HDTV and Home Theater Podcast

QLED vs OLED vs LED The Super Bowl is right around the corner and that is a time when many Americans buy new TVs. Right now there are three competing technologies (QLED, OLED, and LED) readily available for purchase. With the help of RTINGS.com we try to help you make an informed decision. How do these technologies rate on 8 factors important to someone buying a TV. Black Level - Deep black will make colors look more accurate and vibrant Motion Blur - Mostly an issue for video gaming or fast action sports. It manifests itself as a blur on the screen Viewing Angle - Measures how true the image remains when you view off angle. The farther off center the more the degradation. Color Volume - A measure of the ability to express all the colors that can physically be displayed (aka: the color gamut), at any given luminosity, up to the display's peak brightness. Gray Uniformity - Describes how well a TV is able to maintain a single, uniform color on the screen. Luminosity - Essentially brightness Image Retention - Burn In Price and Availability - Self Explanatory QLED OLED LED Black Level Good Perfect Good Motion Blur Great Perfect Good Viewing Angle Poor Great Poor Color volume Great Good Good Gray Uniformity Average Good Average Luminosity Good Good Great Image Retention Great Poor Great Price and Availability Poor Average Great Table Courtesy of RTINGS.com

CES 2019 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is the world's gathering place for all those who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. It has served as the proving ground for innovators and breakthrough technologies for 50 years - the global stage where next-generation innovations are introduced to the marketplace. Owned and produced by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), it attracts the world's business leaders and pioneering thinkers. LG Debuts TV Of Tomorrow With World's First Rollable OLED TVLG Electronics (LG) is defining the next generation of television at CES® 2019 with the introduction of the world's first rollable OLED TV. The LG SIGNATURE OLED TV R (model 65R9) reimagines the everyday TV with a revolutionary form factor only made possible by the company's industry-leading OLED technology, boasting picture and sound quality that is second to none. The never-before-seen user experience gives home TV viewers infinite possibilities in designing their perfect viewing space. Line View allows the LG SIGNATURE OLED TV R to be partially unrolled, allowing for management of specific tasks that do not require the full TV screen. In Line View, users can choose from features such as Clock mode to check the time and weather, Frame mode to enjoy family photos shared from a smartphone, Mood mode to create a more relaxing atmosphere as well as others including Music and Home Dashboard. When in Zero View, all 65 inches of the LG SIGNATURE OLED TV R are hidden from view and tucked away in the base. Even in Zero View, users can enjoy music and other audio content which resonate from the 4.2-channel, 100W front-firing Dolby Atmos audio system. The premium bloodline is clearly evident in the entire unit, from the brushed aluminum casing to the quality wool speaker cover designed by Kvadrat of Denmark. No pricing or availability Samsung Unveils 75 inch Modular Micro LED TechnologySamsung introduced its latest innovations in modular MicroLED display technology during its annual First Look CES event at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. The revolutionary new Micro LED technology designs featured at the event included: a new 75" display, a 219" The Wall as well as other various groundbreaking sizes, shapes and configurations for a next-generation modular Micro LED display – a 2019 CES Best of Innovation Award winner. Due to the technical advancements in the ultra-fine pitch semiconductor packaging process that narrow the gap between the microscopic LED chips, Samsung has been able to create a stunning 4K Micro LED display in a smaller, more home-friendly 75" form factor. No pricing or availability Samsung announces 98in version of its 8K QLED TV The QE98Q900R is a 98in version of the TV that's already available in 65in, 75in, 82in (US-only) and 85in variants. Aside from being a bigger model, the new model in the Q900R range shares the same specs as its siblings, which means it's an 8K display with a full array direct LED backlight that can hit a peak brightness of 4000 nits. It uses the same Quantum Processor 8K, which combines with central server-based machine-learning to upscale all non-8K content in the best quality possible. No pricing or availability but the 85 inch is currently $15K VIZIO Reveals SmartCast™ 3.0 at CES 2019, Adding Support for Apple AirPlay 2 and HomeKit VIZIO, Inc. announced the latest iteration of its easy-to-use smart TV experience, VIZIO SmartCast 3.0, which will offer unparalleled value to consumers through new seamless integrations, features and content offerings. With support for Apple AirPlay 2, millions of VIZIO SmartCast users can effortlessly play videos, music, photos and more directly from their iPhone, iPad and Mac to SmartCast TVs. HomeKit, Apple's secure smart home platform, will also be supported, enabling customers to easily control their SmartCast TVs using the Home app or by asking Siri. Support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit on VIZIO SmartCast TVs will be available for registered beta members across the U.S. and Canada to experience in Q1 2019. Following the beta, VIZIO SmartCast 3.0 will roll out via free cloud-based updates to new and existing SmartCast TVs and displays in Q2 20191. Panasonic's GZ2000: World's Most Cinematic TV Panasonic today announced the launch of the GZ2000, featuring a custom-made Professional Edition 4K OLED panel which incorporates custom hardware improvements by Panasonic. Optimized by a leading Hollywood colorist, the new panel highlights unparalleled color accuracy and significantly better than average brightness levels. The GZ2000 is the world's first* OLED TV to support both HDR10+ and Dolby Vision HDR as well as HLG Photo, the new still image format which brings still photography into the HDR world. Furthermore, the GZ2000 is the world's first TV with built-in upward-firing speakers capable of delivering Dolby Atmos® immersive audio with total ease and convenience. The total audio system has also been tuned by Technics engineers. Also, wi

Predictions for 2019 Time for the HT Guys to look into our crystal ball and try and predict the HDTV and Home Theater landscape for 2019. Our crystal ball isn't as clear as a good HDTV but we faithfully give it another shot nonetheless. MicroLEDs Make a Macro Splash MicroLED are an emissive display technology similar to that of OLED. Likewise, they can, theoretically at least, produce perfect blacks, excellent color, and near-perfect off-angle viewing. But unlike OLEDs, they claim to be even brighter, thinner, immune to burn-in, and in time, less expensive to make than other technologies. Look for at least one MicroLED TV to come to market in 2019. Interactive TV comes to a Screen Near You Thanks to companies like Roku, Apple, Amazon, and Google, many of us have a smart box connected to our sets. In fact, many TVs have the same smarts built into them. Look for at least one manufacturer incorporate interactive TV into the programs being watched through their devices. Participate in fan polls, voting for your favorite contestant, or just chatting with other viewers all from the comfort of your couch! LG Releases a Roll Up OLED Last year at CES we talked about an OLED TV screen that was so thin that it could bend. This year we double down on this technology and bet that LG releases a rollable OLED TV. The screen itself will roll into a box that is about the size of a sound bar when not in use. In fact the same box can house the electronics as well as the speakers truly making it a Home Theater in a box. Home Security Will Drive Home Automation Demand Home security surveillance and monitoring will become the driving force behind home automation acceptance. Compelling ads similar to the ones run by Ring Doorbell will push many to dip their toes in the water surround home automation. Once you have your outside lights automated it's a simple step to automate your inside. And so it will begin for many. Smart Mirrors Look for a company to release a smart mirror that is affordable for "most" of us. Imagine getting ready in the morning and looking into your mirror to interact with your social media feeds, watch news and and get weather updates.You will even be able to control your home all from your bathroom! Voice Control of our Home Theater Will Become a Reality Whether it be the Echo, Siri, or Google Home you will be able to control your home theater with your voice. And not rudimentary control, we're talking Tell your TV exactly what you want to do and it will be done. Alexa, watch A&E Channel on SlingTV. Or Hey Siri watch the LA Dodgers on the MLB app.

Prediction Review for 2018 Wow. Another year in the books. And another year of stellar prediction results! With that it's time to see how we did with our 2018 predictions. If you're feeling nostalgic, the predictions are from Episode 825. This year's scorecard: 2/6 Prediction: Voice User Interface will begin to flourish in Home Theater It's 2018 and we are very used to asking Siri, Alexa, or Google to turn on lights but it's not common that we can use our voice to control our home theaters. The Echo works with the Harmony and Simple Control remotes but it's still kind of limited. In 2018 we will see a Homekit like framework emerge that will allow disparite home theater devices to be controlled by voice. Score: +1 Nailed it. You can get everything with voice control and voice search these days, some companies are even including multiple voice assistants so you can pick whichever one you want. Prediction: IPTV begins to erode traditional cable/satellite product Both DIsh Network and DirecTV said that their IPTV products we not replacements for their traditional offerings. Their original target market was cord cutters. The over the top service was an attempt to win back younger TV viewers. What is actually happening is that high dollar subscribers are seeing the value in IPTV. Watch anywhere and just about any device. The providers no longer have to worry about installing and maintaining hardware. A true win/win! Look for service quality to improve in 2018 and that will speed up the transition. The process will take many years to complete but 2018 will be the starting point. Score: +1 (but a bit of a gimme). Pay-TV Cord-Cutting Slightly Eases Again in Q2 As vMVPD Subs Grow, But Losses Are Mounting - Traditional subscribers are continuing to flee cable and satellite - "which found the major traditional pay-TV services (excluding internet-delivered services) shedding 800,000 subscribers in Q2 of this year" and vMVPDs are growing - "Sling TV and DIRECTV NOW... added about 383,000 subscribers during the quarter (compared to 287,000 net adds in Q2 2017), bringing them to a total subscriber size exceeding 4.1 million. Adjusting for those, the largest pay-TV providers in the US – representing roughly 95% of the market – lost roughly 415,000 subscribers" Prediction: The forthcoming Disney Movie Service gives Netflix a run for the money Netflix is a streaming movie service that now creates original content making for a formidable force. Disney has been creating original content for years and now is getting into the streaming game. They have deep pockets and can buy up a lot of content and be the only service that will stream it. We are betting that Disney makes a big dent into Netflix's market share in 2018 Score: +0 Nope. There's a Disney Streaming Service? Disney is now shooting for a release date in 2019. Hopefully they hit it. Then maybe they can eat away at Netflix subscriber numbers. Prediction: Netflix will change the movie distribution model Netflix currently operates on both sides of movie distribution. Netflix Productions already works with theaters to distribute traditional motion pictures, they secured distribution rights to Kumail Nanjiani's The Big Sick for example. Netflix is also one of the largest producers of motion pictures, in fact Netflix will release more movies in 2018 than most major film studios combined. Most of them will go straight to streaming. But will they all? Netflix will get some of those movies into theaters and make them available for streaming at the same time. Score: +0 Flop. Netflix may have owned distribution right for a few movies, but none that anyone knew about or were playing in a theater anywhere near you. Prediction: (Longshot Prediction) DirecTV will lose it's stranglehold on the TV rights for streaming the NFL For years the only way to watch out of market games for the NFL was to buy DirecTV's Sunday Ticket. That also gave you access to stream the games when you weren't at home. But with declining viewership due to how we watch TV nowadays the NFL will have to do something about it. They are making inroads with streaming on Twitter and facebook. But look for the NFL to offer something like what all the other sports do, an NFL package that will allow you to stream any and all out of market games to your set top box, tablet, and phone of your choice. Then when DirecTVs contract is up, look for every platform to offer a Sunday Ticket like product. Score: +0 Goose egg. Still need to get that Sunday Ticket. Prediction: 4G Optimized Streaming for the Home We still aren't sure if the removal of Net Neutrality will have any impact on our ability to stream from video services that may compete with the company that provides your Internet access, but there are potential issues there. And with 4G speeds in many areas easily capable of streaming high definition, we'll see a push toward using a new 4G device in your home, optimized for video streaming, combined with one of the streamin

Last Minute Stocking Stuffers for the Home Theater Lover It's just a few days until Christmas and you have a home theater lover in your circle that you haven't been able to find a gift for. We "The HT Guys" have you covered. We have a list of items that you can go out and buy from, gasp, a physical store! Yes you'll have to go battle the crowds but with our list it will be easy! All gifts can be had for less than $100. Roku Streaming Stick - Target With Enhanced Voice Remote. Save $15, reg. 49.99 • Roku Ultra streaming player, reg. 99.99, sale 79.99 Amazon Fire TV Stick - Target With Alexa Voice Remote–now faster and more powerful than ever. Save $15, reg. 39.99 • Amazon 4K Fire TV Stick, reg. 49.99, sale 34.99 Wemo - Mini WiFi Smart Plug - Best Buy Convert almost any electronic device into a smart appliance with the Wemo Mini Wi-Fi smart plug. It plugs into any outlet and lets you control attached appliances via mobile devices. $25 TP-Link - Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini - Best Buy Operate electrical appliances remotely with this TP-Link mini smart Wi-Fi plug. It lets you switch lights and other electronics on and off, check their current status and schedule their operation from your mobile device via the Kasa app. This TP-Link mini smart Wi-Fi plug supports voice control when paired with your Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant. $16 Philips - Hue White A19 Wi-Fi Smart LED Bulb (4-Pack) - Best Buy Explore different moods with this four-pack of Philips Hue A19 bulbs. They're customizable to any glow intensity through the accompanying app, letting you set the atmosphere for a chill evening meal or an upbeat weekend party. Control these Philips Hue A19 bulbs remotely to light your home when you're away. $40 One caveat, only buy this if you know the recipient already has a hue hub. If not, you will need to add one at an additional cost of $60 Philips Hue White Smart A19 Starter Kit, 60W Equivalent, Hub Included, 2 Bulbs - Walmart Control your Philips Hue white lights from anywhere in the world, as long as you have internet. Or automate your lights to make it seem like your home when your not. Works with Apple Homekit and Google Assistant. $70 Pyle 90-Watt Mini Blue BT Compact Amplifier - Walmart Turn any set of passive speakers into wireless speakers! This palm-sized high power system features built-in BT streaming that works with all of your favorite devices. It gives you the ability to instantly stream audio from your device's music library and control it all wirelessly. $40 WD 1TB Black My Passport Portable External Hard Drive - USB 3.0 - Walmart If your loved one is a movie fan with his/her own movie server give them the gift of storage! $60 iHome Knit Bluetooth Speaker with Speakerphone - Costco Perfect for the beach or swimming pool. This portable speaker is splash and sand proof. $30 Panasonic Homehawk indoor security camera with 16GB SD Card - Costco Keep tabs on children, pets and your indoor environment while at work, or in the next room with this super-compact, all-in-one Full HD home monitoring camera. $70 Original Ring Doorbell - Home Depot and Office Depot Answer the door from anywhere using your smartphone. HD camera with night vision for a clear view day and night. Triggered notifications, two way talk, and cloud storage. $99.99

