Accessories / Audio / Displays / HDTV

Product Review: XTremeMac HD Switcher

- by Avi Greengart - 3 Comments.

Sometimes all you need is a simple product that does one thing, and does it well – at an affordable price. If you have an HDTV with only a single HDMI input and multiple HDMI sources, you need an HDMI switcher. New displays may have multiple inputs, and A/V receivers are beginning to provide HDMI switching as a matter of course, so if you’re building a system from scratch, you may be able to consolidate your video switching in your reciever or display rather than buy a separate component. Finally, if you have just a single HDMI component, you won’t …

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Displays / DVD / HDTV

Consumers Still Think They Have HD When They Don’t

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

The Leichtman Research Group (an ex-Yankee Group analyst) put out a press release with some interesting stats on consumer HD awareness. LRG claims that over 75% of HDTV owners believe that they are watching HD programming, but LRG estimates that "about 53% of all HD households are actually watching HD programming from a multi-channel video provider (cable, DBS or a telco), and about 4% are watching HD programming via broadcast-only – leaving about 20% of those with an HDTV erroneously thinking that they are watching HD programming when they are not." That may actually be better than previous studies, which …

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Computing / Industry

When did my day job kill my hobby?

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

I’ve been trying to catch up with my reading – nearly a year’s worth of home theater magazines have piled up. One thing I’ve noticed is an increased emphasis on flat panel TVs –  no surprise there, as that category  accounts for an enormous amount of sales activity. What I found odd was the sheer amount of coverage mobile devices now get in these publications. Sure, I expect convergence in Sound & Vision, which has steadily moved in that direction for years. But Home Theater Magazine? Aside from the odd TV with an SD card slot, what do digital cameras …

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HDTV

Update to an Old Review: LG LST3510A

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

Now that we’re done fixing up the home theater after the April flooding (new paint, new trim, new flooring) and a tree that fell (new siding and external cable connections), I’m buying all new gear and hope to start writing more formal equipment reviews. But first, it’s time to revisit an old review. It’s been 2 1/2 years since I first wrote about LG’s LST3510A combination HDTV tuner/upconverting DVD player, but post-flood I’m using it differently – as a "free" HDTV cable box. Some background: In Northern NJ, Cablevision sends out its basic HDTV channels unscrambled using the QAM format …

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DVD / Industry

State of HD Disc War

- by Avi Greengart - 2 Comments.

Engadget just posted a nice wrap-up of their CEDIA coverage. (I was not able to attend CEDIA; after Nokia’s big London event last week, I went to RIM and Motorola events this week and even had to follow the Apple announcements from afar due to scheduling). The big news both at CEDIA and in the press last month is around the HD-DVD Blu-ray war; HD-DVD gained a studio just when it appeared Blu-ray was pulling away with software sales, and both Samsung and LG have new dual-format players coming to market demonstrated at the show. Back in January at CES, …

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Computing

Revisting Vista

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

My former colleague Joe Wilcox wrote a fairly damning column on Microsoft Vista yesterday, and I generally agree with his overall analysis. I have also written here in the past that I simply could not get Vista running reliably as a media center upgrade. And yet, somewhat surprisingly, my Vista box is now running well: no crashes, no problems connecting to peripherals, no problems. Four things have contributed to the updated (and happier) state of affairs: I reinstalled a fresh copy of Vista. That’s never a good solution, but my alternative was reinstalling XP (or trashing the box altogether), so …

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Accessories / Computing

Logitech MX Air Blends HT and PC

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

Logitech introduced a new "mouse" yesterday, and I put "mouse" in quotation marks because it’s an interesting product that blends a PC mouse with a gyroscopic sensor (think Nintendo Wii’s controller and you have the right idea) and software that can be used as a remote control for watching media content on a computer. There have been products like this in the past, notably from Gyration (a company that got bought by Thomson in 2004). A bunch of years back when I was heading home theater research at JupiterResearch I wrote a report where I recommended their Media Center accessory …

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Industry

Count ’em: *TWO* CEDIA Expos

- by Avi Greengart - Leave a Comment

CEDIA (the show) has been growing by leaps and bounds each year, so CEDIA (the organization) announced that they’re adding a Spring show in Las Vegas. I do think that there is room for another targeted CE show in the first half of the year; CES has gotten way out of hand. CES is so big and so crowded that it’s impossible for a small company’s announcement to stand out and nearly impossible to navigate for attendees. But CEDIA is scaling back expectations for the event, saying that, “Feedback from CEDIA members indicates that there is strong support for a …

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Industry

HES Come, Gone, Missed

- by Avi Greengart - 1 Comment

The New York Home Entertainment Show has come and gone… and I missed it (I was tied up at a meeting most of the day Friday and had commitments on Sunday). I am upset that I missed seeing Internet-only retailers Outlaw Audio, who showed off a new line of speakers, and Aperion Audio, also a speaker vendor. I can ask for review units (my home theater isn’t set up again just yet, but at least it’s not under water any more), but without a dealer channel, open-to-the-public shows like HES are the best venue for normal folks to see and …

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