HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

Speaker Terminology Ara has recently started a new hobby of building his own speakers at home. In the course of building them, talking about them and creating videos to show how he does it, we realized there quite a few speaker terms and some tech jargon we may throw around that not everyone is familiar with. Some of you may know this inside and out, for others it’ll be a refresher and for some, parts of this may be brand new, but we’ve compiled a glossary of sorts, based on some prior episodes and some new stuff, to make sure we’re all in on the conversation when talking about speakers. Frequency Response Measures the range of audible frequencies a speaker reproduces across the entire audio spectrum. This spec helps you assemble a set of speakers that allow you to hear everything you’re supposed to. The general rule of thumb is that we humans, with young, undamaged eardrums, can hear really low sounds down to 20 Hz all the way up to really high-pitch, piercing sound at 20 kHz. Many argue that the highest and lowest frequencies are less important because the human ear doesn’t hear them as well - and for some of us, not at all. But for the lower range, it may not be as important to hear it as it is to feel it. Driver The scientific name for a speaker, or a loudspeaker, is an electroacoustic transducer. The transducer converts an electrical signal into the sound you hear when watching movies or listening to music. The individual transducers themselves are often referred to as drivers. The term speaker and driver can sometimes be used interchangeably. The word speaker is also used to describe a set of drivers in an enclosure - the speakers you buy at the store, online or in some cases, build at home. There are three basic types of drivers: tweeter, midrange and woofer. Tweeter - A tweeter is a driver designed to produce high audio frequencies (typically 2,000 Hz to 20 kHz). Midrange - Midrange drivers, sometimes called “squawkers,” are designed to reproduce the frequency range from approximately 300–5000 Hz. Woofer - A woofer is the driver designed to produce the lowest frequency sound, typically from 20 Hz to 1000 Hz. Full Range - A full-rangedriver is designed to reproduces as much of the audible frequency range as possible. Larger speakers tend to cover a wider range of frequencies, which is why you typically want larger speakers for your front and center channels. You can get away with smaller speakers in the surround channels because the sound there doesn't tend to be as dynamic as the front of the room. Although some very large speakers will cover the lowest end of the spectrum, down to 20 Hz, most home theater speakers don’t go that low, so you need a subwoofer to fill that gap. Without the really the low end frequencies, a home theater tends to lack punch and the audio doesn’t feel as full. Crossover The Crossover is an electrical filter that could be a high-pass, low-pass or band-pass filter. It is used to divide the audible frequency spectrum (20 Hz - 20 kHz). Since most loudspeaker drivers are incapable of reproducing the entire audio spectrum, the crossover is used to make sure the correct frequencies are sent to the drivers that are built to reproduce a particular sound range. Without a crossover every driver would be sent the entire frequency range, resulting in muddied and sub-optimal audio experience. Porting A port in a speaker cabinet is a hole or vent that allows air to escape from inside the enclosure. A speaker without a port is referred to as a sealed enclosure, where no air is supposed to escape from inside. This design yields a more accurate response and produces a speaker with a bit more punch. A ported enclosure is more difficult to design, it requires a more scientific approach, and they tend to be larger than sealed cabinets. But a ported subwoofer allows for extended bass response, resulting in deeper bass and a stronger physical impact: you can feel the rumble. Ported speakers are also more efficient. They increase the bass output of a speaker by around 3 dB, and that cuts the power requirements for your amplifier in half. More on that in a moment... Decibel Decibels, or dBs, are a measurement of sound level. Our ears detect changes in volume in a non-linear fashion. A decibel is a logarithmic scale of loudness. A difference of 1 decibel is an almost imperceptible change in volume. It takes about 3 dB for most humans to hear a difference and 10 decibels is perceived by the listener as a doubling of volume. On your receiver or amplifier when you go from -15 dB to -5 dB the sound volume hitting your ears is doubled. As a side note, it takes a doubling of wattage in your amp for an increase of 3 dB. That’s why paying an extra $200 for the next model up just because it is 125W instead of 100W is a waste of money. Provided, of course, that’s the only additional feature. Sensitivity This is the spec we use routinely to rank speakers when purley going by paper, not by sound. If you’re do

Mohu Channels Last year we saw a cool Kickstarter project called Mohu Channels. According to the project description you would be able to: Create your own TV Channel Guide as a mash-up of streaming apps, websites & broadcast TV with Mohu Channels. We’re making TV fun again! The project has been completed and is now available through the Mohu website for $150. Being that we have had great experiences with every Mohu product we have reviewed in the past we were quite excited to get our hands on the device and put it through its paces. Features: Combine all your favorite programming on a single source Arrange your channels in any order: Kids channels. Sports stations. Streaming movies. Web sites for photos, stocks or weather. Local TV stations. You decide. Use a real keyboard or smart device to type in movie names, web addresses, email or any other text. No more on-screen keyboards! Setup: Physical setup is trivial, connect your antenna, HDMI, Ethernet (if you are using the device wired), and power. Next turn it on and select the HDMI input on your TV and follow the onscreen instructions. You are given the option to train the Mohu remote to work with your TV. If you have a Samsung TV it works out of the box. We skipped this step and moved on to selecting our time zone and language preferences followed by joining our wifi network. The last part of the setup was scanning for channels. The tuner is quite good and found more channels than the TV’s tuner did. Once the channels have been found you can delete channels that you have no interest in or you can change the order that they appear in your guide. The basic setup takes about ten to fifteen minutes, add five more for a firmware update, and you can start watching right away. But there is much more to Mohu Channels than simply watching over the air HDTV. Next up we added apps through the Google Play store. There are so many that you can add but we stuck with Netflix and Hulu and a few network apps. You can also add web pages but honestly we can’t think of a reason why you would want to. Once we added all the apps and channels we organized them in the guide based on our favorites. It takes a little time but once you have them organized the way you want it makes using the device simple and easy. Performance: This was hit and miss for us. As we said above the tuner is quite good. it picks up channels that out HDTV didn’t and would stay locked even with a weak signal. Using the ARC channel of the HDTV we were even able to get Dolby Digital audio. But lip sync issues would pop up from time to time. Changing the channel away and back usually fixed the issue. The picture quality was outstanding! Then we watched Netflix and were not happy with the picture quality. Its hard to tell if that is an issue with the Mohu Channels device or the Netflix application. The navigation within the app was quirky, using the D-pad for navigation was problematic. For instance you could not select episodes. The only way we were able to do so was with the pointer. The top it off the audio was only stereo. Compared to the Netflix app on the TV, Amazon Fire, or AppleTV, the device did not compare favorably. Then we checked out Hulu+ and found video to be slightly better but in all the experience was not much better than the Netflix app. The user interface took a little getting used to but after a little time it was acceptable. The remote’s pointer/mouse function frustrated us at first. To make the selection with it you need to press SEL and try not to move the remote. It took a little practice but as soon as we mastered it we were able to select anything we pointed at. It is nice having a full keyboard to make surfing and adding content easier. The pointer makes navigating around the various apps and GUI elements easier as well. Everything works as advertised but it just didn’t seem to flow nicely. After speaking with the Mohu people we learned that the company is getting a lot of feedback and is paying attention to it. They will be releasing a Firmware update to fix a couple of issues in the next few days. They tell us they are committed to making the product easy and fun to use. They are also working on the Netflix experience but admit some of the issues we experienced may be out of their control. Mohu One Mohu One is a web content aggregator that finds videos from Youtube, Vevo, Fox Sports, and more and presents them in a single interface grouped by category. This is a web service so you can use the site with or without the device. We used the pointer to navigate this device because the D-Pad navigation had a few quirks. DVR Right now there is no DVR function available. The device does have a USB port that will allow for this capability in the future. Mohu wants to keep this a no cost to use device so they are trying to work the TV Guide issues associated with such a product. More info on this in the future. Conclusion Mohu Channels has the right idea but still needs a little work. There

VidiPath Technology from DLNA What is the worst part about subscription television service? Ask ten people and you may get a few different answers, but odds are a few of them would agree on the cost of the service. Not just the service, but all the additional fees, especially the fees to have a set top box in the rooms where you want to watch TV. Can it really cost the provider that much more to let you watch in a second room? You’re already paying for the service. The DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) is hoping their new VidiPath technology will make that easier on you. The plan for VidiPath is to let you view all of your pay TV content on multiple TVs throughout your home without the need to rent additional set-top boxes for each room. DLNA technology is certified and available on over four billion devices worldwide. Many of us have been using it for years to stream content, movies and music, from computers or network drives to TVs and other connected devices. The addition of VidiPath technology opens up the possibilities of what you can stream over your DLNA connections. According to DLNA executive director Donna Moore, “with the addition of VidiPath, DLNA has expanded its ecosystem to include the secure delivery of subscription-TV content.” So you can stream pretty much anything now, from movies stored on your video server to live content from your cable provider, to any certified device in your home. The technology will work over wired and wireless network connections (using WiFi), so you’ll be able to play content on wireless devices like tablets and smartphones in addition to TVs, game consoles, computers and other set top boxes. We’re hearing that the first VidiPath certified devices should come to market this quarter, so we should start to see them pop up later this month. Of course you’ll need a VidiPath certified device from your provider, but after that you can add any VidiPath certified playback device to get the content in any room you want. Of course the initiative is led by the DLNA, but it has some pretty solid logos backing it as well. Providers Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications are in with both feet and have already committed to having VidiPath enabled set-top boxes or gateways available to their subscribers. Sony, Samsung and Broadcom are onboard as well. So we’d expect to see a smattering of televisions, tablets and other devices hitting the shelves soon. A single VidiPath certified set-top box or gateway from a traditional pay TV provider like your cable company, or satellite provider will stream all the content you pay for, including High Definition content, over WiFi. So if you have a VidiPath certified device that can get on WiFI, that device instantly becomes a live TV viewer. Providers and manufacturers are working together to provide a consistent usage experience across all devices, including access to the program guide and, we’re hoping, all recorded DVR content, although we haven’t seen that stated anywhere. No word on whether you’ll be able to pause or rewind live TV from a VidiPath player. Also not sure if you’ll be able to initiate recordings. Also no word on how many devices will be able to stream simultaneously - how many rooms can be watching TV at the same time. We’re certain this information will come to light as devices start to hit the market. If VidiPath players are fully functional, just like you get from your provider’s multi-room boxes in a whole house DVR setup, the technology could be a game changer. No more multi-room DVRs, just a standard DVR from any provider that would support VidiPath and you’d be responsible for adding your own playback devices to connect to it. Pay TV providers would have to find other features to differentiate on. That’s exciting.

Interview - Gary Yacoubian President of SVS Speakers From the SVS Website: SVS was founded in 1998 by four audiophile/engineers who noted that customers were paying too much for lackluster subwoofer performance because of a manufacturing to sales process that was stacked against the consumer. The conventional model, where just good enough subs were sold at high markups did a disservice to customers who wanted great audio experiences but didn’t have unlimited funds. To fix a broken system, SVS pioneered a disruptive, future-facing model by investing heavily in product engineering and performance and reducing operational costs by selling direct to its customers over the Internet. Customers could demo world-class subwoofers and speakers in their homes exactly where the products would be installed, allowing them to make the most informed purchase decision possible, without risk. This strategy allowed SVS to establish a global presence and continues to earn acclaim from professional and amateur reviewers, in forums, and at audio shows, while continuing to grow retail and direct distribution. UHD Blu-ray Many of you either have or will soon have a new UHD TV that will be begging you to throw some UHD content at it. Right now you can stream UHD content from Netflix and Amazon but while good, its not nearly as good as you can get from disc. There aren’t any discs, or players, out there that can support UHD. But there will be in the near future. The Blu-ray Disc Association has released a new specification that may help you justify the purchase of a shiny new UHD TV. So what do the new players and disc give you? Better Color Simply put, the new specification allows your TV to display more colors than your current HDTV. You probably are thinking that your TV already does a good job with this but it can only display about 30% of what your eye can see. The new specification will display about 75%. At this writing we don’t know of UHD TV that supports this spec nor do we know when we will see content that does. But its nice to know that your player will be ready when the content is there! High Dynamic Range (HDR) If you have a relatively new smartphone you may have heard of this term. On your phone your camera takes two (or more) shots of the same image, one with the darkest exposure and one with the lightest. Then it combines the best of the images to create one that shows great detail in all areas, nothing washed out and blacks looking black. This will provide depth and greater contrast on screen. 10-bit Bottom line on this one is that it makes better color and HDR possible. Higher Frame Rates Until Hollywood shoots at 60 frames a second, think of this as future proofing the standard. This will help 3D as well. Better Compression There is a lot of data that needs to be stored on a disc for 4K so a more efficient way of compressing it is required. That’s where H.265 comes into play. The High Efficiency Video Codec (HVEC) is twice as efficient as H.264 (mpeg4). As a side note, HVEC is what makes streaming 4K from Netflix and Amazon possible at 7 to 10Mbps. Now imagine how good it would be at a little more than 100Mbps. Yes it will be a while before streaming catches up to fixed media. Larger Capacity All those bits need to be stored someplace. The new discs will have capacities of 66GB or 100GB Audio TBD

Sling TV Review The idea of cutting the cord, removing your reliance on Cable or Satellite to provide the hundreds of channels you rarely watch, has been a pipe dream for many of us. Sure, for those close enough to a transmitter, an over the air antenna really helps fill the void. Netflix and Hulu are great as well. But if you like to watch a lot of TV, you’re still left wanting. Until now. Sling TV may actually be the answer. You’re right, Sling TV isn’t really cutting the cord. It’s just swapping one TV service for another. But it does allow you to trade in a bill of $80 or $120 or more per month for only $20 a month. So you haven’t cut the cord, but you’ve slimmed it down quite a bit. It’s like the cord on Zumba or P90X. What is Sling TV? According to the website, “Sling is the way TV should be. It's watching the season finale of your favorite show the moment it airs. It’s the latest episodes of your favorite shows and hot new movies on-demand. It’s ESPN, TNT, Adult Swim, and more without the cable company...With Sling TV, there's no commitment, no installation, and no crazy miscellaneous fees. Just great TV for only $20/mo. Cancel anytime online.” Bottom line, Sling TV is Live and On Demand television over your Internet connection. Whatever your friends with Cable or Satellite are watching, you can watch at the same time. The base $20 package includes 15 channels: ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, Food Network, Travel Channel, HGTV, El Rey, Adult Swim, Maker, Disney, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, CNN, Galavision For an additional $5/mo, the optional Sports Extra package adds 9 more channels ESPNEWS, ESPNU, SEC Network, ESPN Bases Loaded, ESPN Buzzer Beater, ESPN Goal Line, Universal Sports, Univision Deportes, beIN Sports Also for an additional $5/mo, the optional Kids Extra package adds 5 more channels Disney Junior, Disney XD, Boomerang, Baby TV, Duck TV And for yet another $5/mo, you can opt for the News & Info Extra package for 4 more channels: Cooking Channel, DIY Network, Bloomberg, HLN And it’s more than just channels. You also have the freedom to watch on whatever device suits you, or is most convenient at the time. If you want to watch on a TV in your home theater or a secondary room in the house, you can put a Sling TV app on your Amazon Fire TV or Fire Stick, Roku, and coming soon, Xbox and Nexus Player. The Apple TV requires the use of the iOS app for Sling TV with Airplay. If you want to watch on the go, add the app to your iOS or Android device. Or for ultimate flexibility, just install the player on your Windows or Mac computer or laptop. Performance The streaming quality of Sling TV is pretty good. Coming from the company that practically invented place-shifting, you’d think they have some solid history with streaming video quality, and it shows. The video when watched over a high bandwidth connection looked great. Sharp and crisp. They support Dolby Digital 5.1 as well, so you can get some surround sound from the TV connected devices. Content looked great on a high bandwidth connection including WiFi, only a few stutters occasionally. Things were a bit more hit or miss over 4G - but mostly hit. Our first test over 4G was terrible. Granted it was Sprint 4G, but it was really bad, nearly unwatchable. Ara, being the more methodical of the two of us demanded a recount. Testing over Verizon and AT&T 4G was actually very good. Further tests over Sprint 4G also yielded much better results. When things were bad over 4G, video would come in sporadically but spent more time stuck on a random frame or a blank screen than actually streaming TV. It is obvious to most, but as you would expect, the quality of the stream is totally dependent on the quality of the data connection. Sling TV is more than capable of looking really good on a phone or tablet over 4G, but if your connection is spotty, the video will reflect that. No streaming technology can overcome a really bad data connection. Then there are the limitations in the service. For one, you can only watch one thing at a time. So if you have a couple devices in your home that can connect to Sling TV, they’ll all be watching the same thing - or you’ll have to get multiple accounts. Which somewhat defeats the purpose of the $20/month. Most channels do not provide the ability to pause, rewind or fast forward live television. A few others like HGTV, Food Network, Travel Channel, and a couple others do. On those channels skipping back or forwards is a bit slow since the stream needs to rebuffer. Often the skip buttons didn’t work at all. It would just stutter for a second and start back up right where you were before. You are better of dragging the timeline slider and moving forward once enough of the stream has buffered. So while getting TV over the Internet is super cool, and super high tech, handicapping the essentials we’ve all come to love in the DVR is like going a decade back in time. To a time before DVRs and the freedom to stop anything for a snack break

Dayton Audio XRA25 Wireless Rear Channel Amplifier Since the beginning of this podcast we have been on the lookout for a product that will wirelessly transmit audio from your receiver to the surround speakers. To date there have been a few that sort of got the job done. To be fair, a lot depends on where your live. In areas that do not have a lot of interference you have a much better chance of success with most products. In areas where home are right on top of each other, or have a lot of wireless devices you may be better off running cable. About six months ago I (Ara) went through the process of finding a product that would get me a 5.1 system in my master bedroom via wireless surround speakers. I tried three products all of which failed miserably. Again, it may have been because the environment has a lot of interference but the bottom line was no joy on the wireless solution. I had resolved myself to running cable to my speakers. Because of the layout of my bedroom I would need about 100 feet of speaker wire and speaker hiding channels (Wiremold C110 White Cordmate Kit) to run cables along the baseboards. The actual surround speakers are only about 15 feet away from the receiver but require a path along the baseboard that pretty much run the entire perimeter of the bedroom. Since I had to move all the furniture to snake the cable I had put off the project instead enjoying a 3.1 system. Then I found the Dayton Audio XRA25 Wireless Amplifier (Buy Now $99) and decided to give it one more shot. Features: Subwoofer channel for placement of a powered subwoofer at the rear of the room 25 watts per channel output power at 4 ohms, 12.5 watts at 8 ohms 2.4 GHz transmission band with 34 transmitting channels Transmitting range up to 100 ft. Adjustable output level for achieving proper volume balance Setup: Connect the transmitter to the receiver surround speaker outputs with either RCA or speaker cable. The receiver we used did not have pre-outs so we used speaker wire. On the receiver side you connect the speakers via speaker wire. If you made the subwoofer connection then you connect the subwoofer out to the subwoofer via RCA cable. Power on both units and you are good to go! To pair the devices you simultaneously press and hold the “M” button on both the receiver and transmitter. The LED on the front of the units will blink green and blue. When they are both blue they have found an open frequency on the 2.4 GHz spectrum. Performance: Or lack or performance as it were. The issues I had started right out of the gate. I could not get the units to sync. The receiver would show a solid blue LED but the transmitter never would. The manual says to make sure there is a signal so I put a test tone on the surround channels. I even disconnected the speaker cable running from the AVR to the wireless transmitter and connected directly into a speaker to make sure there was a tone. Next, thinking that there could be interference, I turned off my wifi and cordless phone and tried again. Still nothing! The next morning I called customer support and verified that I did everything as I should. In the end I decided to send the unit back. Apartment dwellers would be ideal candidates for a product like this, but that environment is even noisier than living in a tract home. I have one last hope but its expensive. I am going to use a couple of devices from Audioengine and see if I can get this to work. The system will consist of an Audioengine W3 Wireless Audio Adapter (Buy Now $149) which is primarily for sending music from your PC to some powered speakers but can definitely work for this application. On the speaker side I will use the Audioengine N22 desktop amplifier (Buy Now $199) to bring the speakers to life. The N22 has a USB port so it can power the receiver side of the W3 without need of a power adapter. Like I said its on the expensive side but I know it will work because we reviewed the W3 with great success a couple of years ago.

