HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

Sorting Through Atmos and DTS:X Receivers and Pre-Pros by Rob H. A Couple of Thoughts on Immersive Audio Setups There are differing opinions on which additional speakers beyond the standard 5.1 layout deliver the most immersive experience: - Mark Henninger, Senior Writer at AVS Forum, stated during an episode of the Home Theater Geeks Podcast that he feels that four overhead speakers are necessary in order to get a good sense of panning and movement of the audio objects. If he were limited to 9 speakers, he would favor 5.1.4 over 7.1.2: https://youtu.be/GTaBj-L8etI?t=1h1m42s - Representatives from THX, Matt Severaid and Craig Buckley, stated on an episode of the AV Forums Podcast that they feel the Surround Back speakers actually play a critical role. They also feel that the Surround and Surround Back speakers should still be elevated as opposed to being at seated ear level, which is the new recommendation from Dolby. With elevated Surround and Surround Back speakers, they would opt for 7.1.2 with Surround Back and Top Middle speakers if limited to 9 speakers total. https://youtu.be/hx_uOquSs44?t=18m4s General statements that might help you to quickly narrow down the field: 1) There are quite a few models that can decode Dolby Atmos but are unable to decode DTS:X (and will never get an update to do so). This is the case with ALL models that were released in 2014 - except for the flagship Denon AVR-X7200W Receiver and Marantz AV8802 Pre-Pro; those are the only two models that were released in 2014 that can be updated to decode DTS:X. There are also some 2015 models that decode Dolby Atmos but do not decode DTS:X. This list from High Def Digest has done an excellent job of separating the DTS:X + Dolby Atmos models from the Dolby Atmos-only models: LINK:http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/DTS/dtsx/Dolby/Atmos/Receivers/Home_Audio/Speakers/Pioneer/Denon/Marantz/Integra/Onkyo/Yamaha/KEF/Klipsch/hdds-dtsx-dolby-atmos-gear-buying-guide/24564 2) There were no models released in 2014 that included HDMI 2.0a with HDCP 2.2. While several 2014 Onkyo & Integra models touted HDCP 2.2 support, those ports were limited to 10.2 Gbps, which is insufficient for High Dynamic Range video signals that require the full 18 Gbps bandwidth of HDMI 2.0a. Once again, the only exceptions were the Denon AVR-X7200W and Marantz AV8802, which can have a hardware upgrade performed. No other 2014 models can be upgraded. Since the bandwidth (10.2 Gbps or 18 Gbps) is rarely listed on any spec sheets, the key features to look for are support for UltraHD/4K at 60 fps along with 4:4:4 chroma subsampling. Those features are the "code" that lets you know if a model has the full 18 Gbps bandwidth. 3) So far, in 2015, Pioneer & Pioneer Elite have not announced any models that can decode DTS:X or are able to receive an update to do so. This could change if they announce new models. 4) So far, in 2015, Onkyo & Integra have not announced any models capable of using more than 7 speakers simultaneously (5.2.2). This could change with the announcement of new models. 5) Denon & Marantz are the only mass market brands offering any models capable of decoding the Auro-3D immersive audio format. It is a $200 optional upgrade. It is only available on all models capable of using 9 or 11 speakers simultaneously. 6) In 2015, Denon & Marantz are the only mass market brands offering any models capable of using Front Wide speakers. Getting into some of the finer details: 7) Denon & Marantz have announced several models that are not yet listed in the High Def Digest article linked above. That is because the official announcements were made in Europe, but they have not yet been officially announced in North America. The official North American announcements are expected soon - certainly during or before CEDIA Expo 2015. You can view an English language translation of the European announcements below: LINK:https://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&nv=1&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.areadvd.de/tests/special-dm-neuheiten-und-highlights-aus-dem-bereich-core-und-new-media/ 8) The additional Denon & Marantz models listed in a similar fashion as the High Def Digest article: DTS:X & Dolby Atmos Receivers Denon AVR-X6200W - ($2299, October) 9.2 Channel A/V Receiver, Supports Additional Amp for 11.2 Channels, 4K HDCP 2.2 Compliant, Auro-3D ($200 option) Marantz SR6010 - ($1199, September) 7.2 Channel A/V Receiver, Supports Additional Amp for 9.2 Channels, 4K HDCP 2.2 Compliant, Auro-3D ($200 option) SR7010 - ($1699, September) 9.2 Channel A/V Receiver, Supports Additional Amp for 11.2 Channels, 4K HDCP 2.2 Compliant, Auro-3D ($200 option) AV7702 Mk. II - ($1999, October) 11.2 Channel A/V Pre-Amp/Processor, 4K HDCP 2.2 Compliant, Auro-3D ($200 option) 9) If you would like to be able to use 11 speakers simultaneously, the number of mass market DTS:X options is limited: Denon AVR-X7200WA AV Receiver with 9 internal amps - $2999, a

2015 HDTV Shootout Each year Value Electronics, an audio/video integrator with a showroom in Scarsdale New York, pits the top TVs from big name manufacturers against each other to determine the King of HDTV. This year there were four contenders: Panasonic 65” Pro 4K Ultra HD Smart TV 240hz- CX850 Series- TC-65CX850U $3,200 Studio Master Drive- Helps 4K TV’s reproduce more detail and richer, more natural colors during dark scenes An advanced LED Backlight Design, DCI 90-98% Color Space, which produces a wider color range Firefox© OS to ensure ease for you to access smart apps and content Voice Assistant Pro allowing to operate your TV just by talking to it with a remote control Netflix© Recommended TV Sony XBR75X940C 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV $8,000 HD is upscaled to impressive 4K Ultra HD Our best contrast ever with up to 3x brightness range Brilliant, expanded color with TRILUMINOS™ display Streaming 4K Ultra HD is enhanced for improved clarity Android TV with Google Cast, voice search & Play Store apps Powerful front-facing speakers and built-in subwoofers Precise motion clarity with Motionflow™ XR 1440 Stream PS3® games directly to your TV Black levels of plasma, brightness of LED Samsung UN78JS9500 Curved 78-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV $10,000 Experience our Most Superior Level of Color, Contrast, and Brightness Enjoy a Brighter, More True-to-Life Picture with a Wider Range of Colors Experience the Full Vibrancy of your Favorite Media and Entertainment Experience a Greater Sense of Depth with Optimized Contrast LG Electronics 65EG9600 65-inch 4K Ultra HD 3D Curved Smart OLED $7,000 Curved 4K OLED TV webOS 2.0 SMART TV Magic Remote Harmon/Kardon Sound Netflix Recommended TV The competition was conducted over two days with both professional and consumer evaluators. All in all just over 80 judges rated the TVs for Black Level, Contrast, Color, Off Angle Viewing, Screen Uniformity, Motion Clarity, and Day Mode viewing on professionally calibrated sets. Each category carries equal weight. The average scores for each category and overall average is listed below. Observations Consumers were tougher than the experts in their ratings except for when it came to off angle viewing. This translated to lower overall and average scores when rated by consumers. However the difference was small, less than percent or two. The difference between the best TV and the worst TV was 1.51 | 1.38 The price difference between the number one and two TVs are $3,000. With the number two Samsung costing more! The lowest scoring TV and highest scoring TV’s price difference is $3,800. You can decide if the curved OLED is worth it based on the scores. LED technology has come a long way in off axis viewing but apparently it still has a ways to go. OLED beat the other TVs by a wide margin. As far as color accuracy goes, OLED was tied for last with the SONY when viewed by experts but it won the category when viewed by consumers. If you do a lot of daylight viewing of TV you may want to go with the Samsung although the other TVs are only about a point lower in rating. OLED had the worst screen uniformity. OLED really won this competition based on three categories, Black Levels, Contrast, and Off Angle viewing.

