Expertise

Contrast ratio vs black level
Tied together, but not the same importance.
The Connected Car: 2013 Edition
New in-dash receivers play nice with smartphones. Plus: Sync and MyLink app updates.
The "mad scientist" of Sony audio
The engineer who guides development of Sony audio electronics—right down to the choice of solder

What's New

Microsoft Goes High-End

Microsoft's technology provides serious multichannel competition for SACD and DVD-Audio.
- By David Ranada
- Posted October 22, 2002
As I write these words, right around the corner from Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and his pals James Cameron, Peter Gabriel, Beatles' producer Sir George Martin, and LL Cool J-Microsoft calls him "a major music artist and film actor"-introduced with typical extravagance the clumsily named Windows Media 9 Series, the technologies formerly c
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THX Certified

You've seen its familiar logo on A/V gear and at the movies, but what can THX do to improve your home theater?
- By John Sciacca
- Posted October 22, 2002
Illustration by Chris Gould; room photo by Tony Cordoza
See if this doesn't sound familiar: You don't just love movies, you love the whole moviegoing experience. When the time comes to check out a film, you drive miles out of your way to go to the best theater around-one with stadium seating, digital surround sound, and that awesome THX trailer that comes on before the movie.

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Hitachi DZ-MV230A DVD-RAM Camcorder
- By Teri Scaduto
- Posted October 8, 2002
Photos by Tony Cordoza

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Technology Editor Discovers High Def on Cable TV!
- By Michael Antonoff
- Posted September 23, 2002
Photo by Tony Cordoza Check it out: Getting HDTV on Cable Rumors began circulating in the fall of 2001 among the more technologically advanced New York City customers of Time Warner Cable (TWC) that there was a secret HDTV waiting list hidden from the customer-service representatives, the people who u
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Overcoming Your Fear of Connection
- By Ian G. Masters
- Posted September 3, 2002
"Only connect," the novelist E. M. Forster famously urged. But many people suffer from connectophobia - a paralyzing fear that can strike when you take your new Dolby Digital receiver out of the box and first lay eyes on its back panel.
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Access Denied II

Hollywood wants to gain remote control over HDTV. Will it succeed?
- By Stephen A. Booth
- Posted August 22, 2002
Illustrations by Sandra Shap
You're all set to record a pay-per-view movie through the digital set-top box your cable provider installed just hours ago. But when you program it to record, your DVD recorder flashes a cryptic message indicating that the show can't be copied. Must be the usual screw-up by the cable company, you reason.

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Access Denied II

Hollywood wants to gain remote control over HDTV. Will it succeed?
- By Stephen A. Booth
- Posted August 22, 2002
You're all set to record a pay-per-view movie through the digital set-top box your cable provider installed just hours ago. But when you program it to record, your DVD recorder flashes a cryptic message indicating that the show can't be copied. Must be the usual screw-up by the cable company, you reason. No big deal: you'll just watch it live and call service in the morning.
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Access Denied II

Hollywood wants to gain remote control over HDTV. Will it succeed?
- By Stephen A. Booth
- Posted August 22, 2002
Illustrations by Sandra Shap
You're all set to record a pay-per-view movie through the digital set-top box your cable provider installed just hours ago. But when you program it to record, your DVD recorder flashes a cryptic message indicating that the show can't be copied. Must be the usual screw-up by the cable company, you reason.

» Read More
Speakers, Step by Step

Whether you are buying a bookshelf stereo system or equipping a 6.1-channel home theater, here are the basics.
- By Daniel Kumin
- Posted August 22, 2002
Digital satellite receiver with high-definition digital outputs? Check. Widescreen HDTV with progressive-scan display? Check. Digital surround receiver with 100 watts each for six channels and lots of digital audio inputs and outputs? Check. DVD player with DVD-Audio and progressive-scan outputs? Check.
Great picture, but where's the sound? Oh, yeah - better throw in some speakers, too . .

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The Setup: Speakers

What You Need to Know to Get the Most from Your Stereo, 5.1-Channel, or 6.1-Channel System (Originally published in: /Sound & Vision/, May 2001)
- By Frank Doris
- Posted August 12, 2002
You probably already know that good speakers are essential to putting together a high-quality stereo or multichannel music system or home theater. You can invest several months' mortgage payments in first-rate audio/video components, but without good speakers you're simply not going to hear your system's full potential.

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Is Everybody Happy?

How to get great home theater performance without having to file for divorce
- By Doug Newcomb
- Posted July 30, 2002
Photos by Tony Cordoza
I consider myself very fortunate to have a wife who indulges my obsessions. There's the time last summer when she sat in a rental car on a sweltering beach in Baja while I surfed for more than an hour.

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15 Minutes with Chris Isaak
- By Mike Mettler
- Posted July 30, 2002
Chris Isaak can't sit still. The second successful season of Showtime's art-imitates-life-imitating-art pseudo-reality series The Chris Isaak Show is wrapping up, but that leaves little time for the quick-draw 45-year-old crooner to relax. The third season is already in development, and a summer tour supporting his latest album, Always Got Tonight (Reprise), is coming up.
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