDMI 2.0a: 4K Ultra HD Full Support with 4K60p, HDCP2.2, HDR Video and BT.2020 pass-through Setup Setup was pretty simple. Connect the speakers and components then add power and then kick off the YPAO calibration. The initial pass through the calibration screen checks for phase issues and in Ara's case all was good. Then it proceed to measure room acoustics. The results were good but we always like to tweak the sound to our tastes. We raised the level of the surrounds and subwoofer and called it done in about an hour, which included unboxing. The menus are simple to navigate. We did not use wifi as we have an Ethernet connection for our entertainment system. Performance This is Ara's first Aventage receiver so he was expecting some good things in the way of audio performance. According to Yamaha the Aventage uses higher quality parts and design: AVENTAGE brings studio-grade sound and sophisticated video enhancements to your home with unparalleled attention to detail in design, engineering and fabrication. Every electrical path, every part, every piece, was rethought and redesigned if necessary to achieve total performance excellence throughout the series. Materials were tested thoroughly and the finest were selected to maximize audio / video playback performance. You do pay a little more for the Aventage. A similar non-Aventage Yamaha receiver (RX-V781) goes for about $100 less. Other than the "Studio-grade" sound, the receivers are nearly identical. Settings: Decode Mode - Straight (we want it exactly as the mixers intended) YPAO Volume - We set this to off. However, if you are watching at night you may want to turn this on. It will adjust the high and low frequency sounds so the dialog doesn't get washed out. It worked as advertised in our testing. Video Processing - We are not big fans of the scaling on receivers. The 850A can scale to 4K (2160p50/60) if you own a UHD set. But with that said we felt that the picture wasn't as good as when we let the TV do the scaling. Object Decode Mode - On (see below) Movies The RX-850A performed quite well with movies regardless of format. There is enough power to drive extreme action scenes and yet the receiver was easily able to handle the subtleties of ambient sounds like rain or crowd noises. We did not connect Atmos speakers but we did enable "Object Decode Mode" on our normally configured 7.1 setup. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves but it did seem as though we were enveloped in a bubble of sound giving us an Atmos like experience. For a larger room that may not be the case so you will want to use Atmos speakers if you can. If you do have a bigger media room the RX-850A, with it's 100 watts of power, will have no issues filling it with sound! Music Although music isn't the primary use for our receiver we did do some critical listening. We found the receiver to be clear and bright regardless of position in the room. We listened to Stereo and and multi-channel tracks. In either case we could notice the placement of the instruments within the soundstage. The A850 behaved nicely never sounding too bright or edgy. We even tried some lower quality rips to check out the compressed music enhancer. It did make it sound better but why would you do that to yourself? Just go with 256Kbps mp3 or AAC or better yet lossless and never speak of the compressed music enhancer again! With CD quality music the RX-A850 really sh

Interview with Gary Yacoubian - President SVS On today's show we have an Interview with the President of SVS Gary Yacoubian. We talk about their forthcoming line of Prime Elevation Speakers. We also discuss their line of high quality accessories that don't cost an arm and a leg. Finally we finish off with a discussion who the audiophile of today is.