Costco Shootout: Curved vs. Flat Costco has multiple TVs all lined up side by side. Some are worth comparing to each other, some are like comparing a Ferrari to a Kia. Both great for their own purpose and budget, but not at all similar enough to be compared. We happened to stumble into a Costco recently that had two 55 inch 4K LCD TVs side by side, one curved and one flat. And you can imagine we saw the challenge in that. We decided, right then and there, to do our own shootout of Curved TVs and Flat TVs, all other factors being the same. Both TVs in this case were made by Samsung. Both were side by side on industrial shelves with horrible fluorescent lighting. Both seemed to be set to the default, full bright, dynamic/showroom setting. Neither were professionally calibrated for sure. Both were 4k; both were LCD. As of this recording, Costco.com has multiple Curved and Flat TV sets available online. We compared two Samsung 55” TVs. They also have 65” versions of both styles available. There are many 55” models available at Costco.com two of them are the same ones we saw in store: Samsung 55" 4K Ultra HD Smart Curved LED LCD TV (Model: UN55JU670DFXZA) Price: $1,479.99 (or $1,297 from htguys) Features: Clear Motion Rate 120, UHD Upscaling and Dimming, Built-in Wi-fi with Full Web Browser, Quad Core Processor, PurColor Samsung 55" Class 4K Ultra HD Smart LED LCD TV (Model: UN55JU650DFXZA) $1,269.99 (or $1,197.99 from htguys) On sale for $1,179.99 After $90 OFF & Free Shipping Features: Clear Motion Rate 120, UHD Upscaling and Dimming, Built-in Wi-fi with Full Web Browser, Quad Core Processor, PurColor Visual Performance As you can imagine, both televisions are visually stunning, even without being calibrated. Both are 4K or Ultra HD sets, so the clarity of the picture was impeccable. Neither showed any signs of pixelation nor motion blur. The colors on both sets were very good. Neither showed like an OLED TV, but neither showed like the overly bright, washed out colors of the LCD TVs of yesteryear. Both can produce very respectable black levels - we aren’t talking Kuro plasma - but a solid ‘A’ for effort. No detail is ever lost in a dark scene; everything shows up with perfect detail. Which leads us to the actually clarity and detail in the picture. With the HD demo content we saw, the TV looked perfect. It was probably either a Blu-ray playing or a Blu-ray quality demo feed, so with high-quality 1080p the TVs are both amazing. We can only imagine that native 4k content will look at least as good and probably even better. We didn’t see any overly compressed HD or standard definition content on the screen, but it stands to reason that both TVs would perform just like any other HDTV with ugly input. Garbage in, garbage out. To Curve or Not to Curve That is the question. If you buy the hype, and they typical price bump you see on curved TVs, you would naturally assume the curved set is better for some reason. Maybe not an important reason, but at least for some reason. The typical reason you get is that the picture will look more natural, because the screen matches the curve of your eye. From our side-by-side comparison, that was not true at all. From straight on, it was nearly impossible to tell a difference in picture quality or overall viewing experience. Moving away from a straight-on viewing angle the TVs did differentiate a little. The flat model seems to hold the most consistent off-angle viewing experience, while the curved TV could look different from wide angles. We couldn’t tell for sure if the curve itself just reduce the off angle capabilities of the TV, or if some of the differences were similar to the geometric issues the cnet author mentioned, but either way, the flat TV had a better off-angle experience. Some articles online report the curved TV is better for a room with a lot of ambient light, the curve minimizes the reflection surface. Other sites claim the exact opposite, that the ambient light is reflected in strange, fun-house, hall of mirrors style - distorting the reflection and making it even more distracting. We had the same, consistent florescent lighting for both, so we weren’t able to really verify either point of view. In our observations, they were roughly the same on ambient light reflection. Conclusion In our limited test and sample, we came to the same conclusion cnet came to, the curve is cosmetic. There’s no real benefit in viewing experience nor picture quality on the curved screen. If anything, it reduces where you can use the screen by wanting to have the vast majority of your viewers coming from a straight-on seating position. Curved is like 3D: if that’s what you’re into, go for it. Have a blast. But if you end up buying a flat TV instead of a curved one, you certainly aren’t missing out on anything.

Atmos Processor Discussion with Dipinjeet Sehdev Today we discuss some receiver options for Atmos. We are joined by Dipinjeet Sehdev Internet Marketing & Brand Relations of Kef Speakers. Here are a few receivers/pre-amps that support Atmos. DTR 40.6 7.2 Dolby Atmos Ready Network AV Receiver Denon AVR-X5200W 9.2 Network A/V Receiver with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Dolby Atmos $1,999 Onkyo TX-NR1030 9.2-Ch Dolby Atmos Ready Network A/V Receiver w/ HDMI 2.0 $1,699 Marantz AV7702 Audio Video Preamp/Processor $1,990 Yamaha RX-A2050 9.2-Channel Network AV Receiver with Built-In Wi-Fi and Bluetooth $1,599 Onkyo PRSC5530 11.2-Channel THX Certified Network A/V Controller with Dolby Atmos $2,499

Top Ten Selling TVs at Amazon July 8, 2105 Best Sellers in Televisions 10. LG Electronics 42LF5800 42-Inch 1080p Smart LED TV (2015 Model) $398.00, 4.1 out of 5 stars 9. Samsung UN40H5003 40-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED TV (2014 Model) $327.99, 4.2 out of 5 stars 8. Samsung UN32J4000 32-Inch 720p 60Hz LED TV (2015 Model) $237.99, 4.3 out of 5 stars 7. LG Electronics 42LF5800 42-Inch 1080p Smart LED TV (2015 Model) $398.00, 4.8 out of 5 stars 6. Samsung UN32J5003 32-Inch 1080p LED TV (2015 Model) $247.99, 3.7 out of 5 stars 5. VIZIO E32-C1 32-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV $269.99, 4.1 out of 5 stars 4. Samsung UN40H5203 40-Inch 1080p 60Hz Smart LED TV (2014 Model) $377.99, 4.3 out of 5 stars 3. VIZIO E50-C1 50-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV $528.00, 4.1 out of 5 stars 2. VIZIO E24-C1 24-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV $168.00, 4.1 out of 5 stars 1. LG Electronics 42LF5600 42-Inch 1080p LED TV (2015 Model) $348.00, 4.5 out of 5 stars Statistics: By Brand Samsung : 4 VIZIO : 3 LG : 3 By size: 30-49" : 8 >49" : 1 By Price $300-500 : 5 >$500 : 1 By Resolution: 1080p : 9 720p : 1 By Display Technology LED / LCD : 10 Top UltraHD / 4K TVs: 35. VIZIO M50-C1 50-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED HDTV $798.00, 4.2 out of 5 stars 40. Samsung UN55JU6500 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV (2015 Model) $1,097.99, 3.6 out of 5 stars The #100 selling TV is #3660 overall in electronics. No OLED TVs appear in the top 100. The #1 selling OLED TV is #5132 overall in electronics; #2 is #15374 overall. The #1 selling plasma TV is #6641. Best Sellers in OLED TVs 1. LG Electronics 55EC9300 55-Inch 1080p 3D Curved OLED TV (2015 Model) $2,499.00, 4.5 out of 5 stars 2. LG Electronics 55EG9600 55-inch 4K Ultra HD 3D Curved Smart OLED TV (2015 Model) $4,999.00, 4.3 out of 5 stars Best Sellers in Plasma TVs 1. LG Electronics 50PB6650 50-Inch 1080p 600Hz PLASMA TV (2014 Model) $699.00, 4.3 out of 5 stars Top Ten Selling TVs at Amazon Sep. 2014 10. LG Electronics 32LB5600 32-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED TV $270 9. LG Electronics 47LB5900 47-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED TV $480 8. LG Electronics 39LB5600 39-Inch 1080p 60Hz LED TV $350 7. Samsung UN32EH4003 32-Inch 720p 60Hz LED TV (2012 Model) $250 6. LG Electronics 55LB5900 55-Inch 1080p 120Hz LED TV $680 5. VIZIO E241i-B1 24-Inch 1080p 60Hz Smart LED HDTV (Black) $180 4. Sharp LC-32LE451U 32-inch Aquos HD 720p 60Hz LED TV $199 3. Samsung UN40H6350 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz Smart LED TV $500 2. VIZIO E500i-B1 50-Inch 1080p Smart LED HDTV $550 1. Samsung UN22F5000 22-Inch 1080p 60Hz Slim LED HDTV (2013 Model) $170 Two TV over 50 inches Two 720P TVs Lowest cost TV $170. Its $199 if you consider 32 inch as the smallest usable TV. Four LGs, three Samsungs, two Vizios, one Sharp No 4K TVs