Ultimate Home Theater in a Box for 2018 Each year we design a Home Theater setup that is considerably better than a typical home theater in a box. We have seen complete setups for less than $500 from manufacturers like Sony and Panasonic that quite frankly do not sound good. While our system costs more than a name brand HTIB your satisfaction will be dramatically more. Plus we include EVERYTHING you need to actually setup a home theater. Minimum components for our system are a HDTV, 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. 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: Our goal has always been to build the Ultimate Home Theater in a Box without breaking the bank. The ultimate home theater on a budget, if you will. It has been interesting to watch the prices of equipment fall over the years to where we are able to build really nice, really brag-worthy systems without having to take out a personal loan. All of the gear in my Ultimate Box might total up to less than the cost of any year I've built yet. TV TCL 65" 65R617 4K UHD Dolby Vision HDR Roku Smart LCD TV $999 It wouldn't be a Braden TV list without a TCL on it. TCL's 6-Series delivers 4K HDR picture performance and the Roku TV smart platform in one. Dolby Vision for greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich colors. TCL's Contrast Control Zone technology individually optimizes the image across up to 120 zones for better contrast. The 6-Series models' iPQ Engine™ provides precise color replication while HDR Pro Gamma is supposed to improve HDR performance in any setting. It has an enhanced remote control with Voice Control and 3 HDMI 2.0a ports with HDCP 2.2 (1 ARC). Receiver Marantz SR6012 $949 (MSRP $1499) 9.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD Network AV Surround Receiver with HEOS I just bought this receiver for myself - will be putting it under the tree just for me. The deal was too good to pass up. And I need a new one anyway. And it features Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround decoding, with the ability to drive overhead speakers. It is equipped with 9 channel amplification, rated at 110 watts per channel, so you can set up a 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 3D experience without an external amplifier; with an additional amp the set-up can expand to 7.1.4, because it has 11.2 channel processing support. It has the latest HDMI and HDCP 2.2 specifications on all 8 HDMI inputs. With 4K Ultra HD 60Hz video, 4:4:4 Pure Color sub-sampling, High Dynamic Range (HDR), 21:9 video, 3D, and BT.2020 and Dolby Vision pass-through on every input. And in addition, HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma) pass-through is also supported for forthcoming HDR broadcasting contents, and eARC (Enhanced Audio Return Channel) will be supported via a firmware update as well. Speakers Klipsch Black Reference Theater Pack 5.1 Surround Sound System $849 Sure, this is only 5.1 and the receiver will do 9, but it's a great start with really great sounding speakers. You can add on as many additional satellite speakers, or Klipsch reference in wall or in ceiling speakers, as you have budget for them. Did I mention the subwoofer is wireless? Klipsch's exclusive Tractrix Horn Technology and aluminum tweeters deliver very clean and very natural sound. The down-firing wireless subwoofer is designed to deliver room-filling low frequencies without requiring too much floorspace. To complement the easy placement of the wireless subwoofer, each satellite speaker has a keyhole mount and a threaded insert for maximum mounting flexibility. The Reference Theater Pack brings the Klipsch cinematic sound into your home with an incredibly minimal footprint. Other/Total/Summary Yup. Looks and feels like me. TCL/Roku television, Marantz receiver (I'm typically Denon, but Marantz is a close sibling), and Klipsch speakers. All of that for a grand total of $2797. That's less than half the price of my first plasma. And all you need to hook it up is a bit of speaker wire and a single HDMI cable. Your phone can control the Roku TV and the Receiver, so no need for a universal remote. The TV has all your apps and the receiver can get audio from the apps via ARC for surround sound. Unless you want to connect a traditional cable or satellite box, or a Blu-ray player, everything you need is in the box. Some years passed have had bigger TVs, some have had more speakers (7.1), some have had more accessories. But this system, for as basic as it seems, is really awesome. And very affordable. The 75" upgrade would add $1000 if you stick with TCL, but can be as little as $400 more if you choose a different brand (which may mean adding a streaming box as well). The 86" upgrade adds $2000 to the price, for a total of $4797. Also swaps TV brands to LG. Honestly, under $5000 for this system is unreal.

HDTV Buying Guide 2018 Tis the season for us to go shopping and to continue to help you spend your money - one of our favorite times of the year. If you or anyone in your life is looking for a new UHD TV this Christmas, but still aren't sure which one to buy, we've got you covered. We each pick two TVs and one 'money is no object' / 'dare to dream' TV for you to consider. Ara's Picks LG UK6570PUB 4K HDR Smart LED UHD TV w/ AI ThinQ® - 70" Class $999.99 Seventy inches for $1,000??? Are you kidding me? This can make any family room feel like media room. Even though it's 70 inches it does not dominate the room. Measuring in at 61.9" (157cm) x 38.6" (98cm) x 11.7" (29cm) and weighing only 92 lbs (41Kg) it can be bought, moved, and installed by just about anyone. Features include: active HDR 4K (HDR10 and HLG), webOS 4.0, ultra Luminance which enhances brightness and provides better contrast, quad-Core Processor to continually process the video for best results regardless of source, ultra Surround Sound but really who cares about that? Hard to believe but this is my budget TV. It also comes in 75" and 86". Sony XBR75X900F 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV $2800 My second pick goes up in size picture quality and price (although the TV is available in 50 - 85 inch sizes). The reason I picked this Sony is it is a full array LED architecture which will give you deep blacks and high contrast. Also I have been very impressed with the X1 processor on Sony TVs. This model comes with the X1 Extreme processor which improved your 1080p content. The X900F can handle HDR10, Hybrid Log-Gamma and Dolby Vision™ making it a TV that is pretty much future proof! Other features include: compatible with Amazon Alexa & Google Home to change channels & more, dimensions 66 x 40 3/4 x 14 inch, 4 HDMI inputs. Braden's Picks TCL 65" 65R617 4K UHD Dolby Vision HDR Roku Smart LCD TV $999 It wouldn't be a Braden TV list without a TCL on it. TCL's 6-Series delivers 4K HDR picture performance and the Roku TV smart platform in one. Dolby Vision for greater brightness and contrast, as well as a fuller palette of rich colors. TCL's Contrast Control Zone technology individually optimizes the image across up to 120 zones for better contrast. The 6-Series models' iPQ Engine™ provides precise color replication while HDR Pro Gamma is supposed to improve HDR performance in any setting. It has an enhanced remote control with Voice Control and 3 HDMI 2.0a ports with HDCP 2.2 (1 ARC). Add a pair of Roku TV Wireless Speakers for soundbar performance with almost no setup or configuration. It's a great TV that can be the center of an awesome home theater or an impressive addition to a bonus room or game room. Samsung QN75Q6 Flat 75" QLED 4K UHD 6 Series Smart TV $2499 Stepping up a little in size and opting for better picture quality requires we more than double the price. And this isn't even the top of the line QLED series, but as the entry line, you can still get a pretty good value on a really good set. A 75" TV is a really good size for just about any room in most homes and QLED has emerged as a strong second place option to the significantly more expensive OLED sets on the market. In addition to the stellar QLED picture quality and HDR, it has a bunch of cool features like Ambient Mode that can put art on the TV so it blends perfectly with your décor, and can even play a bit of light background music. Bixby Voice search lets you search for content, flip channels, or even ask questions such as the current weather using only your voice. OneRemote automatically detects and controls all your compatible connected devices and content. The universal guide brings your favorite content from multiple devices and apps together in one easy-to-browse menu. And you can even download the SmartThings App on your mobile to control and monitor your new QLED TV and connected devices all in one screen! Ultimate Christmas Present Ara: Samsung QN88Q9FAMFXZA 88" Q9F QLED 4K TV $20,000 This TV will make you forget about your projector! QLED has not received the accolades that it really deserves. With Samsung's Elite Black+ with Infinite Array backlight system the Q9 gets very close to OLED in black and contrast. It can also provide a brighter picture. The only real knock we have is that off angle viewing is not as good as OLED. However, with a TV this size is there really someplace in the room that is off angle? Keep that in mind if this is a possibility for you. Other features include: 100% color volume, smart TV, OneRemote automatically detects and controls your connected devices (satellite, cable, Blu-ray, soundbar) and content with no manual programming required, Burn-In Free for life, Guaranteed. Braden: Samsung QN85Q900RAFXZA 85" Class Q900 QLED Smart 8K UHD TV $14,999 Not quite as big as Ara's 88 inch Samsung, but this 85 inch set is $5000 less and, yep, 8K. Before you say that 8K is a waste, there's no content and there won't be for a long time, an 85" TV is pretty big.

Receiver Buying Guide 2018 This week starts our annual shopping spree where we get to spend your money on new products for your home theater. We'll start the spree with receivers. As always, our goal is to maximize the value for your dollar, so we aren't necessarily concerned about getting the latest product or the latest features. It's about getting a good product at a great price so you may even see some of last year's gear on the list. All these receivers are readily available online or at a big box store. We each pick three receivers in increasing price categories, less than $500, less than $1000 and over $1000. Prices stated are street prices from online retailers. Ara's Picks Sony STR-DN1080 7.2 Channel Home Theater AV Receiver ($450 Street Price) It's been a while since I have recommended a Sony product that wasn't part of their ES line. But for the price this receiver is hard to beat! It's a 7.2 receiver that supports all the latest audio formats including Atmos and DTS:X. Through in 4K UHD compatibility with support for HDR (HDR10, HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma), and Dolby Vision) and you have a reasonably priced receiver that will serve you well for many years to come. Other features include: Hi-Res compatible, 6 HDMI in and 2 out, Bluetooth Connectivity with NFC one touch, and Wifi, Airplay, and CHromecast compatibility. Onkyo TX-RZ730 9.2-Channel Network A/V Receiver ($740 Street Price) I tried to not include an Onkyo receiver this year. It's just too easy to put an Onkyo on a list like this because of the tremendous bang for the buck. But when I looked at all the options open to me I just could leave this unit off the sub $1000 category. This unit is jam packed with features. For starters, it's THX Certified Select. You may not have a THX certified room, but having a receiver that is THX certified means that the receiver was sent to THX labs where everything from noise levels and distortion to frequency response and bass management have been tested and analyzed in over 1,000 laboratory tests. What that means to you is that the receiver will not be the weak link in your home theater. Features include: 4K UHD with support for HDR (HDR10, HLG (Hybrid Log-Gamma), and Dolby Vision), Native DTS:X™ and Dolby Atmos® to 5.2.4 Channels, 11.2 multi-channel pre-outs & processing for 7.2.4 (with amp), Chromecast built-in, AirPlay, Wi-Fi®, and Bluetooth®, AccuEQ Advance calibration with AccuReflex Technology, FlareConnect™ Multi-room Wireless Audio Distribution, HDMI® 7 In (1 Front), Main Out, Sub/Zone 2 Out This receiver is just about future proof! Yamaha RX-A3080 AVENTAGE 9.2-Channel AV Receiver with MusicCast ($1999.95 Street Price) If you watch movies or spend time listening to hi fidelity audio this receiver is for you! It's packed with components specifically designed to enhance your listening experience including two ESS SABRE™ DACs for some of the lowest noise levels in the any receiver in its class. The 3080 comes with 9 amplifiers to support a 7.2.2 Atmos setup but has the processing available for a 7.2.4 Atmos or DTS:X setup with the use of an external amplifier. Features include: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth®, AirPlay®, Spotify Connect and MusicCast multi-room, New Surround:AI™ technology automatically optimizes the sound in real-time, HDMI with HDCP 2.2 (7-in/3-out), 4K Ultra HD support, HDR10, Dolby Vision™, Hybrid Log-Gamma and BT.2020, YPAO R.S.C., Multipoint, 3D and Precision EQ and much more! Braden's Picks This year I'm all about bang for the buck, maximizing features and performance for your hard earned dollars. I usually try to pick models from a few different manufacturers, to provide a bit of diversity, but this year is different. This year it's simply the best unit for the money, regardless of who makes it. Denon AVR-S940H $499 (MSRP $579) 7.2 Ch. High-Power 4K AV Receiver with Amazon Alexa Voice Control Featuring discrete high-current power amplifiers on all channels, the AVR-S940H delivers maximum performance and 185 watts of power per channel. The AVR-S940H offers Dolby Atmos®, DTS:X™ and DTS Virtual:X®, plus the latest video technologies such as Dolby Vision™, HDR, HLG and 4K video upscaling. Listen to music using Airplay 2, stream with Spotify, Pandora, Tidal and more with HEOS built-in and control it with your voice through Amazon Alexa. 8 HDMI inputs and 2 outputs features HDCP 2.2 support on all ports. The front-panel USB offers convenient audio playback of MP3, WAV, FLAC, ALAC and DSD (2.8/5.6MHz) files. Marantz SR6012 $949 (MSRP $1499) 9.2 Channel Full 4K Ultra HD Network AV Surround Receiver with HEOS Features Dolby Atmos and DTS:X surround decoding, with the ability to drive overhead speakers. It is equipped with 9 channel amplification, rated at 110 watts per channel, so you can set up a 7.1.2 or 5.1.4 3D experience without an external amplifier; with an additional amp the set-up can expand to 7.1.4, because it has 11.2 channel processing support. It has the latest HDMI and HDCP 2.2 specific

Each year at this time of year we do a show where we discuss what we are thankful for. There are the obvious things to be thankful for like our families, especially our wives who put up with our home theater obsessions. And of course we are thankful for you, the listener/reader of our show. So as is tradition over the last many Thanksgivings, on today's show we give you our list of consumer electronics things we are thankful for. Ara's List: 1) Wireless - Seems like everything is going wireless these days. But for me the big draw is wireless audio. Whether it is surround speakers or subwoofers it's is much easier to place speakers throughout the house in a way that is pleasing to the aesthetics committee. 2) Bigger Screens - Back in 2010 I installed a projector and 100 inch screen in my media room. At that time it cost me about $10K for a beautiful 1080p image. But the drawback was that it didn't really work during daytime hours. Fast forward to today and I can get an 85 inch 4K UHD TV for less than $5K and it will usable during daytime hours. Yes I am giving up 15 inches but being able to watch football in daylight more than offsets the loss in screen size. 3) Netflix/Amazon/Hulu - This makes my list almost every year but this year it's for a couple of reasons. First they produce great content and that alone usually is enough to make this list. The second, and main, reason for making this year's list is that they are at the forefront of creating 4K UHD content with HDR. Now you really have a reason to buy a 4K UHD TV this year!! 4) Samsung and LG - The competition between these two companies advances technology and keeps prices low. LG is banking on OLED and Samsung is banking on anything but OLED. I am really rooting for Micro LED to be a cheaper OLED and the competition from Micro LED to force OLED prices down. Either way, there will be a new TV in my future! Braden's List: 1) OLED - I don't own an OLED, but I like the cut of its jib. We've gone through a slew of failed attempts to get us all to upgrade our televisions, things like 3D, curved screens, the list goes on. OLED is a reason to upgrade that is actually worth it. The picture quality is unmatched. And on top of that, it pushes all the manufacturers to come up with new innovations to find technologies that rival OLED picture quality. So whether you're buying OLED or not, TVs are getting better for all of us. 2) SlingTV - I used SlingTV one time, for the two week trial, to get an emergency sporting event when cable went out in one of my rooms at home. I'm not so much thankful for SlingTV itself as a service, but more for the category of service providers it spawned, like DirecTV Now, Playstation Vue, Hulu Live, YouTube TV, etc. I've used a few of them and love the ease of use, availability and no contracts. If we can get Internet provider diversity with fiber or 5G or whatever, we might actually swing the balance of power for TV over to the consumer. 3) Roku - I really love my Roku TVs. They are so, completely simple, easy to use, and they perform really well. And they just work. You don't need a remote, you can use your phone. You don't need a soundbar, you can use the new Roku wireless speakers - you just hang it on the wall, plug it in, and you're set. And Roku is neutral, so they'll list everyone's apps. Everyone whos is good and sharing and plays nice with others, or course. 4) Costco - Costco really paved the way in the "huge TVs for great prices" category. That category has been jumped on by Amazon and others, but Costco continues to be a contender in the group. In fact, I'm seriously considering picking up an 85 or 86 inch TV on Black Friday for that magical $2500 price point, and Costco is one of the stores on my list of potential places to go - or websites to visit at least.