Highlights from NAB 2016 Faithful listener and long time contributor to the show Ed Stouffer graciously agreed to be our "man on the street" - or "man on the convention show floor" if you prefer, at this year's NAB Show in Las Vegas. The show just wrapped up, running from April 16-21. For those who aren't familiar, NAB is the National Association of Broadcasters and the NAB Show is their annual gathering to see, learn about and talk about all the latest innovations in audio and video production, broadcasting and distribution. TV Trends – some of my views from NAB 2016 show Edward Stouffer 4K going wide and deep in the broadcast market with a big push to consumers building. This has several components, so I will try to describe them, and what they mean. Original Content. Several presentations talked about 35mm motion picture film stock having a native resolution right about 4K. Decent prints can be scanned with minimal cleanup. Older prints will take some work, just like what happened when HD versions of older material were released. As for new material, there was a general consensus that most mainstream content is moving to 4K capture or is already there. In many cases, the editing is either downconverted to HD or that is the export In the Canon "mega-booth" – which spanned 2 levels and had amateur, pro-am and professional cameras on display - they showed excerpts from several 4K movies shot partially or entirely in 4K, along with some TV episodes, such as "Homeland." Distribution. The net is that while broadcasts are not 4K today, 4K streaming via Amazon and Netflix will have more options as less work in the future is required when the original material is in better shape. As for fixed media, the UltraHD BluRay players have cracked the $500 price point, with the Samsung generating a lot of interest at $399. Christmas 2015, they were $5,000, so the start toward commodity is rapidly coming. Manufacturers I talked with showing the under-$500 players said they generally expect a $250 UHD BluRay player for Christmas 2016. Also, the manufacturers expected that most of the UHD BluRay players will support 4K clients for Netflix & other services, so consumers will also use them as streaming devices for 4K. Broadcast. The chicken's egg has hatched! ATSC 3.0 is the new specification and it includes support for 4K broadcasts, including HDR, 24-channel audio, etc. I talked briefly with a technical director for a major US network and they are actively looking for a pilot at one affiliate this year. As I understand the spec – not close to being a SME by any measure – it takes the equivalent of 2 HD digital channels for one broadcast, depending upon compression used. (The folks in the ATSC booth said twice that it only needed a single digital channel…using the prototype CODECs and laboratory environments.) The network I was talking with said their pilot will likely be an affiliate who has unused spectrum or who multicasts some additional channels who would be willing to interrupt that for the test period. To that end, I saw an LG TV set at the show with the first ATSC 3.0 chipset included. I read through the press briefings a bit and it looks like all major manufacturers announced either future models or lines with ATSC 3.0 shipping by Christmas. Versions of 4K. HDR displays were everywhere. "Ultra HD Premium" was being promoted - as well as HDR branding - which includes HDR, WCG and other requirements for improved black levels and luminance. I asked Sony, Samsung and others about when we could see HDR for HD TVs, and as I expected, they seemed reluctant to talk about it, with one telling me it might hurt 4K sales. One manufacturer said it could cost between 25%-50% for "true HDR" on an UltraHD set. I asked what that meant, and he said that it really required the correct display, software and enough on-board CPU. To that end, he said some "lower tier" brands would say they offer HDR, but to look at their displays beside a top-tier manufacturer and there would be a big difference. I guess one test is to look at the new Vizio 50" 4K TV with HDR and see how that stacks up. As much will be lost as made There are a lot of big – and costly – bets being made on the future path and as some are against one another, they cannot possibly all succeed. I saw multiple DRM systems being advertised. While some use the same encryption standard, they are incompatible with each other, as things like key distribution infrastructures are sold as a whole system. One prediction I heard from an architect at a major encoding vendor was that "Netflix was the next MySpace." Think about that for a moment: when is the last time you used MySpace? I asked for more and he said to compare what happened to HD-DVD. He said it was the better format, was cheaper to produce media, but when Sony flexed its muscle on content, it lost. So, he said, if one or more studios either raise prices on content to Netflix or deny it altogether in favor of any company, Net