High Resolution Audio Vs CD Over the past few months you have heard us mention high resolution audio on the show. There are audiophiles out there that swear that if you want the best quality audio then you must listen to high resolution audio. Others out there will tell you that CD quality is just as good. Then there are some that say mp3 or AAC files will suffice for the kind of listening most of us do. On today’s show we will take both an objective and subjective look at the subject. But this will be a different type of show this week. We’ll discuss the subject on the podcast but there is a companion video that will greatly help in the understanding of the topics discussed. Its available on our Youtube channel (HT Guys) or you can find it embedded on the website for today’s post. Before we get into the discussion let’s define a few terms for the purposes of our discussion: Hi-Res Audio - (From Wikipedia) There is no standard definition for what constitutes high-resolution audio, but it is generally used to describe audio signals with bandwidth and/or dynamic range greater than that of Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA). This includes pulse-code modulation (PCM) encoded audio with sampling rates greater than 44100 Hz and with bit-depths greater than 16, or their equivalents using other encoding techniques such as pulse-density modulation (PDM). High-resolution audio file formats include FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF and DSD, the format used by Super Audio Compact Discs (SACD). It should be noted, however, that audio encoded into one of these file formats is not necessarily high-resolution audio. For example, a WAV file could contain audio sampled at 11,025 Hz and quantized at eight bits, which is lower quality than CD-DA. CD Audio - (From Wikipedia) Digital audio encoding: 2-channel signed 16-bit Linear PCM sampled at 44,100 Hz. Objective Comparison For the objective comparison we start out with a Hi-Res audio file (24 bit 96KHz Sample Rate) and then we encode a CD version (16 bit 44.1KHz Sample Rate) from that. We also created 256Kbps AAC file from the CD version for the subjective test. We imported the 24 bit version into Audacity then we did the same but inverted the track. If the files are identical they should cancel out and the only thing you would hear is silence. That is exactly what happened. The next step was to import the both the 16 and 24 bit files and then invert the 24 bit track. We expected to see a difference but not by much. What we saw was a resultant audio track with audio from 14KHz to 20KHz. The audio was not loud enough to hear. Our conclusion is that the two tracks are virtually identical. Subjective Comparison For this portion of the test we used an application called ABX. ABX is a cross platform (Java Required) blind audio test application that makes this type of testing fool proof. Our setup was a Macbook Pro, Audio Engine D1 24bit DAC (Buy Now $169), and Bowers and Wilkins P5 Headphones (Buy Now $250). While not audiophile territory, it's a far cry from earbuds connected to your phone. We had friends and colleagues listen to the Hi-Res vs the AAC file and we found that Ara and two self proclaimed audiophiles were able to hear a difference between these files about 70% of the time. The remainder of the participants could not hear a difference . No one could hear a difference between the 24 and 16 bit audio tracks. Some Thoughts Is this a conclusive test? Not really. We will never say that no one can hear a difference between hi-res audio, CD, and AAC/mp3. So much has to do with the quality of the recordings, the hearing of the listener, and the equipment being used. On the video we import some music that has been mastered since the loud wars started (late 90s) and it's pretty obvious that there is not much dynamic range. Do you really need 24 bits when everything is maxed out? If you are used to listening to music that is loud with little or no dynamic range then you listen to something that is pure and full of dynamic range you are amazed. Truth be told you would be impressed even if you weren’t listening to a hi-res recording. When there are just a few instruments and a vocal you can hear everything including little nuances in the recording. That’s why almost every demo I have heard used artists like Norah Jones or Chris Botti. Its because their music has a lot of dynamic range and the detail in the recording usually blows you away. You can also get that detail with CD quality while saving some money and being just as blown away. Our recommendation is that you rip your CDs in two formats. Do a lossless version for listening at home in a dedicated environment. Then create a compressed version for your portable devices. If you try the test and can’t hear a difference then just go compressed. If you try the test and you can hear a difference, congratulations on having some fantastic hearing skill. This is a blessing and a curse. Finally, don’t get so caught up in listening at the music to

What the H? In the transition from High Definition Television to Ultra High Definition TV, we’ve seen the acronym dictionary go from bad to worse. On the good side, HDTV was multiple video resolutions and display formats, like 480p, 720p, 1080i and 1080p, while UHD is essentially just one. Some call it 4K, some call it UHD, some call it 2160p, but it all really boils down to the same thing for the TVs we’ll buy as consumers - 4 times the resolution of 1080p. HDTV to UHD There are differences between what the professional video industry considers 4K, which is a resolution of 4,096 by 2,160, and what the rest of of get when we buy a 4K TV, or an Ultra High Definition television set, which is typically 3,840 by 2,160 resolution, but the two are quite close. Some TVs support the slightly higher resolution, but for the most part we’re dealing with the one, quad-HD format, that defines UHD. In some ways, this makes the transition from HDTV to UHD very simple. In early HDTV days, there were the EDTVs: plasma TV sets that could display HDTV content but scaled it down to a native resolution of 480p. Then there were two dominant resolution formats, 720p and 1080i. 720p was better for fast moving action while 1080i had better resolution and produced sharper images. Eventually we got 1080p sets, the best of both worlds, and the debate was solved. With UHD, we don’t have to worry about it,. We get 2160p televisions. That’s it. Nice and simple. But that’s not the whole story. It isn’t just a resolution change in the migration from HDTV to UHD. There are so many more changes under the covers, so many more changes built into the transition that are intended to improve our lives and make the entire viewing experience better and more advanced. We’ve talked about many of them before, but sometimes it’s easy to get them confused or to gloss over the relationships between all of them. They build a somewhat twisted web of interconnected relationships it’s easy to get turned around. It happens to us all the time. HDMI 2.0 The High-Definition Multimedia Interface 2.0 specification is typically considered part of the UHD or 4K transition. HDMI cables have been heaven-sent. One cable that carries high definition audio and video in the same connection makes wiring up your home theater soe much easier - so much simpler than the days of old with a coax or SPDIF audio cable and three component video cables, or one DVI cable if you were so lucky to have digital video support on both ends. As the demands for what you can watch on your HDTVs evolves, the HDMI spec has had to evolve as well to support the better video. HDMI 1.4 actually supports 4k resolution, but only at 24 or 30 frames per second. If you want full 4k resolution at 60 fps, you have to get a system that supports HDMI 2.0. In addition to the higher frame rates, the higher bandwidth supported by HDMI 2.0 also allows more audio and video information to travel across the cable. For example, HDMI 1.4 is limited to 8-bit color, HDMI 2.0 can go to 12-bit. That higher bandwidth paves the way for something called HDR or High Dynamic Range. HDCP 2.2 But before we get to HDR, let’s take a brief detour to discuss HDCP 2.2, the next rev of the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection spec also commonly associated with Ultra High Def TV. HDCP has been around since the beginning of HDMI. It is the copy protection part of the spec aimed to keep pirates from getting their hands on pristine, high quality digital formats that they could turn right around and post on the Internet for anyone to download. It is designed to protect the content owners from the evil pirates who want to post movies and TV shows on bit torrent and other file sharing sites. However, what it typically does is just make all of our lives harder. Many of the HDMI communication issues we’ve all experienced between set top boxes, receivers, and other home theater devices are due to the copy protection part of the spec. A part of the spec that probably, in most cases, isn’t even enabled for the content we’re viewing. But HDCP 2.2 is the next evolution, so if you want to make sure you’ll be able to watch copy protected 4K content, you’ll need gear that supports HDCP 2.2. Odds are they’ll never turn on the content protection for most of what we watch, because it would create so many issues with people trying to view it that it wouldn’t be worth it, but if they do decide to enable it, all the devices in the chain: set top box, blu-ray player, receiver, television, etc. will all need to support it for you to see the content. The biggest bummer is that we’ll probably have a whole new batch for HDMI incompatibility issues as some devices begin to roll out with HDCP 2.2 and try to talk with legacy devices that don’t support it. HDMI, for all its benefits, hasn’t been without its issues, and HDCP will most likely compound them, not make them any better. HDR If you can get past the copy protection, and get your devices all talking w