The older we get, the more things seem to sneak up on us, even though we know we should be expecting them. It happened again; Black Friday is already here. Just like all the years we've talked about it, there are some exceptional deals to be had. The question is where to you put your focus. If you're going to wait in line somewhere, where is the right place to maximize your reward for that time? Resources: www.blackfriday.com www.blackfriday.fm www.bfads.net Target Element 55" Smart 4K UHD TV for $199.99 Samsung 65" 4K HDR UHD Smart TV for $799.99 TCL 55" 4K Ultra HD Smart UHD Roku TV for $349.99 Samsung 50" 4K Ultra HD UHD TV for $329.99 Philips 50" 4K Ultra HD Smart UHD TV for $249 LG 49" 4K Ultra HD UHD TV for $329.99, 43" for $269.99 Polaroid 32" 720p LED TV for $79.99 Vizio 28-in. 2-Channel Soundbar for $49.99 Google Home Mini for $25, Chromecast Video for $25 Amazon Echo for $69, Echo Dot Gen. 3 for $24, Echo Dot Gen. 2 for $19.99 BestBuy Insignia 32" LED 720p HDTV for $89.99 Toshiba 43" 4K UHD TV with HDR – Fire TV Edition for $129.99 (Doorbuster) Insignia 32" LED 720p Smart HDTV Fire TV Edition for $129.99 Insignia 39" LED 720p HDTV for $129.99 TCL 32" LED 1080p Smart HDTV Roku TV for $149.99 Sharp 40" LED 1080p Smart HDTV Roku TV $149.99 Sharp 55" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR Roku TV for $249.99 (Doorbuster) Insignia 50" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR, Fire TV Edition for $279.99 Samsung 50" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR for $327.99 Toshiba 55" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR, Fire TV Edition for $349.99 Sony 65" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR for $999.99 Samsung 65" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR for $997.99 LG 75" LED Smart 4K UHD TV with HDR for $999.99 Samsung 82" LED NU8000 Series 4K UHD TV with HDR for $2999.99 Amazon - Fire TV Cube 4K Streaming Media Player with Alexa for $59.99 Apple HomePod $250 Ring Doorbell 2 + Echo Dot 3rd gen: $14 Wal*Mart Hisense 40EU3000 40" 1080p HDTV for $99 (Doorbuster) Samsung UN32M4500 32" Smart LED HDTV for $178 Hisense 55R6000E 55" Roku Smart 4K UHD LED TV for $248 Vizio 60" Smart 4K UHD LED TV w/ Built-In Chromecast for $498 Samsung 55" Smart 4K UHD LED TV for $398 Sharp/TCL 65" Roku Smart 4K UHD LED TV for $398 (Doorbuster) LG 2.1-Ch. 300W Sound Bar w/ Subwoofer for $99 Samsung 4.1-Ch. 200W Soundbar w/ Subwoofer for $169 Beats X Wireless Earphones for $75 Merkury Smart WiFi LED Light Bulb for $10 Netgear Nighthawk AC2600 Wi-Fi router: $99 (save $100) Linksys Velop Mesh Router 3 Pack: $200 (save $150) Costco Vizio 40" 60Hz 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $199.99 TCL 50" Roku 4K UHD LED TV for $279.99 Vizio 55" 120Hz Chromecast 4K UHD LED TV for $449.99 Bose On-Ear Bluetooth Wireless Headphones for $99.99 Sam's Club LG 43" Smart 4K UHD TV for $269 LG 55" Smart 4K UHD TV for $399 Vizio 55" Smart 4K HDR UHD TV for $449 Vizio 65" Smart 4K HDR UHD LED TV for $529 LG 65" Smart 4K UHD TV for $599 LG 70" Smart 4K HDR UHD LED TV w/ AI ThinQ for $869 Samsung 75" Smart 4K HDR UHD LED TV & Xbox One S 1TB Console Bundle for $1,279 LG 86" Smart 4K UHD LED TV for $2,499 Other: Dell Website - Samsung 55 Inch LED 4K UHD Smart TV - UN55NU6900BXZA $397.99 Dell Website - LG 65 Inch 4K LED Ultra HD HDR Smart TV - 65UK6090PUA $599.99 Amazon - Amazon Fire HD 8: $50 at Amazon ($30 off) Amazon - Echo Dot (third-gen): $24 at Amazon ($26 off) Amazon - Amazon Smart Plug for $5 with purchase of any Echo device (save $20) ABT - Onkyo 7.2-Channel Black Network AV Receiver - TX-NR676 $299 ABT - Klipsch 10" Black Wireless Subwoofer - 1063513 $249

We recently read a news story about a TV streaming service from SilconDust, makers of the HDHomerun a device that allows you to take your over the air TV signal and broadcast it over your network to mobile devices as well as set top boxes like the AppleTV. Milton Scritsmier of Boulder Colorado was kind enough to write in with his experience of the service. It was a bit longer than a typical email but we wanted to share it with our listeners so we turned it into a segment on the show. --------- I've been using it for the last month and overall I'm happy. It should only be considered by people who can get OTA broadcasts. But if you do, it has two big advantages the other streaming TV services don't. One, because OTA is free, you don't have to pay for local TV stations in the SiliconDust package. You get all the broadcast networks offered in your area, not just some of them. The money saved this way can go for the other channels SiliconDust offers in its package (it currently costs $34.99 per month). I'm pretty happy with the channels provided, but it's not heavy on sports. Two, you can use your own network storage device as a DVR. This means you are not limited in the number of shows you record nor how long you keep them since it only depends on the size of the disk you have. The number of simultaneous viewers of recorded shows is limited by only what your NAS and your network will support. The shows are recorded in H.264 and can be viewed on all kinds of equipment and players. It also means you can skip over commercials any time you want. The quality is better than what I've seen with DirectTV Now, the only other streaming TV service I've tried. Because SiliconDust's equipment works with Plex, you can use it for remote viewing of shows on any device that supports Plex. It does require a significant outlay in equipment to get started beyond the monthly fee. I paid $150 for SiliconDust's HDHomeRun Connect, which lets me record four OTA shows at a time in addition to whatever is sent to me over the internet. To activate the SiliconDust's DVR service there's a $35/year annual fee. You need some kind of set top box like an Amazon FireTV to run the HDHomeRun app which displays the shows on your TV. If you don't have an antenna for OTA, you'll have to pay for that as well. I live in a remote area and a year ago it cost me $500 to have a professional mount an antenna on my roof and calibrate it. Finally, to record the shows you'll need some kind of NAS. This can cost $200 to $300 for a low-end one if you don't have one already and it needs to be one supported by SiliconDust (for example, WD's NASes work well). The other big downside is that the user interface is still in its early days. For example, it sometimes gets lost when navigating the schedule. Because the HDHomeRun app has to run on set top boxes and other devices without sophisticated remotes, the user interface is not ideal like it is on a TiVo. But the user interface is not laggy like it is on some other streaming services. Because of the OTA and equipment requirements, I don't expect SiliconDust's streaming TV service to become one of the majors. But many people who have cut the cord may already have many of the pieces. I already had most of the equipment mentioned above and I cobbled together a NAS from a 7TB external drive and a Raspberry Pi super-clone, so the initial outlay was not that much for me.

The 10 most popular TV shows of the year so far, according to Nielsen ratings To find out which shows were the most popular this year so far, Nielsen estimated the average number of US viewers tuning in to regularly scheduled programming. ABC's massive success with "Roseanne," along with CBS' high ratings across numerous shows on this list, demonstrates how broadcast networks remain the heavyweights in overall viewership — even in the age of streaming. Here are the 10 most popular TV shows of 2018 so far, according to Nielsen's ratings. Fall TV's 10 biggest winners and losers A candid rundown of the 2018 season's early breakouts and disappointments What's Working (and What Isn't) on Network TV This Fall Network TV isn't dead, but it's sure not getting any healthier. That's the headline from the just-concluded first week of the fall 2018 TV season, which offered little reason for broadcast execs to expect a sudden reversal in the downward ratings trend of the past decade. It's not that America doesn't still watch a lot of traditional broadcast TV: Even the least-watched network shows last week will end up with bigger audiences than almost everything on cable. The problem is, returning shows continued to bleed viewers — particularly compared to audience levels of just a couple years ago.

The HT Guys are giving away a custom speaker bar built by Ara. To enter fill out the form at www.htguys.com/soundbar. We'll announce the winner on the November 2nd show. All entries must be received by Thursday November 1st Noon Pacific time. One entry per person. Winner must have a US or Canadian shipping address.

Sub $500 Receiver Recommendation I received and email from Santosh in the Bay Area of California asking if I could recommend a receiver for a modest ho me theater system to go in his medium sized family room. I thought no problem! I know the exact receiver to recommend. However, like everyone, he did have some requirements the biggest one being that it could not exceed $500. On Santosh's must have list, 4K, HDR, and ARC to support Digital Audio from his smart TV. Three manufacturers immediately came to mind, Denon, Pioneer, and Yamaha. In this price range almost all of these receivers would provide similar results. For Santosh I decided to recommend the Yamaha RX-V685. It can be found for $499.99 at most online retailers most of which come with free shipping as well. From a feature set it does include 4K, HDR, and ARC which were the table stakes for Santosh's needs. But the receiver does so much more. The full feature set follows: 7.2-Channel powerful surround sound with Zone 2 Wi-Fi®, Bluetooth®, AirPlay®, Spotify Connect and MusicCast multi-room Pandora®, Spotify, SiriusXM Internet Radio, TIDAL, Deezer, Napster and more HDMI® with HDCP 2.2 (5 in/2 out) 4K Ultra HD, HDR10, Dolby Vision™, Hybrid Log-Gamma and BT.2020 Voice control using your Alexa device like Echo or Echo Dot MusicCast Surround capable: add MusicCast 20 or MusicCast 50 speakers to create a 5.1-channel setup with wireless rear surrounds There is so much to like about this receiver beyond the specs. We often hear about people being intimidated with setting up their receivers. Yamaha has you covered with an app that walks you through the setup. Sure manuals do that as well but an app can highlight and animate actual steps thus reducing setup time and errors. If you are an Amazon Echo home you will like that the 685 supports voice control. Turn up the volume or cast music to another room. All done via voice! Although not on Santosh's list the receiver supports wireless surrounds which was an added bonus for him. With the addition of two MusicCast-20 wireless speakers ($399) Santosh was able to easily add surrounds. The receiver also supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive sound formats. Conclusion Odds are you will get a 4K TV before you swap out your receiver but you won't get the full benefits until your receiver supports 4K with HDR. Even though the Yamaha RX-V685 may not be the best receiver on the market, it surely can bridge the gap to allow you to get the most out of the many 4K devices you connect to it. I'll bet, for many of you, this bridge receiver ends up being a workhorse for many years to come

GE Smart Countertop Microwave Oven with Scan-to-Cook Technology review This microwave has 2 unique features: Alexa integration and an app that can scan frozen food UPC codes and automatically set the right time on the microwave for the meal. Top Home Theater Design Mistakes, Part One "I've spent the past 20 years in the custom installation industry, and it would be no exaggeration to say I've worked with more than a thousand clients during that time. A regular part of my job is consulting with clients on the design and installation of media rooms and home theaters. (The difference between the two: a media room is a social, multi-use space, while a home theater is a purpose-designed room for watching movies.) Sometimes the project is a new build (the best). Other times it involves repurposing a room or trying to fix and improve an existing room." 1. Too Many Seats 2. Risers Too Low 3. Screen Wall Too Light Top Home Theater Design Mistakes, Part Two "As I mentioned in my last blog Top Design Mistakes, Part One, I've worked as a custom installer for the past 20 years, and a key part of my job is designing and installing media rooms and home theaters. (The difference between the two: a media room is typically an open, multi-use space, while a home theater is a dedicated room purpose-designed for watching movies.)" 1. Doing Too Much 2. Size Matters 3. Let There Be Light

Best Soundbars Under $500The 7 Best 70-75-77 inch TVs - October 2018

This year's batch of Fall TV Premieres snuck up on us a bit. Here we are, the last show in September, and just now getting to the new shows coming out. In fact, this week may have been the biggest week for new and returning show premieres of the season. If you missed something that looks great, the good news is that you can probably find it on Hulu or the Networks' streaming app. Esquire has a great list of every premiere date up to September 30. Monday, Sept. 24 Magnum P.I. (CBS) Magnum P.I. is a modern take on the classic series starring Jay Hernandez as Thomas Magnum, a decorated former Navy SEAL who, upon returning home from Afghanistan, repurposes his military skills to become a private investigator in Hawaii. Manifest (NBC) Once Upon a Time's Josh Dallas stars in this mystery thriller about passengers on a plane who arrive at their destination after a few-hour flight only to learn that five years have somehow gone by in the world. Presuming the passengers and crew dead, their loved ones have mourned them and already moved on. Thrown into this impossible situation, the people who had been aboard the flight will be forced to figure out how to pick up the pieces of their personal lives, as well as the greater purpose that is their destiny. Tuesday, Sept. 25 FBI (CBS) FBI,from Emmy Award winner Dick Wolf, is a fast-paced drama about the inner workings of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These first-class agents -- including Special Agent Maggie Bell (Missy Peregrym) and her partner, Special Agent Omar Adom 'OA' Zidan (Zeeko Zaki) -- bring all their talents, intellect and technical expertise to tenaciously investigate cases of tremendous magnitude, including terrorism, organized crime and counterintelligence. New Amsterdam (NBC) Inspired by Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in America, this unique medical drama follows the brilliant and charming Dr. Max Goodwin (The Blacklist's Ryan Eggold), the institution's newest medical director who sets out to tear up the bureaucracy and provide exceptional care. Not taking 'no' for an answer, Dr. Goodwin must disrupt the status quo and prove he will stop at nothing to breathe new life into this understaffed, underfunded and underappreciated hospital -- the only one in the world capable of treating Ebola patients, prisoners from Rikers and the President of the United States under one roof -- and return it to the glory that put it on the map. Wednesday, Sept. 26 A Million Little Things (ABC) They say friendship isn't one big thing, it's a million little things -- and that's true for a group of friends from Boston who bonded under unexpected circumstances. Some have achieved success, others are struggling in their careers and relationships, but all of them feel stuck in life. After one of them dies unexpectedly, it's just the wake-up call the others need to finally start living. Along the way, they discover that friends may be the one thing to save them from themselves. Single Parents (ABC) This ensemble comedy follows a group of single parents as they lean on each other to help raise their 7-year-old kids and maintain some kind of personal lives outside of parenthood. The series begins when the group meets Will (Taran Killam), a 30-something guy who's been so focused on raising his daughter that he's lost sight of who he is as a man. When the other single parents see just how far down the rabbit hole of PTA, parenting and princesses Will has gone, they band together to get him out in the dating world and make him realize that being a great parent doesn't mean sacrificing everything about your own identity. Thursday, Sept. 27 Murphy Brown (CBS) Candice Bergen and series creator Diane English reunite for the revival of the groundbreaking comedy about the eponymous broadcast news legend and her biting take on current events. Now in a world of 24-hour cable, social media, "fake news" and a vastly different political climate, Murphy returns to the airwaves with her original FYI team: lifestyle reporter Corky Sherwood (Faith Ford), investigative journalist Frank Fontana (Joe Regalbuto) and producer Miles Silverberg (Grant Shaud). Murphy's son, Avery, shares his mother's competitive spirit and quick wit, and has followed in her journalistic footsteps - perhaps too closely. Now back in the game, Murphy is determined to draw the line between good television and honest reporting, proving that the world needs Murphy Brown now more than ever. Friday, Sept. 28 The Cool Kids (Fox) From executive producer Charlie Day and starring David Alan Grier, Martin Mull, Leslie Jordan and Vicki Lawrence, The Cool Kids is a multi-camera comedy about a rag-tag group of friends living in a retirement community who are willing to break every rule in order to have fun -- because, at their age, what do they really have to lose? What unites them all is their shared belief that they're not done yet -- not by a long shot. These self-proclaimed "cool kids" are determined to