DirecTV 4K Review DirecTV has added 4K to some of it’s Genie HD DVR and we are fortunate enough to have a listener who has upgraded to the new service. Ralph Smithers, good friend of the show, was kind enough to share his experience with the upgrade process and quality of the 4K content available. Before we get to Ralph’s review here are a few notes: What You Need 4K Genie HD DVR - Model HR54 is required to view 4K Ultra HD channels. 4K HDTV ULTIMATE or PREMIER TV Package - $92 and $145 respectively Review by Ralph Smithers I have been with DirecTV a little over two years and became eligible for a free upgrade to 4K with a two-year commitment and wanted to share my experience. The upgrade itself was pretty straight forward—three of my four boxes were upgraded to 4K equipment. I suspect those were all the boxes the installer had on hand. The old Genie Mini works fine with the new equipment and my 4K monitor is connected to one of the 4K Genie Mini boxes. None of the components of the dish (LNB) needed to be changed to support the upgrade. While the equipment swap was pretty straight forward, the installer was friendly but admittedly not knowledgeable about 4K. I ran into a number of issues once the installer left my house. Two calls to DirecTV did not resolve the problems and for most of the first weekend of having 4K, I spent more time behind my TV than in front of it. Here is a summary of the issues and how I resolved them. I think this information will be useful to other listeners and there is one outstanding issue where the listeners may be able to assist me. The setup for my non 4K sets went without incident but there were significant issues with the 4K programming, specifically the special Master’s Tournament broadcast. I was able to get the Master’s 4K broadcast with the installer present but my first impression was that while the picture was pristine, it seemed choppy. Shortly thereafter, the channel went dark and a reset of my 4K Genie Mini box was required to get ANY programing. The Master’s programming simply would not work and when I tried to tune to the particular channel where it was playing, the whole system went down. DirecTV has another 4K channel that plays continuous programming and that channel worked great. Everything came to a crash when I navigated to the Master’s channel. I would also add that even the Master’s programming I recorded on my DVR was causing my system to crash. I have a six month old Yamaha RX-V579 receiver that I use to switch my HDMI inputs that is HDCP 2.2 and 4K compliant. I have a Vizio M series 70 inch 4K TV that I purchased in November. My calls to DirecTV resulted in the technicians putting the blame for the issues on my equipment. Both of the technicians went out of their way tell me about people bootlegging content (which was annoying) and could not resolve my issues. Eventually, I was getting content protection notices on all channels and was starting to regret my decision to upgrade. My setup before the upgrade was to route all of my video gear into my receiver and use the Audio Return Channel feature to send the video to my TV and get sound from Smart TV applications into my receiver. In my case, this was working inconsistently at best and not at all on the Master’s Channel. After hours of frustration, I made a cabling change on the TV side that resolved my issue. I noticed that one of my HDMI inputs (non ARC input) on my TV was labeled for 4K 60hz instead of 4K 30hz so I switched the output from the receiver into this port. “Presto” everything worked perfectly on the DirecTV side, as well as other HDMI inputs from the receiver. Had DirecTV been able to direct me on this item, hours of frustration would have been saved so I hope this might help other listeners. The downside of this configuration is that I cannot get my Smart TV app sound into my receiver, even with an optical cable. If anyone can give me advice on this issue, I’d appreciate it but I can manually switch the cabling around if I want to use this feature. So how was the 4K picture quality? Marvelous! The video was razor sharp, the colors were glorious the sound was excellent. I could read the logos and see the dimples on the golf balls on most of the putts. I could see the broken tees and the texture of the blades of grass on the greens. When I flipped over to standard 720p version of the broadcast, these details were obscured. I also noticed that when the camera was focused on the golf balls while they were in flight, they kept their round appearance. In the 720p version, the golf balls in flight had a slight oval appearance. Should note that my TV reported the DirecTV content as 2160p. The other DirecTV channel that pushes out 4K 24/7 broadcasts are mostly nature programming (like the early days of HD). Details were crisp and clear like the golf tournament. My 4K monitor does not support HDR but I noticed a significant improvement in the contrast between dark and light colors. The brighter ima

