Home Theater Gear

NuVision heretofore known for their premium quality LCD TVs, has introduced their first foray into the projector market, the LED powered ProVu P2 cinema projector. The latest of the LED light engined home theater projectors, the P2 boasts a 20,000 hour lamp life, about 7 times that of the average UHP lamp used in traditional DLP and LCD home theater projectors. In reality, it should be the only lamp you'll ever need for this projector.

Lamp life is far from the only reason you might want to venture into the world of LED illumination when choosing your next  home theater projector. LEDs are a much more efficient light source, using only about 40% of a traditional bulb system. The NuVision's bulb draws 135 watts, vs. 200 – 250 watts for most other home theater projectors' lamps. Although even for the most die hard home theater user the savings won't add up to make or break numbers, every little bit helps.  

All the energy savings in the world won't mean squat if the image isn't up to home theater standards, and thankfully NuVision is known for delivering a great image. One thing that separates an LED engined unit from traditional single chip DLP projectors is the absence of a color wheel, the Achilles heel of a traditional single chip machine. The fast response of the LEDs allows for a 22x refresh rate, more than 3 times that of the fastest color wheel units. That means no video artifacts or eye fatigue, Yipee!

Since LEDs can be very quickly modulated, the projector achieves extreme dynamic contrast ratios, and the response time is much quicker than any mechanical dynamic iris system can muster. How it deals with dark scenes with a bright element, such as a spaceship against a black background remains to be seen, although other examples of the genre seem to do this well.

LED engines also allow for a very wide color palate and the P2 delivers here as well. One of the great things about this projector from a user's perspective is that unlike other projectors, the P2 requires absolutely zero cool down or warm up time. You just fire it up and enjoy the show!

Some Specs for the NuVision P2:

Two Lens Options for greater placement and installation flexibility –
standard throw lens 1.85 – 2.4:1
short throw lens 1.56 – 1.86

Inputs: HDMI x 2, S-video x 1, composite video x 1, RGB x 1, component x 2 (BNC, RCA)
Video Processing: Gennum 10-bit

 Price for the NuVision P2 is set at $16,995 (but you won't need to spring for $500 bulbs every 2,000 hours)

Posted by 1touch at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

D&M Holdings, the parent company to Denon and Marantz, among others, has killed two of the most storied companies in the custom installation industry; Escient and Snell.

Escient was formed back in the 1990's by industry veteran Tom Doherty to make (at the time) innovative CD changer controllers with a slick GUI so that people could find their favorite CDs among the hundreds thy owned. It was a great concept at the time, and I installed more than a few of them myself. Eventually evolved into a music server business, and more. D&M has indicated that Escient will continue to support and issue software updates for current products.

Snell was a home THX pioneer, and had made a name for itself creating high performance theater and in-wall speakers, in addition to traditional free standing loudspeakers. They were combined with Boston Acoustics, and eventually caught up in the corporate think that has little place for passionate, innovative companies that used to make up the core of the audio industry.

Such small, focused companies have no place in a large corporate infrastructure, yet can barely survive without  their resources in tough economic times. If history is any indicator, Snell and Escient won't be the last A/V companies to come up with a great idea and run with it. I only hope that these future companies don't run too far, too fast, and one day run out of breath.

RIP Escient and Snell.

Posted by 1touch at 06:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Onkyo releases the $599MSRP TX-SR608 A/V receiver with HDMI 1.4 for 3D support. The TX-SR608 supports two of the features found in the HDMI 1.4 feature set, those being the aforementioned 3D support, and the audio return channel. The audio return channel, as the name suggests, passes audio back from a TV's built in tuner to the receiver, making for an elegant, single cable solution.

What else has Onkyo wrought for the new 608? It gains 10 watts from the 607, courtesy of a new amplifier section that harness the power of  inverted triple stage Darlington output, and 192kHz/24-bit Burr-Brown PCM1690 DACs for better audio quality. The new receiver is now THX® Select2 Plus certified, whereas the outgoing TX-SR607 bore no such mark of THX approval.

For those of you with a PC that you want to connect to your AV system, yet are saddled with only a HD-15 VGA video connector, the new 608 welcomes you with open arms, as it has just such a video input for you to take advantage of. That's a real help if your TV has no such input, because it will be sent over the HDMI cable. All output can be scaled all the way to 1080p using the built-in Faroudja DCDi. The old unit only went as far as 1080i.