TWICE has announced the winners of their annual Best of Show awards at CEDIA Expo. The products were nominated by the manufacturers and a team of judges was employed to walk the floor and rate the products on a number of criteria, including its value, impact, and how unique it was to the market. #10) URC MRX-30 - This controller is the powerful, flagship processor for the Total Control system. It delivers rock-solid control and automation for your residential and commercial installations. The powerful MRX-30 provides instant two-way communication with the family of Total Control user interfaces – tabletop touchscreen controllers, in-wall touch screens, handheld remotes and keypads. #9) Sony VPL-VW295ES 4K HDR Home Cinema Projector $5000 #8) Sony Master Series 4K A9F OLED TV $4,500 65" $3,500 55"- Powered by the Picture Processor X1™ Ultimate, this best picture quality TV pairs the deep black and natural color of OLED with Pixel Contrast Booster™ for enhanced color contrast in high luminance. Everything you watch comes to life with fine detail and vivid color. With Acoustic Surface Audio+™. Three actuators and two powerful subwoofers deliver multi-dimensional sound that immerses you in a whole new entertainment experience. #7) Samsung The Wall - A 146-inch modular TV featuring self-emitting MicroLED technology. "As the world's first consumer modular MicroLED television, 'The Wall' represents another breakthrough. It can transform into any size, and delivers incredible brightness, color gamut, color volume and black levels. We're excited about this next step along our roadmap to the future of screen technology, and the remarkable viewing experience it offers to consumers." #6) Samsung Q900 8K TV - Available in four ultra-large screen sizes (65", 75", 82" and 85"), Samsung QLED 8K TV will feature several 8K-ready enhancements, including Real 8K Resolution, Q HDR 8K and Quantum Processor 8K, all created to bring 8K-quality images to life. The new Samsung QLED 8K will be available in stores from end of September*. Samsung's QLED 8K with 8K AI Upscaling is a part of the company's long-term vision of leading 8K to the forefront as the most accurate and life-like screen resolution on the market. #5) ProVideoInstruments MiniMod-2 $495 - The VeCOAX MINIMOD-2 Distributes any of your HDMI Video Sources to an unlimited number of televisions over the existing TV Coax Cables, with professional perfect FULL HD 1080P & Dolby digital quality. There is no need for any new cables nor accessory behind each tv, so the installation is very simple, immediate, plug 'n play anywhere, perfect for any application. Set the wanted channel names & position numbers, then rescan all TVs to find the VeCOAX MINIMOD-2 Channels as new available HDTV TV Channels. Expand the number of channels at any time by simply adding more VeCOAX modulators on the same coax. #4) Polk Audio Command Bar $300 - The Home Theater Sound Bar System with Amazon Alexa Built-in. Tuned driver array, wireless subwoofer and Dolby/DTS surround sound decoding. Works with 4K and HD TVs — built-in dual HDMI 2.0b inputs #3) LG 77 Inch OLED C8 4K HDR Smart TV with AI ThinQ $8,000 - LG ThinQ® AI | Google Assistant, LG α9 Intelligent Processor, LG OLED Display, 4K Cinema HDR, Dolby Atmos® #2) Klipsch Heritage Theater Bar $2,200 - The Klipsch Heritage Theater Bar was engineered to provide a low-profile design that can deliver a true high-fidelity listening experience in a premium, easily installed, handcrafted package. Leveraging the latest advancements in Klipsch proprietary acoustic technology, the Heritage Theater Bar is able to emit the sonic performance of a three-speaker system, but within a single housing. Finished with real-wood veneer and a beautiful grille cloth, the Klipsch Heritage Theater Bar far exceeds any other sound bar – both aesthetically and acoustically. #1) Hisense 4K Ultra HD Smart Laser TV $10,000 - The 100" Hisense Laser TV explodes with color and gorgeous 4K resolution. Where giant LED screens have ugly, intrusive installation, the Hisense Laser TV's thin, lightweight, 100" screen hangs wirelessly, inconspicuously—elegantly. It doesn't require a specially darkened environment or messy equipment. The Hisense Laser TV will make you see your walls in a whole new light. With incredible laser technology, 4K Ultra HD resolution and 4K upscaling, the Hisense Laser TV is the TV you've been waiting for. Add harman/kardon® sound, a TV tuner, WIFI and tons of built-in apps, and the Hisense Laser TV is unapologetically amazing at an unbeatable value. In short, it makes all other TVs look like prima donnas.

We discuss these two articles on this show: CEDIA Expo 2018: Sifting Through the AV Nuggets Monoprice Launches Affordable Smart Home System

Connect your home's wired alarm system to SmartThings or Home Assistant, and convert your home into a smart home. Now you can monitor your home from anywhere using your smart phone with no recurring fees! If your home is wired for an ADT, Honeywell, Interlogix, Ademco, Brinks, DSC or similar alarm system, your home is pre-wired to be a Smart Home. The Konnected Alarm Panel is the first product of its kind that allows you to connect any wired alarm system to SmartThings and Home Assistant. See how simple it is to replace your old alarm system board with a Konnected Alarm Panel and instantly gain access to all your wired sensors in your Smart Home. Reuse your existing wired sensors Works with 1000s of Smart Home products Never change batteries

One week with FuboTV The HT Guys have officially joined the ranks of the cord cutters with Braden opting to cancel his Cable TV service entirely. We have been working on trimming the cord for a while, but this is cold turkey… Was cold turnkey. Braden quickly found something lacking and turned to fuboTV to fill that missing hole in his home theater. Cutting the Cord It isn't a shock that the big thing missing in Braden's life after quitting cable was live sports. We've talked at length about how easy it is to cut the cord now. Almost everything is available these days via streaming on services like Netflix and Hulu and the apps every network has for their own content like CBS, ABC, HBO, Food Network, you name it. Almost everything - except for live events like news, sports, award shows, etc. If you don't care about those, you can cut the cord and not miss a beat. But if you do care about them, or as was true in Braden's case, you realize after the fact how much others cared about them, there are the somewhat new live TV streaming services available to help bridge that gap. If live sports is your thing, fuboTV is definitely one you should investigate. FuboTV is completely centered around sports. Although you can get a bunch of other non-sports channels, it is evident from the first screen that the whole purpose of the service is to meet the needs of sports enthusiasts. In Braden's home of soccer fans, it has been a huge hit. FuboTV As a streaming offering competing with DirecTV Now, Sling TV, Playstation Vue and the others, FuboTV is a decent offering. There is one primary pricing tier, $39.99, one upgraded tier at $44.99 and a couple add-ons for specific language content or premium networks. For that primary tier of $40 a month you get 88 live channels, 30 hours of cloud DVR and some extras like up to 3 days to replay any game you missed and forgot to record, etc. For a sports streaming service there is one giant, glaring hole though: they don't offer ESPN, any ESPN variant, or any Disney owned network for that matter. Can you get all the sports you want without ESPN? That's debatable. Using FuboTV If you're a sports fan, you'll be good with how fuboTV is setup and structured. Everything in the app runs thru the lens of a sports viewer. If that isn't you, you'll find the interface a bit cumbersome and disjointed. Beyond that, the guides on streaming services in general tend to be a little clunky. Navigation is difficult without channel numbers and easy ways to jump around. The guide is usable and intuitive on fuboTV, but not easy nor innovative. You can't hide channels from the guide either, which would allow you to personalize and optimize somewhat. It doesn't set the bar by any means. Recording shows is easy. And searching for content to watch is very simple as well. The quality of the video is decent. With a really good bandwidth connection it can look every bit as good as a typical HD channel on cable (assuming you don't have them side by side for comparison). But the bottom line is that the streams can be good enough that you forget you're streaming them. Fast forward and Rewind are much clunkier for streaming content than for locally stored content on a DVR, across any streaming service. That makes the whole viewing experience a bit more of a chore. This isn't unique to fuboTV, but it doesn't escape it either. There are a few other little annoyances worth pointing out. One is that you get up to 30 hours of cloud DVR, but not all content is recordable. You may pull up the details on a show only to see that you don't have the option to record it. This is likely contractual, but not a limitation found on any traditional DVR. If you can see the channel, you can record it. And although the ability to search for stuff to watch in fuboTV is really easy, and they actually have a lot of good content available, there are limitations. For example, we found Deadpool available to watch for free on demand via FXX. This was great. Like having Netflix but included in the price. Bonus. However, you can't fast forward or rewind. So if you can watch the whole movie in one sitting, you're set. If you want to watch half now and finish the other half later, you're out of luck. Cost is another issue. Because Braden was using Tivo and not the Cable company DVRs and boxes, he was paying about $80 a month for whole house DVR on 4 screens with HBO. The $40 reduces the savings from cutting Cable in half. If you're paying more every month for cable, obviously your saving would be more dramatic. But fuboTV also charges extra for the Family option that allow you to stream simultaneously on different devices. So you'll have to pay up to get TV on, say, 4 screens. If you're streaming more, and your provider charges you more for increased bandwidth consumption, that could eat into your saving as well. Conclusion If you decide to cut the cord and realize you really miss live sports, fuboTV is a dream come true. That is, assuming you don

SiliconDust launches HDHomeRun Premium streaming service of 45 networks Netflix, Amazon Video, and Xfinity are accidentally re-creating cable TV

Another very special episode, keeping the streak alive while on vacation, we take the opportunity to share some behind the scenes moments leading up to the formation of the HT Guys and the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast, specifically the Sony Pictures / ADSG years.

75 inch TV Recommendation Vizio P-Series - $1900 MSRP Features: Premium 4K HDR with Active Full Array Pro™, UltraBright 1000. Over a billion colors from Ultra Color Spectrum.® VIZIO Smart TV with 2018 SmartCast OS. Voice control with Amazon Alexa & the Google Assistant. Google Chromecast built‑in. Bezel-less screen design. Pros: Great dark scene performance Excellent motion handling Low input lag Cons: Poor off angle viewing Sony XBR75X900F 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV - Street Price $3500 Features: X1 Extreme processor and 4K X-Reality PRO and X-tended Dynamic Range PRO 6X contrast range provides a wider range of brightness Full-array local dimming technology, you get enhanced controlled contrast and incredible brightness in a stunningly slim design. X-Motion Clarity technology. Plus, enjoy smooth and vibrant colors with TRILUMINOS Display & 4K HDR Super Bit Mapping Pros: Deep and uniform blacks Excellent motion handling Bright HDR highlights Cons: Poor off angle viewing Both Samsung and LG sell other TVs in the 75+ inch range but they are not full array LED and do not produce black levels as good as the Vizio and Sony. The TVs that are as good cost much more so under the constraints that Patrick has laid out we would say go with the Vizio first since it really meets all the criteria. For a slightly better picture and $1600 more the Sony is a distant second.

Roku Speakers Why learn to use gadgets when they can just learn to help us? Exactly, says LG

Last month we read a news story about the bid by Samsung to replace projectors in movie theaters. Now Digital Trends has an article that provides a few more details about this technology. Our hope is that it can find it's way into our living rooms in the not too distant future. Named after the jet-black jewel, Onyx is a giant, 34-foot screen that uses LEDs to display perfect black levels, intense brightness, and brilliant color for unprecedented cinematic contrast. It's 10 times brighter than even the best laser projectors out there now. But a stunning picture is not it's only advantage. There is the space savings of not requiring a projector room which in turns allows for better seat configuration. There is no sweet spot so that every seat in the house will have the best picture. There are also some drawbacks. The screen is no longer acoustically transparent and a new technology developed by Samsung's JBL Professional is required to overcome this. If a pixel goes bad you have to replace an entire panel since the screen is actually the screen is made up of many panels stitched together. Onyx uses individual LEDs for each pixel and thus can mimic OLED and Plasma. This is what gets you those deep blacks. Because the screen is so large you can't see the pixels sitting at a normal movie theater distance. This technology won't work at home because the viewing distance is too close which is why Samsung is working on MicroLED technology. DCI Specifications Seeing the writing on the wall the Digital Cinema Initiatives released a memorandum regarding direct view displays. Here are some highlights: Pixel Count - The sampling structure of the displayed picture (pixel count) shall be at least 4096 (4K) horizontal and 2160 vertical pixels. Pixel Visibility - The pixel structure should not be visible from a 1.0 screen height viewing distance. The pixel pitch should be uniform across a screen, including at module boundaries. 10 foot high screen then at 10 feet you should not be able to see the pixels. Luminance Uniformity - DCI's intent is to require that the display shall not exhibit any perceptible inconsistency in luminance levels between pixels when viewed from any seat in the theater. There are requirements for Color Gamut, Color Accuracy, and Color Uniformity as well as black level and gray scale. Suffice it to say the DCI wants you to ensure that when you watch a movie on a direct view system that it be as good or better than what you see on the best projectors today.