Dish Upgrade Time This is the time of the year when HDTV and Home Theater take a quick nap. CES has come and gone, the Super Bowl is done, and there’s a bit of a lull in activity until March Madness kicks in. Sure there may be some mid-season shows that pop up, but we’re always looking for ways to spice things up. So what better way than a full revamp of our Dish Network gear? In some areas we strive to be early adopters. Braden, the Dish representative in the HT Guys duo, jumped in on the Hopper and Joey system as quick as possible almost three years ago (Episode 527). Sure Dish may not have been the first to the party, but the Hopper has been a consistent innovator for them, and has kept them in the news, both good and somewhat controversially, quite regularly. For those not familiar, the Hopper is Dish’s whole-home DVR. The Hopper itself isn’t much more than a standard DVR, other than a few killer features we’ll talk about later. But it uses MoCA (Multimedia over Coax Alliance) to also alloy the little Joey boxes to playback any live content coming into the Hopper tuners, or any recorded content sitting on the DVR’s hard drive, in any room in your house. Any room with a coax cable. Our upgrade involved swapping out the original version 1 Hopper for the updated Hopper v2 and swapping out two Joeys for more modern ones, a Super Joey and a Wireless Joey. The Super Joey works like a standard Joey, but also adds two additional satellite tuners to pair with the three already in the Hopper. That gives you five tuners, and during prime time, allows you to record up to eight shows simultaneously. The Wireless Joey is exactly what it sounds like, a Joey you can use even in rooms without coax. Hopper Features The standard features on the original Hopper, like Auto-Hop, or the ability to automatically skip all commercials in a show recorded using Prime Time Anytime the day after it aired, or Prime Time Anytime itself, which is the ability to automatically record all primetime shows on the big four networks: ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX, using only one of the DVR’s three tuners, are all still there on the Hopper version 2. But the update adds a couple great new tricks. First and most importantly, the new Hopper has Sling technology built right in. With Sling you get the ability to watch live shows anywhere in the world where you can get an Internet connection, and you can browse your guide and schedule recordings from anywhere as well. A little added bonus is the ability to transfer recordings to your iPad for offline viewing later, like on a plane, a train or a long road trip. Second is the Netflix app. You no longer need to jump out of your TV experience to fire up an Apple TV or a Roku to watch Netflix. You now get it natively in the same interface. This isn’t anything groundbreaking, Tivo has had this for years, but they are the first major pay TV provider to offer it. And, although it isn’t there yet, a future update will include Netflix results in a standard search on your Hopper, in addition to the live, recorded and On Demand results you get now. The Netflix app should be rolling out to the Joeys soon as well. Third are the little bonus features and easter eggs you get just by having the new Hopper. One example is the recent reverse Auto-Hop feature they added for the Super Bowl. If you’re a fan of Super Bowl commercials, you’d love this. It gave you the ability to watch the game the day after it aired, but skip all the pesky football parts and just watch the commercials. Maybe not the most useful feature, but a fun one, and a good indicator of how Dish plans to use the Hopper. Super Joey Features The Super Joey isn’t much more to talk about than the original Joey. It is quite a bit larger, and requires special installation to make it work, but once you’ve got it, you can’t really tell any difference - other than the fact that you can now record up to eight shows at once during prime time, five shows at once during other times. The Super Joey doesn’t have any hard drives of its own, it just adds the tuners and the content is still recorded on the Hopper. Wireless Joey Features The Wireless Joey is pretty awesome. Not because it does anything more than you’d expect, but because it does exactly what you’d expect. Want to add a big TV to a room without coax? Go for it. Put a TV in the garage, a shop or work room, wherever you want. The Wireless Joey uses a custom Wifi network, so you don’t have to worry about any other devices on your home Wifi killing the HDTV on your Joey. To make it work, you just plug the Wireless Joey access point into a coax connection somewhere in your house, ideally somewhere fairly close to where the wireless Joey will be, and you’re done. It takes all of 5 minutes to get it running. What’s Next One thing we’ve noticed over the years is that Dish installers are typically big fans of Dish Network. You can be positive because they sign your paycheck, but that’s different than being an evangelist

We received an email from a listener in early January asking us to take a listen to some speakers manufactured by RSL Speakers. We are still in the process of setting up the review samples but we thought that RSL had such a great history that we asked Howard and Joe Rogers to come on the show and share with us their experiences in the speaker industry. We hope you enjoy! RSL Story RSL Technology RSL Products

Best of CES 2015 Winners We did our personal roundup of CES and told you about our favorites, but it is nearly impossible for the two of us to see everything, much less take the time to absorb it all even if we caught a glimpse of it. There are a couple items in the official winners list for Best of CES 2015 that we didn’t talk about it our prior roundup. Presenting the Best of CES 2015 winners! This year the Best of CES Awards were chosen and presented by Engadget, a {hopefully} neutral third party, to eliminate at least some of the potential for talk about conspiracy and conflict of interest. For those who don’t remember, last year’s controversy was over Dish’s Hopper being snubbed by the awards because they were chosen and presented by CNET, whose parent company CBS was in a legal battle with Dish over the Hopper and it’s ability to auto-hop over commercials. Sling TV So this year Engadget took over, and the big winner, receiving the Best of the Best award was…Sling TV (a Dish Network Company). Sling TV took home two individual category awards for Best Home Theater Product and Best Software / App. We would tend to agree. Although there were a lot of great televisions at the show, and some cool whole house audio products, the thing we went away most excited to try was the new Sling TV service. Could really be the cord cutter’s dream. Engadget says: “In a show where software and apps rarely take center stage, Sling TV was an obvious choice for both candidate and overall winner of this category. The $20-a-month service by Dish makes cord-cutting that much easier, offering premium content from the likes of ESPN and HGTV right off the bat. Not only that, but also the app itself -- available on Android, iOS and select set-top boxes -- is intuitive, user-friendly and surprisingly well-done.” Energous WattUp One of the products we didn’t get a chance to check out, the Energous WattUp, won two awards: Best (Connected) Home Product and Best Innovation (Disruptive Tech). It sound part science fiction and part death trap, but they claim to be able to wirelessly charge your portable devices from up to 15 feet away. It sounds very intriguing. Just drop your phone on the counter or your normal resting place and it’ll charge all by itself: Even keep it in your pocket. “it works using a mix of RF, Bluetooth and a lot of patent-pending technology. The transmitter is where most of the magic happens. It communicates with and locates compatible devices using low-energy Bluetooth. Once they've established contact with a device, they send out focused RF signals on the same bands as WiFi that are then absorbed and converted into DC power by a tiny chip embedded in the device. These transmitters can be built into household appliances, TVs, speakers and standalone "energy routers."” LG Art Slim 4K OLED The official winner in the Best TV Product category was the LG Art Slim 4K OLED. We agree. We liked the LG OLEDs. There was something very striking about OLED color and 4k detail. Very impressive. Like Engadget, we’re also concerned about the pricing. As good as they look, will they ever hit price points that will allow them to get mass adoption? Or will they be able to do it fast enough before something else, like quantum dot, comes along that makes them irrelevant? Engadget says “So how could LG improve on last year's OLEDs and their impressive picture quality? Show an impressive pace of price drops, crank up the resolution and give us a flatter option -- and that's just what it did. Despite a strong showing of quantum dot-loaded LCDs, this "Art Slim" OLED packing webOS 2.0 is the one we most want on our wall. The only question remaining is how much will it cost to get it there?” Razer Forge TV Another product we didn’t get to see, one that took home both the Best Gaming Product award and was also the People's Choice winner was a little gaming set top box called Razer Forge TV. Perhaps not being gamers we don’t quite get the appeal, but for hard-core PC gamers, it could be great. It is an Android TV based system, so you get the same games you can get on something like the Amazon Fire TV. But it doesn't stop there. The box is well powered, they have a bunch of peripheral aimed at gamers, and it can stream games from your PC. That must be the secret ingredient. For the dedicated PC gamer, you no longer have to have a big loud computer connected to your TV. Instead you can use the tiny Razer Forge TV box and use their “Cortex: Stream” technology to play the games on your big screen. It is supposed to be much better than the “laggy PC streaming of other systems” and it will give you up to 1080p resolution. It can operate over WiFi or a wired Ethernet connection and supports any DirectX 9 or higher game.

DIY Speaker Project The HT Guys are very DIY oriented and we love new projects! When some of our listeners emailed us about their DIY speakers we just had build one ourselves. Many of you told us about Parts Express, an online retailer for electronics, and how they have some nice speaker kits. For our first build we didn’t want to get too fancy so we went with one that didn’t require any assembly of the speaker cabinet but did require some soldering. Dayton Audio BR-1 6-1/2" 2-Way Bookshelf Monitor Speaker Kit Pair $160 with no shipping costs. The Kit includes: Dayton Audio BR-1CAB BR-1 6-1/2" 2-Way Speaker Cabinet Pair Two Dayton Audio DC160-8 6-1/2" woofers Two Dayton Audio DC28F-8 1-1/8" silk dome tweeters Two crossover boards All the required capacitors, resistors, inductors, and cables To build this kit you’ll need a soldering iron, solder, hot glue gun, wire cutters/strippers, and a screwdriver. Parts Express has some great online video showing you how to build your speakers that we found extremely valuable. We put a quick video together not so much for how to purposes but so you get a better feel for the speakers and what is involved in the process. For $160 and a few hours you end up with speakers that sound and look great! We are very impressed with the sound that these speakers create. We tested them down to 50 Hz on the low end and 16KHz on the high end. Ara’s daughters had to confirm audio tones beyond 12KHz. The specification says the speakers produce sound between 43Hz and 18KHz. When we listened to music we were surprised by how much bass they would produce. Highs were good but the speakers performed better on the low end. They aren't the most efficient speakers but they aren’t that bad either with a sensitivity rating of 88 dB 1W/1m. We have no problem saying that they perform as well as speakers that cost two or three times more. But here is the cool thing! If you want you can design your own speaker by picking woofers, tweeters, and crossovers that are more to your liking, you can! Parts Express sells fully assembled crossovers so that you don’t even have to solder. If you want to spend $1,000 on components you can. Likewise if all you need are some inexpensive speakers with good sound you can spend less. We can’t wait to try different woofers and tweeters and build out an entire 7.1 set including the subwoofer. The only complaint is that there aren’t some smaller prebuilt speaker cabinets. Maybe its time to go to some yard sales and pick up old speakers and turn them into something incredible!

Listen in as we talk out our trip to Las Vegas for the CES show.

Predictions for 2015 Time for the HT Guys to look into our crystal ball and try and predict the HDTV and Home Theater landscape for 2015. Our crystal ball is never as clears as a good HDTV but we give it a shot nonetheless. No gimmies this year since we can’t even get those right! Ara’s Predictions: There will be a 65 inch production OLED TV for less than $5,000 Look for LG and Samsung to continue to push OLED technology. They’ll finally figure out that no one wants a curved model and produce a 65 inch flat panel OLED. Bonus prediction - It will be LG that makes this prediction a win for me! There will be a production Quantum Dot TV available for sale This is my hedge against the OLED prediction totally failing. We saw the first quantum dot TVs at CES about three years ago. LG is pushing forward with the technology. It produces higher yields than OLED and better pictures than current LEDs so this is a no brainer technology to pursue. Apple will open up the AppleTV to developers After seeing the potential of the FireTV from Amazon, Apple will realize the AppleTV is falling behind the competition. Look for a new model (AppleTV 4) with game support that will use iPhones and iPads as controllers. By the way, the 4 in AppleTV 4 stands for 4K. I can dream can’t I?? Apple to stream 4K movies and television programming If you are going to dream might as well dream big! What good is a new set top box capable of 4K content if you don’t have 4K content. Sure they will support Netflix 4K streams but the real deal will be buying and renting movies and TV shows from iTunes in 4K. Sonos to debut a dedicated 7.1 home theater system One of the main reasons people don’t have full surround systems is the need to string speaker wire everyplace. Sure the front is easy enough but why should you have to string wire when you can have freedom to place speakers wherever you want. Sonos has the best sounding wireless solution we have heard to date. So why not make a complete 7.1 system without the need of speaker wires? It would be easy to setup with almost no configuration required. When your aren’t watching movies you could repurpose the speakers for music without the need of turning on an amplifier. Now if we can only do something about those pesky power cords! Braden’s Predictions: At least 5 major studio movie releases will be available online concurrent with cinema release With “The Interview” now out there as a pilot for what is possible, Sony will do it again at least once, and other major studios will try their hand at it as well. Theater owners will threaten not to run the movie(s), but if the studios choose wisely, theater owners will be forced to run them because they’d stand to lose too much in ticket sales if they didn’t. Curved televisions will go away Nobody really gets it. Manufacturers seem to be the only ones that understand the value in the curved screen. Realizing there’s no demand for it, manufacturers will make them disappear. This means we’ll be on the hunt for another gimmick to boost television sales. Look for 4k to try to fill that gap. But it’ll still be a bit niche, so look for something else as well. Automation integration in your smart TV? Could this be the year of home automation? Live television streaming won’t be coming to your town Did an Aereo 180 on this prediction, but none of the big players in streaming set top boxes: Apple, Google, Microsoft or Amazon, will add live TV streaming to their box. Despite rumors, it ain’t happening this year. Aereo showed that there’s no way around the retransmission fees, and there’s no way a streaming provider would get premium channels for less than the others pay, so there would be no cost advantage to the consumer. And in most markets streaming would be inferior quality to Cable or Satellite, so it’s a lose-lose for consumers. 80” Televisions for under $2000 The biggest TVs on the consumer market right now, at reasonable prices, are a few models at 84, 85 and 90 inches. But there are a bunch of options at 80” from all the major manufacturers. The lowest price for an 80” is a Vizio model for $2999. Manufacturers may see that the next round of upgrades could be driven simply by larger screen sizes. Everyone has an HDTV, but it is somewhere between 40 and 60 inches, and they know they can go bigger. If the price is right, they will. So that price will drop to under $2000 at some point this year. Maybe Black Friday, maybe for another event, but it’ll drop. Amazon to release a full length motion picture In an attempt to leapfrog Netflix, Amazon will beat them to the punch with the first original full length motion picture, with all of the production value of a major studio release. They’ve already roped in stars like John Goodman and Jeffrey Tambor for their original TV shows. They’ll get a big name and a good script for their movie. We’ll see a huge PR blast with it, and it’s availability on the Fire TV and Fire Phone, just to show Netflix that two can play in the

Prediction Review for 2014 Had we just waited about 11 months on our predictions for 2014, we could have done much, much better. Hindsight is always 20/20 as they say. Our crystal ball didn’t improve very much for 2014, so this year’s prediction review is about as rough as years past. But we got pretty close on a few. Ara’s Predictions: Netflix will have at least 50 4K titles for streaming - Its not really going out on a limb predicting that Netflix will have 4K titles. They’ve said as much. Its the number that I think is the real prediction. If you have a high speed connection and a 4K TV you will have some content display. Look for Youtube to have 4K content as well. Result: There appears to be somewhere around 21-22 Ultra HD titles at Netflix. A couple of which are test streams. If you count individual episodes of shows like House of Cards, Breaking Bad and The Blacklist, you’re way over 50. But since the intent was actual titles I can’t even take partial credit. OLED TV market share will remain insignificant - We have seen OLED TVs that have blown us away but when compared side by side with plasma or even the Elite LCDs they are not worth the huge price differential. Sure they can be extremely thin but is a ½ in too thick? Who cares if an OLED is half that size. Its a catch 22, until quantities go up price won’t go down. And since the quality differential isn’t worth the price I see no reason for quantities to go up. Result: Nailed it. Anyone you know own an OLED TV? They sold 1,000 OLED TVs in Korea last month. Cable and Satellite providers will offer cloud based DVR services- Imagine a world where you can have unlimited storage for your DVR recording. We see cloud storage all over the place so why not with your DVR. With better compression and a downspeed of about 4 Mbps you could watch most of your programs with little quality difference. Translate, anything the wife and kids want to record goes to the cloud. All of your programming goes to the hard drive at full quality! Result: Comcast has a cloud DVR that let’s you watch your content anywhere on many devices but the hard drive is at your home. So close but no cigar. Tivo actually has a product that is exactly what I was talking about but its only available to cable operators, but I couldn’t find a company that has deployed it. So close but no cigar again. Then there are On Demand services, that integrate titles with the program guide so you can watch many shows anytime you want. Again, close but no cigar. Bottom line, no true cloud based DVR, but I am still going to take half credit because between the three scenarios just mentioned get me exactly the device I was talking about. Aereo to win in the Supreme Court - This case has been going on for a while. The broadcasters would love to see Aereo shut down. I think this is the year that Aereo expands to new cities without the burden of lawsuits hanging around their necks. Result: Swing and a miss. Struck out on this one. In fact, not only was Aereo run out of business, the Broadcasters are now trying to keep them from selling off their assets in liquidation. Talk about adding insult to injury. Illegal downloads to exceed traditional broadcast viewership for top three pirated shows - Game of Thrones is already illegally downloaded more than its watched on television. Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead are still viewed more on TV than downloaded illegally. Result: Still wating on torrentfreak.com to publish its numbers for 2014. Will have to update later. But here are the numbers for last year: Most downloaded TV-shows on BitTorrent, 2013 rank show est. downloads est. US TV viewers 1 Game of Thrones 5,900,000 5,500,000 2 Breaking Bad 4,200,000 10,280,000 3 The Walking Dead 3,600,000 16,110,000 4 The Big Bang Theory 3,400,000 20,440,000 5 Dexter 3,100,000 2,800,000 6 How I Met Your Mother 3,000,000 9,400,000 7 Suits 2,600,000 3,520,000 8 Homeland 2,400,000 2,380,000 9 Vikings 2,300,000 6,000,000 10 Arrow 2,200,000 3,240,000 Braden’s Predictions: The year of 4K - Manufacturers will push 4K as the new upgrade cycle for 2014. We’ll see many, many more models and prices will come down quickly. Driven down primarily by Chinese manufacturers. 3D didn’t do it; OLED is still too far off. Queue the endless debates and hand wringing over 1080p vs 4K, just like the 720p vs 1080p of yesteryear. I may have just described a few of our shows for 2014… Result: Partial credit. 4k prices have fallen significantly, there are many more models to choose from, but penetration is still very minimal. Strong showing for 4k, but not really the year of 4k yet. Netflix will win at least one Content Award - Netflix is pushing into the original content space with a vengeance, trying to become the next online HBO. The industry will take them seriously this year and you’ll even see a Netflix show or Actor/Actress win an award. It may not be an Emmy, but maybe a People’s Choice or something else, but we’ll see Netflix get a trophy. Res

