Recent Home Theater Editorials

It seems to make intuitive sense - why should you have to pay for cable channels you never watch? It's not hard to see the benefit for the end user - only pay for the channels you actually watch. In …

Japan has many long and established traditions, not the least of them is paper. That isn't stopping Japanese scientists from trying to do away with this resource dependent form of communication. …

In this new era of high definition TV and high speed Internet, it's almost ludicrous to think that in the coming years people will be content to wait for a physical disc to show up in the mail. …

As much as I love to bash Steve Jobs (and I really, really do), you got to give the man his props. The iPhone had barely hit the market before people were coming up with new and interesting uses for …

Just when you thought you'd never hear a scrap of reason from the big record labels, recently acquired ex-Google employee Glen Merrill who now heads up EMI's digital strategy department said that …

In this episode, Tom and Clint answer questions about downloading high rez audio online, A/Bing speakers if you don't have a bunch of fancy equipment, and what do you do if you want to get high def …

Engineers have modified a US military bomb deactivating robot to be controlled by a Wii remote and an iPhone. The engineers just love their gadgets, but this could be one of those out-of-the-box …

Tomorrow marks the second annual Earth Hour event where major cities around the world will be turning off their power for a full hour. For home theater buffs, perhaps now is a good opportunity to …

I admit that I’ve had my share of anti-Blu-ray rants in the past. But that’s all over now. It’s time for the Toshib-ati to put away the pitchforks and just accept Blu-ray as the high- def disc format …

Tom and Clint have a ton of email to sort through so they get right to it. They start off touching on watts briefly and then move on to soundproofing. What should you look for when shopping for a …

J and Tom tackle the questions we got over the weekend plus a few more issues. Should you go with a dedicated center or maybe do away with a center all together? Can iTunes make you want to buy CDs? …

It's not uncommon the see manufacturers occasionally re-brand a product with their own moniker and sell it as their own. We've seen this in the past with Rotel re-branding APC power conditioners, and …

AV Rant reaches the big 50! Tom and Clint need therapy. Tom will never learn his lesson about Wordpress but he did learn something about Dina. Chet weighs in on Knight Rider. Tom is reviewing Army of …

The long awaited end to the format war may help consumers by clearing up some confusion created by choice in HD optical discs, but it is not bringing about better pricing to the consumer. Based on …

Clint and Tom tackle a bunch of questions from you. Ken, Rick, Cliff and Ed… thanks for the questions. What's the deal with Blu-ray Profile 1.1 and 2.0 and receivers that decode internally? How does …

Recently a report came out on NewsFactor.com which covered a very interesting presentation given by James Gosling at the Sun Tech Day in Sydney. Gosling is the "father" of the Java scripting language …

Tom's dad ran into a very common problem with his receiver. What does Tom think about people that say that adding connectors to the end of your speaker cable degrades sound. Can you guess? Tom throws …

J's back and we've got a lot of questions… don't worry, we'll get to you soon. Toshiba's plans post HD DVD is discussed. Upscaling DVD players? Downloadable content? What the heck is going on here? …

In today's podcast, the AV Rant HD DVD poll results are revealed and discussed. Tom gives a quick update to his Comcast Cable HD issues. So far - it isn't looking good. Where do you listen to music …

All that’s left of the format war now are the official announcements of HD DVD abandonment. Thus far it had only been speculated that Paramount was going to walk out on some of its announced HD DVD …

This podcast is sure to anger someone... could it be you? You'll have to listen in to find out. Clint and Tom tackle lots of questions like soundcards, 7.1 vs. 5.1, wireless speakers, running wires, …

This podcast is full of topics such as more education about the high def formats (guess we should start referring to it as Blu-ray) is needed. While there are lots of types of compression, the thing …

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. That’s what Microsoft might be saying after Toshiba sounded the death knell to HD DVD yesterday. Rumors are circulating about a possible Xbox 360 Blu-ray add-on, but …

Another podcast on the books. Michael Bay did something funny (and for once it wasn't putting his foot in his mouth). Dina was supposed to be here but she couldn't because of technical difficulties. …

Dina starts off being mean to Tom (welcome back). Netflix sucks. Their "watch it now" movies is code for "not a chance sucka". Netflix goes Blu which is great for HD DVD owners who will hopefully …

Thank you Michael Bay for providing me with an endless source of of podcasting and editorial material. Apparently Mr. Bay is taking credit (at least in part) for the imminent demise of HD DVD. While …

Today, Tom and Clint tackle listener questions on room acoustics and what to do with bipolar music speakers. Tom psychoanalyzes a $6 million home theater system and they tackle the age old question: …

When you work for the HD DVD Promotions Group you look forward to Friday. So far this week - Netflix announced it’s dropping HD DVD and Best Buy, the country’s largest consumer electronics retailer, …