Buttshaker Bonanza It's been quite a while since we've talked about turning the low frequency effects from your movies and tv shows into physical movement you can feel in your furniture. We reviewed a system many years ago and loved it, but it was pricey at the time and neither of us ended up installing it. Turns out Amazon has some options that make it affordable enough to put the buttshaker experience in a lot more seats. Clark Synthesis "Originally developed for military and commercial training simulators, Clark Synthesis transducers were specifically designed to transfer sounds like gunshots and explosions into a tactile experience that can be felt as well as heard. This technology was enthusiastically received by the video gaming community. Gamers of all ages love the intensified sensory experience of competing in a gaming chair with a Clark Synthesis transducer." Clark Synthesis TST239 Silver Tactile Transducer Bass Shaker 3.4 out of 5 stars Price: $157.95 "The TST239 Silver Transducer is an excellent choice for most entry-level audio applications. This product is widely used in the game chair market, providing solid performance at an affordable price. The TST239 Silver can be used in some home theater applications. The TST239 Silver requires an amplifier for operation." Clark Synthesis TST429 Platinum Transducer 5.0 out of 5 stars Price: $549.95 "The TST429 Platinum Professional Transducer is the most powerful audio transducer on the market today. Available only from Clark Synthesis, the TST429 provides the ultimate performance and output of full-fidelity, full-frequency sound with a frequency response from 5hz to 17kHz. This premium transducer is designed to meet the demands of audio applications such as high-end home theater furniture, theater risers and platforms, floors (including dance floors), simulators, gaming systems, and ProSound equipment." ButtKicker by Guitammer "[Guitammer]'s innovative and award-winning line of patented ButtKicker-brand low frequency audio transducers let users feel low-frequency sound (bass) and are musically accurate, powerful and virtually indestructible. They are used around the world by leading entertainment and theater companies such as: AMC Theatres, Regal Entertainment, Alamo Drafthouse, IMAX, Disney and Lumiere Pavilions in movie theaters and attractions; by world-famous musicians; and in home theaters, by consumers for video games, simulators and car audio and are distributed by Pearl Drums for musicians." ButtKicker BK-LFE Low Frequency Effects System 4.7 out of 5 stars Price: $239.99 "The only tactile transducer designed specifically to take advantage of the 0.1 and LFE (low frequency effects) channels, the ButtKicker LFE features extended low-frequency response for powerful bass and special effects. If you are looking to delight and electrify yourself and others with an affordable and easy-to-use solution, now is the time to incorporate the ButtKicker into your sound-system's design and feel what you've been missing. The ButtKicker LFE Low Frequency Effects System utilizes a patented magnetic suspension and can be used in couches, theater seating, platforms, and any type of structure. Different from other shakers or tactile transducers that use voice coil technology, the ButtKicker is much more powerful, more musical (linear), and offers true infrasonic, or low-frequency response with a resonant frequency of 9 Hz. The ButtKicker LFE utilizes a small, linear motor, which reacts to an audio signal sent by an amplifier." ButtKicker BK-GR Gamer 3.8 out of 5 stars Price: $178.85 "The ButtKicker [Gamer] is a small linear motor that reacts to an audio signal sent by an amplifier. The ButtKicker Gamer comes with its own 90-watt amplifier that is convection-cooled with vents so there's no noisy fan. It also includes a wired remote control so you can stash the amp out of sight and still operate its core features. It is similar to a loudspeaker, but instead of a moving a cone and transferring sound waves through the air, the ButtKicker Gamer is attached to your seat and sends a low frequency sound directly into your body." SoundShaker "Introducing the SoundShaker, a revolution in home theater entertainment. This exciting piece of hi-tech wizardry will allow you to feel the screen action, without leaving the comfort of your seat! Immerse yourself in your favorite films or video games like never before: you will not only see and hear but live each moment as your chair vibrates to each car chase or explosion. A whole new dimension in cinema thrills awaits." SoundShaker Wireless Bass Shaker Amplifier for Home Theater Seating Vibration Kit 3.4 out of 5 stars Price: Amp: $439.00 Single Bass Shaker: $125.00 Sold in sets, e.g.: Amp with one bass shaker: $564.00 ... "Your Soundshaker system works using a simple three-step process. Receiver sends the wireless audio to the amplifier that is hooked up to your home theater seating. The SoundShaker Amplifier receives the wireless

What Is America's TV Platform of Choice?The best projectors

Plus we grill Kobe Beef! Watch Here!

www.flatpanelhds.com's report of LG's claim in 2016 that the company's OLED TVs had lifespans of 100,000 hours. Of course, that's 100,000 hours at the end of a slow decay to 50 percent luminance, but 10 hours of TV a day for even 10 years, let alone the 30 to half-brightness that 100,000 figures out to, isn't going to leave buyers wringing hands. The real issue, and the reason for this article, is that LG's 100,000-hour claim preceded the era of HDR (high dynamic range). You could say HDR is the yang to OLED's near-black yin. The issue at had is what does HDR do to lifespan

This week's episode is a very special one: The HT Guys go on vaction. With limited time to plan and record, and no access to email or news stories, the guys still work hard to bring a short show together. Braden shares a story about bridging the past and the present and Ara recalls a very special moment for him from his time at Sony Pictures/ADSG. Until next week!

Today we have a field report from the E3 show in Los Angeles CA.

Father's Day Wish List Classic Movie Posters $10 - $17K What theater would be complete without movie posters? MoviePoster.com sells original as well as reprints of just about every major movie out there. Some are really inexpensive. Find out what your father's favorite movie is and surprise him with something to make his home theater a little bit more authentic! SVS SoundPath Subwoofer Isolation System $50 We all want a tighter low end! And for $50 SVS will give that to you. The SVS Subwoofer Isolation System are screw-in elastomer feet that decouple your subwoofer from the floor to eliminate room rattle and provide cleaner, tighter bass. And you don't need an SVS subwoofer either. They work with almost all subwoofer brands and sizes. Hue Bloom Lights $60 per light. Add $60 more for a bridge if you don't have hue lights. Use the bloom lights to create stunning indirect lighting to highlight furniture, art, or create bias lighting behind your TV. A bit on the expensive side but so very cool!! Custom Acoustic Panels $60 and Up This is a gift that has both form and function. Sometimes getting the most out of your audio is not necessarily about upgrading your equipment. Acoustic panels reduce or eliminate sound waves that bounce off walls and interfere with the sound coming from the speakers. When done right, acoustic panels will improve the audio of your current equipment without spending a ton of money. With custom panels you can take family picture and add that personal touch every Father (and Mother) would love to have in their home theater. Stovetop Popcorn Popper $25 When the best movie theater in the area is right in your living room, you need the perfect snack to accompany the feature film! Thanks to the Original Silver Whirley Pop Stovetop Popcorn Popper, you can have delicious, perfectly cooked movie theater popcorn in just 3 minutes! This popcorn popper also has a patented stirring system so you never have to worry about burning or ruining your popcorn – each kernel moves until it is popped Cup Holder Tablet Mount $25 Many home theater seats and couches include built-in cup holders. Some manufacturers sell tablet mounts that fit in their cupholders. But if yours doesn't, or you don't want to pay the premium, why not try a universal cup holder tablet mount instead? If your home theater is tablet controlled, you have your whole control interface right there at your fingertips, without having to pick it up off the coffee table. That's good living.

Canceled or Renewed 2018 If you're getting dizzy watching shows that were canceled a while ago, make a revival on a different network, only to have that network cancel some shows that were also quite popular, causing them to move to yet another network, or a number one rated comeback show that was practically guaranteed another season get abruptly canceled for crazy tweets, don't worry. We've got you covered. Here's the full list of what's gone, what's coming back, and what network to find it on. ABC Renewed The $100,000 Pyramid Agents of SHIELD American Housewife American Idol America's Funniest Home Videos The Bachelor Black-ish Celebrity Family Feud Child Support Dancing With the Stars For the People Fresh Off the Boat The Goldbergs The Gong Show The Good Doctor Grey's Anatomy How to Get Away with Murder iZombie Match Game Modern Family Speechless Station 19 Canceled Alex, Inc. The Crossing Deception Designated Survivor Inhumans Kevin (Probably) Saves the World The Mayor Quantico Roseanne Ten Days in the Valley Final Season The Middle – series finale aired May 22, 2018 Scandal – series finale aired April 19, 2018 Once Upon a Time – series finale aired May 18, 2018 CBS Renewed 48 Hours 60 Minutes The Amazing Race The Big Bang Theory Big Brother Blue Bloods Bull Criminal Minds Elementary Hawaii Five-0 Instinct Life in Pieces MacGyver Madam Secretary Man with a Plan Mom NCIS NCIS: Los Angeles NCIS: New Orleans The Price Is Right Salvation SEAL Team Survivor SWAT Young Sheldon Canceled 9JKL Code Black Kevin Can Wait Living Biblically Me, Myself & I Scorpion Superior Donuts Wisdom of the Crowd Zoo The CW Renewed The 100 Arrow Black Lightning Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Dynasty The Flash Jane the Virgin Legends of Tomorrow Masters of Illusion Penn & Teller: Fool Us Riverdale Supergirl Supernatural Whose Line Is It Anyway? Canceled Life Sentence Valor Final Season The Originals – premiered April 20, 2018 FOX Renewed 9-1-1 Bob's Burgers Cosmos (FOX/Nat Geo) – last aired in 2014 Empire Family Guy The Four: Battle for Stardom The Gifted Gotham Hell's Kitchen Last Man Standing – last aired on ABC in 2016-17 Lethal Weapon The Orville The Resident The Simpsons So You Think You Can Dance – airs summer 2018 Star Canceled Brooklyn Nine-Nine – moving to NBC The Exorcist The Last Man on Earth LA to Vegas Lucifer The Mick Final Season New Girl – series finale aired May 15, 2018 NBC Renewed America's Got Talent AP Bio The Blacklist Blindspot Brooklyn Nine-Nine – moving from FOX Chicago Fire Chicago Med Chicago PD Days of Our Lives Ellen's Game of Games Good Girls The Good Place Hollywood Game Night Law & Order: SVU Midnight, Texas Superstore This Is Us The Voice The Wall Will & Grace – through 2019-20 Canceled The Brave Great News The Night Shift Rise Taken Final Season Shades of Blue – premieres June 17, 2018 NBC has not made a decision on Timeless. They need to hurry up and just renew it!! Other Notables Renewed A Series of Unfortunate Events (Netflix) – through Season 3 American Dad (TBS) – through Season 6 on TBS/16 overall American Horror Story (FX) – through Season 9 American Vandal (Netflix) Archer (FXX) Ballers (HBO) Baskets (FX) Black Mirror (Netflix) Bosch (Amazon) Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO) Drunk History (Comedy Central) Fear the Walking Dead (AMC) Fuller House (Netflix) Future Man (Hulu) The Good Fight (CBS All Access) Grace and Frankie (Netflix) The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu) Homeland (Showtime) House of Cards (Netflix) Jack Ryan (Amazon) Jessica Jones (Netflix) Lost in Space (Netflix) The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon) – through Season 3 Mindhunter (Netflix) Narcos (Netflix) Orange Is the New Black (Netflix) – through Season 7 Power (Starz) – through Season 6 The Punisher (Netflix) Ray Donovan (Showtime) Rick and Morty (Adult Swim) – for 70 episodes Runaways (Hulu) Santa Clarita Diet (Netflix) Shameless (Showtime) Shooter (USA) Silicon Valley (HBO) South Park (Comedy Central) – through 2019 Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All Access) Stranger Things (Netflix) Strike Back (Cinemax) Suits (USA) The Tick (Amazon) Transparent (Amazon) Van Helsing (Syfy) The Walking Dead (AMC) Westworld (HBO) Canceled Ash vs. Evil Dead (Starz) Chance (Hulu) Damnation (USA) Dice (Showtime) Disjointed (Netflix) I Love Dick (Amazon) Jean-Claude Van Johnson (Amazon) Lady Dynamite (Netflix) The Librarians (TNT) Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon) The Path (Hulu) Seven Seconds (Netflix) Final Season The Americans (FX) – series finale aired May 30, 2018 Halt and Catch Fire (AMC) – series finale aired Oct. 14, 2017 The Last Ship (TNT) Major Crimes (TNT) – series finale aired Jan. 9, 2018 The Mindy Project (Hulu) – series finale streamed Nov. 14, 2017 Nashville (CMT) – premiered Jan. 4, 2018 Portlandia (IFC) – premiered Jan. 18, 2018 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) – premieres May 30, 2018 Vice Principals (HBO) – series finale aired Nov. 12, 2017 Full lists Renewed Canceled Final Season

SVS Soundpath Wireless Subwoofer Kit Pretty much from the start we have been searching for wireless solutions to transmit audio from one part of the room to the other. Early attempts have been met with static, pops, and clicks. We have made significant progress over the years and today we are taking a look at the SVS Soundpath Wireless Subwoofer Kit ($90). This product is so simple to use there weren't even instructions in the box! Setup Connect the transmitter (clearly labeled on the unit) to the subwoofer output of your receiver via an included RCA cable and then connect the other end (3.5 mm) to the transmitter. The device gets power via USB. If your receiver has a USB connection you can use that otherwise SVS has included a USB power adapter. Do the same thing at the subwoofer and you are done. Place your subwoofer anywhere you want. The signal reached anywhere we put the sub in our medium sized room (15 X 20 ft). Setup time four minutes! SVS also includes double sided 3M tape to help lock down the device. Performance It just works! We tested down to 15hz up to 85Hz. The device is rated from 6hz to 22KHz but our subwoofer only goes to 15Hz and our crossover is set to 85Hz so that's all we tested to. We could hear no difference from the wired case nor could we perceive any delay. From our ear's point of view there was no difference in performance. HT Guys Recommendation The SVS SoundPath Wireless Subwoofer Subwoofer Kit unlocks the potential of your subwoofer by freeing you to place it in the best spot of your room! Now EVERY subwoofer can be a wireless subwoofer!