Ultimate Home Theater in a Box for 2014 There are so many cheap Home Theater in a Box (HTIB) systems out there, most of which cost less than the price of a single good speaker! And none of them include a TV. You have to wonder how good a system that cheap can actually be? We thought, why not design a complete system, that anyone would be proud to show off but wouldn’t break the bank. Our Home Theater in a Box(es) would actually look and sound really good! 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. In years past we would set a maximum price but this year we are not doing that. 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! Braden: Sharp LC-70EQ10U 70-inch Aquos Q 1080p 240Hz Smart LED TV ($1598) My list is all about bang for the buck, and a 70 inch screen for under $1600 fits the bill for me. Of course, you should have bought it when we had it in our HDTV buying guide and it was $100 less, but $1598 is still a good deal. This model Sharp is a great TV, and really, really big. You aren’t getting a projection size home theater, but for most family rooms, 70 inches is more than enough. And if you can’t control ambient light well, the brighter LCD will give you a better overall experience than a really big screen you can’t see during the day. This one includes Sharp’s proprietary Quattron technology incorporates a fourth yellow subpixel to the standard red, green and blue, giving AQUOS Quattron televisions 33% more subpixels than a standard HDTV, for a total of 8 million subpixels. It is a smart TV and has 240 Hz refresh. Onkyo TX-NR636 7.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 ($449) Sticking with bang for the buck, Onkyo is my go-to brand for entry-level, bang for the buck receivers. If you want to get a bunch of features packed into a small price point, and a receiver that works well and sounds good, this unit from Onkyo is it. Five of the receiver's seven HDMI inputs support 4K video at 60 frames per second with support for HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. The Onkyo TX-NR636 doubles the power with two 32-bit processing engines to decode and scale Dolby Atmos to to your home theater layout and to decode a huge variety of HD audio files. With 7 channels of high-current amplification, you can unlock the full experience with in-ceiling height channels or Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers to augment a standard surround sound home theater setup for stunningly detailed sound that comes alive from all directions, including overhead. It has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and the remote app streams any music stored on your phone or tablet. And it can even locate and stream HD audio from network-attached devices. Qdeo upscaling technology also converts low-res DVDs and games into full 1080p HD or all the way up to 4K if you have an Ultra HD display. Sony BDPS3200 Blu-ray Disc Player with Wi-Fi ($77) If you can get a Blu-ray player with all the apps you need to watch movies, TV shows and listen to music, there’s really no reason to get an external streaming box. This model from Sony has Vudu, the most important app for streaming movies because they consistently have the best quality, and includes the other go-to apps like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video and YouTube. You can also wirelessly stream the display on your compatible Android device directly to your compatible TV with Miracast screen mirroring. Oh yeah, and it plays Blu-ray movies too. Klipsch RF-42 II Reference Series 7.1 Home Theater System with SW-450 Subwoofer ($1299) So I’m typically a Denon and a Klipsch fan-boy. Admittedly. Not ashamed. Denon didn’t make my list this year because that Onkyo is really tough to compete with. But Klipsch did. A full 7.1 speaker system with two front towers, two bookshelves for the sides and two surround speakers for the rear (or vice versa depending on your room and acoustics), a center and a sub. The surrounds feature exclusive Wide Dispersion Surround Technology (WDST) that enables surrounds to reproduce localized and ambient sounds with unlimited placement flexibility. It is the most affordable set in the reference line, so you can always go bigger, but this set will get you movie theater sound in your home theater. Miscellaneous Logitech Harmony 650 Remote Control ($60) Hard buttons FTW. $60 for the mega-win. Great remote, ties all your devices together, has hard buttons for everything you need to do, and barely even changes the total budget at all. It’s a no brainer. Add about $100 for cables and a power strip and you should be all set. Sit back and watch some HDTV. Summary Total cost, end to end, for a killer, big screen, 7.1 home theater: $3583. That’s less than a 70” TV cost just a couple years ago. Ara: Samsung UN65H7150 65-

Projector Buying Guide 2014 We aren’t done spending your money yet. And we’re still loving every minute of it. This one hits really close to home; ever since we’ve made the move to front projection home theaters, we just sit around drooling over what our next projector might be. If you haven’t jumped into the front projector yet, maybe 2015 will be your year. And you can start it with a wonderful Merry Christmas to yourself. We each pick two projectors and one ultimate projector for those who may have more disposable income to play with. Ara’s Picks Optoma HD26 Full 3D 1080p 3200 Lumen DLP Home Theater Projector with MHL Enabled HDMI Port ($700) I wanted to have at least one projector that won’t break the bank and still provide a decent picture. The HD26 is that projector. Its very bright (3200 lumens), supports 3D, and has an MHL compatible HDMI input. The HD26 uses DLP technology which produces vivid colors and deep blacks. This is a budget projector so there is no lens shift or zoom capability. Keep that in mind if you are thinking about the HD26 as your entry into front projection world. Panasonic PT-AE8000U 1080p Full HD Projector (2012 Model) $1,900 My second projector won’t exactly break the bank either mainly due to it being a 2012 model. Paying $1,900 for a projector of this caliber is actually a great buy. The first time we saw this line was at CES in 2009 and that year’s version was over $5,000. We were impressed by the picture quality and colors. It was in a dark room where most projectors really shine (get what I did there) so you would expect it. But if you have a room with some ambient light you should be fine too as this unit has 2,400 lumens. There is a lot of shadow detail and contrast with this unit. Placement of the 8000U is made a little easier because it has horizontal and vertical lens shift as well as 2X zoom. Originally priced at $3,500 you’ll want to grab this while there is still stock! Braden’s Picks Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 5030UB ($2299) This is the projector Braden would buy if his existing projector went up in smoke. Epson is excellent in dark rooms, but their PowerLite models are light cannons that do very well in somewhat brighter environments where ambient light is difficult to control. It isn’t a cheap projector, but if you’re going to go through the steps of mounting and installing it, and hanging a screen, you should considering getting something that might stretch your budget a little. It’ll be worth it. And when you compare it with how much a 100” or 120: TV would cost, if you could even fit it in the door, you’re still saving a lot of money. It has 2400 lumens of color brightness and 2400 lumens of white brightness. Deep black levels with a contrast ratio up to 600,000:1. Horizontal and vertical lens shift and a 2.1x zoom ratio gives you flexibility in difficult installation environments. It is THX certified, so it’ll look like it’s supposed to - but like any projector, you may need to get it professionally calibrated to get the most out of it. Plus, two pairs of RF 3D glasses are included, so you're always ready for exciting 3D experiences. Epson PowerLite Pro Cinema LS10000 (MSRP $7999) This may be the most exciting projector on my list. Why? Lasers. Yep, Lasers. The LS10000 has Epson's new reflective laser technology they unveiled at CEDIA. The technology allows the projector to get an absolute black contrast ratio on full-black scenes, it says, without using an iris. It will accept a 4K input, but doesn’t really have a 4k resolutions. But it uses a pixel-shift technique, similar to JVC, to simulate Ultra HD resolution. One of the biggest advantages to using lasers instead of a bulb is the total cost of ownership. This projector is more like a television with a 30,000 hour life expectancy instead of the much short life you get out of a standard projector lamp. Another interesting differentiator is that it doesn't require a warm-up period when you turn it on. It’s ready to go when you are. But at only 1500 lumens it isn’t the same standard Epson light cannon we’re used to. Honorable mention / for a little bit of variety: Sony VPLHW40ES Full HD 3D Home Cinema Projector with SXRD Panels ($2299) It felt weird only picking Epson projectors, so I wanted to throw out one more option to add a little variety. This model from Sony is the same price as the Epson 5030, but a different technology for those with different tastes. It isn’t quite as bright, and probably loses out to the Epson in overall bang for the buck, but you can be sure it’ll have excellent black levels, color, and clarity and the overall film quality of the image is stellar. Ultimate Present Braden Sony VPL-VW600ES SXRD 4K Projector ($10,999) If you’re going to go ultimate, you’re going to have to go 4k. For most of us, it’s tough to justify spending that much money on a projector. So if you’re going to do it, you should at least get something you know will last a while. Buying the Ultra High Def project

Receiver Buying Guide 2014 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. Its 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 the HDTV 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. Here are few of the receivers from last year that are still available along with their prices: Marantz SR7008 9.2-Channel 1080P and 4K Ultra HD Pass Through $2000 Now $1,599 Sony STR-DA5800ES 9.2 Channel 4K AV Receiver with Automation $2100 unchanged Denon AVR-X3000 7.2-Channel 4K Ultra HD Networking Receiver with AirPlay $900 Now $598 The entry and mid-tier receivers of last year are no longer available. The higher end receivers are still available at a reduced price. Braden’s Picks Onkyo TX-NR636 7.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 ($448) Onkyo is our go-to brand for entry-level, bang for the buck receivers. If you want to get a bunch of features packed into a small price point, and a receiver that works well and sounds good, this unit from Onkyo is worth a look. Five of the receiver's seven HDMI inputs support 4K video at 60 frames per second with support for HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. The Onkyo TX-NR636 doubles the power with two 32-bit processing engines to decode and scale Dolby Atmos to to your home theater layout and to decode a huge variety of HD audio files. With 7 channels of high-current amplification, you can unlock the full experience with in-ceiling height channels or Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers to augment a standard surround sound home theater setup for stunningly detailed sound that comes alive from all directions, including overhead. It has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and the remote app streams any music stored on your phone or tablet. And it can even locate and stream HD audio from network-attached devices. Qdeo upscaling technology also converts low-res DVDs and games into full 1080p HD or all the way up to 4K if you have an Ultra HD display. Denon AVR-4520CI Networking Home Theater AV Receiver with AirPlay ($1150) This is a prior year’s model, and has been discontinued by the manufacturer, but they are still available in limited quantities for a killer deal. The original list price was $2500, they’re now selling for less than half of that at $1150. Sure you don’t get Dolby Atmos or HDCP 2.2, but even the current model year Denon receivers don’t have HDCP 2.2. This receiver is beast. Fully discrete, mono AMP construction and high current power supply for all 9 channels (150 W x 9 ch, 8ohm). Powerful, dynamic yet silky smooth like you’ve come to expect from Denon. If you need HDCP 2.2, your options are limited right now. If you want pure power with a few Tim Allen grunts to go along with it, grab one of these Denon units while you still can. It isn’t just brawn, it also has 3D and 4K pass-through technology, 4K upconversion, Audyssey MultEQ, Airplay, network capabilities for Pandora and Spotify, and the list goes on. Pioneer Elite SC-85 9.2-Channel Class D3 Network A/V Receiver with HDMI 2.0 ($1600) Pioneer Elite receivers offer a very high end experience at an affordable price - or somewhat affordable depending on your budget. This unit is by no means inexpensive, but it is incredibly capable and will rock just about any home theater. It doesn't have Dolby Atmos, but it is Dolby Atmos Upgradeable. It has class D3 amplification that pumps out 135 Watts x 9 channels (8 Ohms) and delivers a total of 760 Watts multi-channel simultaneous drive. While lesser amplifiers’ output diminishes as channels are added, the SC-85’s Class D3 amps have the power to drive multiple channels simultaneously with no significant drop in per-channel output. It has HDMI 2.0, but not HDCP2.2. Every Elite AV receiver can pass through 4K video signals to any compatible display and the Qdeo video processing technology by Marvell and built-in 4K Scaler allow you to upscale any video source to 4k. Spotify Connect, Airplay, Roku Ready, Internet radio, control apps for your smartphone - you name it, it’s in there. Ara’s Picks Yamaha RX-A1030 7.2-Channel Network Aventage Audio Video Receiver ($800) My entry receiver this year is more of a mid-tier instead. Last Summer I came to the conclusion that if you buy an entry receiver from Yamaha, Pioneer, Denon, or Sony you will essentially have the same thing. Sure the sound may be slightly different but for the most part they are all on par as far as features go. But for a little more money you can have a very nice receiver that will last you for years. Take this Yamaha, its a 7.2 system from the Aventage line. They use higher quality components and design elements to produc

HDTV Buying Guide 2014 Tis the season for us to go wishlist shopping and help you spend your money - one of our favorite times of the year. If you happen to be lucky enough to have budget for a new HDTV this Christmas, but still aren’t sure which one to buy, we’ve got you covered. Unlike years past, we’re going to skip the budget categories, and the screen size categories and jump right to our top picks. We each pick three TVs and one ‘money is no object’ / ‘dare to dream’ TV for you to consider. For those who don’t still have last years buyer’s guide handy, here are few of the sets from last year along with their prices. It turns out waiting a year to buy a new TV may not be a good idea. Most of the prices actually went up. So check out this year’s list and jump on the good deals before they’re gone. VIZIO E241-A1 24-inch 1080p 60Hz Razor LED HDTV (was $178, now $249) LG Electronics 39LN5300 39-Inch LED-lit 1080p 60Hz TV (was $347, now $349) Samsung UN50EH5300 50-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (was $649, now $726) Samsung UN60EH6003 60-Inch 1080p 120Hz HDTV (was $997, now $1394) LG Electronics 55EA9800 Cinema 3D 1080p Curved OLED TV with Smart TV ($8999, now $3299) Braden’s Picks Seiki SE50FY35 50-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED TV ($349) If you aren’t lucky enough to pick up one of the $200 50” TVs on Black Friday, this model from Seiki is a close runner up. Sure it’s a Seiki, but we said the same thing about Vizio just a few years ago, so you can’t always judge a TV by its name badge. It’ has a full array LED backlight for great color and contrast and they offer a one year replacement warranty. Amazon users rate it at 4 stars with 690 reviews, with more 5 star reviews than any other single category. Good deal for a 50” HDTV. LG Electronics 65LB6300 65-Inch 1080p 120Hz Smart LED TV ($1299) Let’s be honest, 65 inches is a really big TV. And for $1300, it isn’t a huge amount to spend. Sure it’s pricey, but not ridiculous. And it comes with all of the cool new features we’ll talk about with a much more expensive LG model coming up later in the list. It has webOS for the Smart TV interface, something engadget says is the best smart TV interface they’ve ever used, and LG’s Magic Remote with Voice Mate feature that gives you natural speech recognition to control your whole home theater. And you get great picture quality, IPS for off-angle, but unfortunately no 3D. Sharp LC-70EQ10U 70-inch Aquos Q 1080p 240Hz Smart LED TV ($1497) Or, for a few dollars more, grab 5 more inches of screen real estate with this model from Sharp. The Sharp Aquos line was once the gold standard in LCD televisions. They have been outpaced by other, hungrier manufacturers, but they still make an excellent TV. This one includes Sharp’s proprietary Quattron technology incorporates a fourth yellow subpixel to the standard red, green and blue, giving AQUOS Quattron televisions 33% more subpixels than a standard HDTV, for a total of 8 million subpixels. It is a smart TV and has 240 Hz refresh. For $200 more you can step up to the 3D model if you’re interested: Sharp LC-70SQ15U 70-inch Aquos Q+ 1080p 240Hz 3D Smart LED TV ($1697). At 70” 3D could be compelling in some circumstances. Ara’s Picks Sony KDL50W800B 50-Inch 1080p 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV ($950) This year I went big with my selections because I feel that anything under 50 inches is essentially a commodity product. I really like this TV because it actually comes close to plasma black levels and contrast and doesn’t have a screen that is highly reflective. For those of you who don’t own a media device like a Roku, this is a Smart TV with wireless support for all the usual services. There is also a 55 inch for about $150 more (Sony KDL55W800B 55-Inch) Sharp LC-60LE660 60-Inch Aquos 1080p 120Hz Smart LED TV ($799) This is the steal of the list. A 60 inch TV for less than $800! No 3D, no 4K, just a large format HDTV that won’t break the bank. The picture quality is good but it can be great with professional calibration. There are a ton of settings that, in the hands of an expert, will make this TV the best bang for the buck on this list. VIZIO M801i-A3 80-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV (2013) ($3285) If you want to go really big but don’t want to buy a projector and screen this is a TV for you. Its a 1080p TV so no issues with compression artifacts, just a great picture that allows you to immerse yourself into whatever you are watching. Being that its a 2013 model you can save some cash and still be the envy of everyone on your block. The Vizio M-Series is an edge lit LED TV so it only has 16 light zone that can be independently dimmed but regardless it does have good black levels and contrast. Colors are good too. You would have to go with some higher end TVs to get better but none offers an 80 inch unit for less than $3,300! Built-in WIFI gets you access to Netflix, Hulu, and much much more. Tip: A TV this size should be calibrated to get the most out of it. Ultimate Christmas Presents: LG Electronics 55EC9300