Onkyo has also upgraded the unit's GUI to a more 21st century appearance, with transparent overlays, cool icons, and color graphics. All in all Onkyo has made some satisfying upgrades, and kept the cost in check, meaning more value for you in your home theater.

Posted by 1touch at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I posted a few weeks ago on the new TiVO premier series DVR. For those of you wondering what this new generation of TiVO will do, here's you answer. It won't wash your dishes or project an image, but just about everything else is fair game. To wit:

• Stream music: play music files on your TV or home entertainment center from the home computer across the network or via the internet
• View personal photos and slideshows on TV from a networked computer
• Watch free music videos and other web videos (not just YouTube) and even subscribe to regular updates via RSS feeds from various sources

It will also download HD movies and TV from many sources including Vudu, Blockbuster, and Netflix. It supports cable and Verizon FIOS, but not satellite or AT&T U-verse. It also fully supports 1080p video.

The fact that it records live TY, and allows you to pause, rewind and replay live TV goes without saying for a TiVO.

At only $299 for the smaller box, that could qualify as the bargain of the century.

Posted by 1touch at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Deal of the Day for Friday March 26, 2010. - Ends on the 28th.
GREAT DEALS ON HDTVs

AND - Save 43% on this Polk Audio 2-Way Tower Speaker.

• Dual, bi-ampable gold-plated binding posts
• Adjustable leveling feet for stability
• Patented PowerPort® bass venting
• 1-inch silk dome tweeter
• Timbre-matched to fit into any Polk Audio home theater or multi-channel music system

This is a great speaker for someone who doesn't have a ton of cash, but still wants to get decent sound for both music and movies.

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Posted by 1touch at 07:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to several sources Blockbuster Video, a staple of home theater content for decades, may soon be going the way of the Dodo. Their recent statements about the questionable future of the company sent both stock and bond prices tumbling. The declining popularity of actually going to a video store to rent movies, competition from home delivery pioneer Netflix and video download services, competition from Redbox kiosks, and the sour economy are to blame. Even more troubling for the movie rental giant may be that it owes a tremendous amount of money.

Blockbuster is about $1 billion in debt, and losing more every month. Despite revenues of over $4 billion, they have found it difficult to stem the losses, which last year amounted to over $350million. That's a pile of cash in any situation, but it may be even worse for Blockbuster, because they have a $300 million of notes due in September, 2012. That's a big check to write.

Noteholders are fearing the worst (Block buster may not be able to repay them in 2012) and have recently tried to arrange a debt for equity swap. That begs the question of the desirability of owning equity in a rapidly sinking organization, but presumably these folks know something the rest of us don't. They may figure that it is better to have ownership in something, and try to profit from a turnaround, than to face the very real possibility that they'll receive nothing in 2012. People fear Blockbuster may have having trouble making interest payments on these notes as well.

In their quest to right the ship, Blockbuster has been fairly aggressive in closing many of their stores. You may have noticed how few have been shuttered in your neighborhood. Blockbuster has also been trying to introduce new ways of delivering content that are more consistent with the 21^st century. They recently announced a mobile movie service for T-Mobile's new HTC HD2 smart phone, and will soon have a similar service for Android and Windows powered smart phones too. They beat everyone else to market with that move, which may mean all is not lost for Blockbuster yet, even though the expected near term revenue from mobile amounts to a drop in the bucket, compared to their overall financial picture.

They have been attacking DVD kiosk giant Redbox, with their NCR partnership that plans to have 10,000 new, Blockbuster Express kiosks by mid summer. One asset blockbuster does have is tremendous brand equity. The name is synonymous with video rental, and that alone could help get their kiosk business of to a very fast start.

They have also penned a deal with Warner Brothers studios to get exclusive rental rights for roughly 30 days before Netflix and Redbox get to rent them. That is a definite coup for the beleaguered blue and yellow.

Will Blockbuster figure into the content picture for your home theater in the future? Who can tell, but they definitely have some tough times ahead.

Posted by 1touch at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 

What to do if you want to see your media center PC in HD on your TV, but the TV has no computer input, and the computer, just a VGA output? In years gone by that would have required an expensive transcoding / scaling solution, but technology never slows down. Altona Technologies has come to your rescue with it's new ATI-HDVieW.