CNET's Guide to Smart Living While this may or may not be the year of home automation (or maybe it was last year?), the idea of making some aspects of your home more automated or "smarter" is becoming much more approachable and affordable. CNET recently put together a collection of articles about how to get into the game that offer some interesting tips and pointers. This isn't a definitive guide for the hard core home or life hacker, but it helps those who aren't yet in the game to dip a toe in the water. 4 Things to Consider Before Making Your Home Smart You'll need to decide on a 'brain' first Without a doubt, the biggest concern is fragmentation. It's certainly gotten better over the last few years, especially with the growing popularity of smart speakers like Google Home ($129.00 at Dell Home) and the Echo, and services like IFTTT that help fix the language barrier between different devices and services. But if you're not careful when choosing the smart products to install in your home, you'll find yourself with a home full of devices only using half of their potential. The best way to go about it is to pick a "brain" for your smart home -- be it Amazon's Echo, Google Home, Apple's HomeKit or Samsung's SmartThings -- and only buy smart bulbs, locks, cameras and other accessories or appliances that are compatible with it. Can your devices 'talk' to each other? Ease of use is another point of consideration. You're not building a smart home to make your life more difficult, and turning on any given light or appliance shouldn't be more complicated than its dumb counterpart. Cost Smart home gadgets are generally more expensive than their dumb counterparts -- and rightly so. A light switch that can be controlled with your voice (like the Lutron Caseta) and can be scheduled or controlled from anywhere in the world should cost more than a standard light switch. But outfitting an entire house with those smart switches will cost significantly more. And don't be so quick to believe the purported energy savings. The cost savings will depend on what technology you're upgrading from. And even the products that do use less energy than their dumb alternatives will likely take several years to make up for the difference in the initial cost. Wi-Fi and product security Finally, you should be concerned with security. Leave it to shows like Mr. Robot to feed us smart home nightmare fuel. While you can DIY a smart security system easily for less money than a standard security system ($39.99 at Amazon.com) would have cost you just a few years ago, like anything with a wireless connection, it's also susceptible to exploits and other security flaws. Your patchwork smart home security system is only as strong as your Wi-Fi password. And the same general security tip is still valid here -- give everything its own, unique password. 4 Clever Morning Routine Automations For Your Smart Home Slowly turn on the lights Getting a good night's rest is important. But just as important is how you wake up. No one likes waking up to a loud, abrupt alarm. Try waking up calmly to a gentle, gradual increasing light instead. It's more natural and will prevent you from being ripped out of deep sleep. You can do this a few different ways. Many smart bulbs, for instance, can be programmed to come on at a specific time, and often you can choose how long it takes for the bulbs to reach the desired brightness -- instantly, a couple of seconds or even several minutes. Create a schedule for the bulbs overhead or in a bedside lamp to slowly turn on to full brightness around the time you need to wake up. Create a schedule for overhead Lutron lights, LIFX bulbs in a bedside lamp or a Philips Wake-Up Light to slowly turn on around the time you need to wake up. Gently raise the temperature No one wants to peel off the cozy sheets early in the morning and wake up to a chilly bedroom. To avoid this, you can set your smart thermostat to slowly raise the temperature 30 minutes before you plan to get out of bed each morning. Like with slowly turning on the bedroom lights, this will help gently pull you out of sleep and make getting out of bed less jarring. Or maybe you need the shock of brisk morning air to help wake you up. If that's your morning trick, just set the thermostat to lower a few degrees before your alarm. Automatically make coffee Who doesn't like a fresh cup of coffee early in the morning? With your smart home, you can wake up to hot coffee every day. And making it happen is easier than you think. While they make smart coffee makers specifically for this, all you really need is any ol' dumb coffee maker and a smart plug. The one requirement for the coffee maker is that its power button is a toggle switch that will remain on, even after brewing has finished -- this is so you can control its power externally with the smart switch. Pretty much all smart switches can operate on a schedule, but if you've got one that's compatible with Google Home or Ech

Review Sony A8F from RTINGS.COM Today we have a review of a Sony A8F OLED TV from RTINGS.COM. The A8F is a OLED 4K HDR TV with 4K HDR Processor X1™ Extreme, Acoustic Surface™ technology and Android TV. The Acoustic Surface is supposed to produce deeper bass by vibrating the glass. We'll see if that is what the reviewers experienced below. It comes in three sizes 55", 65", and 77". Read the full detailed review at RTINGS.COM. Highlights below: The Sony A8F is a 2018 4k OLED TV with excellent performance for a variety of different usages. It has excellent picture quality, with perfectly deep blacks that looks impressive in a dark room. Motion handling is excellent due to the instantaneous response time, but this lack of blur can make low frame rate content appear choppy. Like the Sony A1E and other OLED TVs, it isn't perfect as the brightness changes depending on screen content and there may be risk of burn-in with static content. Design 9.5 The Sony A8F OLED TV is extremely well designed. The stand has a very small footprint and fits well in any decor. The TV is well built and there are no obvious gaps or loose panels. The TV has a very small frame and delivers an immersive viewing experience, especially when wall mounted. Picture Quality 8.6 The Sony A8F OLED TV produces excellent picture quality. It is able to produce true blacks and infinite contrast ratio, which combined with the perfect black uniformity, makes for excellent dark room performance. Can produce bright highlights and although the whole screen can't get that bright, it should be good enough to combat glare in most rooms. Color accuracy is good out of the box, and most people won't need to calibrate their set. It also has an excellent wide color gamut. It is prone to temporary image retention and could experience permanent burn-in, although we don't expect most people to experience this. Motion 8.8 The motion handling of the Sony A8F is excellent. It has a near-instantaneous response time and is flicker-free, so there is very little motion trail and only slight persistence blur. The perfect response time causes stutter, especially with 24 fps content, but this can be helped with the optional Black Frame Insertion feature or by enabling Motion Interpolation, but it is judder-free. It does not support a variable refresh rate, and there are no plans announced by Sony to add support for this in the future. Inputs 8.2 The A8F supports a wide variety of input formats and resolutions. It has low 4k input lag, but not as good as the LG C8. Like all Sony TVs, only HDMI ports 2 & 3 support full bandwidth, but port 3 is also the audio return channel. If you have a receiver which supports ARC and you are planning on connecting more than 1 full bandwidth device, you may wish to consider connecting your receiver using an optical (Toslink) cable. Sound Quality 7.4 The Sony A8F has an above-average sound. It gets quite loud and produces a decent amount of bass along with clear dialogs. However, their bass doesn't have any thump or rumble to it, and it doesn't have a room correction system either. For a better sound, a dedicated sound system or soundbars are recommended. Smart Features 8.0 The Sony A8F runs Sony's customized Android TV interface. The layout is very simple, there are multiple rows used to group similar functions together making it easy to navigate. The TV has performance issues when navigating the menus, as it froze repeatedly and animations were choppy. It is especially slow when accessing the menus from within an app. It has a great voice assistant, although it is not as good as the ThinQ AI found on 2018 LG OLEDs. Ratings Mixed Usage 8.7 - Recommended if under (USD) $2,300* Value for price beaten by LG C8 Movies 9.4 - Best Value for Price TV Shows 8.5 - Recommended if under (USD) $1,660* Value for price beaten by LG C8 Sports 8.6 - Recommended if under (USD) $2,310* Value for price beaten by LG C8 Video Games 8.6 - Recommended if under (USD) $1,200* Value for price beaten by LG C8 HDR Movies 9.1 - Recommended if under (USD) $1,680* Value for price beaten by LG B7A HDR Gaming 8.6 - Recommended if under (USD) $1,700* Value for price beaten by LG B7A PC Monitor 8.0 - Recommended if under (USD) $410* Value for price beaten by LG SK9000 * Pricing for 55" version

'Avengers: Infinity War' Box Office: A Rundown of the Records Broken 'Avengers: Infinity War' Box Office: A Rundown of the Records BrokenDisney and Marvel continue to push the superhero envelope at the box office, with Avengers: Infinity War serving up their latest victory. The mega-mashup smashed a number of records in its global debut over the weekend, less than three months after Marvel's Black Panther began its own historic run. Disney's VR 'force jacket' sends snakes wriggling over your body It was put together by Disney Research, alongside MIT. It's essentially a jacket stuffed with airbags and sensors that can be calibrated to simulate a number of different physical experiences. Disney highlights a few: the feeling of being punched, hugged, or having snakes slither all over your body. (I saw that we doubled up on this one in the News stories, so I dropped it to the bottom of news so we can do it there and just expand/opine, or we can push it to a longer mini feature. Whatever you want to do.) Royole Moon 3D Mobile Theater Review When you wear glasses like this, you are presented with the equivalent of sitting relatively close to a large projection screen, with your peripheral vision essentially filled by the image. Royole suggests that the Moon provides the equal of an 800-inch curved screen (about 66 feet) viewed from about an equal distance away. That's close to standard IMAX territory. The experience is akin to watching my 92-inch projection screen from a fairly tight 10 feet away, if not closer. In other words, the same highly immersive quality we attribute to the front projection/cinema experience is apparent in spades here and is made all the more so by the addition of some good-quality earphones.

OLED Burn-in Follow Up Christopher - As per episode #840 - I have a 55" Sony A1E that I purchased 9 months ago. I had it professionally calibrated and love it completely (except for the stupid swing-out base that they've done away with in the new model). I primarily watch movies (Opportunity UDP-203), Apple TV, TiVo and Netflix. I do not play games on it. No burn-in issues what-so-ever... so far... ;) Scruffy - Have a 2014 LG OLED with 8000 hours. Strictly cable box viewing, a few hours at a time throughout the day 7 days a week. No image retention or burn in issues ever. Getting a 55" 2018 OLED soon - no worries. Jack - I heard your recent debate about OLED burn-in. To me there is no debate. I purchased an oled65b6p in the fall of 2016. By summer of 2017, I started noticing something wrong. After a little investigation it was clear I had serious BI issues from watching MSNBC. In the attached red picture you can see where the old lower third was burnt in and can still read "live", they recently lowered the banner when the news ticker was eliminated. I see this most on reds yellows and shades of tan. Skin tone is really bad. Also, note the prominent left side of the NBC peacock (red orange yellow) in the yellow pictures. I contacted LG and they told me it is not covered by the warranty. I also contacted Abt where I bought the set and to their credit after a few rounds of negotiations they gave me a $1600 store credit (I paid $4K) and I'm keeping the bad tv for now. They initially offered a C7 LG OLED at a significant discount but I did not want to just end up with the same problem. I watch all sorts of programming but typically have the news on in the background while working which obviously caused this problem. The TV is great and near perfect (love the picture, the blacks and the HDR) but BI makes it unacceptable. I should not have to change my TV viewing habits because of issues with the technology especially when I pay top $$. It's going to take me a while to find a suitable replacement which is why I'm keeping this one for now. Steven - I have a LG OLED55B6P I purchased about a year and a half ago. We have primary used it to watch shows and movies. Even after this time, I still find myself on a weekly basis noticing how beautiful the picture is. I tell people my two favorite types of scenes are those with tons of color and black scenes. On the burn in issue, I have not noticed any issues. We probably have the unit on for five to six hours throughout the day. Though the types of content is dynamic (little to no tickers or other static elements). However, literally two weeks before your episode about the OLED burn in issue dropped I started to play my Nintendo Switch on the television. I am currently only playing Mario Odyssey. This game has dynamic content on the screen except for a coin counter in the upper left of the screen. Though it does go off during cut scene. At this point I have not noticed any burn in. Steven (a different Steven) - I purchased an LG OLED65B7A in early November 2017. Even though I owned a beautiful 55" Samsung Plasma about 5 years ago, I consider this the best TV picture I've ever had. I don't regret purchasing it for 1 nanosecond. For two years, I was unhappy with a Sony LCD TV that dimmed from the side and had uneven blacks. The OLED is amazing. When I walk by it and look at if from the side it warms my heart. It's perfect. I've only had the TV for about 5 months, but have not seen any evidence of burn in. That being said, I do not watch CNN or CNBC for hours a day or play video games. I do watch a fair amount of sports. Here is what CNET said on April 17th, 2018 about OLED burn-in: "All things considered, however, burn-in shouldn't be a problem for most people. That's why we at CNET continue to recommend OLED-based TVs, phones and other devices in our reviews. From all of the evidence we've seen, burn-in is typically caused by leaving a single, static image element, like a channel logo, on-screen for a very long time, repeatedly. That's an issue if you keep Fox News, ESPN or MSNBC on-screen for multiple hours every day and don't watch enough other programming, for example. But as long as you vary what's displayed, chances are you'll never experience burn-in." I did a lot of research about this before I purchased the TV and although some burn-in is permanent, I've heard a number of people say that apparent burn-in does repair itself sometimes. http://televisions.reviewed.com/features/what-to-know-about-oled-screen-burn-in-problems-causes-image-retention I think seeing burn-in is to be expected if Best Buy leaves the same picture on during business hours for day after day after day. But I will say this, if Braden is going to let his kids use the OLED for video games many hours a day, he should probably get a crappy LCD for them. And believe me LCD looks like crap compared to my OLED. No contest. However, I think CNET"s implication is that even if Braden's kids play a number of

Rtings.com: Real Life OLED Burn In Test on 6 TVs Walking through a large electronics store the other day something caught our eye on one of their OLED display televisions. While you'd like to hope it was the vivid, realistic images on screen, it wasn't. It was the obvious burn-in. And it was bad. You could clearly see a shadow of the bottom logo bar / ticker from content they must use regularly peeking through what would have otherwise been a stellar video presentation. The burn-in scare was one of the factors that ultimately led to the demise of plasma televisions. Will burn-in be the demise of OLED? To dig into the issue, we turned to our friends at Rtings.com. It just so happens that they are currently, actively running a real life burn-in test on 6 LG OLED televisions. While we used to dismiss burn-in issues with plasma once the technology matured, it looks like we may not be able to dismiss them with OLED yet. The technology just hasn't matured to where we can say it isn't an issue. Hopefully it will. If not, the test results at Rtings.com were eye opening for us. Enough to give us pause on purchase decisions, and certainly informative on how we would use an OLED screen if we owned one. The folks at Rtings.com ran a burn-in stress test to compare the results across three different display technologies: OLED and two types of LCD, In Plane Switching (IPS) and Vertical Alignment (VA). The results there are pretty dire for OLED, as are the comments from some of the OLED owners at the bottom of the page. And when you factor in that, as they point out in response to a comment "Burn-in on OLEDs unlike Plasma or CRT TVs is not caused by retention or stuck pixels, but instead due to cumulative degradation of the material through usage. This means that over time, OLED TVs will lose brightness across the whole screen progressively. Burn-in is simply a high contrast region of the screen where there was more usage than the surrounding area creating a visible shape." It doesn't paint a rosy picture for OLED. For more information on In Plane Switching (IPS) versus Vertical Alignment (VA) for LCD TVs, see this article: IPS vs VA: Comparing LCD types found in TVs. But the real world test is a bit more "fair" than the stress test - especially on the OLED sets. Here's how they went about it. First, they "bought 6 LG OLED C7 which will play real, non-altered content. This should give you a better idea on what to expect depending on what you watch on your TV." Then they simulated using them like you might. Goal The goal of the test is to provide an idea of the usage time of a 2017 OLED TV before burn-in becomes apparent, which will depend on your usage. To do so, we will replicate five different real-world conditions in an accelerated aging test. We will also independently test two different brightness ('OLED Light') settings with the same content to see the impact of this. Test Setup The TVs will all be controlled by a microcontroller to repeat a five hour on and one hour off cycle four times per day. The 'Screen Shift' option will be enabled on all TVs, and 'Pixel Refresher' will be performed before each set of measurements taken on each TV. They will all be playing real content (not test patterns), from live cable TV sources, video game clips or recorded sports. The brightness of all TVs (except the one identified below) will be set to 200 nits on a checkerboard pattern, with the content described below. The Content LIVE CNN - This test is considered a control, with the 'OLED Light' set to a brightness of 200 nits. LIVE CNN (MAXIMUM SCREEN BRIGHTNESS of 380 nits) - This is to show the relationship between burn-in rate and 'OLED Light' with the exact same content and over the same time period. FOOTBALL - Includes content from a variety of channels and with different teams, so overlays are located in different areas and team colors change. It includes many games to avoid too much repeating. LIVE NBC - The source is a live cable feed and should be representative for a range of general TV content. FIFA 18 GAMEPLAY - The goal of the content on this TV is to investigate the effect of a 'high risk' video game - one which has some bright, static areas which remain very consistent. CALL OF DUTY: WWII GAMEPLAY - The gameplay footage on this TV is to represent a relatively 'low risk' video game. It only has small areas which are static and an overall dim image without too many bright colors. Results (so far) Week 2: No issues are visible. Week 4: Uniformity issues are clearly visible on the 200 nits CNN TV in red and magenta slides (but not in normal content). This is unusual, as we would expect the maximum brightness CNN TV to show uniformity issues before the 200 nits CNN TV. The 25% window we used in January to measure the color gamut is also becoming more visible on this TV (and the FIFA 18 TV) as the weeks progress, even though we haven't displayed that 25% test pattern since January. We have contacted LG to understand why th

