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Can Ultra-Premium Flat Panels Succeed?
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Scott Wilkinson • Oct 14, 2011 • 33 comments
Yesterday, I helped Tom Norton unpack and set up a 60-inch Sharp Elite PRO-60X5FD LED-backlit LCD TV (shown on the right above) that he will review over the next couple of weeks. (Interestingly, the name Sharp appeared nowhere on the box, only Elite.) Even before setting the basic picture controls—but after selecting the Elite Pure picture mode and Low color temperature—the image looked remarkable, with deep blacks, bright whites, and rich colors. Also, the Sharp is sitting next to Tom's 60-inch Pioneer Elite PRO-141FD plasma (on the left above), so he will be able to do direct side-by-side comparisons to see if Sharp has managed to wrest the flat-panel crown from the Kuro.

In addition to exceptional picture quality, both TVs have something else in common—a very hefty price tag. The PRO-60X5FD lists for $6000, while the 70-inch version is a whopping $8500. (The 60-inch PRO-141FD was $7000 in 2009.) In my opinion, such high prices lead to the demise of the Kuro, because a best-possible-performance, cost-no-object flat panel is unsustainable in today's—or even yesteryear's—economic climate. So I'm concerned that the new Sharp Elite TVs will suffer the same fate as the Kuro.

Do you think ultra-performance, ultra-expensive flat panels can succeed in today's marketplace? Or are they simply too expensive to manufacture and sell in quantities large enough to make business sense?

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Can Ultra-Premium Flat Panels Succeed?
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Do Audio Measurements Correlate With Sound Quality?
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Scott Wilkinson • Oct 07, 2011 • 7 comments
Last week in his Audiophiliac blog, Steve Guttenberg mused about how audio measurements relate to sound quality. He concluded that objective measurements do not correlate with subjective evaluations, primarily because well-defined test tones have little to do with real musical signals.

Here at HomeTheater.com, we've certainly observed that poor measurements do not necessarily mean poor subjective performance, and that good measurements do not necessarily reflect good performance. On the other hand, in our experience, measurements sometimes support—and even explain—a reviewer's subjective observations, which are always conducted before the measurements.

Do you think that objective audio measurements using test tones correlate with subjective sound quality playing music? If so, is it a strong or weak correlation? In the comments, I'd love to know how much weight you give the measurements found in our reviews compared with the reviewer's subjective assessment.

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Do Audio Measurements Correlate With Sound Quality?
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How Important is 4K in the Home?
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Scott Wilkinson • Sep 30, 2011 • 8 comments
The appearance of 4K home-theater projectors from Sony (4096x2160, seen above) and JVC (which is really more of a "pseudo-4K" that upscales 1080p to 3840x2160) has sparked increased interest in super-high resolution for consumers, especially since 4K seemed like a far-off dream until now. But many argue that the benefits of higher resolution are not visible on any screen size intended for home use. In fact, most people can't see the pixel structure of a 2K digital-cinema projector on a much larger commercial screen when sitting at a normal viewing distance, so how could they perceive the increased resolution of 4K on a smaller home screen?

Then there's the issue of 4K content, which I believe won't be available for distribution to the home for quite some time, if ever. Yes, we might see 4K-capable media in the next year or two—for example, BDXL optical discs and RedRay servers—but the studios give relatively few movies the full 4K treatment, and I bet those same studios will be loath to release movies for the home market at 4K. Until they do, owners of 4K displays will be limited to upscaled 1080p, which isn't all that much sharper than the original and carries the risk of scaling artifacts.

So I wonder how important 4K really is in the home? What do you think?

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How Important is 4K in the Home?
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What Are You Most Excited About from CEDIA?
CEDIA 2011, Vote
Scott Wilkinson • Sep 23, 2011 • 17 comments
CES may be the biggest consumer-electronics trade show of the year, but CEDIA often includes more important product announcements for home theater specifically, and this year was certainly no exception. We saw and heard lots of super-cool toys in Indianapolis earlier this month, as we reported in our extensive coverage.

Now it's your turn to tell us what you found most exciting from CEDIA, whether you were there in person or followed our posts from the show. For this poll, I've listed a few of our favorite items, but of course, there was far more to pique the interest of any home-theater buff, so if your fave isn't here, click on "Other" and let us know what it is in the comments.

