HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

In our last episode we spelled out the reasons the Blu-ray disk, and the DVD for that matter, may not be around for much longer. That sparked some healthy debate at the watercooler and in our email. As you can imagine, pristine, high quality audio and video aren’t the only reasons to hang on to the disk format. In the interest of point-counterpoint, ‘we report, you decide,’ this week we’ll cover the reasons why Blu-ray could hang around for a while.

In this episode we cover the following topics: Manual audio calibration for older receivers Calibration for day and night Large or small speaker settings SpectraCal C6 or i1Pro 2 Enhanced Backlight levels?

Ask anyone who knows something about home theater what is the highest quality audio and video available to mere mortals today and they will tell you Blu-ray. Blu-ray video is stunning and the audio is simply amazing. But we don’t have to tell you that. So does Blu-ray have a future? The following are some reasons why Blu-ray may not be around for too much longer.

This biopic focuses on the relationship between baseball icon Jackie Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, who signed Robinson and in 1947 made him the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era.

For many avid campers and outdoor enthusiasts, time spent away in the wilderness is a great opportunity to unplug and distance yourself from all of the technology that surrounds us everyday. For others of us, the idea of being away from HDTV for an extended amount of time puts us into a bit of a panic. But don’t fret, there are ways to experience the great outdoors and bring your HDTV along for the trip.

We have been talking about HDMI for pretty much as long as we have been doing this show, that’s more than six years. Every now and then we do a deep dive on the latest specification which currently sits at 1.4a. On today’s show we’ll look at what current specification supports and what’s on the horizon.

The Society for Information Display held their annual Display Week conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada last month from May 19 - 24. The show came and went without so much as a mention on the HDTV Podcast, but in our reading and research since the show, it turns out some very cool innovations were on display. Next year’s show will be in San Diego, we might have to make a day trip out of it.

We received an email from Mark in Watertown South Dakota asking us about our opinion of Netflix SuperHD and we thought it would make a great idea for a feature. If you haven’t heard of it before, Netflix SuperHD claims to provide superior 1080p video quality for the same price as regular streaming. But not everyone is eligible.

CE Pro, the magazine for professional consumer electronics installers, is back with another annual installment of the CE Pro Brand Analysis. They put out the survey every year to determine what brands dealers, integrators and resellers offer the most. While we were checking out this year’s update, we came across another White Paper about Home Theater Design Tips & Mistakes that covered some points we thought would be worth talking about.

If you have been listening to the show for the last few weeks you probably know that Ara added some new gear to his home. In the family room he added a Denon AVR-2313CI 7.2 AVR ($600 Buy Now) and in the media room he added a HSU Research VTF-3 MK4 Subwoofer ($649 Direct from HSU Research). This episode gets into Ara’s impression of both products.

There’s a lot of buzz in the home theater industry around the forthcoming Ultra High Definition, or UHD televisions, sometimes called 4K TVs. It turns out the UHDTV specification, often referred to simply as Rec. 2020, gives us quite a bit to be excited about, quite a bit more than just a bump in resolution. When we’ll ever get content for it, or whether or not televisions will really be able to take advantage of it anytime soon remains to be seen. But the spec looks good.

We have been talking about the demise of plasma for at least three years. But with each passing year manufacturers come out with plasma TVs that are simply the best TVs on the market. In a CNET article titled Best HDTVs Overall, the top 5 TVs were plasma, and that doesn’t even include the forthcoming Panasonic ZT60 which won best of show at CES. In this episode we’ll try to compare and contrast plasma and LED LCDs and see if there is a real reason why LEDs are putting plasma out of business.

We’re willing to admit, and we probably aren’t the only ones, that 3D simply is not the next big thing in home entertainment. Sure it sounded cool on paper, but in reality 3D at home just doesn’t provide the immersive 3D experience you get in a theater. Couple that with eye fatigue, headaches and seizures and 3D hasn’t delivered. Of the two options vying for the title of next big thing, OLED and 4K, which one has a better chance of claiming the throne?

Recently manufacturers announced their new AVR lines. Pioneer was no exception. We were able to obtain one of their entry Elite models the VSX-70. The VSX-70 has an MSRP of $750 and is available now.

We like to occasionally take a look at the top selling products at Amazon as a barometer of what is occurring in the larger Consumer Electronics market. Sometimes what we find shocks us, other times is confirms our suspicions, and sometimes it just flat out doesn’t make any sense at all. Yesterday we took a look at the top 10 selling HDTVs. What we found was in some ways surprising, but it certainly wasn’t shocking.

We here at the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast are always looking for new products that make your home theater better. So when we find products that claim to revolutionize something we can’t wait to try them out. We read about the Mohu Sky HDTV Antenna and how it used military technology and kind of chuckled to ourselves about how could that make a difference. Since we were within the specs of the claimed 60 mile radius we decided it was worth yet another antenna test. And yes it does make a difference!