What we're thankful for '14 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 six Thanksgivings, on today's show we give you our list of consumer electronics things we are thankful for. But first, a very quick rundown of last year’s list: Aereo Netflix Insteon The DVR High Speed Internet 4K TV For 2014 Roomie Remote - I (Ara) drank the Roomie Remote Kool-Aid last year but this was the year that the application really went to another level. With the release of version 3 users now have powerful home controller that would cost $10K just a few years ago. If you are a DIY kind of person you may want to check out the Roomie Remote Control (www.roomieremote.com) The Hopper - The single worst part of watching any television program in glorious high definition is the dreaded commercial break. The DVR has made our Thanksgiving list consistently, but the Hopper and the Auto-Hop feature take the DVR to the next level. Once you’ve tried it, it really is hard to go back. You almost find yourself avoiding shows that aren’t on the Prime networks because you have to manually skip commercials. 4K TV - This made the list last year but this year we actually own one. While there isn’t much 4K content out there yet we are thankful for early adopters who will push producers to release more content in glorious 4K. Home Automation - This has become a bigger area for the show this year. Many don’t understand what our infatuation with the subject is until they automate something. It may be a light, a door lock or a garage door opener. But once they get the bug they are done. This year we saw numerous companies releasing hubs that talk to a disparate group of devices. Its never been easier to automate your home! Amazon Prime - While we love Netflix, its great to see competition. And with the recent announcement that 4K content will be included with the Amazon Prime subscription what’s not to be thankful for? When Amazon first launched this service they barely had more than 10,000 movies and TV shows. Today they have more than 40,000. Throw in free two day shipping on many items sold through Amazon and you have a no brainer! Amazon Fire TV - And what if there was a tiny set top player that could connect directly to your Amazon Prime library and stream it all seamlessly? There is. And what if that box could also play games? Games that cost a dollar or two, not fifty or sixty dollars. If you happen to have five boys, you may want to put one in every room of the house. We’re thankful for peace and quiet. 802.11 ac - Wifi makes all of our lives easier whether its for home theater or just web surfing. The issue is that everyone uses it and if you live in a high density environment it becomes unusable for home theater related uses. The ac update makes wireless and viable alternative to stringing wire all over your house. We still claim NOTHING beats wired but with ac its a tradeoff that doesn’t cost you too much. NuForce / Emotiva - This is really less about NuForce, which Braden uses, or Emotiva, which Ara uses, and really more about our awakening to the idea of separates for home audio. Just like our original HDTVs, or the first time we ran front projection setups, or our first taste of home automation, separates are a whole new world of sound. And we love it. Yes, we’re thankful for surround sound and Dolby and DTS, but we’re also thankful for separates that sound amazing that we can actually afford. Sonos - This year Sonos made it possible to have a multi room audio system that competes with systems costing thousands of dollars more. And those systems don’t even include speakers! Sonos has created speakers that look and sound great. No need to hide your speakers. Just put them out for everyone to see. Whether its music residing on a computer on your network, in the cloud or from a number of music services. Sonos gives you control! You can do it for less but not nearly as elegant. You can do it for more but why waste your money!

Black Friday Preview 2014 Another year passes, another Black Friday approaches. True to form, the deals are as good as ever. Looking back, the deals we thought were amazing look like a rip off now. In 2008 the cheapest Blu-ray player was $128 and a 50-inch 720p plasma was going for $900. In 2009 the Blu-ray player price dropped to $78 and you could get a 50-inch 1080p plasma with a Blu-ray player for $1000. In 2013, plasma TVs were still all the rage. Can’t find any this year. Our research came from our favorite goto sites for Black Friday circulars, including: www.bfads.net, www.blackfriday.com, and blackfriday.gottadeal.com. The list has three 720p TVs and for this we are only counting TVs that are 32 inches or larger. The lowest price 720p TV comes from Sears - Upstar 32" 720p LED HDTV, $169.99 Sears - Upstar 32" 720p LED HDTV, $169.99 K-Mart - Seiki 32" Class 720p 60Hz LED DVD Combo HDTV (SE32HY27-D), $179.99 K-Mart - RCA 32" 720p 60Hz LED HDTV (LED32G30RQ), $179.99 The lowest price tier one brand HDTV comes from Best Buy - Panasonic 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $199.99 The largest TV comes from Sears - Sharp 70" (LC70LE660U) 1080p 120Hz Smart LED TV, $1,449.99 or you can buy it in your pajamas from Amazon for $1595 Wal*Mart is advertising a Blu-ray player for $35! - LG Blu-Ray Player, $35.00 Best Buy - Sony Smart 3D Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-Ray Player (BDPS5200), $59.99 Best Buy - Sony Smart Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-ray Player (BDPS3200), $49.99 Wal*Mart - LG Blu-Ray Player, $35.00 Target - Sony Blu-ray Disc Player w/ Wi-Fi (BDPS3200), $49.99 Sears - Samsung Blu-Ray Disc Player (BD-H5100), $49.99 K-Mart - Samsung Blu-ray Disc Player (BD-H5100) + $5.00 Back in SYWR Points, $49.99 For some reason K-Mart is selling a DVD player for $19.99 + $10 back in SYWR points - Seiki DVD Player + $10.00 Back in SYWR Points, $19.99 Best Buy has an Atmos ready receiver - Onkyo 1155W 7.2 Channel 4K Ultra HD A/V Home Theater Receiver (TX-NR636), $449.99 And for the first time Best Buy is offering some home automation gear - Philips A-19 Hue Starter Kit + Free Bloom Accent Light, $199.99 and Philips BR-30 Hue Starter Kit + Free Bloom Accent Light, $199.99 Cool items that may or may not be home theater related: Best Buy - Logitech Harmony 700 Advanced Universal Remote, $59.99 Best Buy - NETGEAR Dual-Band Wireless-AC Router, $59.99 Target - Samsung 37-in. Bluetooth Soundbar w/ Subwoofer (HW-F355/ZA), $87.99 Target - FitBit Charge Wireless Activity & Sleep Wristband, $99.99 Sears - Sling Media Slingbox M1, $149.99 Sears - Samsung 2.1 Channel Soundbar w/ Wireless Active Subwoofer, $159.99 K-Mart - Everlast TR-1 Wireless Activity Tracker, $34.99 Office Depot - Netgear R7OOO Nighthawk AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router $169.99 Office Depot - Toshiba Canvio Portable 2TB Hard Drive $64.99 Radio Shack - Google Chromecast + 2-Months Hulu Plus $25 Radio Shack - Roku Streaming Stick HDMI Version + Free 2-mths. Rdio Unlimited $39.99 Radio Shack - Apple TV $84.99 Radio Shack - Belkin WeMo Switch/Wireless Home Actuator + $10.00 Gift Card $49.99 Radio Shack - iTunes Gift Cards 15% off The full list follows: Best Buy Element 29" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $79.00 Insignia 29" 720p 60Hz LED HDTV (NS-29D310NA15), $99.99 Insignia 40" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (NS-40D510NA15), $179.99 LG 55" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV (55LB5550), $479.99 LG 55" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (55UB8200), $1,299.99 LG 65" 1080p LED HDTV (65LB5200), $799.99 Panasonic 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $199.99 Samsung 55" 1080p 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (UN55H6203AFXZA), $599.99 Samsung 55" 4K LED HDTV (Black), $899.99 Samsung 55" LED 1080p 240Hz Smart 3D HDTV (UN55H7150AFXZA), $997.99 Samsung 55" 4K 120Hz Smart LED HDTV (UN55HU7250FXZA), $1,299.99 Sharp 60" 1080p Smart LED HDTV (LC-60LE644U), $699.99 Vizio 50" 1080p 240Hz Smart LED HDTV (M502I-B1), $499.99 Vizio 55" 4K 240Hz LED Smart HDTV (P552UI-B2), $1,299.99 Sony Smart 3D Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-Ray Player (BDPS5200), $59.99 Sony Smart Wi-Fi Built-In Blu-ray Player (BDPS3200), $49.99 Onkyo 1155W 7.2 Channel 4K Ultra HD A/V Home Theater Receiver (TX-NR636), $449.99 Logitech Harmony 700 Advanced Universal Remote, $59.99 Philips A-19 Hue Starter Kit + Free Bloom Accent Light, $199.99 Philips BR-30 Hue Starter Kit + Free Bloom Accent Light, $199.99 NETGEAR Dual-Band Wireless-AC Router, $59.99 Wal-mart Element 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $218.00 Element 60" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV, $498.00 Samsung 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (UN50H5203), $498.00 Samsung 55" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV (UN55H6203), $598.00 Samsung 60" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV (UN60H6203), $798.00 Vizio 65" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV, $648.00 Vizio 50" 2160p 4K Ultra HDTV, $698.00 LG Blu-Ray Player, $35.00 Target Element 29" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV, $79.00 Element 40" 1080p 120Hz LED HDTV, $119.00 Samsung 40" 1080p 60Hz Smart LED HDTV, $327.99 Samsung 50" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (UN50EH5000FXZA) + $30 Target Gift Card, $477.99 Samsung 60" 1080p 120HZ Smart LED HDTV (UN60H6203AFXZA), $797.99 Westinghouse 48" 1080p 60Hz LED HDTV (DWM48F1G1), $235.00 West

Jack Sharkey Discusses Dolby Atmos A few listeners have written and asked us what our take on Dolby Atmos is. Since we don’t have any gear capable of decoding Atmos we thought we’d enlist Kef’s own Jack Sharkey (Internet Marketing & Event Coordinator) to discuss this technology. Kef has announced the R50 Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers which will help bring this technology to life. Atmos Capable Receivers: Onkyo TX-NR636 7.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 $535 Onkyo TX-NR838 7.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 $959 Denon AVR-X5200W 9.2 Network A/V Receiver with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Dolby Atmos $1999 Onkyo TX-NR3030 11.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 $2299 Pioneer Elite SC-87 9.2-Channel Class D3 Network A/V Receiver with HDMI 2.0 (Dolby Atmos Upgradable) $1999 Yamaha RX-A3040BL 9.2-Channel Wi-Fi Network AVENTAGE Home Theater Receiver (Dolby Atmos Upgradable) $2000

This one is mostly audio.

VIZIO P702ui-B3 70-Inch 4K UHD We have been talking about 4K TVs for what seems like an eternity. This week Ara finally took possession of his VIZIO P702ui-B3 70-Inch 4K UHD (Buy Now $2498). Now before you all say “no one can see the difference on a screen that size sitting at a normal distance”, hang on until we get to the performace part of the review. As soon as Vizio announced this set at CES Ara knew it was going to be his first 4K TV. At 70 inches it fills up the normal sized family room but not so much that it looks too big. Even Ara’s wife who was skeptical when she heard that a 70 inch screen was going to replace the 58 inch plasma felt the TV was a good fit for the room. The family consensus is that watching the Vizio is almost like watching in the media room, mainly due to the family room being a bit cozier. Features: Ultra HD picture - 8 million pixels and 4x the resolution of 1080p Full HD. 5 HDMI inputs, one dedicated for high performance devices Spatial Scaling Engine - Scales 1080p Full HD content to 4K Ultra HD resolutions. VIZIO Internet Apps Plus - Optimized for Ultra HD streaming. 802.11ac wireless - ideal for Ultra HD streaming. 72 Active LED Zones - Dynamically adjusts the LED backlight per zone creating deeper, pure black levels and higher contrast Setup The TV was bought through Amazon and it came with delivery and setup. The guys showed up and removed the TV from the packaging, connected the stand and then placed it on TV stand. Ara connected the tuner, Ethernet, HDMI and power cables and the turned it on. The TV asks you some questions and within a few minutes you have a picture on set. Next up was adjusting the TV with a “Calibration” disc. Settings are shown at the end of this article. While Ara was able to get a good picture with the disc, there are so many settings on this TV that these discs do not address, it is well worth hiring a professional to calibrate the set. If you are going to spend ~$2,500 for a 4K UHD TV you should get the most out of it. There are also two factory calibrated settings that you can chose, Calibrated and Calibrated Dark focusing in the following 4 areas: Color accuracy – Calibrated to International Telecommunication UnionITU-R Recommendation BT.709 Gamma control – Set to 2.1 for Calibrated, 2.2 for Calibrated Dark Color temperature – Calibrated to D65 (D65 corresponds roughly to a midday sun in Western Europe / Northern Europe, hence it is also called daylight illuminant.) Brightness and contrast levels – Calibrated to minimize black and bright clipping VIZIO recommends if you are situated in a bright setting, adjust the picture mode setting of the TV to Calibrated. On the contrary, if you are in a dark setting, adjust the picture mode setting to Calibrated Dark. We turned on the Audio Return Channel (ARC) on the set so we could get 5.1 out of the tuner and the built in Netflix app. This required that we use an HDMI cable that supports ARC and a receiver that also supports it. We were good to go on both parts and after CEC control was also activated on the Denon receiver we were ready to start watching TV! Performance First up was watching through the DirecTV satellite receiver. This was a mixed bag. Depending on the channel or what was being played on the channel we kind of felt like it was 2000 again. The TV really exposes flaws in the signal. Just like the move to HD from NTSC. First up was football on ABC. ABC is a 720p channel and in LA it is multicast which compresses the signal. Things didn’t look as sharp as we are used to. This was evident in the playing field more than anywhere else. When the camera would show the grass you could see the video processing sharpen the image in those areas. The odd thing was on the same channel but for the nationally televised game in the evening the picture looked flawless. Everyone watching in the house was amazed at how good it looked. The only thing we can think of is that the day game was a regional game for Los Angeles and that ABC didn’t use the best gear in the production of the game. For the national game the A-team production van was used. When it was all said and done we would have never noticed this on the plasma. Watching college football on CBS did not exhibit any of these issues. In Los Angeles CBS does not multicast so the entire bandwidth is used for the TV signal. The Alabama game looked incredible! Both OTA and Satellite signals were used with similar results. Bottom line, a good signal looks fantastic. That was the case in 2000 and its the case today. We could see macroblocking on sitcoms that we never saw on plasma. Scaling up to a 4K TV with 70 inches or realestate will expose flaws. That’s just something you will have to live with when watching network TV. Then we watched Blu-ray and this is where we got the oohs and ahs we were hoping for. The Vizio did an incredible job here. The colors were so vivid and detail so sharp that we got that looking through glass feeling while watching. The

Dual Lamp Projectors Grant Clauser, Technology and Online Editor at Electronic House, recently posted an article titled “Home Theater Projector Tips for Multipurpose Rooms.” The basic premise is that projectors aren’t just for man caves or dedicated theater rooms, but can be used very effectively in what we’ve traditionally called a family room but what a lot of integrators are now calling media rooms, multipurpose rooms or hybrid entertainment rooms. The article makes three suggestions for optimizing the projector experience in a less traditional projector room. The first two are about placement. In a dedicated theater room, the room is built to accommodate the projector, so placement isn’t an issue. In a family room, it may be difficult to find a good spot for it, so you have to be creative. A long throw lens and lens shift capabilities could come in really handy. “...long throw projectors can help overcome design or placement complications. In a dedicated home theater, with the lights off, it doesn’t matter as much if the projector is hanging from the ceiling in plain sight. But in a room that’s also used for other family gatherings, an out-in-the-open projector is an eyesore. Projectors with long throw lenses allow the unit to be installed against (or even inside) a far wall, out of the way.” “...lens shift (both vertical and horizontal) can be important in a multipurpose room. Architectural features (walls, windows, fireplaces, columns) can make ideal placement difficult, so mechanical lens shift can help ... get the projector targeted properly.” We’ve talked about the article, or similar posts, before. But one point we haven’t spent much time on is the third suggestion: dual lamp projectors. Since it is much harder to control ambient light in a multipurpose room, high light output is key. The brighter the room, the brighter the projector needs to be. In a dark room, the projector should ideally do 16 foot-Lamberts. By comparison, LCD and plasma televisions can do much, much more, with some LED models capable of 80 foot-Lamberts and higher. The article recommends at least 40 foot-lamberts for a multipurpose room that may have ambient light issues. Since your projector specs will use lumens, not foot-Lamberts as their brightness specification, the article suggests taking 20-30 percent off the number, then divide it by the screen area for a foot-Lambert number that’s closer to accurate, but still not perfect. The distance to the screen and screen gain also has an impact on that number. To overcome this, they recommend using a dual-lamp projector. This allows you to run a single lamp like a traditional projector at night or when the room is dark, but run both lamps for a brighter picture during the day. We haven’t spent much time on dual lamp projectors on the show because they are harder to find, especially for DIY installations. They tend to be specific to the custom install channel and are usually quite expensive. But for those contemplating a rear projection setup in a room where you may not be able to control the ambient light, projector brightness may be the thing holding you back. So we decided to take a look at Amazon to see what options were available for DIY. We found two. Both from NEC. Both affordable. Neither of them great options. The truth is, dual lamp projectors are difficult to find. The ones we were able to locate by consulting the Google, models from Christie, Benq, Epson, etc. were either discontinued or otherwise unavailable. NEC NP-PX700W2 WXGA DLP Dual Lamp 7000 Lumen Integration Projector Buy now: $4999 DLP projector - HD 720p Brightness: 7000 lumens Contrast Ratio: 2100:1 Image Size: 51.2 in - 299 in Projection Distance: 2.6 ft - 180 ft Resolution: WXGA - WXGA (1280 x 800) (native) / 1920 x 1200 (resized) Lamp Type: 2 x 400 Watt| Lamp Life Cycle: 2000 hour(s) / 2500 hour(s) (economic mode) Features: Picture in picture, Eco-Mode technology, AutoSense technology, Advanced AccuBlend technology, 3D Reform technology, 6-segment color wheel, JPEG photo playback, Edge blending, High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection System (HDCP), wall color correction Vertical Lens Shift: 50% Horizontal Lens Shift: 10% TV System: NTSC, SECAM, PAL, PAL-N, PAL-M, NTSC 4.43, PAL 60| Analog Video Signal: RGB, S-Video, composite video Video Interfaces: VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, composite video, S-Video, RGB Video Modes: 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 480i, 576i, 576p NEC NP4000 XGA DLP Dual Lamp 5,200 Lumen Projector Buy now: $3999 DLP projector - HD 720p Brightness: 5200 lumens Contrast Ratio: 2100:1 Image Size: 50 in - 200 in Projection Distance: 2.6 ft - 180 ft Resolution: XGA (1024 x 768) (native) / 1920 x 1200 (resized) Vertical Lens Shift: 40% Horizontal Lens Shift: 35% TV System: NTSC, SECAM, PAL, PAL-N, PAL-M, NTSC 4.43, PAL 60| Analog Video Signal: RGB, S-Video, composite video Video Interfaces: VGA, component video, composite video, S-Video, RGB Video Modes: 480p, 720p, 1080i, 480i, 576i, 576p|