THX tune-up to the Rescue We had a friend recently who was complaining about their HDTV experience at home. They weren’t seeing the quality they were hoping to see after upgrading their TV, and were contemplating returning it. In talking through it with them, we were able to convince them that perhaps the TV settings just needed to be dialed in to look great in their viewing room. They didn’t want to spend money on a professional calibration, so we went to the trusty THX tune-up app to see what we could do. Install and Setup If you don’t have THX tune-up, you should get it. We ran the iOS version for this exercise, but they also have an Android version as well. Both are free, so you spend a few seconds downloading and installing it and away you go. We can talk through the specific on setting up the iOS app, because it’s the one we used, but many of the setup steps are the same. The basics are: install the app, launch it, connect it to your TV or AVR. On iOS you can connect it with HDMI or AirPlay. The app tells you that: “THX tune-up uses both your mobile device screen and your HDTV screen, making this an interactive 2nd screen application.” Of course you would assume that to calibrate the screen the app would need to put images on it. You can’t calibrate it just by looking at pictures on the phone. We used HDMI to connect to the TV, which for iOS requires an AV adapter. Apple sells them for the lightning adapter and the old school 30 pin connector, so no matter what iOS device you have, you’re covered. We used HDMI because we had the adapter and because HDMI allows you to test audio as well. We didn’t need the audio portion for this time, but if you want to get the full experience out of the app, picking up the adapter so you can connect with HDMI is the way to go. In this case a simple AirPlay mirroring would have worked great for calibrating the screen. So in a pinch, if you just want to dial in display settings, take an AppleTV with you to your friend’s house and you’ll be all set. There is an app setup step that allows you to tell the app what kind of equipment: Television, Projector, Receiver, etc. you’re connected to. It is optional, but supposedly it could help dial in the tests for your particular gear. Use it if you want, skip it if you don’t care. It really doesn't matter all the much. Once you get setup, you can play the THX deep note through your system for giggles. It’s a pretty cool way to demo your setup, but probably a bit janky to pull out the app just for that. If you hit the ‘Get Started’ button on the home screen of the app it will play a short video that describes most of the test you can run and what the app will be doing to optimize your home theater experience. It describes the various picture adjustments and what you’ll be doing to get them dialed in just right. Again, this step is totally optional. If you’re new to TV settings and options, it’s a cool primer on what you’re about to do. If you are already familiar with the concepts of brightness, contrast, etc. you can skip it. Just jump directly to the ‘Adjustments’ are of the app. Calibration We know this isn’t a real calibration, and we’ll probably get a few emails from the community on it, but there’s just not a better word for use for it. Call it ‘TV setting optimization’ if you like, but for simplicity we’re going to call it calibration. The app has five picture adjustment tests and two audio settings tests, each in their own menu. We didn’t use the audio tests this time, but we’ll talk about them in a bit for completeness. In our case we walked through the Picture Adjustment options because that was all we really cared about. Picture The Picture Adjustment setting choices are: Aspect Ratio, Brightness, Contrast, Color, and Tint with a final option called ‘Review Adjustments’ that allows you to review all the setting changes you made with different images/patterns to make sure they all worked as expected. The Aspect Ratio setting shows a pattern to make sure you’re seeing enough of the screen and that shapes are the correct size.This eliminates issues with stretching and overscan. There’s a circle in the middle of the pattern that quickly shows you if you’re dealing with and stretching or distortion issues. Moving on from Aspect Ratio, you dive into Brightness. This make sure your screen isn’t too dark. You want the screen to be as dark as possible without losing shadow detail or other parts of a dark image. From there you dial in Contrast. Contrast and Brightness are similar, but also quite different. You use Brightness to make sure you can see details in dark images. Contrast makes sure you can see white detail. You want to be able to see slight variations even in white images. With these two dialed in, the subtle details in your images should be much more visible. Now that you have dark and light dialed in, next you move on to Color. The color adjustment is used to make sure the colors on your TV are light and vibrant but

What is HDR? For more than a year now we have been talking about 4K TVs and how they are supposed to be the next big thing. But in actuality the increased resolution is only mildly better than equally spec’d 1080p HDTVs. We have pointed to case study after case study that says you need very large (100” or more) screen to see a difference between 1080p and 4K when sitting at normal viewing distances. This alone is not a good reason to upgrade. What has us really excited is what is coming along with these new UHDTVs, HDR (High Dynamic Range) and that IS a good reason to go out and buy a new UHDTV. We have mentioned HDR on previous shows but we we never really talked about what HDR entails in any detail. We thought it would be a good idea to explain what HDR is and why you will want this on your next TV. First we need to differentiate between HDR in photos and HDR in TVs. Photo HDR combines multiple images with different exposures to create a single image that mimics a greater dynamic range. TV HDR expands the TV's contrast ratio and color palette to offer a more realistic, natural image than what's possible with today's HDTVs. Photo HDR can make a