Audioengine B1 Bluetooth Receiver Both iOS and Android device users have easy ways to wirelessly transmit audio. For Apple users, Airplay sends music to the AppleTV and various Airplay speakers. Android users have Chromecast which has similar functionality. But what if you want to OS agnostic solution? Fortunately for you there is the Audioengine B1 Bluetooth Receiver (Buy Now $189). The B1 streams high-quality audio from your Bluetooth enabled smartphone, computer, or tablet to any music system or powered speakers. Audioengine used the aptX codec which enables your mobile device to transmit 24 bit audio to the B1. The aptX® audio codec algorithm originated in the late 1980s at Queen’s University Belfast. The research was focused on bit rate reduction and achieved significant bit rate efficiencies while preserving audio quality. Features: Fast Setup Plug-n-play, no software to install Superior sound and extended range Streams audio from any media player (iTunes, Amarra, Youtube, etc.) Connects to any music system with an audio input Setup: The physical part of the setup is pretty straight forward. Connect power via USB and connect the audio, either RCA or Optical. Then pair your source device through its Bluetooth settings. That’s it! The entire process is less than 5 minutes. Then on your device you select the B1 in your bluetooth settings and anything you listen to will be routed to the device. That means all apps work with the B1. If you have a player that makes use of 24bit audio you are good to go! If your app is only 16 bits, the B1 will pad out the bits to 24 which will get you a better signal to noise ratio. Audio: We tested the B1 with four songs played on an iPhone, Macbook, and Samsung S5. We tried to find music that had a lot dynamic range, (Diana Krall - Fly Me to the Moon, Eagles - Hotel California) as well as some Rock from our youth (Van Halen - Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love) and finally some current stuff (Imagine Dragons - Its Time). The sound was quite good. Highs on the first two songs were crisp and airy. You could swear the piano was in the room with you. The mid-range was smoother than a fresh jar of skippy. Bass was tight and felt full. In all you could close your eyes image the soundstage in front of you. The music was easy to listen to and didn’t sound cluttered or muddy. Summary: Now we’re not saying that the B1 made the music better or clearer but we are saying that it didn’t add any artifacts that would distract from listening to it. If you are looking for a cross platform cross device product that allows you to share your music in crystal clear quality, the Audioengine B1 is made for you.

4DX: The Savior of Cinema? Movie theaters are faltering, at least in our opinion. The large format home theater has reached a price point where it is attainable for many of us. And TVs are so big, you can practically create a large format home theater with just an LCD TV. No need for a projector or a screen or the hassle of running wires to the back of the room. And if anyone can have a huge home theater, what’s the allure of the traditional movie theater? We’ve talked for a long time about the cinema owners and operators needing to modernize. They can no longer rely on being the only game in town. To date, the biggest moves in making the old school cinema house more attractive have come at the concession stand. Full restuarants with in theater service, full bars with beer, wine and cocktails delivered to you while you watch. It totally transforms the experience and some of those theaters are doing really well. Other theaters have renovated the room itself. They have larger, more plush seating that fully reclines, or small couches you can share with a date. The rooms themselves are more elegant, mores intimate than the giant sticky packed houses we’ve been used to in the past. Some even allow you to reserve your seat in advance so you don’t have to worry about getting bad seats. This helps, but even so, most of us would still prefer our couch at home. 4DX To the Rescue But what if the cinema owners could differentiate on technology again. They used to be the only game in town for big screens, surround sound, booming subwoofers. But now we all have those. Then they were the only option for watching movies in 3D. Then that technology made its way home, where we all hate it just as much as we did in the theaters. The next big thing very well may be what South Korean company CJ 4DPLEX is calling 4DX technology. If you’ve been to a 4D movie experience at a theme park, odds are you’re familiar with the concept. 4DX is more than just picture and sound. It combines 3D video and multi-channel surround sound with moving seats, wind, mist, and event scents and smells, al synchronized to the movie, to provide a totally immersive experience. Your chair moves in sync with the movie, wind blows when you’re moving or something flies past you on screen, It all works in harmony to bring you into the movie going experience. A theater can be built or retrofitted with special equipment to support 4DX features, which include: Seat Motion (tilt left, tilt right, tilt forward, tilt backward, raise up, drop down) Vibration Leg Tickler Back Poker Face Air Jets Left and Right Neck Air Jets Water Spray Wind Lightning Fog Scents (from a collection of 1000 scents) Bubbles Rainstorm Snowstorm Heated Air Due to the complexity of the equipment needed to provide this total body experience, theaters must be specially built or retrofitted to accommodate it. In many cases, the work is so drastic theaters can’t even be retrofitted but need to be totally stripped down and rebuilt. And it isn’t cheap. In 2011, the cineplex company Cinépolis invested $25 million and partnered with CJ Group to open up to 11 4DX theaters. That’s roughly $2.3 million per room, and there’s no telling how much the partnership offset the total cost. For starters, every seat has to move, and they all move independently. So you have the seats and the actuators to buy and install, and the wiring to the control unit to make sure they move on time. Then there are the fans and misters, some have these built into the seatbacks, so that’s already included, unless you’re in the front row. Then there are the scent bubble machines. And of course the controlling units to make sure all of these items fire at just the right time to draw you into the movie. It’s complex and complicated. Getting 4DX at Home So what are the odds we’ll ever get anything like 4DX in the home? That’s a tough one. Looking at the surface, it’s probably a long shot. But there are so many technologies in the home today that we never could have fathomed would be there had we took a guess 10 years ago, so if history has taught us anything, it’s that someone will find a way to make it happen. Entrepreneurs listen up. We’re looking for you to show up on Shark Tank with an idea, or set of ideas, for getting 4DX into the home. There are multiple challenges in making this a reality. First are the chairs. Sure there are things like D-Box controlled seats available now, but the 4DX seats take it to the next level. And you have to have one for anyone that may come over to watch a movie. Its almost like the 3D glasses dilemma, but instead of a couple hundred dollars for a few extra pairs of glasses, you’re talking about tens of thousands to add additional seating. Braden’s family alone would need 7 chairs - not even sure 7 of them would fit in the theater room. Next you’d need devices for the wind and mist and maybe even the smells. You might be able to get away with one scent delivery unit to fill the whole room with an

T.H.E. Show The Home Entertainment Show (The Show) was in Irvine last week and we had an opportunity to stop by and see some really cool products. The Show is like CEDIA and CES but on a much smaller scale and with a focus on high end audio. It is a much more intimate way of seeing some of the most expensive products in the home audio world. Since the attendance is a fraction of what you would see at CES or CEDIA you get more hands on time with the gear and direct contact with representatives who can spend a little more time with you discussing their products as well as those of other vendors. There were more than a hundred exhibitors from all over the world. Next year’s show will be June 3 - 5 and if you live in Southern California or are looking for a reason to visit you should start making plans now. There were amps, speakers, turntables, headphones, cables and pretty much anything the audio lover would want to see and hear. Too many products to checkout in the afternoon that we had at the show. We want to highlight a few and recommend that you look for a reason to attend next year. Woo Audio We met with Mike Liang of Woo Audio and he gave us a great demo of their vacuum tube headphone amplifiers. These amplifiers not only sounded great but looked like art. The WA7 Fireflies goes for $999 with a solid state power supply and $1398 for the vacuum tube WA7tp linear power supply. They sounded incredible. I (Ara) even had my daughters in on the action. This is a picture of myself and my daughter Stephanie checking out the equipment. They had a prototype portable DAC that is also tube based and will run about $1,000 when it's released. Its a bit bigger and heavier than the Audioengine D1. But the coolest thing we saw at Woo Audio was their $16,000 WA-234 multiblock headphone and speaker amplifier. One for each channel. This amp comes with multiple tubes so you can optimize your experience based on the music you are listening to. An amp of this caliber required something more than ear buds and for today I used a pair of Abyss AB-1266 Planar Magnetic headphones (MSRP $5495). Imagine… I had $21,500 worth of gear creating music for my ears! I listened to Classical, Jazz, and Rock and was amazed at how full the music sounded. Abyss AB-1266 Planar Magnetic headphones These headphones do not go over your ears in the typical way. They are supposed to rest on your head and stay just off your ears. As a result the are extremely comfortable and can be worn for long periods of time. The frequency response on these phones go from 5 Hz to 28KHz. That would be overkill for most humans but the range I can hear sounded good. ELAC Speakers Elac showed a line of speakers created by noted speaker designer Andrew Jones called Debut. This was my favorite thing I saw for two reasons, one they sounded fantastic, incredible low end from a bookshelf speaker, and two, they are affordable. The frequency response on the bookshelf is 44Hz to 20KHz. A pair will run about $275. They will also sell these as a set that supports Dolby ATMOS with a speaker that sits on top of the bookshelf or floor standing speakers and aimed towards the ceiling. They also showed a subwoofer that can be calibrated via your Smartphone. Friend of the show Ray Coronado posted a video detailing the process: Nordost Audio and Video Cables Way up on the 14th floor where all the really expensive gear is was a cable company called Nordost. So we figured that a cable company on the 14th floor must mean really expensive cables. And boy were we right. Nordost showed off their ODIN 2 line of cables. Which just might be the most expensive cables you have ever heard. For instance: RCA or XLR .6 M $20,000 for the stereo pair. Power Cords 1.25 M $17,000 Speaker Wire 1M pair $30,000 It was a fun show. It had a completely different vibe than CEDIA or CES. There is little chance that we will ever be able to afford the gear that was demoed at the show. But for those who can afford it, there is plenty of manufacturers that cater to your needs. Most of the equipment is handmade with much of it made right here in the USA.