Movie Theaters Enter the Fourth Dimension It will come as no surprise that the HT Guys will opt to wait for the Blu-ray version of popular movies so that we can enjoy them in the comfort of our own homes. We know that we are not alone, many of our listeners are doing the same. As our hobby grows, people are setting up relatively inexpensive home theaters that provide a quite enjoyable experience. Others will spend a little more money and create an experience that rivals what you get in the cinema. Some History Back in the day the only way to see a blockbuster the way it was intended was in a movie theater. At some point the movie would find its way onto network television but imagine watching “The Sound of Music” on a 25 inch 4:3 SD television with a small 3.5 inch speaker. Not quite what Director Robert Wise had in mind. No, the only way to really watch a movie was in theaters. Another argument for watching in theaters was that TV dramas were quite frankly amateurish in comparison to the cinema. The movies had bigger budgets, better actors, and higher production values. This resulted in Hollywood producing a better product for cinemas vs television. Quality Gap Narrows Today many of the differences between the home and cinema have been eliminated. Television and movies have similar aspect ratios, HDTVs provide better picture quality, low cost 7.1 receivers provide similar audio experiences, and Hollywood is producing cinema quality television. In some cases television has better content than all the remakes and sequels Hollywood wants to charge you $11 a ticket for. Its no wonder people are staying home and saving their money. Ara put his theater together for about $15,000, Braden spent less than $10,000. Perhaps a bit pricy but everyone who watches a movie in our rooms comes away wanting to do the same in their houses. You don’t have to spend that much either. Each year we put together our Ultimate Home Theater in a Box systems which are not entry level systems but they go for about half the cost of our projector setups. These systems will provide an experience that is superior to that of the cinema. This year Braden spec’d out a 80 inch, 7.2 system with a Blu-ray player for less than $6200!! Ara’s was a bit smaller, 65 inch, 9.2 audio, with Blu-ray for $7,800. When you consider that you can enjoy your home system every day! That makes the upfront cost a little easier to justify. Especially if you love watching sports! With a home setup that provides a technical experience that is equal or nearly equal to that of the cinema what does going to the movie theater offer that you can’t get at home? Well how about high price ticket and concession prices, noisy inconsiderate people texting and posting selfies to facebook, and twenty minutes of commercials and trailers. Yeah… we can’t wait to go to a movie theater. Its no wonder people are staying away in droves. The three to six month wait for a movie to hit the home market is goes by very fast. How many times have you said, “That’s already out??” If release windows for home distribution keeps getting smaller the multiplex may be a thing of the past. What can be done? Its clear that the cinemas need to do something to draw people back. We say cinema because filmmakers can choose to ride the wave and go straight to home. Whether it be physical media or streaming, Hollywood can deliver their content to the people who want it. This problem is really a cinema operator problem. Well, good scripts may draw a few more people to the cinema but not enough to stem the tide in our opinion. Theaters need new tech that is not available in the home. They need a way to differentiate themselves from our living rooms. And it has to be tech that improves the experience. We don’t think 3D was that tech. Plus it was available in the home at the same time. Some theaters are experimenting with a 4D experience. Think sensurround from the 70’s. In this case theaters are looking for ways to further immerse the viewer into the story. One way is bigger screens that wrap around you. Yes some Imax theaters have this and if you lived in southern California in the 60s and 70s you could have gone to Disneyland and watched Wonders of China on Circle Vision. Circle Vision would be a bit too gimmicky but adding screens to the front sides for 50 or so feet would open up the picture and provide a more immersive experience. One that would be more difficult to create at home. Better seats with motion actuators could provide a feeling of motion and deeper bass. It would be nice if there was an override switch for those who get motion sickness so they can turn off or dial back the effect. They could also provide speakers in the seats that would provide a more intimate experience than surround speakers way at the end of the auditorium. For the full effect theater rooms can be built with misting systems that can provide a rain effect and fans that can provide wind. While we are at it why not add scents t

Video Scalers and Processors A recent discussion on the show about the “good old days” of HDTV, the days of rear projection LCD, DLP and LCoS, the days of High Definition CRT, got us thinking about some of the other aspects of the early days, like video scalers. Once considered a must have for any true home theater connoisseur, the video scaler seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur. Background Before HDTV hit the mainstream about a decade ago, we lived for about 50 years with one dominant video format for television here in the US: NTSC. NTSC blessed us with a beautiful 4:3 image, it ran at 29.97 interlaced frames per second. Each frame was 525 scan lines, composed of the two interlaced fields of 262.5 scan lines each. But only 483 scan lines were actually visible on screen. This left us with what we now refer to as 4:3, 30 fps, 480i video. And that was it. All televisions supported that video format, all home projectors supported that format, it was the one ring that bound them all. It didn’t matter if you wanted a standard CRT or “tube” television, a big screen, rear projection television, or a home projector. They all knew how to accept 480i at 30 fps, and render 480i at 30fps. But then the world changed. HDTV, and the ATSC standard, threw all of that out the window. ATSC defined a multitude of potential video formats that a television would have to be able to display. Not only did it include the legacy 480i, it added 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, and even a few we never really used here in the US because they were added for PAL support, like 288p, 576i and 576p. And on top of the new resolutions were a bunch of new frame rates, the legacy 29.97 and 23.976, 24, 30, 59.94, 60. And, of course, the 16:9 aspect ratio. But in the early days of High Definition, there wasn’t just a whole new set of video formats to support, there was also a miriad of television technologies that all rendered the video slightly differently. From the digital formats like plasma, LCD and DLP that were progressive displays and rendered all the interlaced lines at once, to the analog CRT televisions that continued to display interlaced, although they did scale up to cover the 1080i High Definition standard. Video Processors In those tumultuous days, display manufacturers struggled to just get all the supported formats to render on their chosen display technology. They weren’t focused on the best way to do it, or any potential improvements they could make to the source video to make it look better on the newer, higher resolution displays. This meant that when you started with terrible, NTSC 480i content, and blew it up onto a 720p, 1080i or 1080p television, it looked, in a word, terrible. Video processors or scalers to the rescue. Luckily, although the manufacturers weren’t focused on the scaling problem that much, there were dedicated companies that stepped up to the challenge. Companies like Faroujda building chips, or DVDO building scalers. These devices allowed you to connect any type of source content, and convert it to the ideal format for your display. And they did it really well. 720p content looked great on a 1080i television; 480p DVDs looked great on a 720p TV; even 480i content looked decent on an HDTV. Scalers saved the day. But lately, those same technologies that saved us in scalers, have been making their way directly into the TVs and projectors you can buy for yourself. Most of them now do a very respectable job of scaling. And we don’t have nearly as much terrible resolution content to deal with. We’re dealing with mostly native HDTV content, or worst case, 480p DVD. It starts good, it scales well, and everyone is happy. So people aren’t really clamoring for scalers anymore. Do I need a scaler? There are two very good uses for video scalers today. First off, some of us can benefit greatly from a video scaler, or at least a device that sits between your source equipment and your display, to fix up any issues the two may have in agreeing on video format or resolution. Many times, especially if you have a receiver in the chain, your source and display can disagree on what format is best when they do their HDMI handshake, and you end up with a messed up video, or a sub-optimal experience. A scaler can force the output to match what the display wants. In those cases, it is used more to fix issues, not really to improve the video rendering. Although fixing the issues does improve the quality of the video. And secondly, there are people who really enjoy some of the effects the more specialized scalers can introduce. For example, the Darbee Visual Presence technology. If you want to take advantage of Darbee, you have to buy a scaler or video processor that includes it - or get the OPPO Blu-ray that has it. If you enjoy the effect Darbee Visual Presence or other like technologies have on your video experience, a processor is your only option. In this case, the processor is doing exactly what it did in the early days, impro

Best New Products CEDIA 2014 CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design & Installation Association) just wrapped up and with that the organization announced their Best New Products award. As you read this be aware that much of these products are geared towards home integrators. Sentido by Basalte The basic idea of Sentido is very simple, yet very innovative. Divide a square in equal surfaces that each control different functions. The entire surface is touch sensitive, creating a very easy and unique way of control. Here is a video describing the product (http://youtu.be/Sw-flWhSbIY). Main features: Four touch surfaces Patented multi touch Built-in temperature sensor Double or quadruple version Integrated multicolour LED backlight Control4® Composer Express Composer Express, a powerful mobile configuration tool that enables Control4 Dealers to dramatically simplify and accelerate the set-up process for home automation systems. Now, a Control4 Dealer’s technician should be able to configure most one-room home theaters in very short order, or set up hundreds of devices in the most complex whole-home installations in a few hours by using their WiFi-enabled tablet or smartphone and simply walking around the building, installing devices and having Composer Express auto-integrate them into the Control4® system. Crestron Pyng The Crestron Pyng™ app provides a quick, easy solution for setting up and controlling lighting, shades, thermostats, door locks, and security systems in a home. This free home automation app enables complete setup from an Apple® iPad® and control from iPad, iPhone®, and iPod touch® devices. Lutron Sivoia QS Triathlon Roller Shade Sivoia QS Triathlon is the most fashionable, flexible, and affordable motorized shading system available today. This battery-powered solution offers a 3-5 year battery life for easy installation and maintenance, perfect for retrofit applications. Available in new roller shade or insulating honeycomb styles, these shades have a wide variety of beautiful fabric colors and textures to meet the functional and aesthetic needs of any space. Able to work as a standalone or system solution, these shades can be controlled at the touch of a button. QMotion Motion Motorized Drapery Rods QMotion's Motorized Drapery Rod collection is the latest innovation in automated window treatments. The first and only track-less motorized drapery rod in the market has arrived. The real beauty of QMotion's innovative new product is what you don't notice. We've removed the external motors and wires and placed a battery operated motor inside the hardware itself. Imagination, determination, and inspiration sparked the groundbreaking technology of QMotion's drapery rod system with Touch Wand Activation. The Touch Wand Activation feature provides customers with the convenience of manual and remote control. The Motorized Drapery Rod collection offers six beautifully crafted finial options and six popular finishes. Add your own draperies for a truly custom design experience. Sony Electronics VPL-VW600ES 4K Front Projector Get the stunning clarity of Sony’s SXRD™ 4K movie theater technology with a 4K Ultra HD projector featuring a resolution greater than 4 times regular 1080p HD, plus anamorphic 3D and HD to 4K upscaling. Added installation flexibility makes it possible to experience immersive 4K content in a wider array of rooms. 4K resolution (4096 x 2160) that’s greater than 4 times 1080p HD Upscaling that transforms turns HD content into a 4K experience HDMI® 2.0 compatible for 4K resolution at up to 60 frames per second 200,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio with SXRD™ technology Brightness of 1,700 ANSI lumens Auto Calibration function $15,000 Product Hall of Fame Sonance: Sonamp 260 two channel amplifier TiVo, Inc.: TiVo Crestron: CNX-PAD8 Audio Distribution Processor

New TV Shows for Fall 2014 We celebrate it every year, and it's that time of year again - a whole fall slate full of new HDTV shows. These new shows give us the opportunity to make new friends, share some laughs, and have an adventure or two, all from the comfort of your comfy living room sofa. When we were kids we looked forward to Christmas and the first day of summer. As adults, we look forward to the fall more than anything else. Yes, the kids are back in school and football is back, but also our favorite shows are coming back with new episodes and we get the opportunity to fill the DVR with brand new series. ABC Black-ish Premieres: Wednesday, Sep. 24 at 9/8c Created by and starring comedian Anthony Anderson, Black-ish explores one man's efforts to establish a cultural identity for his family after he discovers his children don't have one. Anderson stars as man-of-the-house Dre, and Tracee Ellis Ross plays his biracial wife Rainbow; they've got their hands full working and raising kids Zoey, Andre (who prefers to be called Andy and really, really wants a bar mitzvah despite the fact they're not Jewish), and twins Jack and Diane. Hannibal's Laurence Fishburne appears as Dre's father, Pops, and wears velour tracksuits because he's Laurence freaking Fishburne. Cristela Premieres: Friday, Oct. 10 at 8/7c Loosely based on comedienne Cristela Alonzo's life and stand-up routine, this family sitcom opens as the title character enters her sixth year of law school and takes on an unpaid internship at a law firm where she's frequently mistaken for the help. As she works to get her life and career started, she must also deal with her traditional Mexican-American family, who struggles to understand her ambitions. Carlos Ponce, Terri Hoyos, Andrew Leeds, Sam McMurray, and Jacob Guenther also star. Forever Premieres: Monday, Sep. 22 at 10/9c Ioan Gruffudd stars as New York City medical examiner Henry Morgan, who harbors an unusual secret —he can't die. Working alongside his new partner, Det. Jo Martinez (Alana De La Garza), Morgan studies the dead in an effort to discover the mystery of his own immortality. Also, the ladies in the crowd might want to take note: When Morgan dies (and he dies semi-often for some reason), he always comes back naked. Judd Hirsch, Donnie Keshawarz, and Joel David Moore also star. How to Get Away With Murder Premieres: Thursday, Sep. 25 at 10/9c Shonda Rhimes continues her push toward world domination with this legal thriller, which stars Viola Davis as a serious-as-the-death-penalty law school professor whose attractive students vie for her approval and a desk at her prestigious law firm. But their biggest lessons are learned outside the classroom, when they get caught up in a murder plot and, presumably, must figure out how to get away with it. Expect Scandal-sized twists and Grey's-like drama! Manhattan Love Story Premieres: Tuesday, Sep. 30 at 8/7c This new comedy uses the power of voiceover to broadcast the internal monologues of a New York City dude (Jake McDorman) and a Midwestern transplant chick (Analeigh Tipton) as they navigate an awkward first date and subsequent budding romance. What you'll learn early on from the voices in their heads is that guys like sex and women like purses; but as the series — and their relationship progresses, we expect things will get a bit more complicated than that. Selfie Premieres: Tuesday, Sep. 30 at 8/7c Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) drops her adorable Scottish accent to star in this modern spin on Pygmalion that takes place in today's social media-driven world. Gillan's Eliza Dooley is obsessed with becoming Internet famous, but her constant Instagramming and Facebooking has left her devoid of any real friends — not to mention the social skills required to make any. Desperate for a fix, Eliza hires marketer Henry Higenbottam (John Cho) to help her rebuild her image and put down her damn phone for once. CBS Madam Secretary Premieres: Sunday, Sep. 21 at 8/7c Tea Leoni plays a former CIA agent whose former boss, now the president of the United States (Keith Carradine), asks her to take on the role of Secretary of State after an accident claims the life of the office's previous occupant. Using her no-nonsense, unconventional attitude toward politics, she shakes things up in Washington, D.C. while also juggling her home life as a wife and a mother. Tim Daly and Bebe Neuwirth also star. The McCarthys Premieres: Thursday, Oct. 30 at 9/8c A loud-mouthed, sports-crazy Boston family (aren't those things redundant?) is at the center of this multi-camera sitcom based on the life of series creator Brian Gallivan. But what happens when the patriarch asks the resident black sheep — a gay, sports-averse son — o be his assistant basketball coach? Madness! Will there be a "you throw like a girl" joke? Probably! Tyler Ritter, Laurie Metcalf, Jack McGee, Jimmy Dunn, and Joey McIntyre (yes, that Joey McIntyre, of New Kids on the Block) star. NCIS: New Orleans Premieres:

On today’s show we interview Will Price CEO and Founder of Roomie Remote Incorporated. Will tells us about the next release of the remote app which should be available in a few days. And Android users listen in, there is good news for you! Company Roomie Remote, Inc. is a Silicon Valley startup founded in 2010 to create high-quality, easy to use home theater control and home automation software. Based in Los Altos, California, the heart of Silicon Valley in between the offices of Facebook and Google, Roomie Remote’s mission is to integrate home theater and home automation with the power of today’s platforms via next generation functionality and user interface. Roomie Remote believes that easy to use, integrated software is the key to the next generation of home theater control and automation. Interoperating with many hardware vendors is crucial to advancing the industry to the next level.

On today’s show we interview Blake Vackar Director of US Residential Sales for Screen Innovations. Blake tells us what to look for in a screen that will provide the best 3D experience in your home. Company Screen Innovations (SI) is a leading manufacturer of projection screens and associated technologies for residential and commercial applications. Best known for Black Diamond™, the world’s first and only multi-directional ambient light rejection projection screen technology, SI has effectively revolutionized the two-piece projection category by producing screens that deliver unparalleled images in light or dark environments. A highly innovative, industry-specific Screen Innovations design and engineering team works tirelessly, constantly evolving the category in order to effectively bring projection to the mainstream. By operating under the principle that “No matter the budget; Screen Innovations has the best available screen solution to suit your needs,” SI aims to resolve the issues that have historically hamstrung the projection screen industry. Handcrafted in the USA, each Screen Innovations product carries a lifetime replacement policy, and is produced utilizing advanced custom robotics and green manufacturing practices. Dedicated to corporate and consumer responsibility, every SI screen is manufactured in the most efficient manner possible.

