Coming home from a benchmark training trip a few evenings ago, I looked in my driveway and saw these packages stacked one on top of the other.

Believe it or not, these represent one turntable.

The McIntosh MT10 turntable that I have been using for our Vinyl vs. CD article series is reference quality, and in order to test other cartridges, I would have had to remove the one in the MT10. The McIntosh is not configured for exchanging cartridges easily, and I also wanted to be able to go back and forth between two cartridges in my listening tests. So, I decided to acquire a second reference quality turntable.

Searching all over the place on-line and reading a lot of reviews, I decided on VPI Industries, which makes a number of very high quality units. I chose the HRX. It’s there in all those boxes in the photo. Actually, it’s the same model in the photo on Page 3 (Turntables, Tonearms, and Cartridges) of the Vinyl vs. CD article series.

I also ordered a cartridge to compare with the one in the MT10. The new cartridge is an MC (moving coil) unit, but it has 2.5 mV output instead of the 0.75 mV output of the MC cartridge in the MT10.

Results will be forthcoming shortly.

I have been using the “diNovo Edge” keyboard from Logitech for some time and it has worked out well.  There are several features I like.  Among them:

• An integrated TouchDisc, so I don’t need a separate mouse.  The TouchDisc is responsive and can be used to scroll both horizontally and vertically.
• Communication with the PC is handled over BlueTooth and the range is good.
• A built-in rechargeable battery with a quick charge cycle.  A charging base is provided and the charge  holds for a good length of time.
• A slim-profile
• Light-weight
• Some special function keys with labels that light up; I would have liked the entire keyboard to be backlit.

Logitech’s line also includes a keyboard for use with the PS3, the “MediaBoard Pro”, offering similar functionality.  It does not include a built-in rechargeable battery, and some of the media control keys are also missing.  This keyboard should work with a PC, although it may require some tinkering.  It is also less expensive, so if your budget cannot accomodate the “diNovo Edge”, you can consider this alternative.  Hopefully the price of this keyboard will come down over time.  I would also like to hear about other options that people are using, so if you have a keyboard (BlueTooth or RF based) that you like to use with your HTPC, please post.

I was helping my son shop for a birthday present, particularly focusing on his interest in a game console. I tried not to nudge him towards a PS3, but a little voice kept saying “Blu-ray player, Blu-ray player. . . .” Eventually, the angel on my other shoulder won out and I decided I would just buy a stand-alone player rather than co-opt my own child’s birthday present. As of today, the best Blu-ray player with Profile 2.0, relatively fast-loading time and a decent price, is the PS3. A game console, for $400.

I appreciate that having the studios line up behind different formats made for an untenable situation. But the “old” Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player in my rack, like every other HD DVD player, was based on a stable set of specifications (as Adrian just noted,  BD-Live is still ramping up).  And I paid $99 for it.

I had hoped that, with the end of the format battle, consumers would rapidly see a stable set of specifications, and more players available at a wide range of price points. Especially that all important entry-level player to introduce people to the joys of high-def video (kind of like those $999 HD flat screens).

Well, the big CEDIA show is less than two months away. I can still hope, right?

With more major studios lining up to add BD-Live content to Blu Ray discs in the upcoming months there are some features that I am looking forward to and then there are some I’m not.

To establish some ground here, BD-Live is the feature that allows ethernet or wi-fi capable Blu-Ray Players (Sony Playstation 3 for example) to connect to the internet and obtain additional content not already loaded onto the disc.  Features such as downloadable trailers, library search, and live chatting are some of the ideas that studios have already announced.

I’m not really going to get excited about the live chatting feature.  I think it might be pleasant to discuss a movie after its finished and perhaps some interesting conversation can result involving interpretation or some other aspect of the film but my main concern is, will there be a way to filter out trashy , meaningless, or spam comments that are frequently seen on internet discussion.   Probably not.

I am, on the other hand, interested to see how the informational resource features pan out.  I’m all for guided recommendations for other movies based on my personal preferences.  They can potentially save me the time from watching movies I feel are disasters such as Sony Pictures “Are We Done Yet” for instance.

I think companies like Netflix or Blockbuster Online would be smart to get themselves involved in BD-Live so that if during watching a disc when a preview or trailer of a desired movie is watched, one could add it to their rental queue with a convenient push of a button.

Also, are the studios favoring BD Live going to give the consumer extras free as charge as a reward for purchasing the higher priced Blu-Ray discs or are they going to use BD-Live as a tool to generate more revenue by making the extras for sale only.  Probably the latter.  Personally, I’d like to see a lot more of these novelties such as theme song ringtones or other such goodies come free of charge as appreciation to the consumer.  A little goes a long way. 

It’s July 4th weekend here in the U.S., which traditionally means standing over a grill filled with searing animal meat, beer in one hand and BBQ tongs in the other. Why this is an appropriate way to celebrate the birth of our country is the topic of another blog (in a different publication). I have a nice set of Paradigm outdoor speakers, so will at least be able to enjoy my music while manning the grill.

But how about watching a movie in the backyard? Now you can stop by the local big-box store and buy an inflatable outdoor screen. I have seen commercial versions of them at parks, and while not a videophile experience, the image quality is at least on a par with the drive-in movies of my youth; plus you don’t have the metal speaker affixed to the car window or idiots who keep flashing their headlights at the screen every time there’s a romantic scene. Now that’s something I can celebrate.

I had an interesting experience this past weekend that I want to tell you about.

A product that I use for outdoor exercising wore out. This happens about every five years, and I simply replace the product with a new one.

So, I went into the store to get it, and they took me over to a display that showed a new model. It was priced about $150 more than the model l usually purchase. He said there was a $150 rebate on the new model, and the old model was not in stock anyway. It did not appear to have the heft of the old model, but I decided what the heck, and bought one. They gave me a rebate slip that I was supposed to send in and would get my $150 rebate check within a couple of weeks.