Channel Master SMARTenna+ We have been receiving HD OTA signals since almost the beginning. As such we have tried over twenty five different antennas from about five or six different companies. To date our favorite is the Mohu Sky. It works great for extreme fringe reception. But if you live close to the towers you may get away with an indoor antenna and for that our favorite is the Mohu Leaf. Channel Master has introduced a new indoor antenna that gives the Mohu Leaf a run for the money. The Channel Master SMARTenna+ is a mostly paper thin amplified antenna that can easily be placed inside your home and pulls in quite a few channels. There is a processor built into the bottom of the antenna which helps "Steer" the antenna to maximize the reception. No more moving the antenna around until you find the right position. Just press a button and the signal is locked in. Setup Channel master has come up with a "Push-On" connector to make connecting the SMARTenna trivial. You just push on the cable connector to the antenna and then push on the other end to the amplifier. Then you connect the output of the amplifier to the TV and finally plug the amplifier into a wall socket. You will see an LED blinking for about two minutes while it scans for signals. Once it completes the scan the LED will stop blinking. Now go ahead and scan for channels on your TV. Prior to installing the SMARTenna we did a scan with the existing Mohu Leaf which found 72 channels. We did the same scan two minutes later with the SMARTenna and found 70 Channels. Performance You would think that the performance would be the same since they both found about the same number of channels. But there were some differences that made us quite pleased with the SMARTenna. Even though the Mohu Leaf found more channels watching some of those channels could get annoying due to dropouts. Everything would be going OK and then it would just pixelate. In one case the Antenna could not reliably pick up the local CBS affiliate with the Leaf. With the SMARTEnna we had the same issue. However, the SMARTenna has a magic button that virtually moves the antenna to a more optimal position. And just like that CBS is on screen and no pixelation. The new antenna fixes the age old problem of trying to maximize the location of the antenna to pull in the most channels possible. Now you can have all the channels and not have to move the antenna around. Another issue you may experience with OTA signals is that the signal is fine for about an hour or so and then it's just starts acting up. This could be for a variety of things interfering with the signal. This did happen while watching a show on a channel that was a bit farther away than the main channels. When that happened we just hit the LED button until the signal came back! Room for Improvement While we can attest that the SMARTennas does live up to its name, there are a few things we'd like to see improved. The scan button is a great idea if you are in front of the TV watching. But if you are recording something and the signal goes away or if you want to record things on different channels that need the antenna to be steered it won't work. If the antenna was truly smart it would scan the frequencies and auto steer to get the strongest signal possible. Or at the very least it would be nice if there was a remote control that allows you to steer the antenna from your remote control. Then you can build it into you automation so that recording would still work. Conclusion We have a new favorite antenna. If you live within 35 miles of your TV transmitters and suffer from multipath interference this may be the best $90 you spend on your TV!

Short Throw Projector Follow Up On Episode 836 we talked about the idea of short throw projectors for home theater use and asked the question: Why aren't more people using them in their homes? Their price per square inch of screen real estate seems like, at least on paper, the most cost effective way to get a huge screen at home. So why aren't they flying off the shelves? We had a ton of great listener feedback on it, so we decided to create a feature out of it. From Ed: My business is Classroom Technology, among other things. And you probably know that most classrooms today have either Projected images or LCD Panels at the front of the room. And I think the trend in Classroom Technology can inform the issue of UST projectors in homes. --- The trend in Classroom Technology is Toward LCD Panels. We are involved in several projects this summer when schools are taking out hundreds of Projectors that have 88-inch diagonal 16:10 screens and replacing them with smaller LCD Panels (75-inch 16:9 screen is a common size). So, they are replacing the 88-inch screen with a screen that is 31% smaller (in square inches). Why? Image quality. None of these projector images can compete with the dynamic range and clarity of an LCD. Even used primarily for data. --- It gets worse for Projectors when you think about it. In normal-size classrooms (which are bigger than most home theaters), schools are replacing projectors with LCDs that cost more than what a replacement projector would cost and have a smaller image. And they put more thought into this than the average home theater consumer. And remember, classroom LCDs are Digital Signage quality (PID standard) and cost about twice what a home LCD would cost. So schools are paying A LOT to move away from Projectors. So if schools are willing to pay for that image quality, why wouldn't you expect consumers to do the same? --- Put another way, let's say that one of these projector companies wanted to sell a lot of these projectors. Could you put them into Costco or BestBuy side-by-side with LCD TVs? That would be a tough sell. At a minimum you would need a special room. My thought is that the only group of consumers interested in Ultra Short Throw projectors would be the ones interested in Projectors in the first place. Which is a minority of the overall market. From Jim: I just finished listening to your episode about ultra-short throw projectors and while we are not a residential integrator, we have installed several of these commercially and thought I'd offer a couple points. --- Early attempts (8-10 years back) at UST projection was awful – a lot of issues with geometry, and it surely turned off a lot of people. --- UST projectors require a perfectly flat screen surface. Walls or conventional screens are no good – has to be perfectly flat. That said, the screen does NOT have to be exotic – just flat. Stop in at any elementary school, you'll see them everywhere projecting on whiteboards. --- As with any projection, for a quality image you want the picture to be aligned to the screen without using any electronic geometry correction. With UST projectors positioning the projector to match the image area is VERY touchy – you have to get the placement just right. --- All in all, if the environment was appropriate for projection and the placement situation was favorable, I would definitely consider a UST projector – particularly if it was laser-based. From Scott: About 3 years ago, I installed make shift home theater with short throw projector and couldn't be happier with the results on a relatively inexpensive setup at least video wise. A lot of people, when they finish their basements, ask me for help when it comes to home theaters usually on a budget. Since I do this for free, I wanted a way I could test things first to keep the "lifetime support" trips down to a minimum. --- Build: Optima got 1080p 3k lumens 3D DLP around $550 Denon X3000 Klipisch RF-62 reference series 7.1 but only using 5.1 using speaker stands STR-169100 Silver Ticket 100" screen white $200 Harmony Remote --- Sources: Windows 10 gaming computer Mac mini FireHD TV Apple TV Panasonic Blu-Ray --- Review: Setting up the screen would be ideal for 2 people due to the size. Putting the aluminum frame together and stretching it so it wrinkle free is critical but very easy with this brand. Hanging it is like hanging a big picture so a laser level and stud finder comes in handy. Since I wanted this easily removable I just have the projector on top of the center speakeer on a stand. Not ideal but works. Sitting about 3 foot away from the screen and 2 foot off the floor, I'm able to project a 100" 1080p image. --- This room has no windows and is small for a home theater at about 12'x20'. This projector was a little pain to dial in to the screen because I didn't have projector mounted and limited adjustments options. Startup time, heat, and fan noise are all the common negatives about projectors in general and are present

Home Theater Seating, a Listener's Perspective The following is an email from long time listener and supporter of the show Stu Silberman regarding his family's experience with Home Theater seating. We liked it so much we thought we would share it with everyone. My wife and I just purchased home theater seating. It's wonderful. Along with video, audio, lighting, shades, automation and the other important items you educate us on, what we sit on has a huge impact on our enjoyment of the hardware and software. Turns out there is so much available, from many different brands. We went first to Best Buy and then to a locally-owned, dedicated home theater store. Best Buy was disappointing – they had only one set of recliners on display. The dedicated store was better in that they had a few for us to try, and sales materials on all the other options available. Our third try was the charm – we went to a furniture store, just to see what they had. We hit the jackpot. They had probably a dozen different styles to try, and surprisingly, a very knowledgeable salesperson. We ended up purchasing a model from Palliser. Here are some of the things we learned in our shopping experience: Recliners are available as singles, or as rows of two or more. They can be aligned straight or curved so that they each point to the center of the screen. Since you mix and match, you can design, for example, two straight in the middle surrounded on each end by recliners curved in. Boy do they come with features. Ours have motorized recline, motorized headrest, two memory settings, and lighted cupholders and ground effects with three colors and four brightness settings, which can be independently set. The LEDs were fun the first time, but they're standard, so we have them. Options include bass shakers, massage, and probably more. The arms have storage and come with grommets, so we ordered swivel tables. You can also get tablet holders and wine glass holders. As with most custom-ordered furniture, you can select the grade and color of leather, and they'll be delivered in several weeks. Since the floor model had a grade and color we liked, we ordered from stock and got them within days. After using them for a few weeks, I'm very glad we made the investment. Here are some things that I'd like to share from our experience: Our buttons are on the cupholders. Other models have buttons on the side. When you're reclined, the last thing you want to do is to have to get up to find the buttons to make adjustments. Make sure the buttons are where you can easily reach them. The motorized headrest is critical. Without it you'll likely have to use one or more pillows to get your head to a comfortable viewing position. The seats are higher than the couches we used. This works out well for us – we're still below the center point of our 65" tv on a standard-height tv stand, and it's more immersive. We ordered two seats in a in a curved configuration so that we're both pointed toward the center of the screen – the way I recommend going. The seats are not attached to each other – pros and cons. Pro: very easy to move to the perfect position. Con: there's not much weight holding them down, so you really have to put them in the upright position before getting out. While we had white-glove service included, I watched and they're easy to install for do-it-yourselfers. The recliners each come in two pieces, they're easy to move around the house and down narrow stairways, and hooking up the cables to power is foolproof due to modular connections. Like speakers, an investment in quality seating should last for several hardware upgrade cycles. I highly recommend comfortable seating as a sure-fire way to increase home theater enjoyment. Let me know if you have any questions. Interview with David Sanderson of ReelGood.com James from Illinois sent us an email tipping us off to a service at Reelgood.com. Reelgood is an extensive streaming guide, with every TV show and movie available to stream online. Browse through every TV series and movie and sort by title, release year, genre, IMDB rating, and, most important -- see where to watch it. Then play with a single click or tap. We have an interview with ReelGood.com founder David Sanderson

Short Throw Projectors There was a short throw projector on Woot! this week for $999. Not a bad price at all for the potential to have a 100" television in your family room or home theater. That got us thinking… Why aren't more people using short throw projectors in their homes? Their price per square inch of screen real estate is by far the most cost effective way to get a huge screen at home, and the install and setup is a snap. So what gives? Why aren't people using them. Let us first apologize if some of you reading or listening are using short throw projectors at home. We aren't saying that you are not a person. We're simply saying that to date, we haven't seen a short throw projector in use in any home we've ever been to, nor have we had anyone brag to us about how cool their short throw setup is. We're going to take a look at some pros and cons and see if we can come up with theories on why they haven't caught on. If you have one, or have had one in the past and decided to ditch it, we'd love to hear your take. What is it For those who don't know, a short throw projector is a home theater projector that, like a standard front projection system, can give you a very large display area in your home, often maxing out at 100" to 120". The big difference is that they bounce the image off a mirror or two and project that large screen from only a few inches or a couple feet from the screen itself, not from all the way in the back of the room. So you get a huge home cinema by placing the projector on a standard TV stand at the front of your living room, in the same place you might put a center speaker or a soundbar. *Aside: Remember the old school big screen CRTs that would fold down or you'd pull a box out into the room to beam the image up onto the screen? It's kinda like that. Only not. Pros and Cons The pros are obvious: the cost to purchase a 100" or 120" television is astronomical - unattainable for most of us regular folk. So the only way to get a home theater that size is with a projector. But projectors are difficult to install, often requiring a professional to run cables and power to the back of the room. But with a short throw, there's not need to run anything to the back of the room. You just set them on your TV cabinet and hook them up like you would any other television. No install cost, low projector cost, instant home theater. The cons, as you can image, are nearly identical to the cons for typical from projection systems. In both cases, most are 1080p still. While prices for 4k are dropping, the are still at a good premium and selection is limited. Also, both suffer from a lack of overall brightness, making the ability to control ambient light critical, especially for daytime viewing. If you have a bright room with a bunch of windows, most projectors, including short throw projectors, will be frustrating to use during the day. And projectors require screens. You can't really just beam the picture onto a wall and expect to be happy with the picture. That means a second product to buy and install, increasing the complexity of the overall system. On top of that, many short throw projectors require a special screen that has been built to match the projector. At least with typical front projection you can buy and install whatever screen you like. Not so with some short throw setups. Probably the only con that short throw projectors don't share with standard front projectors is that people can walk through the beam and block it from getting to the screen. Unless people routinely walk on your TV cabinet, you won't have that issue with a short throw. Options LG PF1000UW The short throw projector we saw on Woot! for $999 was the LG PF1000UW Ultra Short Throw Smart LED Projector with webOS 3.0 Smart TV and Magic Remote. The specs sound pretty compelling, even for dedicated home theater use, not just portable or temporary instant home theater for backyards or parties or other events. With webOS 3.0 built in, it's like buying a Smart TV, just with a bigger screen. The throw distance is really short; at just 5 inches away you can get 60 inches of home theater, or go to 15 inches back to get images up to 100 inches on screen. And it has a max brightness of 1000 lumen. You get full HD 1080p picture quality. We would have loved 4k, but 1080p is good too. The LED lamp is very efficient and will last up to an estimated 30,000 hours. That means the lamp does not have to be replaced for about 10 years if the projector is used 8 hours every day. And it has 4-corner keystone technology that allows for adjustment of each of the four corners of the image for ideal projection image alignment. LG PF1000UW: $1399 MSRP LG also makes the HF85JA with 1500 lumens for a $1599 suggested price and the PH450U with 450 lumens for a $599 street (Amazon) price. Optoma EH320UST The Optoma Ultra Short Throw 3D 1080p Projector EH320UST is another option in this category. This option is impressively bright. It can hit a peak brightn

Interview with Adam Pizzo. He is a home integrator specializing in Control4. Adam is based in Toronto and was kind enough to come on the show and talk about what a home integrator can do for your home. From homes small to large, new and old, Control4 delivers power and performance on one system that coordinates the technology in your house into complete, brilliant experiences—interactions that fit your lifestyle and are easy for your family to enjoy. With one touch, dim the lights, stream high-resolution music, turn up the heat, lock the doors and arm the security system. Check in on cameras or see who's ringing the doorbell—from wherever you are. It's a smarter living experience that you'll wonder how you ever lived without. The Control4® platform is the operating system of your smart home. By connecting to and managing the many devices in your home, this robust and reliable platform enables your favorite products to work together in orchestration, personalized to the way you live.