SmartThings Home Automation We have had a running joke about the year of home automation for a few years now. Judging by how many home automation hubs that have been released in the last few months it's safe to say home automation is now mainstream. There is the Revolv (HT Guys Review Podcast #620) that can speak to Z-Wave, Insteon, and more. It goes for $299. Home Depot got into the game with their $50 Wink Home Automation Hub and connected devices. Staples has a competing $50 product called Staples Connect Home Automation Hub. With all these products you may wonder is there room for anyone else? Room or not, SmartThings is taking a run at the market with the SmartThings Hub. Their hub runs $99 and is available at Amazon (Buy Now). There is also a “Control Your Home Kit” that runs $329 and contains, the hub, an IR motion sensor, two presence sensors, two multi sensors, and one lamp module. You control and program the system through an iOS or Android app. We used the Control Your Home Kit for this review. The Components SmartThings Hub - This is the brains behind the operation. It is connected to your network via hardwire and talks to all your devices through IP, Z-Wave or ZigBee. SmartSense Multi Sensor - This is one of the coolest devices we got to use. This device senses movement, vibration, orientation, and temperature. In addition to letting you know if your door or window is opened, you can get a notification of something is moved or if the temperature in your wine cellar is too high. You can get very creative with what you can do with the Multi Sensor. SmartSense Motion Sensor - Nothing new here. This device will trip when it sense motion and you can set off an alarm or simply turn on lights. SmartSense Presence Sensor - You can setup your system to notify you when people and pets approach and leave your home. Attach it to you keys and not only will it trip lights on and off for you when you come home but you can activate a beep to help you find them if they are lost. SmartSense Lamp Module - Control a lamp or other device by plugging them into this unit. Setup Setup consisted of connecting the hub to your network via an Ethernet cable, installing an app on your tablet or phone, creating an account, and then updating the firmware. That took about fifteen minutes. Once that was completed you had to add devices. This was done by pressing a button on the device you want to add and then asking the app to look for it. Very straight forward but on some devices you had to open them up to get to the pairing button. Now that the devices are paired you can start setting up your automation. The app is a little different than what we typically see in an automation system. You have a dashboard that categorizes the “Things” (devices) that are defined. There is Home and Family which uses presence sensors and phones to determine who is and isn’t at home. There are “Lights and Switches”, “Motion”, “Doors and Locks”, and more. Selecting any of these categories brings up the status for that category. Swiping the display will bring up the history so you can see when your child or significant other got home. There is is a “text” type of dialog between you and your house. Its kind of cute but we think it may get old after a while. On the dashboard there is a plus button that you can use to add devices, alerts, actions, and more. The more is kind of cool. Under health and fitness you can receive a reminder if you haven’t opened your medicine cabinet each day or you can have your lights gradually come on in the morning. There are a lot of cool things that you can do and its very easy to configure. But that is where we had some issues. Being very comfortable with coding we don’t find it difficult to set up macros and then kick them off after some event. You can do the same with the SmartThings system but it takes way too many steps. Its kind of like TurboTax, you answer a bunch of questions and at the end you get an action or an alert. But for most people this is a great way to get started and you can get very sophisticated with what you can do. Open Platform One advantage we see with the SmartThings platform is that it is open. That means third parties can create, or adapt existing, devices to work with the hub. The benefit is that there will be rapid development of products that you will be able to use with the system. The drawback is that some of the devices that say they are compatible may not be fully baked. If you buy products that were developed by or certified by SmartThings you can avoid the headaches. But then again where’s the fun in that? Anticipating that some may have difficulties setting up the system SmartThings has created a bunch of how to videos on their Youtube Channel. Between that and a lively user forum you should be able to get the support you need to fully automate your home. Bottom Line We don’t think anyone will argue that Home Automation has come of age. Yes you can hire an expert and pay a lot of

Handheld Movie Server We both took vacations recently and decided to leave the laptops behind. But that didn’t mean we didn’t want to take our content with us. If you have an iPad you are limited to 64GB at present and with Andriod many devices allow you to add storage through SD cards. While that gives you a potentially unlimited amount of storage its impractical for large libraries. What are you to do? All (or most of your) Movies in the Palm of Your Hand Seagate has got you covered. They sell the Seagate Wireless Plus. Its a hard drive with a built in web server that can stream your content to all your mobile devices. The 1 Terabyte version sells for $160 (Buy Now). They also have a 500 GB and 2TB version selling for $140 and $199 respectively. Features: Wirelessly streams your favorite digital media to tablets, smartphones, computers and more Synchronizes with Dropbox and Google Drive to bring the cloud with you Streams up to three different HD movies to three devices at the same time Connects throughout your home to DLNA devices, Samsung Smart TVs, and AirPlay Integrates with the free Seagate Media app for iPad, iPhone, Kindle Fire, Windows 8/TR tablets and computers, and Android tablets and smartphones Delivers up to 10-hour battery life Setup The drive was connected to our home base computer and nearly 500GB of video and music were copied to it. The copy went pretty fast with the USB 3.0 interface. Since we were on a Mac we did have to reformat it so that both Macs and PCs could read and write to the drive when connected via USB. We copied the music to a music folder and the movies to a movie folder. When done the device indexes the content and presents the name and any album art that the file may have with it. We then disconnected and turned on the wifi feature and saw the Seagate Wireless Network show up when we scanned wifi networks. We connected with no issues and immediately were able to stream content via the Seagate app on our mobile devices. You can mix and match OS as well as mobile device platforms. The first thing we did was select the settings widget and change the SSID and add a password. If you are using the device where wifi is available you can have the Media Server share the internet connection so you don’t lose Internet access while connected to it. Performance Navigation was simple, you can select content by Music, Movies, Photos, then by genres if you want. There is a nice search feature as well. Finally you can just browse the drives folders if you wish. Once the selection is made the media starts playing in a few seconds. On the airplane we had three people connected and we streamed HD content that was recorded at about 8Mbps. We observed no issues with the data whatsoever. On our cruise ship we had four people connected and had no issues either. You mileage may vary as that environment was pretty quiet as far as noise goes. The iOS app worked quite well but we seemed to like the web interface better. You simply put seagatewireless.com in the URL and you are presented with an interface that is similar to the app version. The battery life was nowhere near the 10 hours that is on the packaging. It was more like four hours of continuous use. Conclusion The Seagate Wireless Plus drive is a great solution for those who want to carry very large media libraries with them and have access to them from any mobile device. Small and easy to carry, simple to use, and decent battery life make this an HT Guys favorite!

When it comes to home technology trends, there is much to talk about – Google, Apple, DIY, the “learning home,” protocol overload, voice and gesture control, smart TVs and so much more. But here we focus on just three important trends that should be particularly interesting to home systems integrators and other professionals involved in home technology.

Interview - Mohu CEO We are big fans of Mohu products. We have reviewed just about every antenna they have sold: Podcast #489: MOHU Paper Thin HDTV Antenna Podcast #528: Mohu Leaf Plus Amplified Indoor HDTV Antenna Podcast #580: Mohu Sky HDTV Antenna Ara has the Mohu Sky HD antenna on his roof and is picking up signals from Los Angeles (55 miles) and San Diego (90 miles) away. Today we talk to the Mark Buff of Mohu about his company and the cutting edge technology they use as well as the yet to be released crowd funded Mohu Channels product.

4K TV Options 4K or UltraHD technology is starting to approach mainstream, and the options for 4K TVs is getting better all the time. In a quick glance at the choices selling right now at Amazon.com, we were surprised to see how many there are, and how affordable the have quickly become. Of course, Vizio isn’t in the list yet, so if you’re waiting for that like a certain HT Guy might be, you’ll have to keep waiting. But if you need a new TV now, 4K might be within reach. Four options from Seiki Amazing prices, good reviews. Seiki SE39UY04 39-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz LED TV $339.00 - 4 stars - 495 reviews Seiki SE50UY04 50-Inch 4K UHD 120Hz LED HDTV $549.98 - 4 stars - 495 reviews Seiki SE55UY04 55-Inch 120Hz LED 4k UHD TV $699.99 - 4 stars - 495 reviews Seiki SE65UY04 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz LED TV $1,352.00 - 4 stars - 495 reviews Multiple options from Samsung The perennial powerhouse has a few options that don’t require you to sell a child. They come in a plethora of sizes and flavors. Samsung UN40HU6950 40-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz Smart LED TV $997.99 - 5 stars - 5 reviews Samsung UN50HU6950 50-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz Smart LED TV $1,497.99 - 5 stars - 5 reviews 3D Version (UN50HU8550) - $1,797.99 - 4 stars - 47 reviews Samsung UN55HU6950 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz Smart LED TV $1,997.99 - 5 stars - 5 reviews 3D Version (UN55HU8550) - $2,297.99 - 4 stars - 47 reviews Curved 3D Version (UN55HU8700) - $2,797.99 - Not reviewed Samsung UN60HU8550 60-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED HDTV $2,797.99 - 4 stars - 47 reviews Samsung UN65F9000 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV (2013 Model) $3,099.00 - 3.5 stars - 78 reviews 3D Version - 2014 - (UN65HU8550) - $3,297.99 - 4 stars - 47 reviews Curved 3D Version (UN65HU8700) - $3,797.99 - Not reviewed Sony brings several Sony XBR49X850B 49-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D LED TV $1,998.00 - 5 star - 6 reviews Sony XBR55X850A 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Internet LED UHDTV (2013 Model) $1,982.97 - 4 stars - 44 reviews 2014 model - (XBR55X850B) - $2,298.00 - 5 star - 6 reviews 3D Smart Version - (XBR-55X900A) - $2,399.00 - 4 stars - 74 reviews Sony XBR65X850A 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Internet LED UHDTV (2013 Model) $2,892.10 - 4 stars - 44 reviews Sony XBR65X850B 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D LED TV 2014 model - $3,298.00 - 5 star - 6 reviews Sony XBR65X850A 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D LED HDTV Media Player Bundle $3,298.00 - Not Reviewed A few models from LG Electronics Life’s Good - especially when you’re watching in 4K. LG Electronics 49UB8500 49-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV $1,299.00 - 4 stars - 20 reviews LG Electronics 55UB8500 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV $1,599.00 - 4 stars - 20 reviews LG Electronics 55LA9700 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart Nano LED TV (2013 Model) $1,899.99 - with Sliding Sound Bar - 3.5 stars - 7 reviews 2014 Model - (55UB9500) - $2,299.00 - 4.5 stars - 2 reviews LG Electronics 65LA9700 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart Nano LED TV (2013 Model) $2,899.99 - with Sliding Sound Bar - 3.5 stars - 7 reviews 2014 Model - (65UB9500) - $3,299.00 - 4.5 stars - 2 reviews And a Few Others TCL LE50UHDE5691 50-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz LED TV $799.00 - 4 stars - 64 reviews TCL LE50UHDE5692G 50-Inch 4K Ultra HD120Hz Smart LED TV $1,099.99 - Not Reviewed Toshiba 58L9300U 58-Inch 4K Ultra HD 3D Smart LED HDTV (2013 Model) $2,260.84 - 3.5 stars - 20 reviews Toshiba 65L9300U 65-Inch 4K Ultra HD 240Hz 3D Smart LED HDTV (2013 Model) $2,999.00 - 3.5 stars - 20 reviews Sharp LC-70UD1U 70-inch Aquos 4K Ultra HD 2160p 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV $3,497.99 - 5 star - 13 reviews Future Models coming from Vizio Not ready yet, but the pricing and brand reputation may make them worth waiting for. “With advanced local dimming technology, featuring a backlight that consists of 64 Active LED Zones, HEVC Codec for Ultra HD streaming and VIZIO’s V6 six-core processor that combines a quad-core GPU and dual-core CPU for unparalleled performance and maximum speed, VIZIO’s P-Series has been engineered to deliver the full range of Ultra HD content consumers want.” VIZIO P-Series Ultra HD Full-Array LED backlit LCD Smart TVs P502ui-B1 - 50” - $999.99 (MSRP) P552ui-B2 - 55” - $1,399.99 (MSRP) P602ui-B3 - 60” - $1,799.99 (MSRP) P652ui-B2 - 65” - $2,199.99 (MSRP) P702ui-B3 - 70” - $2,599.99 (MSRP)

Pioneer VSX-44 Elite 7.2 Home Theater Receiver Back in May of 2013 we reviewed one of Pioneer’s entry Elite models the VSX-70. At that time we were impressed with the sound quality but the MSRP of $750 may have been a barrier for some. Now Pioneer has introduced two new entry Elites (VSX-80 MSRP $700 and VSX-44 MSRP $500) that have more capability and lower prices. We take a closer look at the VSX-44. Features: 7 - Discrete Power Amplifiers each producing 80 watts per Channel (20 Hz – 20 kHz, THD 0.08 % @ 8 ohms FTC) 6 HDMI (5 Rear, 1 Front) / 1 Out HDMI 2.0 Compatibility with Ultra HD Pass-through Roku® Ready with access to over 1000 stations, Internet Radio, Pandora and Spotify iControlAV5 Remote control app Powered Zone 2 Audio Setup: We do this quite often and can swap out a receiver in about 20 minutes. Your time may vary but our setup went like this; remove the receiver from the box, connect the speakers, connect the inputs, connect power, and run the auto calibration. Performance: There wasn’t much to test in the way of video. No upconverting or video processing. In our opinion that’s a good thing. Unless you use the higher end chips we find the video processing in low cost units are a waste. This unit passes the 4K signal through to the TV for processing and upconverting to be done there. The audio calibration produced results that only needed tweaking in the subwoofer. We found that it turned down the level too much for our tastes. We watched and listened to our standard fare of content that consisted of 256 Kbps AAC audio, Blu-ray, Satellite TV, Streaming content from our AppleTV. In all the VSX-44 sounded good. But bearing the Elite name we were hoping for more. We understand that the receiver only costs $500 one whole penny more than the Pioneer VSX-1024-K. The two units are spec for spec identical. So why would Pioneer put the Elite name on this unit? We even asked them but never got an answer. Is the VSX-44/VSX-1024-K worth the money? If you are mainly using it for home theater, then the answer is yes. Movies Every modern receiver in this price range better produce good quality audio especially with blu-ray. The VSX-44 is no exception. Dialog was clear and present. Effects made the room come alive. We looked for scenes that did not use too much subwoofer to better evaluate the audio. To be honest the receiver did a great job but we can’t say that it was better or worse than any other receiver in its price class. Its getting to the point where each $500 receiver is as good as other $500 receivers. We think that’s due to the auto calibration software that receivers now have. Music The VSX-44 did well with classical music and acoustic performances. Rock sounded good too. In all the Elite wasn’t inspiring but adequate in its handling of music. If you are really into music we would suggest one of the higher tiered Elites to this unit. Odds and Ends iControlAV5 Remote Control App for Android and iOS devices. The app is nice and has more info and functionality than most people will need or use. You can even use the app to select music from your phone to play on the receiver Airplay and HTC Connect - We streamed music from our iOS devices to the VSX-44 via Wifi with no issues. You can also plug an iPhone into the USB port on the front of the panel and control it from a full color GUI. DLNA - The VSX-44 supports DLNA 1.5 Internet Radio, Pandora and Spotify - All are supported but the user interface was so difficult to navigate we decided that its better to use a separate external device like a Roku or AppleTV for these features. Adapters - Both Bluetooth and Wireless adapters are available if you do not have a hardwired connection. Conclusion The VSX-44 is a solid receiver that is not overloaded with features that you would never use. Sound quality is good and will let you enjoy whatever you are watching. The real question is what is Pioneer trying to do with this unit. The have a model in their standard line of receivers that has identical specs for one penny less. Its probably someone in marketing suggesting that some people will only buy this model if it has the Elite badge on it. Perhaps Pioneer agrees with our earlier assertion that a $500 receiver is a $500 receiver. With that said, we no longer will review receivers under $1,000 unless there is some compelling reason. There is just too little differentiation in that space and it comes down to brand loyalty, aesthetics, or what’s on sale.

Oppo BDP-103D Blu-ray Player, Darbee Edition Review Oppo Digital has long been a favorite of the HT Guys. There have certainly been more expensive and exotic Blu-ray players built, but we’re yet to find a competitor that packs the functionality and features of an Oppo, with the same build quality at the same price. Dollar for dollar, Oppo makes what is probably the best Blu-ray player you should ever need to buy. Our last Oppo review was the BDP-93 on Podcast 463 back in January of 2011. Since that time, Oppo released a couple new players, the BDP-103 and the BDP-105 that introduced support for 4K up-scaling, 2D-to-3D conversion and an extra HDMI input so you can take advantage of the Oppo video processing capabilities with other video sources. These players were met with the same critical acclaim as their predecessors. But that wasn’t enough for the good folks at Oppo. Sure their players could meet or exceed the specifications of any television or projector you could connect them to, but they kept looking for ways to make them even better. That led to the release of the BDP-103D and the BDP-105D. Both are nearly equivalent to the earlier models, except for the inclusion of Darbees Visual Presence. That D in the name adds an extra $100 to each model, putting them at $599 (Buy Now) and $1299 (Buy Now) respectively. Features Darbee Visual Presence Universal Blu-ray disc player with Blu-ray, DVD, SACD, DVD-Audio, CD, VCD, HDCD, AVCHD, MP4, AVI, and MKV support Content streaming from Netflix, VUDU, CinemaNow, Pandora, Rhapsody, Film Fresh, YouTube Leanback and Picasa Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio 4k Up-conversion 2D-to-3D Conversion True 24p Video Advanced Picture Controls Dual HDMI Inputs and Outputs MHL-Compatibility DLNA SMB/CIFS Wireless N 7.1-Channel Analog Audio Dual-core processor provides quick startup and fast loading times Darbee Visual Presence Many love it, many hate it, many couldn’t care less about it. Whatever you opinion of Darbee Visual Presence, odds are you’ve met someone with a passionate stance on the technology. Darbee has a different take on video processing that improves depth and detail in an image by increasing or decreasing the local pixel luminance. They essentially use light to increase the details by adding additional light some cases or additional shadow in others, to the image on screen. This is different from the contrast enhancement technologies you may have tried in the past that just adjust the overall white or black levels. Those never work and should always be turned off. But Darbee works at the pixel level, so it is quite different. Other sharpness or edge enhancing technologies tend to introduce a lot of artifacts to an image. They typically add sharpness where you don’t want it and make things just look strange or pixelated. Darbee is different from those as well. Knowing that it is a totally different technology from the picture enhancement options we tell you to always turn off, the question is: will Darbee be something we recommend you leave on, or will it fall in with the rest of them as an option you typically don’t want to use. The technology whitepaper at the Darbee website goes into great detail if you're interested in reading it. Functionality We don’t yet have a 4K television or projector in any of our test setups, which is something we plan to remedy very soon, but due to the lack of a screen for it, we couldn’t review the 4k Up-conversion function of the player. Beyond that, we aren’t huge fans of 3D, so we opted not to review the 2D-to-3D Conversion either. This review really came down to the Darbee processing and how much we thought it added to or detracted from the standard Blu-ray experience. To get the Darbee chip into the BDP-103, Oppo had to remove the Marvell QDEO Kyoto-G2H video chip. Fans of the QDEO chips may find that hard to swallow, but it was for a good cause. They added a dedicated Darbee button to the remote so you can have quick access to your Darbee settings to make easy adjustments on the fly. What adjustments? Beyond just on or off, you can choose from three different processing modes, Hi-Def, Gaming, and Full Pop, and within those modes you can dial in the amount of Darbee from 0 to 120%. The BDP-103D even has a great demo mode that allows you to see a split screen showing the impact Darbee will have on your video. This made the review so much simpler. We could dial up some content, apply Darbee at a ton of different settings and watch the difference. There is no doubt the Darbee has an impact on the video. Those who have said they don’t see much impact may be watching on a smaller television or just aren’t looking close enough. We did see the most dramatic impact on our 100” projector screen. Results There were times where we were astonished by the Darbee technology and others were it seemed to make things worse. In some cases, we saw detail we would have had no idea was ever there - skin pocs, whiskers, blemishes. It was astonishin

Interview with Mark Ely CEO of SimpleTV There has been a lot in the news about cutting the cord lately especially in light of the recent supreme court decision regarding Aereo’s business model. We learned that its a copyright infringement if a company leases you equipment that captures OTA signals, transcodes them and then sends them to you via the Internet. But its not against the law if you do that yourself. There are a few products on the market that can do this. One of them is Simple.TV. SimpleTV is a TV server that records and streams live HDTV to up to 5 of users no matter where they are, provided that you pay for the Simple.TV Premier service which runs $60 for the year or $150 for lifetime service. The SimpleTV device sells for $200 and you need to use your own hard drive.