What is the Future of TV? We came across an article written by Jason Hirschhorn posted at LinkedIn titled 7 Deadly Sins: Where Hollywood is Wrong about the Future of TV. It is a very well written, thought provoking article with a great deal of supporting data. And charts. Lots of charts. This is our re-tweet/re-linkedin of Jason’s post, with a bit of our own reaction to and discussion of his points. “Over the past few years, the television landscape has been as dramatic and character-filled as the best of Game of Thrones episodes. To that end, it should come as no surprise that there have been threats that have gone unseen or under-addressed by the major and minor television networks. After a few lively conversations ... we came up with “7 Deadly Sins: Where Hollywood is Wrong about the Future of TV”... Not every threat applies to every network – nor are they equally menacing – but as a whole, we believe they’re critical to both understanding and planning for the future of television.” – Jason Hirschhorn 1. By the Time You’re Ready for OTT, You’ve Already Been Supplanted The article surmises that the traditional TV networks are still playing a wait and see game with respect to Over-The-Top content delivery. Not eager to disrupt the existing revenue model, they will hold onto their cash cow for as long as possible before making any drastic shifts in delivery. But this is a risky strategy. While they wait, the OTT providers are growing, expanding, generating more content and gaining viewers. It might even be too late already for some of the traditional providers. “In the first quarter of 2015, Netflix’s 41M US accounts averaged nearly 2 hours of video on the service each day – making the “network” bigger than two of the four major US broadcasters and twice as large as the largest cable network. At its current pace, the OTT giant will become the most popular video provider in the US by the end of 2015. Not to be forgotten, Amazon Instant Video and Hulu are roughly 75th and 100th largest respectively, and continue to grow quarter over quarter.” Our take: We agree, this is certainly a risky move, but we do see the networks starting to embrace OTT. In fact, CBS’s Video Streaming Service Now Offers Live TV In Over 60% Of The U.S. Live TV is something the big OTT providers still aren’t doing. Nothing live on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc. With the advent of time-shifting, live may not be all that important anymore, except for events and some contest shows. As long as traditional TV is the only place to get the content live, at the time it is occurring, they still hold a very strong hand. It’ll all go OTT eventually. But if traditional TV can hang onto the live content, or if Netflix and Amazon ignore that segment, traditional TV will still be in high demand, either via OTT or the good old living room set. 2. The Future of Millennials and Pay TV Here the article discusses how the younger generations may not reach the point where they want to buy into traditional TV. The theory is that they all will eventually, when they make enough money, have a family, buy a house, etc. But what if that isn’t true? What if they decide the right way to consume content is the same way they’ve gotten used to since adolescence? What impact would that have on traditional TVs revenue model? “However, Millennials and Gen-Z’s are first generations to have these non-traditional substitutes available – and they show levels of engagement with this content that far exceeds that of traditional TV. As a result, we truly cannot know what the future holds. What we do know is that young audiences love these substitutes today.” Our take: This is a genuine risk. Our children love the big TVs and projectors we have, and they demand watching movies and sports in the traditional way, however they watch a ton of content on their phones and tablets. Braden’s two year old is just as content with an iPad as he is with a 100” screen. And when they grown and have kids of their own, their kids will probably be fine with tablets too, so why go traditional TV? There will always be the enthusiast, the one who wants a big screen and traditional TV for movies, sports, etc. But could this become the exception, not the norm? During the 2000s, pay TV service penetrated nearly 90% of US households. Imagine if even half the households in America didn’t have a traditional TV set. This would be a huge cultural shift, but would also be a gigantic blow to traditional TV. There’s no reason the big networks couldn’t go OTT and thrive in that model, but they’re behind. 3. Outdated Organization Model and Priorities The argument here is that the model of thousands of channels to try to appeal to anyone and everyone at any time of the day is broken. Pay TV providers continue to add more channels in an attempt to gain more eyeballs. Love golf? We have a channel for that. Love game shows? Yep, we have that too. But with these extra channels comes a substantial increase in price. Somet

Vinyl Records: A Love/Hate Relationship We have spent a lot of time discussing high vs low quality audio on the show lately. A full feature on the subject is still in the works and should be available sometime in the summer. But along the way we have had a few of you tell us that you still listen to Vinyl on turntables. At the same time we have seen a few companies reintroduce turntables to the market so figured why not take a listen and more specifically introduce some younger ears to how we used to listen to music back in the day. The purpose of this is not to say vinyl is better or worse than digital, but to discuss how the digital age has totally changed how we listen to our music. There are some out there that say vinyl is better because there is no compression and it captures exactly what the artist wanted you to hear. Others say that it just sounds warmer. Regardless of what you think of the quality listening to music on vinyl is a dedicated experience that can’t be taken on the road or while you workout or pretty much anything else. The experience is about the music. Pioneer PL-30-K For our listening experience we chose the Pioneer PL-30-K Audiophile Turntable (Buy Now $299). Features: Full-Automatic Operation Dual-Layered Chassis with 4 mm-Thick Metal Plate Low Center of Gravity Built-in Phono Equalizer It took about ten minutes to setup the turntable. A nice feature of the PL-30-K is that you have an option to connect it to your receiver through a normal RCA input because of the built-in phono equalizer. There is also an adjustment of the amount of weight the needle puts down on your albums which is there to help in tracking and skipping. That’s something you don’t think about with digital files. Experience I (Ara) pulled out all my old albums, some in atrocious condition and some in nearly pristine condition. As a control I bought the latest Taylor Swift album, 1989. I needed something my kids would want to hear plus they are very familiar with the digital version so their young ears should be able to hear any difference in sound. My kids were very amused at the spectacle of removing this large black disc and carefully handling it only by the edges and then placing it on the turntable. Then with the press of a single button the arm lifted and moved its way over to the first track which resulted in Taylor’s dulcet tones emanating from my Kef speakers. I was quickly taken back to when I was a kid. I grabbed the album cover from my kids and immediately started looking at the pictures on front and back and on the inside. I even showed my kids that they would put the words to the songs on the album sleeve. My youngest was enjoying the song and her non-critical ears really didn’t hear any difference. That is until I pointed out some static that was barely noticeable on some quiet passages. This surprised me, even on a brand new album pressed in Germany I was hearing static. Perhaps the arm adjustment could have been made to eliminate/minimize the static, but I was not accustomed to hearing pops and clicks no matter how hard I listened for them in my music. Then the song ended and my daughter wanted to hear a song that was on another disc. I hit the stop button, take the disc off the turntable and put it back into the sleeve, then I pull out the new disc place the correct side on the turntable, and finally raise the arm move over to the track she wanted to hear and miss the starting point. I lift the arm reposition it and lower the needle at the beginning of the song. My daughter laughs and says if I knew it was going to be so complicated I would have just listened to the next song. Sigh… I explained that, for the most part, we would listen to albums in a linear fashion and that many albums tracks were selected in a particular order to convey some sort of meaning. Of course there were plenty of pop albums that had one or two good tracks and the rest were just filler. My oldest daughter kind of liked the experience and wanted to have a party with her friends to listen to my old albums. I think it was more of a retro thing than anything else. But she could see how you could make an evening out of listening to music. When it was all said and done, I think there is no way my daughters will give up their portable music that can go anywhere they go and allow them to create playlists on the fly to compliment their mood of the moment. Although my kids were done with the experiment I still had stacks of old LPs to listen to. So I dug through disco, rock, pop, and even comedy albums from the early 70’s to the late 80’s. And what I found was that I took atrocious care of my old LPs. On the stuff I listened to over and over in highschool you could hear pops and clicks that ruined the music. But still I had a smile on my face. The only thing I could think of was that not only was I listening to the music of my youth, which I can do at a moment's notice on my iPhone, but I was ACTUALLY listening to the music of my yo