picture look unrealistic whereas TV HDR actually makes the picture look more realistic. HDR capable TVs coupled with HDR content will display a more realistic color range, higher contrast ratio which in turn yields deeper blacks and brighter more vivid colors. HDR is far more important to your next TV purchase than 4K but at this point in time it is unlikely that there will be a 1080p HDTV that supports HDR so you will end up with a 4K TV regardless. A TV’s ability to display a wider and richer range of colors, brighter whites, and deeper, darker blacks gives the TV picture a more ‘dynamic’ look, which is where the name comes from. Format War There are two HDR formats vying for your dollars, one from Dolby and one from Technicolor. However this format war is not like Blu-ray vs HDDVD. You will unlikely be stuck with an orphaned UHDTV. Both of these formats support the HDR-10 specification which is supported by UHD players. Streaming services will more than likely support the HDR-10 format although Netflix has some support for Dolby Vision on some of their original content. Some TVs manufacturers are supporting both so it's unlikely that you will be stuck with a TV that won’t support HDR content. If we had to choose between a TV that supported only one format we would pick the one that supports Dolby Vision. Dolby has always been out front with it's support at the point of content creation. They are at the studios working with sound mixers and video professionals to make sure their format looks and sounds best. We heard this with Dolby TrueHD and we expect the same with Dolby Vision. How Do I Know Which TV to Buy? At CES, the UHD Alliance, a 35-member consortium released a standard called “Ultra HD Premium” which is supposed to make it easy for consumers to identify UHDTVs that meet their specification. To be certified Ultra HD Premium a UHDTV must achieve a brightness of at least 1000 nits. There is no specific HDR specification but there are for black levels and color gamut which will guarantee a minimum level if HDR quality. What about cables? You won't need new cables for HDR. Current High-Speed HDMI cables can carry HDR content. The source device (a 4K Blu-Ray player, say) and TV must be HDMI 2.0a to transmit the metadata, however. If you have a receiver and want to use it for switching, it will need to be HDMI 2.0a as well. HDR content (the key) All these new features won’t really do anything to enhance your experience unless you have content that takes advantage of it. HDR content is starting to trickle out now and more is on the way. Amazon has a few titles in HDR (Mozart in the Jungle, Red Oaks, and a few others) and Vudu is offering HDR content in Dolby Vision. Netflix streams Marco Polo and Daredevil in HDR. There are also UHD discs that support HDR so if you have a UHD TV that supports HDR you should be able to find something to watch and show it off! To Sum it Up Getting the best picture from an HDR TV will require HDR content. To guarantee your TV will support HDR look for the “Ultra HD Premium” label. If you really want a UHD TV that does not have the “Ultra HD Premium” label buy a TV that has or comes close to 1000 nits brightness. HDR from cable, satellite, and OTA are still a bit off.

OpenHAB and OpenRemote There is this dream we have to be able to automate everything in our homes, but do it ourselves, without hiring an installer, and do it for cheap without breaking the bank. So far we have used a lot of Insteon devices, and tied them into other systems to expand the overall reach of what we could build. Luckily, we aren’t the only ones with this dream and a few open source projects have popped up to help us DIY-ers achieve our dreams. OpenHAB OpenHAB is a vendor and technology agnostic open source automation software for your home. Their claim is that you can build your smart home in no time. The name stands for Open Home Automation Bus, and for those familiar with electronics, you know the bus in computer terms is less like a real bus and more like a highway. It is a set of conductors carrying data and control signals within a computer system, to which pieces of equipment are connected and how they communicate with each other. So OpenHAB is the central nervous system of your home automation environment. It is used to connect all your devices and allows them to communicate, and also allows you to act as the brain to send commands to each of them. They describe it as “a software for integrating different home automation systems and technologies into one single solution that allows over-arching automation rules and that offers uniform user interfaces.” This means openHAB is designed to be absolutely vendor-neutral as well as hardware and protocol agnostic. Drilling down on that, it is pretty flexible, it can run on any device that is capable of running a JVM (Linux, Mac, Windows). It allows you to integrate a plethora of different home automation technologies into one cohesive system. And also has the brain: it includes a powerful rule engine to fulfill all your automation needs. Out of the box it comes with different web-based UIs as well as native UIs for iOS and Android. It is fully open source, so new devices and protocols can be added at any time. You can even add them if you want to contribute and become a member of the passionate and growing community responsible