Dolby Atmos Enabled Speakers and Receivers When we first read the press release about Dolby Atmos enabled speakers, we’ll admit, it sounded a bit puzzling and we found ourselves scratching our heads. Atmos enabled receivers? Sure, that makes sense, but what does it take to make an Atmos enabled speaker? We’ve never heard of a Dolby TrueHD enabled speaker, or a DTS-HD Master Audio enabled speaker. So what is the difference with Atmos that it needs, or can even provide, a special speaker? Background Dolby Atmos is a killer system for delivering multi-dimensional sound that can place and move specific sounds anywhere in the room, including overhead. It can even do this without the need for new speakers mounted overhead. The result is a captivating experience that can bring movies and TV shows alive all around you, in a movie theater and very soon, in your own home theater. Pioneer announcement Pioneer Electronics has announced a dedicated line of Dolby Atmos enabled Elite speakers and Elite SC series home theater receivers that will be Dolby Atmos upgradable via a firmware update available by the end of the year. The new for 2014 flagship Elite SC receivers will provide the multi-channel processing and necessary power required to transform your home theater into a Dolby Atmos theater. If you haven’t been to an Atmos equipped movie theater, you owe it to yourself to check it out. The experience is impressive. You get so much more out of the movie when it is brought to life with an even more encompassing, multi-dimensional audio experience. Dolby Atmos brings the soundtrack to life, with sound coming at you from all directions, including overhead. It takes the notion of 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound to the next level. Getting this technology in the home will be awesome. But does it really require special speakers? It doesn’t sound like it. The press release states that they are a new line of specially designed speakers that “will produce exceptional sound quality that brings the technology to life.” Does that mean other speakers won’t also be able to bring the technology to life? Of course not. But will they be good speakers that work really well for the kinds of surround effects and experiences you want from Dolby Atmos? We’d venture to guess that they will be. Chris Walker, the director of AV product planning and marketing for the Home Electronics Division of Pioneer Electronics provided a little more detail in the press release. He said, “To ensure the best Dolby Atmos experience possible, Pioneer not only produced a series of ultra-high end receivers dedicated for the task, but also appointed Andrew Jones, our top speaker engineer, to design a speaker system worthy of the Elite brand and that can reproduce the sound quality that only Dolby Atmos can deliver.” So bottom line, they designed, built and tested them together to make sure they provided the best possible Atmos experience out of the box. Probably a marketing ploy, but an understandable one. Pioneer’s claim is that their years of experience and expertise in home theater gave them the opportunity to develop a complete Dolby Atmos system with both receivers and speaker products. They believe that the availability of a single Pioneer branded system will provide better control of the Dolby Atmos experience and the advantage in delivering the technology. Excitement for Retailers as well “Dolby Atmos is the next step in home entertainment and it’s really something you have to experience for yourself to understand how truly amazing it is,” said Michael Crane, Senior Director of Merchandising for Magnolia Home Theater and Design Centers. “We’re looking forward to demonstrating the technology in our Magnolia locations through Pioneer’s complete Dolby Atmos-enabled system.” Bottom line The truth, at least what we hope will be the truth, is that Dolby Atmos will probably be pretty cool in your home. Will you need the special Atmos enabled speakers? No. Will they somehow enhance the experience? Our honest gut reaction is that they won’t, unless you’re upgrading from inferior speakers at the same time. We’ll have to wait and listen to them for ourselves, but on paper, we just aren’t seeing it. Get the receiver, listen to the speakers for yourself. Not just Pioneer And of course, the Atmos technology isn’t unique to Pioneer. Onkyo has also announced a line of Atmos-enabled receivers. The THX Select2 Plus-certified 9.2-channel TX-NR1030 Network A/V Receiver will have an MSRP of $1,699, the 11.2-channel TX-NR3030 Network A/V Receiver will sell for $2,399, and the THX Ultra2 Plus-certified PR-SC5530 Network A/V Controller will go for $2,499. All three are expected to be available in August and will all support HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, DTS Neo:X and ISF Video Calibration support. Onkyo press release: “With Dolby Atmos, sound comes alive from all directions, including overhead, to fill the home theater with astonishing clarity, power, detail, and depth. Dolby

ATSC 2.0 Over the Air gets Better... But is it too late? Before there was HDTV there was NTSC (National Television System Committee) or as it was known by most people today standard definition. That was the standard developed in 1941 and was in effect until it was superseded by ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee standards) which brought us high definition television which in turn gave rise to this podcast! ATSC was a dramatic step forward in picture quality and capability. But being first meant there were limitations. For instance ATSC is mpeg 2 which does not compress as nicely as mpeg 4 which is used in Europe and other parts of the world. At the time ATSC was developed, 1990s, 1080p and 4K were not really on the radar. At least we had accurate color and clear pictures! Technology moves on and broadcast standards have a hard time keeping up. At least the ATSC is trying. The latest version of their broadcasting standard has a lot of improvements that we’ll discuss. The main question, however, is it already too late? What’s in ATSC 2.0? The main features of the standard are: Non Real Time (NRT) Services - This can be ads targeted to viewers based on time of day, what the viewer is watching, or specific data about the viewer. The broadcaster can also provide a VOD service that is delivered over the air. Watch your network content when you want without a DVR. The broadcaster can even deliver content in advance and have it ready for viewing at a specific time. Two Way Communication - Now when viewers watch a voting based show they will be able to vote without the use of a telephone. They’ll be able to get more information about advertised products. This will tie into the NRT services and have that content delivered for viewing on demand. Better and more accurate viewership numbers can be obtained which may save some shows that may otherwise get canceled. Watch Multiple Channels Simultaneously - You will be able to set up your screen with multiple views that include widgets or other channels. You can have weather forecasts, Twitter, or Facebook along with news and sports. Essentially turning your plain old over the air system into an advanced set top box without the need for the Internet. If you have Internet the capabilities are further enhanced! Mobile Broadcast - Current ATSC does not work when the receiver is moving. That will change in 2.0. Mobile devices are becoming the norm and we can see the day when you cars will come from the factory with antennas that can receive ATSC signals making it possible for your children to watch their favorite cartoons on the go. These are just a few of the features available in the ATSC 2.0 spec. If you want more information its available ATSC.org. When do I get all this cool stuff? You know it took broadcasters a few years to roll out HDTV to everyone. We don’t even think about those dark days any longer. The specification will be approved later this year and then its anyone guess when broadcasters will implement them. It will be at least a few years so don’t count on anything before 2016 or 2017 at the earliest. And even then, it won’t be ubiquitous. Does it even matter? Much of what is proposed in the new standard is already available today through cable or satellite augmented with the Internet. Mobile over the air broadcast sounds like it would be pretty cool but with faster data networks and more broadcasters going online with content its not really a game changer. Higher resolution, 4K, content is not even slated until ATSC 3. By then, Netflix will be streaming 4K on much of its offerings. Fast internet is the key and rural areas not serviced well by Internet providers will lag. Its also likely that the rural areas will be slower to adopt the next ATSC standard as well. We believe that most of the country will be serviced by reliable high speed Internet before broadcasters embrace ATSC 2.0 and 3.0. And at that point will broadcasters even have incentive to roll out new more costly services? Let us know what you think.

Sonos Playbar and Sub Review We’ve reviewed multiple soundbars in the past, from a wide variety of companies, but we’ve never reviewed a Playbar. What is the difference between a soundbar and a Playbar? Quite a bit as it turns out. Knowing Sonos we expected big things, and we weren’t disappointed in the slightest. The Playbar sells for $699 (shop now) and the optional Sub for an additional $699 (shop now). Setup If you already have any Sonos equipment in your home, setting up the Playbar and Sub is ridiculously easy. If you don’t have any Sonos gear, don’t worry, setup goes from ridiculously easy to quite easy. There’s simply not that much to it. First step is to connect the Playbar itself or the optional Sonos Bridge ($42) to your home network via wired Ethernet. Our review unit included a Bridge, and Braden already had one as well, so we went the Bridge route. The one Sonos device you connect to wired Ethernet allows the rest of your Sonos devices to be placed anywhere in the home with no need for any wires other than power. Once you have that main device connected to the network, you can download the Sonos app either to your iOS device, your Android device, or to your personal computer. You use the app to connect to your main device - it becomes your controller - and add music sources to listen to. Once you have a main Sonos device and the app to control all your Sonos gear up and running, adding new devices, like a Playbar or a Sub, is as easy as telling the app you want to add a new device, clicking a button on that device, and watching it show up. You can assign the new device to a room (by room name), and you’re ready to start listening to music. Since the Playbar is a little different, setup is slightly more involved. The app asks you a set of questions to help calibrate the speaker for your room, walks you through setting up your remote so the volume buttons will control the Playbar volume. You connect the Playbar to your theater equipment using a single optical audio (toslink) cable. So if you have multiple sources, you’ll still need something in place to switch between them before sending the audio to your Playbar. Adding the Sub is just as easy as adding the Playbar itself. Tell the app you want to add a Sub to your Playbar, click a button on the Sub and that’s it. You can place the Subwoofer itself anywhere. It just needs power. The app asks a couple quick calibration questions and you’ve just added all the booming bass you need for those big explosions. Performance As is true with just about any soundbar, the Playbar is clearly better than any TV speaker we have. Adding just the Playbar itself will improve your HDTV experience. When you add the Sub along with it, you get a new dimension in sound you would never come close to in a built-in TV speaker. The Playbar and Sub cannot compete with a dedicated Home Theater receiver and good, separate left, center and right speakers, but it isn’t intended to. For rooms that don’t have the full surround sound system, like a loft, a study, a game room or a bedroom, the Playbar is perfect. For movies and HDTV the Playbar was as good as almost any other soundbar we’ve used or reviewed. The only one that stood out in our minds as better was the Yamaha Sound Projector from a CES demo a few years ago. But that was an almost $2000 device that was intended to simulate surround sound, The Playbar doesn’t try to simulate surround effects. It is clearly packaged and sold as a 3.0 system: left, center and right. Since we’ve had lackluster success with simulated surround in the past, the idea of sticking to 3.0 doesn’t bother us. Where the Playbar really excels is with music and versatility. As a pure music playing device, the Playbar is excellent. Compared with other soundbars that seem tuned and designed for TV viewing, the Playbar almost feels like it is built for music. Every genre we threw at it, from Rock to Classical, sounded great. It was crisp and vibrant, not overly hushed in the higher tones or muffled in strange ways in the midrange. It just sounded clean. And versatile. As a member of the Sonos family, the Playbar jumps right in with the rest of your gear to play and stream any of your music sources. It can stream your home media collection, including iTunes, and all of your online sources like Pandora, Spotify, Beats Music, Google Play, iHeartRadio and more. It can also sync with any other Sonos player to get the same music going in multiple rooms at once. For as many times as we’ve used or reviewed Sonos, we’re yet to have music synchronization issues with multi-zone playback. But wait, there’s more… This isn’t just an ordinary soundbar review, nor is it a typical ‘soundbar with a sub’ review, nor is it a ‘soundbar with a sub that can stream your music to in sync in multiple rooms’ review. Turns out this review is also about full 5.1 surround sound without wires … without speaker wires at least. You can actually add two additional sonos players to the

Slingbox Sharing You know we are fans of the Slingbox (Buy Now $265) and have used them to “Sling” our local TV from one side of the world to another. Ara spent a week in India and never watch a single minute of local television opting to watch football from the USA instead. Slingboxes are quite simply the easiest way to watch your local content wherever you want, provided that you have an internet connection. This got us thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if we could watch other people’s local content. Say you want to watch news from say Chicago or Seattle, a Slingbox makes that possible but what are you going to do? Set up A slingbox in every city you may have an interest in? No, of course not. But you do have a few options: AmericanTV2Go.com With AmericanTV2Go you actually signup for a DirecTV subscription of your choice and are provided a dedicated Slingbox to access it with. You pay for the DirecTV subscription just as you would if you were living in the states. Then you pay an additional $80 a month for the hosting service. That service provides you with: A top-of-the line Slingbox Unlimited upload bandwidth A second network address for your DVR - This enables remote scheduling of recordings and access to over 7,000 On Demand shows and movies The ability to reboot your system instantly, 24/7/365, via our easy-to-use self-serve system Customer support This service is probably best suited for the expat who wants to stay connected with the US. If you want to watch the American football you can purchase the Sunday Ticket package for additional fees. No word on local channels but they may be available for the Virginia beach area. Virginia Beach is the home of AmericanTV2Go.com. Live American TV LiveAmerican.TV is similar to AmericanTV2Go but rather than using DirecTV they use cable services. The best we can tell is that you get a Comcast or FiOS account. LiveAmerican.TV offer customers a fully managed Slingbox hosted television service from New York City and San Francisco. There is no hardware to worry about as LiveAmerican.TV hosts and maintains all the equipment. Your account includes a DVR box as well as a Slingbox when you sign up. No other fees are necessary. VPNs - Watch shows normally reserved only for viewers in the US, wherever you are in the world. $5/month or $45/year. DAILY RENTALS - Any San Francisco package tailored to your needs including MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, NFL Sunday Ticket, NBC Sports Live Extra or BeIN sports. $8/day PREFERRED HD - Local (San Francisco Bay Area), news, entertainment, sports, kids, travel and non-stop music channels. 300+ channels. $90.00/month. PREMIER HD - Same as Preferred HD but with thousands of hours of on demand content, Playboy TV and tens of sports and movies channels. Add a 100-hour dual-tuner DVR for only $10/month extra. $120.00/month. ULTIMATE HD NYC - Over 300 channels in total. Includes the most High Definition channels available. All movie channels like HBO, Starz, Showtime etc. Includes Dual Tuner HD-DVR so you can watch all your shows anytime. All NYC local and Sports channels. Full access to all Free On Demand that FIOS offers. SPECIAL - Only $149.99/month. Slingsharing.com You can try and roll your own by using forums that join Slingbox owners from around the world. Slingsharing.com is one of those site that has two thousand members from around the world. The way it works is you read the forums that grouped by regions, USA, Canada, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America. People are either looking for or offering Slingboxes for viewing. Typically its a trade. I grant you access if you do the same. It seems fairly safe, just be sure not to give out your administration password. You may want to avoid this if you have bandwidth caps as someone can really rack up the bits if they are constantly on it. We see a day when content will be available to the entire world simultaneously. That may be a few years away. But for now Slingboxes are the best way to bring the world closer together! Now lets all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.

Glasses-free 3D projector concept Nothing says “the future of display technology” like holograms. If you’re a Star Wars or a Star Trek fan, you know that someday we’ll have holograms for real, interacting with us. But until now that notion has existing only in science fiction and our imaginations. But fueled by the same dreams you have, over the past three years, researchers in the Camera Culture group at the MIT Media Lab have steadily refined a design for a 3D video technology that doesn’t require glasses at all. The MIT group believes their concept has the potential to provide a cheaper, more practical alternative to holographic video. And they don’t think it’ll take decades to get there. They’re using a technique called multiperspective 3D, which is quite different from the stereoscopic 3D technology common in homes and movie theaters. So this isn’t stereoscopic 3D without glasses, which some of us have seen and not been impressed with. This is a completely different approach. Watch the video The MIT researchers have built a prototype of their system using off-the-shelf components. There’s nothing exotic about the system, so the cost shouldn’t be prohibitive in mass production. They also built a prototype of a new type of screen that widens the angle from which their projector’s images can be viewed. The technology will be unveiled at this year’s Siggraph conference in Vancouver this August (Aug. 10-14, 2014). Siggraph is the major international conference in computer graphics and interactive technologies. Much like the holograms in your science fiction imagination, objects depicted by a multiperspective 3D display actually show different perspectives as the viewer moves about them, just as the objects would in the real world. While stereoscopic 3D tricks your brain into perceiving depth that isn’t there, multiperspective 3D draws a visual representation of the object from multiple angles, providing more of a “floating” image than a perceived depth. Next step: the Holodeck. How it works We encourage you to read the full news release at mit.edu for all the details. We’ll do our best to present a summary of what they have put together, but we certainly aren’t MIT researchers, nor do we try to play them on the podcast. The projector uses two liquid-crystal modulators, which are essentially tiny LCD displays, positioned between the light source and the lens. The first LCD is used to adjust the angle of the light passing through it. So the video information (which is the the light passing through it) reaches the second modulator only at particular angles. The combinations of the patterns displayed by the two modulators enable a viewer to see slightly different images from different angles. “For every frame of video, each modulator displays six different patterns, which together produce eight different viewing angles: At high enough display rates, the human visual system will automatically combine information from different images. The modulators can refresh their patterns at 240 hertz, or 240 times a second, so even at six patterns per frame, the system could play video at a rate of 40 hertz, which, while below the refresh rate common in today’s TVs, is still higher than the 24 frames per second standard in film.”. Added bonus: Better contrast and resolution It turns out that passing the light through the two modulators can actually improve the contrast of ordinary 2D video as well. We all know about the challenges LCD displays have had representing true black, and one of the reasons we lament the loss of plasma as much as we do. The problem stems from the fact that a little bit of light always leaks through even the darkest regions of the display. One of the MIT researchers, Gordon Wetzstein, explains it like this. “Normally you have contrast of, let’s say, values between 0 and 1. That’s the full contrast, but in practice, all modulators have something like 0.1 to 1. So you get this ‘black level.’ But if you multiply two optically together, the black level goes down to 0.01. If you show black on one, which is 10 percent, and black on the other, which is also 10 percent, what you get through is 1 percent. So it’s much more black.” Not only an improvement in contrast, but by changing the way the two modulators are used, you can actually heighten the resolution of the resulting image. If the patterns displayed on the modulators are slightly offset from each other, you can spread the pixels so that the the light passing through them will interfere with itself in ways that produce a higher resolution image. As you can imagine, the team at MIT has come up with a way to calculate the patterns needed on the modulators to produce that effect on the fly, in real time. The MIT team believes these two factors could make the technology an excellent bridge for theater operators - even before there is content available to take advantage of the multiperspective 3D capabilities. They can install projection systems now that