What to watch, What not to watch It’s that time of year again. The time when television executives clean the slate to prepare room for the new shows that will debut next fall. Also the time when you get to go through your scheduled or recurring recordings, your season passes, and clean out the ones that have been cancelled. Every year something gets cut too early. Hopefully one of your favorites isn’t on that list. We pulled this data from http://tvline.com. Our sincerest thanks to them for assembling all the info in one place. CBS Officially renewed: 2 Broke Girls: Officially renewed for Season 5. The Amazing Race The Big Bang Theory: Already renewed for Seasons 9 and 10. Big Brother: Season 17 premieres June 24; Already renewed for Season 18. Blue Bloods Criminal Minds CSI: Cyber Elementary Extant: Season 2 premieres July 1. The Good Wife Hawaii Five-0 Madam Secretary: Picked up for a full season; Officially renewed for Season 2. Mike & Molly: Officially renewed for Season 6. Mom: Officially renewed for Season 3. NCIS NCIS: Los Angeles NCIS: New Orleans: Officially renewed for Season 2. The Odd Couple Person of Interest Scorpion:Officially renewed for Season 2. Survivor Under the Dome: Season 3 premieres June 25. Undercover Boss Officially cancelled: Battle Creek CSI: Officially cancelled, but with a cool twist The McCarthys The Mentalist: series finale aired Feb. 18. The Millers Reckless Stalker Two and a Half Men: series finale aired Feb. 19. Unforgettable: Officially cancelled. Possibly renewed by A&E for Season 4. ABC Officially renewed: American Crime America’s Funniest Home Videos The Bachelor black-ish Castle Dancing With the Stars Extreme Weight Loss: Already renewed for Season 5. Fresh Off the Boat Galavant The Goldbergs Grey’s Anatomy How to Get Away With Murder Last Man Standing Marvel’s Agent Carter Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. The Middle Mistresses: Season 3 premieres Summer 2015 (minus Alyssa Milano). Modern Family Nashville Once Upon a Time Rookie Blue: Season 6 premieres Summer 2015. Scandal Secrets and Lies Shark Tank Officially cancelled: Cristela Forever Manhattan Love Story Members Only Resurrection Revenge Selfie The Taste New shows: The Astronaut Wives Club: Premieres in 2015. The Whispers: Premieres in 2015. NBC Officially renewed: The Biggest Loser The Blacklist Celebrity Apprentice Chicago Fire Chicago P.D. Grimm Hannibal: Season 3 premieres June 4. Hollywood Game Night Law & Order: SVU The Mysteries of Laura The Night Shift Undateable The Voice Officially cancelled: About a Boy Allegiance A to Z Bad Judge Constantine Marry Me One Big Happy Parenthood: series finale aired Jan.29. Parks and Recreation: series finale aired Feb. 24. State of Affairs Taxi Brooklyn Unknown fate: A.D.: A long-shot. American Odyssey: A long-shot. New shows: Aquarius: Series premieres May 28. Heroes Reborn: Premieres Fall 2015. Mr. Robinson: Premieres Summer 2015. Fox Officially renewed: American Idol: Renewed for a 15th and final season. Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? Bob’s Burgers Bones Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Officially renewed for Season 3. Empire: Officially renewed for Season 2. Family Guy Gotham: Officially renewed for Season 2. Hell’s Kitchen The Last Man on Earth: Officially renewed for Season 2. MasterChef: Season 6 premieres May 20. Already renewed for next season. MasterChef Junior: Officially renewed for Season 4 New Girl The Simpsons Sleepy Hollow: Officially renewed for Season 3. So You Think You Can Dance: Season 12 (with a tweak to the format) premieres June 1. World’s Funniest Officially cancelled: Backstrom The Following Gang Related Glee: series finale aired March 20. Gracepoint Kitchen Nightmares The Mindy Project: Officially cancelled; may live on at Hulu. Mulaney Red Band Society Utopia Weird Loners The X Factor New shows: Bordertown: Premieres in 2016. Wayward Pines: Series premieres May 14. The CW Officially renewed: The 100: Season 2 finale airs March 11; Renewed for Season 3. America’s Next Top Model: Officially renewed for Cycle 22 (to debut in 2015). Arrow: Officially renewed for Season 4. Beauty and the Beast: Season 3 premieres May 21; Already renewed for Season 4 The Flash: Picked up for full season; Officially renewed for Season 2. iZombie: Officially renewed for Season 2. Jane the Virgin: Officially renewed for Season 2. Masters of Illusion: Officially renewed for Season 2 (to debut in 2015). The Originals: Officially renewed for Season 3. Penn & Teller: Fool Us: Officially renewed for Season 2 (to debut in 2015). Reign: Officially renewed for Season 3. Supernatural: Officially renewed for Season 11. The Vampire Diaries: Officially renewed for Season 7. Whose Line Is It Anyway?: Already renewed for Season 3. Officially cancelled: Hart of Dixie: Season 4 finale aired March 27 The Messengers A&E Bates Motel: Season 4 is a sure thing The Glades: Officially cancelled Longmire: Renewed by Netflix for a 10-episode Season 4. The Returned: Season 1 premiered March 9; Season 2

Dolby Vision There has been a lot of talk about the HDR content for our new 4K TVs. There have been a lot of questions too. We decided it was best to go to a well respected source for some answers. On this podcast we speak with Roland Vlaicu Vice President of Consumer Imaging at Dolby and we discuss Dolby Vision. A Dramatically Different Viewing Experience Feel the drama of a blazing orange sunset over deep turquoise waters, or the power of red metallic muscle cars racing through city streets at night. Be moved as Dolby Vision™ images captivate your senses with astonishing brightness, incomparable contrast, and brilliant color you can feel. With a wider color gamut and high dynamic range (HDR), Dolby Vision revolutionizes the viewing experience in cinema and on TV, complementing ultra high-definition (UHD) TV (4K), so even the best TVs get better. For more information can be found at Dolby’s Website

How to care for your HDTV Most of us want to preserve the life of our home theater investments. Some, who want to upgrade, may not. For those, do the exact opposite of what we talk about. For the rest of us who want to protect our hard-earned investment, to make sure our televisions to last as long as possible, there are a few simple things to remember to make sure you get the most hours you can from it. Most of these apply to any piece of electronics you have in your theater: receivers, DVRs, Blu-ray players, projectors, you name it. Keep it cool Nothing kills a TV prematurely like heat. The TV, especially if you have a plasma, will heat up quite easily on its own. All this heat, if it can’t dissipate, can destroy the internal components of your television. If you don’t allow for adequate air flow or ventilation around the television, you may be killing your set off before its prime. Your television manufacturer will typically list ventilation requirements in your manual. If you live in a very hot climate, you should be concerned about the life of your TV. Not that it needs its own cooling system or dedicated air conditioning unit, but if it is difficult to get heat to leave the room, it will be that much more difficult to get heat to leave the TV. Proper ventilation is key, but you may also want to consider installing some small fans, either in your TV cabinet or near the television, to make sure the air is always moving. Some after-market thermal controlled fans can be used to turn on only when a specific heat threshold is met. It isn’t just heat, humidity can also cause severe damage to a television set. Liquid is the enemy of electrical components and humidity is no different. Do your best to keep the area clean and dry. If you don’t keep it clean, the moisture in the air could mix with the dust in the TV set and form some very damaging gunk on your sensitive circuit boards. More on keeping them clean later. But make sure you keep them dry. While very cold temperatures can impact the performance of the TV, very rarely will they have a negative impact on the life of the TV, unless the extreme cold is also coupled with moisture of some kind. However, rapid swings in temperature, where the set goes from very cold to very hot and then back again, in a short amount of time, can wreak havoc as well. The electronics are tested for extreme temperatures, but assuming you’ll be in Arizona if its hot or Alaska if it’s cold. Try to keep the environment consistent. Keep it clean Dust and dirt are another plague on the extended life of an HDTV. As we mentioned before, dust, especially when mixed with moisture from humidity or anything else, can cause severe damage to the TV. The dust-moisture mixture can cause electrical circuits to connect to the wrong chips, shorting them or overloading them. It’s like the classic problem of “bugs” in mainframe days. Anything on the circuit board that isn’t supposed to be there can cause problems. Proper ventilation is very helpful to reduce dust formation, but even with good airflow, dust still builds up on and around your television set. Routine cleaning is critical. Don’t allow the dust to build up long enough that it can cause an issue. Use a soft rag to remove the dust from the exterior of the television cabinet. If there are vents in the cabinet, blowing them out with a can of compressed air can be quite helpful. You’ll want to be careful with this, though. You don’t want to blow all the dust deeper into the TV and cause your own build-up mess deep inside the bowels of the television. Keep the usage smooth Your television likes to do what you ask of it. It likes to perform for you. But it doesn’t like to do tricks. The less you make your TV work, the longer it will last. For example, the climate issue of quick changes in temperature is not good for the TV. Keep the air temperature consistent as much as possible. Also, constantly turning the TV on and off can cause problems. It shouldn’t. And all manufacturers test this (or at least should be testing it), but the power up/self test/initialize sequence can be intensive. Performing that rapidly and repeatedly could be problematic. You should also look to keep the power going into the TV as smooth and consistent as possible. This more than likely means the use of a power center with power conditioning. Something that will sit between your TV and the wall outlet to make sure that a sudden jolt in power, or a momentary dip in power, won’t make it through to the TV. If you’re using a UPS to maintain power to the TV even if you lose power in your home, make sure the UPS provides smooth (sine wave) power, not choppy (stepped wave) power. For many years to come In the end some simple rules to follow and a couple quick maintenance steps can make sure you get the maximum life out of any HDTV, or any home theater component for that matter. Whether you want to preserve your TV or projector, receiver or amplifier, the rules are pretty much