for maintaining it. If you don’t want to contribute code, it is easily extensible to integrate with new systems and devices and provides APIs for being integrated in other systems. The openHAB website provides a great description of the core philosophy behind the project: “openHAB does not try to replace existing solutions, but rather wants to enhance them - it can thus be considered as a system of systems. It therefore assumes that the sub-systems are setup and configured independently of openHAB as this is often a very specific and complex matter (including “pairing” processes, direct device links etc.). Instead, openHAB focuses on the “daily use” side of things and abstracts from the devices themselves. A core concept for openHAB is the notion of an “item”. An item is a data-centric functional atomic building block - you can think of it as an “capability”. openHAB does not care whether an item (e.g. a temperature value) is related to a physical device or some “virtual” source like a web service or an calculation result. All features offered by openHAB are using this “item” abstraction, which means that you will not find any reference to device specific things (like IP addresses, IDs etc.) in automation rules, UI definitions and so on. This makes it perfectly easy to replace one technology by another without doing any changes to rules and UIs. A very important aspect of openHAB’s architecture is its modular design. It is very easy to add new features (like the integration with yet another system through a “binding”) and you can add and remove such features at runtime. This modular approach has been a huge enabler for the active community around openHAB with many engaged contributors.” OpenHAB has a huge list of supported technologies including: Benq, Epson projectors, Denon, Onkyo and Pioneer receivers, LG and Panasonic TVs, DMX lighting, ecobee and Nest thermostats, Insteon Hub and PLM, Z-Wave devices, Google calendar, Twitter, Logitech Harmony remotes, Plex and XBMC media servers, Sonos devices, and the list goes on. No mention on the website of any support for Amazon Echo or Apple HomeKit. Our gut says someone in the passionate and growing community is working on it, but we have no proof of that. We haven’t had a chance to toy with openHAB ourselves yet, freetime has been pretty scarce lately. But it looks very promising and we’ve added it to our list of todo items. From the forum and other various internet posts we’ve read, it looks very promising. Yes it is bare-bones. And yes it requires a lot of setup and configuration, but that also means it allows for a very deep level of customization. For those who have the time and the patience, it could be awesome. For those who want something to “just work” out of the box, you’re probably better off going with a commercial solution. OpenRemote Just like we talked about whe

Audioengine HD6 Powered Speaker Review We have been reviewing Audioengine speakers since just about the beginning of the company’s existence. We started with the A5 and have more or less used every product that Audioengine has released. Whether it's been the original A5s from almost 10 years ago to their high performance D1 DAC. Everyone product we have reviewed has delivered on Audioengine’s commitment to build innovative and high quality audio products! Today we are reviewing the flagship HD6 powered speakers (Buy Now $750). The HD6 takes everything we liked about the A5 and turns it up a notch. In addition to the analog inputs of the A5 you now can add digital optical along with aptX Bluetooth to supply your HD6 with the highest quality audio that you can. With the Bluetooth option you no longer have to connect an external device to drive the speakers which makes placement a breeze. Fit and finish are first rate (veneer over MDF) and you have three to chose from, Walnut, Cherry, and Black. We received Walnut and they look beautiful and matched our living room perfectly. Each speaker is quite heavy with the one that includes the amplifier weighing in at 17.5 lbs (8kg) while the passive speaker weighs 12.5 lbs (5.5kg). The speakers come double boxed which will protect them during shipping and they are packaged in soft felt bags that can be reused. Features: Built-in Class A/B monoblock power amplifiers Inputs include analog, optical and Advanced Bluetooth aptX Audiophile-grade components Furniture finishes and magnetic grilles Solid aluminum remote control Setup It's pretty much a three step setup. First you connect the left and right speakers with the included speaker wire. A nice touch by Audioengine is that the wire is pre-fitted with banana plugs. Next you connect your source. In our case we connected an Apple Airport Express via an optical cable. Then we connected power! That’s it! If you wanted to use bluetooth you would substitute pairing the devices with connecting your source. Either way it's three steps and you are off to the races. The speakers also include an aluminum remote control which feels pretty substantial in the hand. There is no setup required to use the remote. Once we set a volume that we were happy with we pretty much never picked it up again rather choosing to use the volume control of our iPhone or itunes. Performance These speakers sounded great out of the box but the bass was a bit boomy. Audioengine recommends about 40 hours to break them in