Lone Survivor - Blu-ray Review 4.8 Stars (out of 5) - Rated R Synopsis Based on the failed mission "Operation Red Wings" which tasked four members of SEAL Team 10 on June 28, 2005 to kill Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Alexander Ludwig, Eric Bana Director: Peter Berg Blu-ray Release Date: June 3, 2014 Subtitles: English, Spanish Rating Overall rating weighted as follows: Audio 40%, Video 40%, Special Features 20%, Movie - its just our opinion so take it with a grain of salt Audio 5.0 Stars (out of 5) Dolby and DTS Demo Discs used as basis for comparison ● Subwoofer - 5.0 Stars ● Dialog - 5.0 Stars ● Surround Effects - 5.0 Stars ● Dynamic Range - 5.0 Stars English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DVS 2.0, Spanish: DTS Digital Surround 5.1 The surround effects are amazing, bullets whizz by your head, helicopter blades whip around the room, and debris fly in all directions. Sometimes they perform so well I couldn't tell if an airplane was flying outside or if it was the movie. Every once in a while it was hard to make out lines of dialog, especially if it was over the radio. The subwoofer gets a lot of action with sounds of gunshots, helicopter engines, and of course exploding grenades and RPGs. Video 5.0 Stars (out of 5) Spears & Munsil Benchmark Blu-ray Edition used as basis for comparison ● Color Accuracy - 5.0 Stars ● Shadow detail - 5.0 Stars ● Clarity - 5.0 Stars ● Skin tones - 5.0 Stars ● Compression - 5.0 Stars Codec: MPEG-4 AVC, Resolution: 1080p, Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1, Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 Colors are warm but natural, and make features pop on the screen. Trees in the forest are lush and green, blood is deep red on faces and legs, the skies are a beautiful hue of blue, and balls of fire glow bright red. Dark scenes are handled perfectly and never loose any important details in the shadows and show no compression issues. The clarity is remarkable and make it easy to see individual beard whiskers, clothing textures, grime and cuts on skin, and flying debris. Bonus Features 4.0 Stars (out of 5) ● Will of the Warrior: An in-depth look at Marcus Luttrell, the real-life Navy SEAL who received the Navy Cross and Purple Heart for his actions in Operation Red Wings. ● Recreating the Firefight: Reveals how Lone Survivor’s action-packed stunts were choreographed and shot. This featurette includes interviews with Director Peter Berg, Actors Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch and stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director Kevin Scott. ● Learning the Basics: Watch as Mark Wahlberg, Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch and Ben Foster go through rigorous SEAL training in weapons handling, communication/patrolling and simulated attack drills. Along with Marcus Luttrell, Peter Berg enlisted the help of active Navy SEALS to help the actors accurately portray the fallen soldiers of Operation Red Wings. ● Bringing the Story to Light: Marcus Luttrell’s story of survival under extremely dire circumstances is an inspiration to anyone who hears it. Director, producer and writer Peter Berg, Producer Sarah Aubrey, and the four lead actors (Mark Wahlberg, Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch and Ben Foster) reveal their passion for the project and why it was so important to them to tell this story. ● The Fallen Heroes of Operation Red Wings: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster and Emile Hirsch profile the real-life heroes who inspired their characters: Marcus Luttrell, Michael Murphy, Daniel Dietz and Matthew Axelson. Family members provide intimate accounts of what these brave men were like in their private lives, as well as perspective on their decisions to join the military and make the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Also included is a tribute to the team of Operation Red Wings, using personal photos. ● The Pashtun Code of Life: Learn why Marcus Luttrell’s rescuer, Mohammad Gulab, risked his life and the lives of everyone in his village in order to save Marcus. Movie - 4.0 Stars (out of 5) Review Lone Survivor is a gritty realistic movie based on real life action heroes in the Navy Seals. The movie does a great job of showing team brotherhood and the banter between them is entertaining and engaging. The tension and action feel real because you actually care about the characters and you know what you are seeing really happened. Just to prove how real the action is, several times during the movie my wife screamed, "No" at the TV. The movie has one of the best firefights I have ever scene on film. Not only did it sound amazing, but it was directed in a manner that made you feel like you were there. Overall, the movie is action packed and heartbreaking, but it’s a good monument to the tough men who fought in "Operation Red Wings".

Emotiva UPA-700 Seven-Channel Power Amplifier One of the best thing about producing this podcast each week is knowing that our listeners go on the same journey that we do. Our current journey is that of separates. A few weeks ago we reviewed the NuForce AVP-18 processor and MCA-20 Amplifier (Podcast #631). This week we continue the journey by reviewing the Emotiva UPA-700 Seven-Channel Power Amplifier (Buy Now $499). The UPA-700 is ideal for those wanting to move into separates without breaking the bank. When you consider there are single channel amplifiers that sell for more than $1500, you may ask, how good can a seven channel amp that costs one third the price actually sound? Well we’re here to tell you pretty darn good! Features: Seven-channel amplifier 100 watts / channel (4 ohms; all channels driven) 80 watts / channel (8 ohms; all channels driven) Advanced engineering with short signal path class A/B design topology. Top quality parts and construction. Real power on tap to easily drive complex loads. Heavy duty power supply with oversized toroidal transformer. Gold-plated five-way binding post output terminals. 15mm solid milled aluminum faceplate. Channel status LED’s. Stealth mode (status LEDs and Standby button halo lighting can be switched off). Remote trigger input and output. 115 VAC or 230 VAC with automatic detection and switching. Full protection from all common input and output fault conditions. Setup: Setting up an amp is truly trivial. You connect the speakers, power, pre-outs, and the 12V trigger from the receiver. If you have your speaker wires on banana plugs the whole thing takes three minutes! At that point you can power on the receiver and go. But you know its never really that easy. The UPA-700 was connected to a Pioneer Elite VSX-94TXH receiver. The Elite is 125 watt beast that has served Ara well for a few years. He has been quite happy with the sound but now that we are exploring separates he was willing to try the $500 amp that has been highly recommended to him by Ray Coronado (SoCal HT Audio/Video Calibration and Consulting). With the 12 volt trigger connected to the Elite the 700 is supposed to turn on when the Elite is turned on. This was not the case. It turns out that the Elite must be told to trigger the 12 volts per input. Once the settings were updated all was good. The UPA-700 was glowing Blue which let us know everything was good to go. By the way, if you don’t want to see the Blue power light or channel LEDs you can turn them off with a manual switch on the back panel. The last thing to do was to rerun the auto calibration and then we were off to the races! Performance: As stated earlier the VSX-94THX already sounded quite good and we were not expecting a big improvement in audio quality but we were hoping for something. What we found was crystal clear audio that brought a smile to our faces. We listened to intricate classical pieces that spanned as much of the frequency range that we could find. Lows and mids sounded incredible. the highs were a bit bright but that could be the EQ. Ara’s go to classical piece is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony "Ode to Joy”. The triangles are what he keys on and they sounded like they were right in the room with you. We listened to Rock and Roll from CD and Blu-ray. You could hear each instrument clearly regardless of how loud we were playing it. Movies were another place where the amp shined. Dialog was crystal clear and effects seemed to come alive. In all its not like we could say that the UPA-700 was x% better than the Elite. It was more like we had a better listening experience overall. The Elite is a very good receiver and the UPA-700 is at the lower end of Emotiva’s line so the fact that we heard any perceived improvement speaks to how good Emotiva’s amplifiers are. If you were going from a lower end to mid tier receiver our opinion is that you would hear a bigger improvement in audio quality. Another area that has concerned a few readers/listeners is that the UPA-700 is only 80 Watts. Understand that Emotiva rates their amplifier with all channels running simultaneously. Some manufacturers only rate their system with two channels. For Ara’s room which measures 16 feet by 20 feet the UPA-700 could overpower the room. Sometimes people feel more is better and in many cases that is the truth but in this case more is just wasted. For the record the 125 watt 94THX will produce less than 3dB more sound than the UPA-700 and the human ear will barely be able to hear a difference. If you have a larger room Emotive also has a three channel amp (XPA-3 Buy Now $799) that puts out 200 watts. you can run your surrounds off your current receiver and put the front wall on the XPA-3. That way the speakers that get the most use with the most important material have the best amplification. Conclusion: There is no doubt in our minds that a good AV receiver is a great way to listen to your music and watch your movies. But when you are ready to take your

Music to Show Off Your Theater We received an email from Martin who asked us to take a look and listen at the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds concert that is available on Blu-ray. According to Martin: The sound is astonishing, like you are sitting right there. I have heard many concert discs but this is something else. Shows off my system even better than a pacific rim or transformers. Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City Music Hall [Blu-ray] (2007) We totally agree with Martin’s assessment. So we thought it would be fun for one episode to pick three concert Blu-rays and discuss them on a show. All six will put you right in the middle of the concert and will make you happy that you invested in Blu-ray! Rodney’s Picks Adele – Live at The Royal Albert Hall Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Even though this concert is performed in front of decent sized crowd, it sounds great and still feels intimate. Adele has an amazing voice and this Blu-ray captures it perfectly, it almost sounds better than the studio recording. There isn’t much subwoofer action, but the audio is extremely crisp and clean. (Buy Now $24.87) Alicia Keys – VH1 Storytellers Audio: LPCM 5.1 This concert has a small crowd and has a very intimate setting. Colorful curtains and backdrops set the scene for Key’s soulful music. The low-end is tight and sometimes even vibrates the couch. Her voice is sometimes sounds strained and a little congested but she still gives a solid performance. However, the star of the show was listening to her play the piano. The room was filled with every keystroke and making it more of an experience than just watching a concert. (Buy Now $13.88) Foo Fighters – Live at Wembley Stadium Audio: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) There’s nothing like being a huge concert. Screaming crowds filled with energy and loud blaring rock music. This Blu-ray is the quintessential rock concert captured on Blu-ray. The Foo Fighters have so many hits, this concert runs 2 hours long and even had a special appearance from Jimmy Page. The audio performance isn’t the best though. Vocals are a little echoy and muffled, low end is a bit muddy, however this is what most rock concerts sound like. (Buy Now $20.34) Ara’s Picks The Eagles - Farewell Live From Melbourne Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 If you like the Eagles then this Disc is for you! Not only do you get the classic Eagles you also get the best from the band member’s solo stuff. The concert was in 2004 so no need for restoration. Just crystal clean audio and video. I couldn’t help smiling through the whole thing. Audio was clear and tight! My favorite by a long shot! (Buy Now $16.88) Heart - Live Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 This was a Soundstage concert made specifically for DVD/Blu-ray which made me leery of buying it. I was worried that they wouldn’t bring the energy. Fear not! The ladies brought it and put on a great show that included their classic songs as well as some great Zeppelin covers. The video was good quality but the audio put you right in the middle of the audience. Mixed with the music coming from the front and crowd from the surrounds mad for an enjoyable disc. (Buy Now $9.99) Dire Straits - Alchemy (20th Anniversary Edition) Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 I bought the Album and recorded it to cassette. Then I bought on CD and played it over and over again. I had never seen the concert but I knew it like the back of my hands. Seeing the concert made me so happy as now I could accurately imagine the scene. Unfortunately the video was 4:3 and not really the best. It was still better than SD but not on par with the other discs on the list. The audio wasn’t as good either. But it was certainly as good or better than the CD. I think I enjoyed this disc the most even though it was not technically as good as the others. That just goes to show you how powerful music is! It should always be enjoyed in the highest quality you can find! (Buy Now $25.78)

Wireless Audio: Products, systems, tips and tricks for selecting the best wireless music system for your home. Can be downloaded here: http://www.electronichouse.com/article/free_special_report_understanding_wireless_audio_systems/

Interview with a Broadcaster about Aereo This week Ara spoke with a broadcaster from the Birmingham AL about the internet streaming upstart Aereo and how their model is essentially to steal content from broadcasters and sell it for profit. For those who are not familiar Aereo is a company that lets you record and stream local television in the cloud. More info about Aereo available on their website. Broadcasters feel that Aereo should be considered like a cable or satellite company and pay retransmission fees. Aereo says they are renting equipment to capture free over the air content that is available to the public. The Supreme Court will hear this case which can have major impact to how we receive our entertainment in the future. Will the broadcasters take their programming off the public airways? We’ll have to see.

Use an AVR for Pre/Pro or a PreAmp? We recently reviewed the NuForce AVP-18 all-digital HT dedicated preamp/processor (MSRP $1095) paired with the NuForce MCA-20 multi-channel amplifier (MSRP $1995). Our goal was to compare the performance of separates with the performance of a high quality AVR to see how they’d stack up. We used to hold the position that for just about everyone, the AVR would be more than good enough. In may be an overstatement to say that we did a complete 180 on our position on separates; but we have certainly changed our tune. While the all-in cost of the NuForce setup would run a cool $3090, and is a tad higher than we’re used to paying for a self-contained AVR, the performance and quality are there to back up the price. Is it worth it for everyone? Of course not. Is it worth looking into if you want great audio quality? Absolutely. Not so fast… But wait, many modern day receivers actually include PreAmp outputs so you can bypass the internal amplifiers altogether and run the sound through an external amp like the NuForce MCA-20. Essentially turning the AVR into simply a dedicated Pre/Pro (Pre-Amplifier / Processor). What if you already had a Receiver you loved and you could simply run the audio through an external amp - would that give you the best of both worlds? We decided to put that question to the test in a follow up to the NuForce review. We again stacked the Pioneer VSX-1120-K and the Denon AVR-3806 against the AVP-18, but this time used the same MCA-20 for all comparisons. What would it sound like if we simply used different processors to do the same job? After all, they’re all converting the same audio formats, like Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio, from digital to analog, so shouldn’t they all be roughly the same? Background We’ve heard people claim in the past that any processor decoding dolby digital is going to sound the same as any other processor performing the exact same job. Of course we know this isn’t true, but it is a common belief. There are even those who believe all amps basically sound the same. But that’s like saying all 300 horse-power engines are alike. We know this simply isn’t true. For all of the cases. But could it be closer to the truth for some than others? Results The results didn’t really surprise us. Please keep in mind that we review according to our perceptions - according to how we hear the sound with our ears. The tests aren’t scientific as much as they are anecdotal. Your mileage may vary. But if you forced us to choose a hypothesis before beginning the experiment, it wouldn’t have been too far off from what we experienced. Bottom line, both the Denon and the Pioneer sounded better when using the external MVA-20 amplifier. We tested using the same Klipsch Reference and HSU Research speakers as the last comparison. The Denon sounded the best of the two receivers, but we felt like the Pioneer actually got the biggest boost in overall audio quality from the test. To our ears, the Denon starts out sounding better, and it ended up that way as well. The Pioneer, however, either has lesser quality internal amps, or was able to do a better job running the external amps, and it showed the biggest improvement. But, when it was all said and done, neither the Denon nor the Pioneer sounded better than the NuForce - to our ears at least. They were closer, and actually in many areas harder to distinguish differences than the last round, but still not quite as good. In the spirit of openness and honesty, Braden was so impressed by the first round of NuForce review that he decided to acquire the pair for use in his own home theater. It’s entirely possible his ears were experiencing a little bit of irrational exuberance as a result of the purchase. But removing any irrational exuberance, the final conclusion makes logical sense. A device purpose-built to deliver the best possible audio experience for the price outperformed the devices engineered to pack as many features into a price point as possible. Yes, you sacrifice features by going with the dedicated PreAmp, and yes it may age out a bit quicker as a result of that. But from a pure sound experience, it was top notch. Conclusion If you have an existing home theater receiver with PreAmp outputs, will you get a sonic benefit by pairing it with an external amplifier? In our limited experience, yes you will. The amount of difference you get is based on the processor itself, the amps it has bundled internally, the amp you choose to pair it with externally, and the speakers you’re driving with it. But is it a good first step toward dedicated separates? You bet it is. There are trade-offs to any home theater upgrade or investment. Some will produce higher dividends than others. You have to weigh all the factors when choosing where to invest your hard earned cash. For some, moving to separates, or even baby-stepping there by running an external amp with your existing receiver, is the next, right investment. for othe

SONY 4K UHD TVs On the last show we read a news story that SONY announced pricing and availability for their new line for 4K TVs. This week we thought we discuss in a bit more depth the latest from SONY. For starters there are a total of nine UHD TVs. The nine TVs are tiered on entry, mid, and high and range in price from $2,100 up to $25,000 All support HDMI 2.0 and the HEVC codec which cover two of the three must have features for a UHD TV according to HD Guru. The other being HDCP 2.2 which we couldn’t verify. The TVs are also MHL 3.0 compatible so you can watch 4K content from your smartphones or tablets. All the new TVs will support Netflix 4K streaming as it becomes available on the Netflix service. The SONY developed X Reality PRO picture engine, TRILUMINOS color spectrum, and X-tended Dynamic Range PRO technology are marketing terms for 4K upscaling, deeper color palette, and higher contrast. Entry Level For the entry level 4K market are four models in the XBR-X850B series: 49“ for $2,099 55“ for $2,999 65“ for $3,999 70” for $5,499 Mid-Tier For the Mid-Tier 4K market are three models in the XBR-X900B series: 55” for $3,999 66” for $4,999 79” for $8,999 These TVs use Edge lit LEDs and something SONY calls X-tended Dynamic Range technology to achieve better contrast than the entry level TVs. One thing that many people complain about with thin TVs is that the audio is bad. On these models SONY uses wedge shape design which maintains thinness and provides for better richer sound. Flagship SONY’s flagship 4K UHD TVs the XBR-X950B series comes in two models: 65 “ for $7,999 85” for $24,999 The top tier SONYs use direct lit LEDs and something SONY calls X-tended Dynamic Range PRO technology for the highest contrast ratio among this year’s line of 4K TVs. SONY has developed a unique backlighting algorithm to further enhance picture quality.