A lot of emphasis is traditionally placed on buying the best equipment you can afford for your home theater. Ask just about anyone and they’ll tell you to stretch your budget as far as you can, dig deep to make sure you’re getting the right receiver or amplifier, buying those outrageously expensive speakers or paying too much for speaker wire or interconnects. If you do that, your home theater will sound amazing and you’ll be the envy of the neighborhood.

We recently received an email from a listener who was asking whether a 7.1 system was something that he should wire his home with. This got us thinking that there are probably a few listeners that may benefit from a discussion on whether a 7.1 system is worth it for them.

Despite Roku being the pioneer in modern streaming boxes, the Apple TV has become the device all others are measured by. But has that changed with the recent release of the Roku 3 just a few weeks ago? We aren’t sure about that, but we know Roku has certainly become even more compelling. At only $99, there’s really no downside to it (buy now).

We are on record of being huge fans of the Harmony remote control. Why not, before the Harmony our coffee tables had four remotes and practically required a user’s manual just to turn the home theater on. With a good universal remote, buttons labeled “Watch TV” or “Watch Blu-ray” make using the system as simple as pressing one button.

In an effort not to be outdone by their peers, many Consumer Electronics companies try to announce their new products at the same time everyone else does. This makes it very easy for us the consumer to know what we want to buy. We don’t have to wait for that last straggler to tell us what’s coming before we plunk down our hard-earned cash. Right now it’s AV receiver season. If you’re in the market for a new receiver for your home theater, have we got a show for you.

Media players have become the bridge to all our content. Whether that content is located in the cloud or on a server somewhere on your local network, these media players turn the digital bits into hours of multimedia enjoyment. We’ve looked a few devices over the years and they keep getting better and better. The WD TV Play is the latest one we look at and at $70 (Buy Now) its priced in about the middle of the pack.

When Netflix decided to get into the streaming business, the company needed a device in your home theater to stream movies to. Just weeks before the box, codenamed Griffin, was to hit store shelves, the project was canceled. But it didn’t die, it came to market under the Brand name Roku and started its own little revolution. Roku continues to innovate and recently announced the launch of the Roku 3.

We’ve watched streaming media go from incredibly choppy and blocky to smooth and nearly HD. As bandwidth increases so does the quality of streaming media. You can easily listen to CD quality audio but streaming Blu-ray quality video is a ways off... or is it? We have an interview with Mark Henninger, an AVS Forum “Newsbreaker”, and we discuss a series of articles he wrote where he compares movies on iTunes, Vudu, and Blu-ray.

Most of us have wireless networks in our homes these days, there’s nothing like the convenience of instant Internet without wires. But we’ve also come to the painful realization that our wireless networks just can’t live up the the rigors of HD streaming, especially if we want to stream multiple videos to different TVs. But as they say with technology, if you don’t like it, just wait a while and someone will fix it. Supposedly the new wireless spec, 802.11ac, can do just that.

A few weeks ago we received an email from a good friend of the show, Jack, telling us about an article he read about HDMI cables. He pointed us to a comment to the article where a reader said that with better HDMI cables changing channels resulted in the tuner locking onto it about a ½ second faster than with cheap cables. (Note: in the accompanying video we credit Michael with sending us the email and actually seeing a difference in lock speeds. Michael helped us with the setting up the test cases).

We have reviewed a handful of wireless HDMI systems in the past, and have been impressed each time at how much better they’re getting and how quickly the prices have fallen. An unfortunate incident in the Russell home recently required a replacement wireless HDMI setup, kicking off a new round of research into what is available on the market now.

There are a few reasons you would want to automate your home. Very close to the top of the list is saving money. And the one item that uses the most energy is your heating and air conditioning system. Today we’ll take a look at four thermostats that let you monitor and control your HVAC system from anywhere in the world. When you decide to build out a complete automation system these thermostats can be integrated right in.

To take full advantage of an automation system, you need a server running that can take action based on events that may occur, these are often called "triggers." You can run a software package on a computer you leave on 24/7 or you can buy a dedicated device for it. If you’re like us and have Insteon devices in your home, one option to look into is the Insteon Hub from SmartHome.

We have had slingboxes for the past 5 years and they have come in quite handy! There have been plenty of Sundays where the Slingbox has allowed us to keep up with our favorite football team. In general the Slingbox is life saving device for those of us who spend some time on the road. Today we take a look at the latest Slingbox, the Slingbox 500. It has a street price of $288 and is available now.

Another CES has come and gone. At the risk of being permanently banned, we've brought back everything we saw and did in Vegas to share it with everyone who couldn't be there. As with every CES, we saw some amazing things and some not so impressive ones as well. Big themes from this year were: 3D is waning, 4K (UltraHD) is emerging, and Plasma may be on the verge of a comeback.

Each year we make our way through the California and Nevada deserts to spend some quality time with the latest in electronics. Today we will focus on what the large manufacturers are planning on showing. This information is compiled by reading through the countless press releases we get sent each day starting in November. The next show will focus on what we see when we are there in person.

Time for the HT Guys to look into our crystal ball and try and predict the HDTV and Home Theater landscape for 2013. Our crystal ball is never as clear as a good HDTV but we always give it a shot nonetheless.