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What Are You Most Excited About from CEDIA?
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Does Your ISP Throttle Your Bandwidth?
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Scott Wilkinson • Sep 16, 2011 • 2 comments
A few weeks ago, Home Theater editor Rob Sabin posted an editorial about the growing number of Internet service providers that throttle the bandwidth of any subscriber who sends and receives more than a specified amount of data. Typically, the limit is 150 or 250GB per month, which seems like a lot—until you stream a few high-def movies and perform cloud-based backup of your entire hard drive, after which you find yourself slogging along at dial-up speeds or paying much more for your Internet access. With some ISPs that are also content providers, such as telecom and cable companies, accessing their content does not count toward the limit, but venturing outside their ecosystem does.

Does your ISP engage in any of these pernicious practices? If so, I'd love to know what your limit is and what happens when you exceed it. I encourage you to leave a comment with these details.

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Does Your ISP Throttle Your Bandwidth?
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What Are You Most Interested In From CEDIA?
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Scott Wilkinson • Sep 02, 2011 • 2 comments
Right after Labor Day, the consumer-electronics industry converges on Indianapolis, Indiana, for the annual CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association) Expo, which focuses on high-end home theater and other custom-installation products. Of course, we'll be there to cover all the home-theater announcements, but I'd like to know which type of products you are most interested in learning about from the show.

As always, I encourage you to leave a comment with more details about your choice. What brands are you especially interested in? Are you thinking about hiring a custom installer, or are you a DIYer? If you picked "Other," what are you referring to? Let us know so we can provide exactly the coverage you crave.

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What Are You Most Interested In From CEDIA?
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What Is Your Favorite Music-Download Source?
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Scott Wilkinson • Aug 19, 2011 • 4 comments
Lately, I've been asking about your media-streaming preferences, and the results have been very interesting. Now, I'd like to ask about downloading music files to your own media server. Of course, there are many sources for downloadable music, and I can't possibly list them all here. Also, some provide low-resolution MP3s, while others offer high-rez uncompressed files.

Do you download music files? If so, what is your favorite source? Do you download mostly MP3s or high-rez files? As always, I'm especially interested in learning what service you use if you select "Other."

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What Is Your Favorite Music-Download Source?
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What Is Your Favorite Music-Streaming Source?
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Scott Wilkinson • Aug 12, 2011 • 8 comments
While we're on the subject of streaming (see the last two poll questions here and here), I'd like to turn our attention to music-streaming sources, of which there are two types—on-demand subscription and Internet radio. As you might imagine, on-demand services let you select anything from their library at will, usually for a monthly fee. With Internet-radio services, you specify the type of music you want to listen to, and they deliver it at their discretion, allowing you to skip only a certain number of tracks per hour, at least when you access the service for free.

Do you listen to music-streaming sources? If so, which one is your favorite? Don't forget to leave a comment about your preference, especially if you selected "Other."

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What Is Your Favorite Music-Streaming Source?
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What Device Do You Mostly Use to Stream Video?
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Scott Wilkinson • Aug 05, 2011 • 20 comments
Last week, I asked, What is your favorite video-streaming source? Now, I'd like to know what type of device you use to watch most of your streaming. Until recently, there was one choice—a computer. But most modern TVs, Blu-ray players, and game consoles now offer apps to stream content from providers such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube, and many others. Then there are dedicated set-top boxes from the likes of Roku and Boxee.

So what device do you mostly use to stream video? As before, if you select "Other," please leave a comment telling us what type of device you use. And in any case, I'd love to know why you use a particular device as opposed to something else.

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What Device Do You Mostly Use to Stream Video?
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What Is Your Favorite Video-Streaming Source?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jul 29, 2011 • 10 comments
Online streaming is quickly becoming a major source of movies and television shows in home theaters everywhere as TVs, Blu-ray players, A/V receivers, and game consoles add streaming apps to their slate of features. Of course, the quality generally isn't up to Blu-ray standards, but it's getting better all the time as codecs improve and more people increase the bandwidth into their homes. And it's tough to beat the convenience of streaming whatever you want whenever you want to any device you want.

If you watch streamed video content in your home theater, what is your favorite online source? Naturally, with so many sources available, I can't list them all here, so I've included an "Other" selection—if you choose that one, I really hope you leave a comment and let us know what that source is. Also, I encourage you to leave a comment explaining why you prefer a particular source—high picture quality, low cost, wide selection, short start-time delay, etc.