The Devices We Can't Live Without Research firm iQor recently commissioned an online survey called the Customer and Product Experience (CPX) 360 Survey (part 2). It was conducted online and polled 1,004 U.S. adults 18 and up living in a "smart household" environment from Nov. 9 to Nov. 17, 2017. The goal was to gauge customer experience and customer service expectations of buyers of consumer technology in today's digital age. All respondents indicated they own or regularly use: a smartphone, a computer (desktop, laptop or tablet), and two or more "smart" devices. Their findings were interesting, but they inspired us to conduct a less formal survey to gauge customer experience with and "addiction" to consumer technology devices in today's digital age. The survey was conducted via email and shared Google docs and polled two U.S. adults, both over the age of 18. All respondents indicated they own or regularly use: a smartphone, a computer (desktop, laptop or tablet), and two or more "smart" devices. All respondents also indicated they record a weekly podcast about home theater and consumer electronics. The iQor study found that consumer dependency on WiFi routers has surpassed the smartphone as the #1 technology US adults cannot live without for more than one day. They state that "as the life-blood for the connected ecosystem, a functioning WiFi router is necessary for consumers to enjoy smart devices and the connected lifestyle, including smart TVs and streaming devices, multiplayer gaming, tablets, voice controlled virtual assistants and smart speakers, telehealth devices and IoT-enabled security systems. Currently, nearly two-thirds of US adults (64 percent) couldn't be without WiFi for more than one day." And it isn't going to go away. The proliferation of smart devices is forecast to reach 20.4 billion globally by 2020, almost doubling from an estimated 11.1 billion in 2018. WiFi Router We have to say we agree with the iQor results on how critical working WiFi is in our own homes. It seems like almost everything these days needs an internet connection. Without it, lights stop working, sprinklers stop working, doors won't unlock, you can't watch TV or stream movies, can't stream music or blast it in a different room. Heck, you can't even see who's at your front door. Things go sideways fast, and if you've got kids, you probably don't even want to be home if WiFi is down. Of course there will be those who say they don't really need their WiFi routers. After all, like a generator or battery backup in a power outage, you can always run your critical devices through a portable access point from your cellular provider, or even use the WiFi hotspot capability on your phone. But if you do that, you're really just using a different WiFi router. Maybe not your main one, but it is a WiFi router at that point. No, we're talking about stepping back about 20 years and going without WiFi at all. Braden: 1 day Ara: 1 day Smartphone It's hard to fathom how quickly the smartphone has become such an integral part of our daily lives. It is your constant companion, your source of unlimited information, and an incredibly easy way to get in touch with others, whenever you might need to. It has become as critical in our lives as indoor plumbing or refridgeration. And we didn't even have them 20 years ago; but society would melt down if they disappeared. The beauty of a cell phone is that it can (typically) still connect to the Internet even if your home WiFi goes down. If you plan for it, you could probably go without your cell phone for a few days. Maybe turn it off for a long weekend to just unplug and recharge. (Notice that even our euphemisms for life without a cell phone involve cell phone like jargon). You'd need to make sure everyone knew you'd be out of touch so they didn't freak out. And you'd need to take everyone important to you with you on the quick getaway in case you need to reach them. But otherwise, it would be doable. Braden: 3 days Ara: 1 Hour HDTV Television is a key component of family time in many households, in the US and around the world. We gather the family around that glowing box to go on an adventure together, laugh together, learn, bond and just relax. Without TV, we'd be forced to talk, or go outside and throw a football around or take a walk, maybe find a new hobby or play a board game. That could be cool, but let's be honest, not for an extended amount of time. We've all probably had super busy weeks in our lives. Those weeks where work, family and other life circumstances all seem to crash in at once and there's just no time for TV. It's doable. You just have to have something to distract you. Braden: 1 work week Ara: 1 hour during Primetime DVR This is a unique one. In years past, we've included the DVR on our list of things we're the most thankful for. The DVR was, in its heyday, one of the most critical pieces of home electronics we owned. Tivo and ReplayTV changed the way we do television. Th

Hue Lights For many home automation is limited to lights turning on and off at prescribed times. Others would like the ability to control their lights while they are away from home. For these people full blown automation is not necessary. There are a growing number of products that will let you do this. They range from smart wall plugs to wifi connected light bulbs. One such solution are Hue lights. Hue lights are not the cheapest solution but from our experience they seem to be the most reliable and have the most options. Hue lights do more than just turn on and off automatically. They also can set the mood by changing color. They do cost more and for that you get the most robust and complete lighting system available. (Some) Hue Products Hue White and color ambiance Starter kit E26 $199 White and color ambiance LightStrip Plus $89.99 White and color ambiance Beyond suspension light $349.99 White and color ambiance Beyond Ceiling light $299.99 Motion Sensor $39.99 Dimmer Switch $24.99 Hue Bridge $59.99 And many many more! The Brains The Hue Bridge is required to control your system. This is where you can name your lights and setup scenes and scheduling. You are limited to 50 lights per bridge. If you want to connect more lights you can add an additional bridge. Fifty lights seems like a lot, but once you get started you will want all your lights to be Hue lights! You can also connect 12 accessories, remotes and motion sensors. More about those later. You will need an iOS or Android app to interact with the system and you can set it up to work from home or away. The Hue Bridge will also connect to Homekit, Echo, or Google Home. In our test we controlled the system by voice via Siri and the Echo with no issues. Installation Some people shy away from automation because it can be a bit complicated to get the system up and running. The Hue is straight forward but does require a little bit work to get right. First you download the app on your device and then go to the settings and scan the network for your bridge. Once found you will need to press a big blue button on the bridge. After it's connected more than likely you will need to upgrade the firmware. Now that your bridge is online you can start to add lights. Go to Light setup and add lights. Be sure that the light has power. Once found you can rename it and assign it a room. And that's it! You will immediately be able to turn the lights on and off and if you have color bulbs you'll be able to change colors. The lights will also need a firmware update. Our recommendation is to set it up to do those automatically during the day time. They take quite a bit of time. We did an update to activate some cool features but ended up waiting over an hour. If you are patient go ahead and do the update. Otherwise wait a day to start playing with the cool features that are in the hue lights. Performance Make sure you get the Gen 3 lights. The color is better than previous versions and you can get higher wattages. Our test included bulbs, LED strips, and the Hue Bloom. The Hue Bloom is a light that is designed to bounce it's light off a wall to give an indirect ambiance affect. Ours are setup behind the TV and can be synced to what is on the screen! When we set the lights to white we got bright white light. We could soften them up or select pretty much any color we wanted with a color wheel. The app has some pretty cool scenes that we ended up going with since our experimentation was kind of lame. Ara would take about ten minutes and set something up and his entire family would say nah. After three failed attempts he chose a pre-canned scene and everyone loved it. In the end he gave in and went with it. One of the reasons Ara dropped the VOCOLinc lights is because they would drop the wifi connection and lights would not turn on or they would stay on when they were supposed to be off. In the three weeks of using the Hue lights they have not failed once! I you want to go just a little beyond automated lights you can add the motion sensors and have lights turn on for you when you walk into your house or get up to go to the bathroom. They respond very fast too! There is also a dimmer switch that can control multiple lights. With this $25 accessory you can easily add a switch anywhere in the house that you want. Hue Apps There are a bunch of apps that add functionality to your hue lights. Some developed by Philips and others developed by third parties. These typically cost a few dollars. We tested an app that listens to your music through your phones microphone and then times the lights to the beat. It mostly works but there is some lag. We also downloaded a $3 app that watches your TV through your phone or tablet's camera and then matches lights, that you choose, to the color of what is on the screen. Conclusion Philips Hue lights are one of the coolest home automation products we have tested. The more you have the more the capability. The only complaint we have about them is

Facebook Fiona: New Competition for Amazon Echo, Apple HomePod, and Google Home If you haven't already invested in one of the many smart home speakers on the market, this summer you'll have even more options, as Facebook plans to unveil its own version of voice-enabled smart home speakers, called Fiona and Aloha. Unlike most of the smart home speakers available today, like Amazon Echo, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, Fiona and Aloha will each feature a built-in 15-inch touchscreen. As an extra perk, Aloha will also boast facial recognition technology, which will allow users to access Facebook (and likely launch other tasks) when the smart speaker's camera lens recognizes them. ClearStream View Wall-Frame HDTV Antenna Review: Nearly Picture Perfect By building the antenna into a large picture frame, Antenna Direct's ClearStream View is a unique solution to the visually challenging problem of how to hide an indoor antenna. ... the $70 ClearStream View is a large, black picture frame with cutouts for family photos. Concealed in its back is a flat HDTV antenna. The ClearStream View emphasizes design. The plastic 14.25 x 18.75 frame can fit in with any kind of decor (it can even be painted), and it hangs on a single hook or nail. The white collage mat, into which you insert personal photos or artistic endeavors, can accommodate nine pictures ranging from 3.5 x 3.5 inches to 3.5 x 5 inches. You could also simply put one large, say, Monet print in the frame. A Brief History of Aspect Ratios, a.k.a Screen Proportions This month, my Scientific American column tackles the new era of vertical video—videos shot and viewed as tall, thin rectangles, suitable for smartphone screens without having to turn them. It's kind of a mess: Vertical videos look ridiculous on TV sets and computer screens, but traditional horizontal videos play tiny and goofily on smartphones held upright. This isn't the first time aspect ratios (screen proportions) have changed—or have given society headaches. Here's a quick history lesson. (An aspect ratio is expressed as either a horizontal-by-vertical proportion, like 4:3, or as its resulting ratio, like 1.33. The smaller the ratio, the more square the picture; the larger the ratio, the wider the image.)

Apple HomePod You are probably well aware that Apple released it's smart speaker, the HomePod ($349) last week. As you would imagine you can't click a link without somehow landing on a page that has a review. Well we're adding our two cents to the discussion. But we'll try to be succinct. In a nutshell, if you are not in the Apple ecosystem you can stop reading (listening) right here. There is nothing so compelling that you should shell out your $350 and buy one. If you are in the Apple ecosystem, there are some benefits over the competition, but is it worth the premium? First and foremost the HomePod is about Apple Music and there it shines. It's pretty compelling to tell siri to play any song ever recorded and have it start playing. Of course you can do the with your phone and Airplay. So maybe not as compelling as I thought. Setup Plug it in, click a button on your iPhone, and your are done! That's it! If you have a HomeKit home, that information transfers over, as does your iCloud, and music settings. For Apple users this is a no brainer. All in all it look less than 5 minutes to get up and running. The HomePod uses it's microphones and and drivers to optimize the sound regardless of where it is placed in your home. This is done without any user intervention. Sound Before we discuss the things you can do with the HomePod, let's discuss the sound. After all, that's why Apple is charging a premium for the device. Apple claims the A8 chip can analyse the music in real time and adjust the woofer and seven tweeters to give you "amazing" sound. After spending a week with the HomePod we can say that the claims of amazing sound are pretty accurate. You won't find another smart speaker with this kind of bass or channel separation. The HomePod reproduces your music more accurately than its competitors giving you a richer and fuller sound. But it's all about the bass, and here we found it deep and satisfying. But… before we move on, let's discuss high quality audio for a few minutes. One of our favorite high quality speakers is the AudioEngine A5+ . The A5+ is a bookshelf speaker that runs $400. If you connect an Airport Express ($70 refurbished) to the A5+ you can turn an iPhone or iPad into a HomePod that is mobile. And it will sound better. Yes it will be more difficult to place the speakers, and yes it will cost about $150 more. But if you are interested in high quality audio, and you are all in for Apple products, this is a better system. Digital Assistant Even though Apple is touting the audio capabilities of the HomePod it does have some Echo like capabilities. To activate the HomePod you say "Hey Siri" then speak your command. You can get news, weather, sports reports. You can ask it simple math questions, set timers, check calendars, send/read texts, and of course control your HomeKit enabled home. See detailed list below. To do all of that the HomePod has six microphones that pick up your requests. We tested it when there was loud music playing or from across the room and it worked quite well. We did have one occasion where there were a lot of people in the house and everyone was talking over each other trying to pitt the Echo against the HomePod. Both devices got confused and the HomePod even said it was too noisy in the room for it to do anything. Under normal circumstances the HomePod heard and responded to every request we made. Future Enhancements Something that was pitched but didn't make the first cut was the ability to use two Homepods together to form a stereo pair. At first you might think that this is a bummer but really who can afford two of these things just to form a stereo pair. After a week with the singular device I don't think it's that important. The single HomePod does a great job at creating a wide soundstage. I am sure it will be better with two but not $350 better. You would be better served placing the second HomePod in another room. Which leads us to the other future enhancement. AirPlay 2 is the next generation of AirPlay. Currently you can only AirPlay from your mobile device to one remote set of speakers. Note - if you AirPlay from a computer you can transmit to multiple speakers albeit the same sone to each remote speaker. With AirPlay 2 you will be able to send your music to multiple HomePods and beyond that you can send one song to one HomePod and another song to a second HomePod. AirPlay 2 is not restricted to HomePods. There will be speakers from other manufacturers that support this functionality. Is the HomePod Worth It? It's an easy question for the non-Apple people. No it's not worth it. If you are an Apple person the answer is, it depends. The HomePod is expensive and yes the sound is very good. Not good enough that it's worth the premium in price alone. However, if your home is setup with HomeKit and you have an Apple Music account, then I do feel that the HomePod is something you should consider. Things you can do with the HomePod: General knowledge "Hey Siri, who

Disney's ESPN streaming service to cost $4.99, launch in spring And the company's Netflix competitor, a streaming service for movies from Disney properties like Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars, will arrive in late 2019. Braden: I'm mostly interested in the Netflix competitor and discussing how a Disney/Pixar/Marvel/Star Wars studio based streaming service could shake things up. Best Subwoofers of 2017 Most modern movie soundtracks and music recordings have at least one thing in common: abundant bass. Explosions, rockets blasting off, deep synthesizer notes, and many other elements consist of copious low frequencies that most speakers simply cannot reproduce. To experience the full effect of these subterranean sounds, you need a subwoofer. To help you select a good one, we present a list of the best subwoofers we've reviewed during 2017. Control4's New $350 Home Automation Hub: Affordable, Powerful IoT, No A/V Introduced at ISE 2018, the CA-1 home automation controller from Control4 'retails' for $350 and does everything a full-blown EA system can do except A/V -- ideal for home builders and consumers who want IoT controls, but not audio/video. With the CA-1, Control4 introduces their most affordable smart-home controller yet with Wi-Fi, ZigBee, and optional Z-Wave support. Braden: $350 for a dedicated controller isn't expensive at all. Add the detail that Control4 is every bit as sophisticated as any home automation system on the market and DIY home automation just got really interesting.