OK, so I get home and install the new model. Well, it did not perform nearly as smoothly as the old model. Part of the problem was the lower weight of the new one.

I thought about this and realized what was going on. The company that makes this product didn’t have any competition at first. Now, they have some, and the competition makes good units.

What they are trying to do is build a new version that is much cheaper to manufacture, stock it fully in dealer showrooms, not stock the old one very much, price it higher so you think it is a better model than the old one, offer it with a rebate so you will be tempted to buy the new one (with the rebate, you then get it at the same price as the old model), and slowly work their customer base into using the new, cheaper made model. They raise the price and build it cheaper. What could be better?

Well, how about a customer base that is stupid enough to fall for this? It does not exist. Customers are just too shopping-wise these days. There is too much info out there and we have been screwed too many times before.

So, I took the new model back and said I want the old model. He gave me a $132 refund, with the rest of the money going to pay for the old model when it comes in next week.

The thing I really want to say here is that I have not seen this kind of shady marketing in the Audio Video world, and the reason is that there is just too much competition. There are only three competitors to the exercise product that I bought. There must be 100 speaker manufacturers out there. Anyone who tried to fool us would be out of business within a year. Can you imagine what would be said about them on all the audio video forums?

My cable box went on the fritz last weekend, conveniently while I was out of town. Apparently, it could output sound or video, but not both at the same time. Our box (with dual HDTV tuners) was several years old, and I knew was being replaced by a newer, modern unit. So I wasn’t totally surprised that it was malfunctioning. My wife called the cable company, which promised to send a truck out with a replacement box.

I got the call while driving up Interstate 5. My wife said that the cable guy was confused about how to hook up the interconnects, because the replacement box didn’t have an HDMI port. Uh, what? I got on the phone with the technician, and ran it down. My existing cable box (the broken one), which did have an HDMI port, had been in my home at least two years, and was not a new box when I got it. If the “replacement” box didn’t even have an HDMI port (it was DVI), then that meant that the box was at least two generations older than the newest box. And likely was on its last legs before it too failed, which would require yet another trip.

So I politely told him no thanks, we’d stop by the cable office and pick up a new box. It wasn’t his fault; he could only offer us what he had on the truck. But it made me wonder what a less knowledgeable customer would have done in the same situation.

At my brother’s urging I picked up La Vie end Rose this weekend on DVD….and could barely watch it.

Not the movie itself mind you, which is a very interesting biopic piece, but rather it was the way the DVD was formatted.

Whoever the genius was at the DVD authoring workstation, they decided to encode the film as letterbox-in-4:3-frame.

That alone should be an unforgivable sin this late in the game, but the wrench in the mechanism was the non-negotiable subtitles.

Now I grant that if you have what should now be considered an antiquated 4:3 display system, all of this is of no consequence. But with any conventional widescreen TV setup, the first thing we run into is a loss of potential resolution. We have to force a “zoom” mode in the display system which cuts the top and bottom of the 4:3 frame, usually an inconsequential move from a content point of view since the top and bottom of such letterbox presentations contain encoded nothingness, but ultimatley it yields a picture with 33% less detail compared to if it had been encoded within a 16×9 frame (like virtually every other DVD out there with widescreen content on it).

Now I have a few DVDs like this in my collection, all of which date back to the dawn of DVD I’d like to note, so I can deal with that much. But what made La Vie en Rose impossible to watch was the subtitles. Zooming the frame for best picture-fit on the 16×9 screen causes the subtitles to be cropped.

This blue frame shows the actual content of the DVD, and is exactly how it would appear on a 4:3 TV.	Shown here in green are the extents of a widescreeen TV with the content “zoomed”, preserving the image aspect but cropping the subtitles.

There were only two ways for me to watch the movie and still see the subtitles: Either treat it as if it were 4:3 where we get a so called “window box” presentation with substantial unused screen real estate ALL ARROUND the image, or stretched horizontally such that it appears as nothing more than a distorted “slot” of a film.

“Window box” presentation	Distorted “Slot Vision” presentation

At this point in the life of DVD we are well, WELL past being able to excuse these sorts of things.

Its worth noting that a few of the very high end video processors/scallers have the facility to vertically offset the frame, which particularly speaks to this scenario of letterbox-in-4:3-with-subtitles: they zoom the frame and then shift it up so that the image is still best-fit yet with subtitles still visible. The reason such processors offer this mode is for old DVDs, very old ones, made at a time when the industry was still working out the kinks. Having to employ it for a new release is simply ridiculous.

Now, there is one possible explanation as to why someone would author this DVD the way it was:  the subtitles appear to have been “burned-in” (they are part of the image as oppose to being generated by the DVD player) which might mean they were there before the DVD author even got a hold of the material.  If so, it is plausible that they HAD to do it the way they did it (space wise, the subtitles need to overlap an image which is vertically centered inside a 16×9 workspace), but if that were the case, I would say they should have instead put pressure on the studio to supply a clean video transfer so that they could have done the subtitles using the DVD system as well as author it in the better 16×9 workspace.

Whether streaming music or video from a bedroom media server or watching a Blu Ray disc on our expensive home theater system, we are seeing more and more of our entertainment being shifted to a centralized location in the home. 

It`s not just entertainment though.  In the future, we will see more products that give information about our homes integrated into the primary display.  Checking on energy usage or room temperature will all be at the touch of a button.  Right now, Panasonic is displaying their new plasma displays that integrate with their remote security cameras.  How would you like to check on a strange noise, or check on baby`s sleep by pulling up a picture in picture window while watching a movie.

You can expect everything from internet information, to all things home automation and security to start to appear as regular features on displays.  The amount of features available is also going to grow fast.