We go out on a limb every year and try to predict what the new year will bring in the realm of HDTV and Home Theater. More often than not, that limb snaps and we come crashing down. Every so often we get a glimpse into the crystal ball that comes out close to accurate. Let’s take a look back at what we thought would happen in 2012 to see how well we did on the predictions.

There are so many Home Theater in a Box systems out there many of which cost less than $400. But seriously, what can you get for $400. A good center channel typically costs more than most HTIB systems on the market today. Each year we try to assemble a Home Theater in many boxes that we would be proud to show off in our homes. Our system will have at a minimum a HDTV, Blu-ray Player, Receiver, and 5.1 speakers, all for less than $2500.

So if we haven’t spent enough of your money this year we get to spend some more. We continue our holiday buying guides with 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. This year there are some fantastic deals to be had!

As promised, we’re back for another annual edition of the HDTV buying guide and just in time for Christmas - we’d like to think it’s back by popular demand. In years past we’ve broken the categories down at times by size and at other times by price. Both are valid, sometimes as a shopper you want to maximize the budget you have to spend, other times you know the size you need and want to find the best set. This year we’ll return to breaking them down by size.

Each Holiday season we put together buying guides to help you make it a bit easier for you to make some decisions on what to spend your hard earned cash on. We kick the 2012 season with our Home Theater in a Box buying guide. To be honest and upfront with you, we are not big fans of HTIB systems because they typically compromise on everything. However, we understand that something is better than nothing and for those of you on a budget this is the best way to improve your experience without breaking the bank.

It's almost Thanksgiving here in the US, and with that comes the biggest holiday of the HT Guys' year: Black Friday. The key to a successful Black Friday is preparation. You need to know exactly what store you want to go to, what you want to get, and when you need to be there.

We received an email about a month back asking us to take a look at the 3M Streaming projector with Roku and since we are suckers for this kind of stuff, we thought why not! It fits in your hands, can run on batteries, and comes with a Roku Streaming stick. We have to say this little guy is a blast to use!

After Braden’s projector blew a second bulb, he thought that maybe being a little sneaky and buying a whole new projector was the right way to get the purchase past the finance committee. He would be upgrading an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 8100 for an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 3010. After all if you’re going to upgrade projectors, you might as well go 3D.

We love gear at the HT Guys and when a new remote comes out we have to take a look. Recently Logitech released the Harmony Touch - a remote that combines a touch screen with physical buttons. We’re not big fans of a totally touch screen remote so we were pretty excited to take a look at one that combines the best of both worlds.

Cord cutters rejoice, the new $99 Boxee will delight and amaze you, and it is a much more normal size and shape. One unique feature of the new Boxee is cloud storage for all your saved DVR content, we're not convinced this is as good as it sounds on paper. And if Sci-fi movies aren't your thing, we close out today with a discussion of Superhero movies.

This episode covers a wide range of topics, from various DIY ways to hide cables in your home theater to why 4K is more important than 3D, but maybe not as important as TV manufacturers would hope. We close out with a discussion on Sci-Fi movies and the role Science Fiction has played in shaping home theater and consumer electronics. Ok, maybe not, but it sounds good.

The HT Guys decided to do a little look back on the digital format that changed the music industry, and set the stage for other formats that would change the movie industry as well. We knew back when it came out that the CD was going to be huge, we probably couldn't have guessed just how huge.

Every time we publish a story about cutting the cord we get a ton of interest. Whether it be a new online service or a new antenna to be used for pulling in free, over-the-air HD signals, our listeners and readers respond with great feedback. So when we found out about a new indoor antenna called the HD Blade we were excited about putting it through its paces.

Black Friday 2012 is coming. In about two months the deal seeking crowds will descend upon stores like Walmart, Target and Best Buy with reckless abandon, gobbling up every deal they can get to before supplies run out. If you’re lucky enough to get to the electronics section without being trampled, you can usually find some pretty good deals. But will they be good enough to wait for if you really want that new TV right away?

Each year CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) holds an event where the industry gathers to show new off new gadgets and technology. We’ve been to a few of these and have enjoyed them quite a bit, maybe even more than CES. It takes the parts of CES that we care about and condenses it down to a lot less walking. We didn’t go this year but that won’t stop us from talking about some of the highlights from the show.

The annual IFA show in Berlin, dubbed “Consumer Electronics Unlimited,” is the second largest consumer tech show in the world - second only to CES in Las Vegas. They are expecting to set new attendance records this year, surpassing the more than 1,400 exhibitors and 239,000 attendees that showed up last year. Berlin is a bit too far for us to drive, so we have to cover the show virtually. IFA, or Internationale Funkausstellung, has been around since 1924 and was originally an international radio exhibition.

It's not as bad as it used to be. Sure we all made it through another Summer with almost nothing to watch on TV. But between Gordon Ramsay, USA Network, Netflix and Hulu, it wasn't all bad. But now it’s time to rejoice. Football is back, and in just a few short weeks all your favorite shows will be back on, and perhaps a few new ones will make it to your favorites list.