but we heard dramatic improvement after about ten. The bass tightened up and the mids and highs were clear and no longer obscured by the bass. The Eagles - Hotel California Hell Freezes Over Live Album We have used this track on many of our speaker reviews because it really shows how well a speaker can reproduce the high frequencies and bass in one track. The intro guitar solo is crisp, clean and tight! Then you are rewarded bassy drums that are just as good. The last 45 seconds of this track feature some of the best acoustic guitar you will hear anywhere. The HD6 reproduced this faithfully. The Who - Baba O'Riley We chose this track for the classic intro that has become iconic. You clearly hear the sound moving from right to left. Then comes the piano, drums, and guitar and with each additional element we listened to make sure that they were distinct and clear. We did not have to struggle to hear the instruments separate from the vocals. Steely Dan - Deacon Blues (Actually the entire A Decade of Steely Dan Remastered Album) Deacon Blues was already one of Ara’ favorites but the remastered version is even better! You can hear everything clearly and the HD6 is just sound so smooth and warm. Everything from the drums, bass and especially the sax sound like the band is in the room with you. Listening to this track specifically and the whole album in general transported Ara back to his highschool days listening on an old beat up turntable. The original never sounded this good back then but Ara remembered it so fondly that you might call the HD6s a time machine for transporting him back in time. Beastie Boys – Brass Monkey Say what you will about the song but it's a great test for how well your speakers can get down. We mean really down. The HD6 did extremely well with it. The bass was super tight and clear. We had it cranked up pretty loud too! As long as we were on the Beastie Boys we kept it going with Fight For Your Right (to Party). That was more of an homage to every hockey rink in North America that plays that song after a fight! Not quite as loud as Staples Center but still fun anyway. Stevie Ray Vaughan – Tin Pan Alley This track has wide dynamic range and excellent stage presence. You can hear the separation between individual instruments and vocals so clearly that you think you are in a club listening to him. And the bass, oh man the bass is awesome! Seriously this man left us way too early! Conclusion If you are serious about your mu

DTS Play-Fi We had a chance to check out the WiSA standard in our review of the Axiim Q Wireless Home Theater System on Podcast 728 a couple weeks ago. On top of that, Ara is a big AirPlay fan for whole house audio and Braden is invested in Sonos. Since we can’t have just one, or even four, standards, it looks like another competing technology, this one from DTS, is hoping to fulfill our dreams of wireless audio around the home. The technology, called DTS Play-Fi, looks pretty promising and has some solid companies in its corner. What is it? DTS markets Play-Fi as a premium, whole-home wireless audio ecosystem. They are quick to point out that the technology is open and available to anyone. Not open as in free, but open as in unrestricted access. They claim to have the largest ecosystem of brands in the world, allowing you to build an AirPlay or Sonos like system, without the restrictions that come with those platforms. Since all Play-Fi products are seamlessly interoperable, you have the freedom to select the perfect speaker for each room, and know that they will all work together as if they came from one manufacturer. With AirPlay from Apple, you get a lot of freedom to select the right speaker, but you’re pretty limited on the control side. Apple really wants you to control the system from one of their products. There are third party apps that allow you to stream to AirPlay devices from an Android phone, but nothing like the native support you get from an Apple device. Sonos is the complete other side of the spectrum. You have total freedom in how you control your audio system, use a Mac, a Windows PC, an iPhone or iPad, or any Android phone or tablet. But you have to buy Sonos speakers. There aren’t any non-Sonos speakers that will work in that system. DTS actually came by the technology via their acquisition of a company called Phorus in July 2012. Phorus was using the technology in their PS1 speakers. Staying consistent with how DTS tends to operate, they decided to open the platform and license it, hoping to get on as many devices as they possibly could. They didn’t want to make the devices themselves, they wanted to build a technology to allow their partners to enable wireless, whole-home streaming and take a little cut. It has worked out pretty well for them with other technologies. What does it do? In a nutshell, it allows you to essentially build your own Sonos with any devices you like. Prefer the tonal quality of one speaker brand over another? Go for it. Buy their Play-Fi speakers. Prefer the aesthetic look of a particular speaker, have at it. Want to control it from an Android phone? iPhone? Windows PC? Go for it. All with native support. Bottom line, stream your favorite content at high audio quality from every device that you've got. Like Airplay, Play-Fi sends audio from your devices to speakers throughout the home over WiFi using