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What Is Your Favorite Video-Streaming Source?
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What Is Your Next Home Theater Purchase?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jul 22, 2011 • 28 comments
HomeTheater.com is all about helping you select the best audio/video components for your needs and budget and then setting up those components so they look and sound as good as they possibly can. This naturally leads me to wonder what our readers are shopping for.

So I ask you—what is your next home-theater purchase? A new flat panel or projector? A Blu-ray player? Part of the audio system? Or are you planning to jump in with both feet and get an entire home-theater system all at once? Once you vote, I'd love to read more details. What makes and models are you considering? Will the new component be 3D-capable? Will it offer online streaming? What components do you already have?

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What Is Your Next Home Theater Purchase?
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What Will You Do in Response to Netflix's Rate Hike?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jul 15, 2011 • 10 comments
As you probably know by now, Netflix just announced a change in its rates for online streaming and physical discs by mail. Instead of charging one monthly fee for as many of both as you want (one disc at a time), you must now pay a separate fee for each medium—$8/month for streaming and another $8/month for DVDs by mail or $10/month for Blu-rays, a 60-percent increase for both services together.

In his excellent blog on the subject, Home Theater editor Rob Sabin points out that Netflix's streaming library is missing lots of current, desirable titles, and the A/V quality of its streaming content cannot match that of Blu-ray. For now, he recommends sticking with Blu-ray rentals and waiting for the streaming library and quality to catch up.

What do you plan to do in response to the Netflix rate hike? If you're already a Netflix subscriber, will you keep both options or dump one or the other—or both? If you're not yet a subscriber, does this development encourage you to choose one or both, or will you stay away?

Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice.

What Will You Do in Response to Netflix's Rate Hike?
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How Well Can You Control Ambient Daylight In Your Home Theater?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jul 08, 2011 • 4 comments
As you probably know, controlling ambient light is one of the most critical factors in creating a high-quality home-theater experience. The darker you can make the room, the more you will be drawn into the story on the screen. Also, a dark room prevents any distracting reflections from a plasma or LCD TV with a shiny screen. And a front-projection system absolutely requires a dark room to look good unless you have a special ambient-light-rejecting screen, and even then, a dark room is better.

Of course, any room can be made dark at night simply by turning off the lights. But if you watch during the day in a room with windows, sliding glass doors, skylights, or other transparent/translucent openings to the outside world, you need black-out shades or other coverings to darken the room, which might or might not be practical for one reason or another.

I'm curious to know if this is a big problem among our readers. How well can you control the ambient daylight in the room you use as a home theater? I'd also love to know how you control ambient daylight. Blackout shades? A windowless room? If you have a front projector, do you use an ambient-light-rejecting screen?

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How Well Can You Control Ambient Daylight In Your Home Theater?
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Can Digital Audio Ever Be Indistinguishable From Analog?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jun 24, 2011 • 12 comments
As digital-audio resolutions increase from 44.1kHz/16 bits to 96kHz/24 bits to perhaps even 384kHz/32 bits, I wonder if there's a point at which digital becomes indistinguishable from analog. After all, the human hearing system is not infinite in its discrimination, so there must be a digital resolution beyond which we can't hear the effect of increasing it further. If that's the case, is digital audio at that resolution indistinguishable from top-notch analog, or is there some quality that will always allow us to identify it as digital?

Those who prefer the sound of analog will probably vote that digital will always be distinguishable from high-quality analog, no matter how high the resolution is, and I'd really like to know why you believe that. What is it about digital audio that will always allow humans—at least those with trained ears—to identify it as digital?

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Can Digital Audio Ever Be Indistinguishable From Analog?
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What Type of Surround Speakers Do You Use?
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Scott Wilkinson • Jun 17, 2011 • 11 comments
Back in March, I asked what is your main speaker configuration, and 52 percent of respondents picked 5.1, with another 28 percent saying 7.1. So now I wonder what type of surround speakers you use—bipole, dipole, and/or monopole.

What's the difference? Bipole and dipole surround speakers include two sets of drivers that fire more or less in opposite directions—with bipoles, the drivers are in phase, while a dipole's drivers are out of phase, creating a null region along the central axis between the drivers. Monopoles are simply conventional direct-radiating speakers with a single set of drivers that many prefer for multichannel music, but they don't create a diffuse surround soundfield that benefits most movie soundtracks.

Vote to see the results and leave a comment about your choice, especially if you use a combination in a 7.1 system. What combo do you use, and why?

What Type of Surround Speakers Do You Use?
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