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Avi here: Home Theater View has been on an unofficial hiatus for the last month, not coincidentally the first month of my daughter’s life. The site will return shortly with far more regular posts. -avi
Home Theater View Not Dead, Just Not Sleeping Read MoreI was at Microsoft’s Preview Day today in New York, which for me was largely about mobile devices (see my bio). One thing that came across clearly, however, was the centrality of Windows XP Media Center (XP MCE) to Microsoft’s overall consumer plans. This reminded me of an interesting case study in Digital Connect about a custom installer, Silicon East, which has a somewhat unique specialty putting systems into new construction. That’s nothing new – when the walls are open, it’s the best time to put in home networking gear, and the walls are never more open than during new …
When the walls are open, Microsoft’s moving in Read MoreI maintain that the worst thing to hit to our "national pastime" (officially still baseball) is not steroid abuse, but HDTV. In high resolution closeups, players spitting chewing tobacco and "adjusting themselves" is far more offensive than Super Bowl halftime shows or Desperate Housewives previews. In a high def world, certain things have to change: performance enhancing drugs are fine – until they kill the athletes, they make their muscles look nice and ripped. But chaw, and polyester pants that gather in the crotch? Those have to go. It’s not that HDTV has so much resolution that you can see …
HDTV and Plastic Surgery Read MoreBack in February I wrote about Microsoft’s Lightspeed IPTV demo at CES and linked to BusinessWeek’s skeptical coverage. Well, the magazine was just biding its time and this week they completely skewer the initiative (subscription required), highlighting the endless delays in commercializing it. It seems the impressive demo I saw at CES was real. The problem is that the technology doesn’t work for millions of users at once, which is kind of important for the operators who want to broadly deploy it. Live and learn. Still, TV over IP seems somewhat inevitable. Japan and Korea have DSL service 10x faster …
Yes, it was a live demo… also a misleading one Read MoreThere’s a new big box retail mini-chain (5 stores) here in Northern NJ, Electronics Expo, and it is unlike any other big box retail store I have seen. The CEDIA custom installation market is growing at double digit rates, and Electronics Expo is essentially a gigantic showroom for flat panel displays, front projectors, and more flat panel displays. The highlight of the store is the second level – a walkthrough of a ‘model home’ with flat panel displays absolutely everywhere. Extremely high end receivers – though no separates – are arrayed in two of the rooms on the main floor, …
Retail Goes Custom Read MoreEvan Powell over at Projector Central has an insightful article up on choosing the right resolution for budget front projectors. Bottom line: In the U.S., 848×480 is ideal for DVD, video games, and regular TV. HDTV looks pretty good at this resolution, too. These projectors are cheap, the images are beautiful – go for it. Moving up to 1024×576 is essential for Europeans, where the extra resolution is needed for regular TV (the U.S. and Europe use different TV standards). Moving up to 1024×576 is counterproductive for U.S. consumers because the extra resolution isn’t used for TV and makes little …
Front Projection: When More is Less Read MoreThere’s been a flurry of news over the past month about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD backers getting together to avoid a format war for the next generation of high definition discs. I’ve avoided covering each step on the drama, so here’s a quick recap of the posturing between the two camps: "Hey, we’re new here at Sony, and going proprietary hasn’t worked out so well in the past few years. Let’s work this BD/HD-DVD thing out" "OK" "Um, we can’t," "No, really, we’re still trying," "Look! HD-DVD can do 45GB per disc, too!" "A single format doesn’t look likely – the …
The Sony PS3 and HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Reapprochment Read MoreI’ve been testing several digital music players and third party headphones – none of them from Apple. It’s not that I don’t like the iPod, I just haven’t gotten one in recently from Apple. My past experiences with iPod suggest that Apple leads the industry with good reason. I prefer SanDisk’s Digital Audio Player to the iPod Shuffle, though I understand the Shuffle’s appeal – particularly the tight integration with iTunes for moving music on and off the device. Still, I prefer seeing the title of what I’m listening to, and the SanDisk has both a screen and a remarkably …
Of non-iPods Read MoreI wrote earlier about Outlaw’s new 990 audio processor, and was left with a few questions. They’ve since posted a FAQ that not only answers my questions, but also provides rare public insight into industry practices for cross-company parts sharing. Audio is a lot like the automobile industry – creating a platform is enormously expensive, and companies often share development to keep costs down. Sure, there are a few boutiques that create everything themselves from scratch, but custom efforts are enormously expensive, limiting the potential market size. Outlaw uses the three different models shown below for product development, and so …
When Manufacturers Don’t Manufacture, What Are They? Read MoreOutlaw just announced a new pre/pro (the surround sound processing portion of a receiver without the amplifier section), the model 990, and its a doozy: a high end version of the company’s 950 for only $1099. More surprising than the product itself is Outlaw’s secrecy about it – while some analysts (including yours truly) were briefed on this last year, this is the first public indication the company has made that they were even working on a new pre/pro, and it should be shipping within the next month or two. The change in strategy was due to the flack the …
New/Old Audio Technologies New Again: Part Two Read More