their proprietary streaming, synchronization, and authentication technology. Features include: Lossless audio transmission Multi-room, multi-zone, multi-user options Advanced Left/Right speaker configuration for stereo speakers Support for high-resolution audio (24bit/192kHz) New features and services delivered wirelessly Works over standard Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and Powerline networks For Android, iOS, Kindle Fire, and Windows PCs Just like Sonos and AirPlay, Play-Fi works over your home WiFi network. If you have spotty WiFi coverage in some rooms, this could be an issue. And you need to make sure your router is up to the task of streaming all that music simultaneously. Play-Fi support streaming the same source to up to eight devices simultaneously. Of the three, only Sonos offers the ability to create its own dedicated network by connecting one of your devices via hard-wire to your router. In this mode each Sonos device also operates as a wireless repeater, extending the range of the dedicated network and helping you overcome spotty WiFi issues. And, of course, Play-Fi comes with a bunch of music options from around the world. The native app has support for Spotify, Pandora (enabled for select Play-Fi products only), Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, Deezer, Songza, Sirius XM, KKBox in Taiwan, QQ Music in China, and multiple others. They also support DLNA for access to content from your local network. And they’re adding new sources all the time. Since the sources come from the control devices, the speakers don’t need to be updated to support new ones as they come out. Doing a feature for feature comparison, Sonos and Play-Fi are fairly neck and neck, while AirPlay lacks a few capabilities they both offer. We already know Apple doesn’t do Android, but AirPlay also only supports multi-zone streaming from an iTunes collection on a computer, not from your iPhone or iPad. AirPlay can’t stream from multiple sources, and doesn’t support left/right stereo pairing, while both of the others do. Play-Fi differentiates itself from both of the other options with support for High-Resolu

Interview - Will Price CEO Simple Control Ara has been using Simple Control as his home remote for many years. It is the one piece of gear that he can’t live without. His setup includes three rooms, lights, thermostats, and iTunes control all in one great looking app. We produced a video demonstrating the capabilities, though a little dated they show the capabilities pretty well. Virtual Remotes - Simple Control provides a virtual remote control for any supported device, automatically optimizing each remote for iOS. Simple Control provides all of the commands from your original remote and often more advanced commands including “discrete” power on and off. Live Feedback - Simple Control provides advanced two-way feedback support for many devices via direct network control or serial connection. Unlike older universal remotes, Simple Control knows your receiver’s volume level, power status, mute, input, and mode allowing you to view and control these aspects of your system in ways impossible with infrared. Simple Control integrates with Blu-ray players to allow live scrubbing and elapsed/total time displays, integrates streaming and USB song feedback from popular receivers, provides guides for DISH, TiVo, and DirecTV DVR content, and many other examples. Once you’ve tried live feedback, you’ll wonder how you ever used home theater components without it. Control All Your Music - Keep things in tune. With Simple Control, you not only have all your music in your pocket. You hold the key to every speaker in your home. It’s like being the conductor of your own personal home orchestra. iTunes/Apple TV Integration - Simple Control controls iTunes installations on your Mac OS X or Windows sytems directly via your network. All your music, TV shows, movies, and other iTunes content can be controlled directly from Simple Control like another home theater device. Simple Control can even control Airplay through iTunes to stream your music from iTunes to an Apple TV or other Airplay compatible device on your network. Simple Control has direct network control of supported Apple TV models including gestures, media feedback and keyboard support. SONOS Integration - Simple Control even supports any Sonos device including speaker grouping. A Simple Service subscription provides Sonos speakers a media guide for the your entire music library including Pandora, Internet radio, Sonos Queue, Sonos Favorites, iTunes playlists, inputs, Pandora thumbs up/down, station creation and more. TV Guide Listings - Simple Control provides integrated cable, satellite and antenna television listings for the US, UK, Canada and 31 other countries. Your listings are personalized with favorite channels and integrated with your devices to tune channels directly. Information on each show provides episode tracking, descriptions, Next On schedules, cast and crew information and photos, and detailed talent biographies and filmographies. DISH, DirecTV and TiVo DVR Guides - Supported set top boxes include DISH’s Hopper/Joey, DirecTV and TiVo Roamio/Premiere with the ability to browse and play programs recorded on your DVR. Never miss a moment with the DVR recording and schedule editing capabilities for DISH and TiVo models