ZyXEL 1200 Mbps Powerline If you have been with us for a while you know that we have been testing powerline adapters since the beginning. Our first product claimed that it could achieve 85Mbps. And in a controlled world it probably could, but in our homes we were lucky that we got 10Mbps. Still at the time, that was enough bandwidth to support Blu-ray players that didn’t come with built in WiFi. Fast forward to today and almost every device in your home theater needs an Internet connection and almost all come with WiFi. That should be good right? Well with all these connected devices and all your neighbors running wireless routers WiFi may not actually be enough, Especially if you want to stream 4K content. The good news is that the Powerline technology has improved leaps and bounds from the early days, and now there are devices that support the new AV2 MIMO technology. We saw some of these devices at CES and were told they would be available in the Spring. And wouldn't you know it, its Spring and we have one that is actually available for sale! The ZyXEL 1200 Mbps Powerline adapter supports AV2 and can be had for less than $95 (Buy Now $93). The big improvement with this device is that it can use the ground wire to transmit data. The acronym MIMO stands for multiple input multiple output. Theoretically this improves speed and reliability of the connection. ZyXEL claims that it will double the speed and improve reliability by a factor of four of their non-MIMO (600Mbps) devices. But will that translate to actual results? Setup Setup really doesn’t need its own heading because it will only take a few words to describe. Plug one adapter into power and connect it to your router. Plug the other adapter into power near the device you want to connect and then plug in your Ethernet cables. That’s it! ZyXEL recommends that you do not plug the adapter into a power strip or even and extension cord. The whole process take about two minutes. Performance We can say that these devices have come a long way! ZyXEL have speed Indicator LEDs that let you know how fast your connection is. This is the LED that looks like a house with a plug in it. Green means greater than 80Mbps, amber is between 20 and 80 Mbps, and red is 0 to 20Mbps. Our device was green but when measured with our network tools we were getting between 65 and 75 Mbps. The error could have been in our tool but we feel that the device itself was over estimating the speed. Regardless, 75Mbps is the fastest we have every seen over our power lines. Not gigabit by a long shot but fast enough to stream 4K content, browse the web, and listen to music simultaneously. The fastest ZyXEL product we tested prior to this was the ZyXEL 500 back in Podcast #596 where we were able to get 48 Mbps out of it. We didn’t double the speed but we did improve it by 56%. At the time we tested the 500 it cost $75. Now two years later for 25% more money you get almost a 60% improvement in performance. Of course your mileage will vary depending on your wiring and devices you have plugged in. Conclusion There is no easier, or cheaper, way to bring a very fast wired connection to your devices. While it is unlikely that you will ever get gigabit speeds through one of these devices, it it very likely that you will have more than enough bandwidth to stream 4K content as it becomes available.

Panasonic Home Automation Panasonic may not make plasma TVs anymore, forgive us for not being over that, but it still hurts. But they have jumped into the Home Automation game with a system they’re calling the Panasonic Home Network System. We got a chance to check out two of the bundles they have available to get you up and running quickly, the Home Monitoring & Control Kit (Buy Now $249.95) and the Home Surveillance System (Buy now $299.95). Setup We chose to setup the Home Monitoring & Control Kit first. The kit includes the control Hub, a smart plug, two window/door sensors, a motion sensor and a digital cordless phone. Setup is pretty easy, especially for the included devices. It takes a bit of time, but it isn’t complicated. Once you have the hub connected to the app on your mobile phone, each device has its own installation guide to help get that device installed and configured. Adding the included devices is very simple. If you already have them installed when you plug in and setup the hub, the initial installation wizard will add them to your system automatically. If not, or if you decide to add additional devices to your system, it’s as easy as using the app to tell the hub to look for the device and pressing the ‘add device’ button on the smart device itself. Discounting the time it takes to connect a sensor to a wall, windows or door, adding new devices takes seconds. Like plasma TV, Panasonic has also been in the telephone business for a long time. They have a solid history with both corded and cordless phones and business phone systems. Leveraging that expertise, the hub and the compatible home automation devices actually use radio waves to communicate. They use DECT 6.0 (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) that runs in the 1.92-1.93 GHz band. The same thing your cordless phone may use. The Russell house where we tested the gear no longer has a landline at all, so we weren’t able to test any potential interaction issues between existing cordless phones and the Panasonic Home Network System. And we also weren’t able to test the system’s use of the home phone line for additional automation functionality. While you don’t need a landline, it if you want the system to call you when the alarm is tripped, you’ll need one. For maximum coverage and noise-free communications, Panasonic recommends you place your hub at a convenient, high and central location with no obstructions between the devices and the hub in an indoor environment, which obviously isn’t practical. It should also be placed away from electronic appliances such as TVs, radios, personal computers, wireless devices or other phones. The wireless range of each device in the system is approximately 160 feet or 50 meters indoors. As far as range and installation goes, we would periodically see delay between when we clicked a button in the app and the action fired, like a light turning on or off. We never had a delay for automatic actions like turning on a light due to a motion sensor or camera. It feels like the issues could have been more smartphone or app related, or maybe even WiFi to hub to DECT conversion related, but we couldn’t tell for sure. But it didn’t feel like we had any issues with commands due to the range of the devices from the hub or the placement of the hub during testing. Automation Once you have all your devices installed and added to the hub, you can begin to automate them. Automation is all done through the smartphone app. It is very easy to do, but also quite rudimentary. Of course you can manually turn lights on or off, or you can set a scheduled (time-based) on/off trigger, a sensor based trigger or both, but only one of each. So the lights can automatically turn on at a set time, off at a set time, and/or on based on a sensor (door opens when you get home), but that’s it. You cannot setup activity groups in the smartphone app currently. Each device gets its own Smart Control settings and has to be configured independently. You can set multiple devices to trigger on the same event, so it feels like you have them grouped, but there isn’t a notion of groups or scenes for devices. There is an all on and all off button for the lights, and you can configure what happens when you arm the system for Stay or Away. The system includes high level actions to Arm or Disarm the entire system, much like a security system, but Panasonic is careful to point out that their equipment isn’t designed for security, but for surveillance. When armed, the windows and door sensors are put in an alert mode, armed for Stay the motion sensor is ignored, armed for Away the motion sensor is also put into alert mode. If triggered, the hub will play an alarm tone. It isn’t very loud, but you can hear it if you’re in the same room or closeby. Without a landline we couldn’t get the system to remotely notify us of any activity. You should be able to get alerts on your phone if you’re connected to the local Wifi, but we couldn’t get that to h