The ATI-HDVieW takes a VGA in with an HD-15 connector, and outputs beautiful HDMI in resolutions up to 1080p. “What about the audio?”, you say. Well Altona has that one covered too. You can plug in the headphone jack, and it will convert the analog audio to digital and imbed it with the HDMI for your TV.

In auto mode, it detects the EDID from your TV and adjust it's resolution accordingly, so your TV gets the best signal it is capable of reproducing, up to and including 1080p. If you'd rather choose your own resolution, you can choose between

480p@60, 720p@60, 1080p@60, 1280x800@60, 1366x768@60, and 1920x1200@60.

From your computer, the unit accepts up to 1900 x 1200.

The device is powered from your computer's HDMI port, so it requires no external power supply. Speaking of external power supplies, it is about the size of your laptop's power supply and weighs in at half a pound, so can stuff into your laptop bag. The price for all this technology? A mere $119.95.

Posted by 1touch at 06:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Comcast scooped DirecTV with yesterday's announcement that they would be the first to show a major sporting event in 3D, in this case, the Master's Golf Champion at Augusta.

Does that mean you'll be able to watch Tiger Woods strut around the fairway, resplendent in 3D glory? Well, that depends on weather he will play the event or not. Comcast's Derek Harrar posted on his blog yesterday: “This event will mark a series of industry firsts - the first live next-generation 3D broadcast of a major sporting event on TV, the first live simulcast of a next-gen 3D event online, and the industry's first live multi-camera next-gen 3D production “

DirecTV was thought to have beaten Comcast to the 3D punch with their announcement last month that they would be launching 3 new, dedicated 3D channels in June of this year. You can see those sweating execs sitting around the boardroom table now...

TV giants Panasonic and Samsung recently debuted their 1st generation 3D TV's to the public. With the runaway success of feature films like Avatar, the recent announcement of a codified 3D spec for Blu-Ray discs, HDMI 1.4, and now, major sporting events being broadcast in 3D, there might be enough imputus for 3D to really take off.

Posted by 1touch at 06:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

^{DirecTV today released the movie Pirate Radio on it's DirecTV Cinema pay per view service. The movie doesn't get released on DVD until April 13th, so DirecTV customers will get more than a month head start on everyone else.  According to Sarah Lyons, DirecTV's VP of Marketing:}

“DIRECTV Cinema strives to deliver the highest-quality movie experience by offering unique content that is above-and-beyond what consumers find on the usual pay-per-view platform, DIRECTV is thrilled to continue raising the bar with Pirate Radio, by offering it to our customers more than a month before the film’s DVD release. We will continue to deliver an unmatched in-home movie experience that can only be found on DIRECTV.”

The traditional release date s for films could get muddled, as studios and other content providers cut special deals with service providers. It is another revenue stream for the studios, as they can command additional revenue for the privilege of  allowing an exclusive early release. This trend will continue.

Posted by 1touch at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday afternoon, Lighting control giant Lutron announced the latest generation of their RF based lighting control system Radio RA2, is now shipping. Named after the Egyptian sun god RA, the Radio RA product has been popular since it was introduced about a decade ago. It has gotten a bit long in the tooth however, so Lutron has brought it's considerable engineering resources to bear on giving their baby a complete makeover.

One long awaited feature that will sure to have installers dancing in the streets is that the programming can now be done and more importantly, stored on a PC. No more programming all system keypads manually. Now a programmer merely has to define the system in software, then tell the keypads  which loads to control. Scenes can be created for keypad buttons as well, an easy process to do with the PC.

Since the system can be programmed on a PC, should something catastrophic happen and the system need to be reprogrammed, it is a very simple matter to do so. It is also far easier and faster to make any changes the client may desire.

One of the limitations of the old Radio RA system was the system max of 32 dimmers and/or switches in the system, Two systems could be bridged to  control 64 dimmers or switches, but it was expensive top do it this way. Now the 32 limitation has been dome away with. The system comes with either a 100 or 200 dimmer /switch limitation, so it will work in all but the very largest projects.

The RA2 is much more capable than the previous iteration. If you or the client needs to have custom conditional programming done, it still requires a tep up to the RAs's bigger sibling, Homeworks, which also has a wireless version.

Contact your authorized Lutron dealer for more information on the new Radio RA2 wireless lighting control system.

Posted by 1touch at 12:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)