Next Generation Broadcast TV The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) have their year meeting in Las Vegas in the Spring every year. When we worked for Sony Pictures we would get excited about going and demonstrating the gear we were developing as well as seeing what other companies were showing off. It was not quite as hectic as CES but it was still a great time. Nowadays we are a little more focused on what we take away from the NAB show. In particular of interest this year is the ATSC 3.0 specification. This year there will be some demos of the technology. Layered Division Multiplexing This technology will cram more data into a single channel. Think of this as a bus traveling down the road where the road is the channel on your tuner. You can only get one lane of busses through that road. But what if now you had a double decker bus. On that same road you have doubled the data coming through to you. Its not as simple as just adding levels to the bus. Imaging a three level bus trying to go under an over pass. The main takeaway is that this technology will enable you to get UHD over the air while using only one channel. HEVC H.265 Compression is key to getting UHD content to you. Right now ATSC uses mpeg 2 and Blu-ray uses mpeg 4. With mp4 you get about a doubling of the data as you do with mp2. If you look at the current ATSC spec, television stations are transmitting streams of anywhere between 10 and 18 Mbps in mp2. You can get the same quality mp4 picture with streams of about 5 to 9 Mbps. And if you are using H.265 that drops to about 2.5 to 4.5 Mbps. But rather than give us current quality in less space, the goal is to give us better than Blu-ray quality picture and sound in the same spectrum (channel). The National Engineering Center for DTV from Shanghai, China will be demonstrating a full-chain Ultra HD TV system, which includes a UHD TV presentation system, as well as realtime UHD TV encoding, broadcasting, receiving and decoding. Targeted Ads, Better EPG, and Interactivity A US company will be showing off interactivity and rich media that won’t require a second screen like a tablet or phone. Broadcasters will be able to insert local ads more easily and the EPG gets a makeover. Broadcasters will be able to transmit HTML 5 applications that will support voting and polling. Now you’ll be able to vote for your favorite performer on whatever talent show you are watching right from your TVs remote. Object Based Surround We’re quite happy that its not too late to add this to the ATSC 3.0 spec. There are three competing standards to bring three dimensional sound into your living room. Of course you would expect Dolby’s Atmos and DTS’s DTS:X. But there is also one from Qualcomm and Technicolor. They are testing 60 sound tracks with each of the three systems. When is it all going to Happen? There is still plenty of time to enjoy your ATSC 2.0 TV. The specification won’t be finalized until 2016 and then it will take years before the broadcasters and manufacturers have equipment ready to accept OTA UHD. Look for there to be a brief period where you will be able to buy an external UHD tuner. We wonder if they will provide vouchers to buy UHD to HDTV converters.

Logitech Harmony Ultimate Remote and Hub If memory serves, the very first product review we ever did on the HDTV Podcast was a very early Harmony remote. Back in the days before Harmony was acquired by Logitech. Before the touchscreen models came out. But the remote was revolutionary in how simple it made it for anyone to control even a complex home theater with a single remote, and often just a single button. Continuing in the tradition of changing the game for home theater enthusiasts, the newest member of the Harmony family, the Logitech Harmony Ultimate Remote and Hub ($334) is the next generation of what Harmony started several years ago. As a side note, we paid $299 for it at Amazon when we bought it, so the price fluctuates. If you wait a little while, it could come back down. About the remote From the Manufacturer: One remote easily controls entertainment devices plus connected lights, locks, thermostats, blinds, sensors, and more Intuitive color touch screen: Simply swipe and tap to control channels, movies, 50 customizable channel Favorites and home automation devices such as Philips hue lights or Nest Learning Thermostat Harmony app turns iOS or Android smartphones or tablets into a second, personal universal remote control The Harmony Home Hub lets you control devices in closed cabinets Simple setup on computer or mobile app for control of 15 home entertainment devices and unlimited home automation devices: Works with over 270,000 devices, including your TV, satellite or cable box, Blu-ray player, Apple TV, Roku, Sonos, game consoles, Philips hue lights and more. Setup Getting the remote up and running is pretty simple. Getting it dialed in to exactly what you want takes a bit more time. The remote itself, just like the iOS or Android app, doesn’t send any commands directly to your devices. It sends the command to the Hub and the hub relays the commands to your devices. So to get started you plug in the remote to start it charging, plug in the Hub and position its two included IR blasters to transmit to your home theater devices. That step takes about a minute. Next step is to download the app to your smartphone or tablet. Once you have it installed, the real setup begins. If you’re used to programming harmony remotes, you can skip the app step and program it directly with your computer. Or if your smartphone or tablet doesn’t have bluetooth. But we went the new user route and did it all through the app, for the full experience. The app itself is very clean, simple and intuitive. First step is to connect the app to your Hub using bluetooth. When the app prompts, you press a button on the back of the hub to pair the devices. Once paired, you can connect the Hub to your home wifi network. After you get the Hub on wifi, you’re ready to start doing the real programming. This step took a couple minutes, but mostly waiting for devices to connect. When the hub connects to wifi, it will automatically discover a bunch of compatible devices and make them available for you to control. Ours found a few Sonos players, and a few streaming boxes like the Fire TV. That was pretty cool, but not what we needed to setup the home theater, so we left them alone and manually added our receiver, tuner box, blu-ray player and projector. All of the devices were instantly recognized. That took another couple minutes. If you’ve ever programmed a universal remote, you know that the next step is activities. The app does a good job of walking you through a step by step wizard to configure each device for the various activities like Watch TV, Watch a Movie, Listen to Music, etc. In many cases, you’d be done after this step. We have more complicated HDMI issues, so we had to do some fine tuning, but all told, it took about 15-20 minutes to get up and running using the app to program the remote. Performance The Ultimate remote has the same form factor as overall usage style as the Harmony Touch Universal Remote ($178) we reviewed a couple years ago. The remote maintains a few hard buttons, but really wants you to drive with the touch screen. It feels nice, but has some shortcomings on usability. For full details on the remote itself, read our review of the Touch from Episode 554. It’s a great remote, but not perfect. The addition of the Hub is really great for some use cases. Removing the requirement for line of sight to the devices eliminates issues you may have if you want to store your equipment in a cabinet, have a coffee table in the way, or constantly have people walking in front of you when you’re trying to use the remote. It really cuts down on the number of times you have to hit the help button. We liked that quite a bit. The app worked pretty well, but we found that it had issues at times connecting to the Hub. It would search the wifi network for the presence of the Hub and report that it was missing. We had to manually reconnect them several times. This somewhat diminished the usefulness of the app. It would have be

Wireless Surrounds that Work! We have been on a quest to find a wireless surround solution that not only works but works well! Maybe its because we live in a noisy home or neighborhood but we have not found a solution that has worked well. Either we would get static or in many cases we got nothing. Our last ditch effort took a product that worked with laptops and mp3 players and adapted it to work with our AVR. The centerpiece of the solution is the Audioengine W3 Wireless Adapter (Buy Now $149). The W3 can process USB audio up to 16 bits/48KHz with no compression. However, for our application we used the analog audio input via a 3.5mm minijack which should be just fine for a surround application. For use in a home theater application you would take the surround left and right preouts and hook them up to an RCA to 3.5mm minijack cable. If your receiver has a USB input you could connect the W3 to that and you would have power. In our case we had neither. To get audio to the transmitter we used an adapter to convert speaker outputs to RCA (Rockford Fosgate RF-HLC High Level Speaker Signal to Low Level RCA Adapter $17.50) and then we used the RCA to 3.5mm adapter cable. The W3 includes a power adapter for either the transmitter or receiver. We used it for the transmitter. The final connection to the Cerwin Vega VE5Ms requires an amplifier and the W3 receiver. The amplifier we decided to use is the Audioengine N22 (Buy Now $199) for two reasons. One, its has great specs! Two, it has a powered USB port to plug the W3 receiver unit into. Power output - 22W RMS / 40W peak per channel (AES) THD+N - Frequency response - 20Hz-22kHz ±1dB SNR - >95dB A-weighted We could have gone with a much less expensive amp, and you can too to save the some money, but we felt the power and quality of the amp was worth it on our application. An alternative amp costing about $175 less that you could substitute is the Kinter 12V 2 CH Mini Digital Audio Power Amplifier (Buy Now $10.50) but then you would also need to use an adapter to provide USB power for the W3 receiver. Performance One word, success!! Ara’s wife had been giving him grief about having the surround speakers in the room just sitting there not making sound. The ultimatum was given, either get the speakers doing something or get them out of the room. This was the solution that not only got sound coming through the speakers but did so cleanly. The W3 has been transmitting sound to the surrounds for about four weeks now. There has not been one pop, click, or hiss in that entire time. And this is in an environment that has seen no less than three other wireless solutions fail miserably. Another complaint some have with wireless solutions is that it may affect the wifi performance in your home. In the same period no one has complained about spotty wifi or sluggish performance. At one point Ara thought that some of the issues he experienced with Cox Communications cable may have been a result of the the W3 interfering with his wifi. the good news is that after changing his DNS servers those issues have been cleared up and all is good. Final Thoughts If you have invested a lot of money in your speakers and are in a position where you can’t run speaker wire to your surrounds, we recommend this exact solution. The N22 can provide enough clean power with little distortion which will put a smile on your face each time something blows up or flies over your head. If you need something that works but just don’t want to invest a lot of money, swap out the amp with a lower cost model and you’ll still be happy when you hear something fly over your head!

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