In the mood for Vudu's 1080p video stream with Dolby Digital Plus surround? Vizio is going to make it easy for you by building a dedicated Vudu button into 2011 TVs, Blu-ray players, and set-top boxes.
Vudu says other manufacturers will offer the button too though their names weren't disclosed at presstime.
Price: $390 At A Glance: Three-channel soundbar with separate surrounds and wireless sub • SRS TruSurround HD and TruVolume processing • Designed to accompany 40-inch and larger HDTVs
A Moment of Tru
Vizio, how you’ve grown. When flatpanel HDTVs came along, you were among the first brands created especially to bring the new display technology to eager consumers. Now that butt-ugly direct-view and rear-pro sets are largely a bad memory, you’re at the forefront of a burgeoning business. Your market share is nothing to sneeze at, and your XVT553SV LED-backlit LCD set is a Home Theater Top Pick. What are you going to do for an encore?
Price: $350 At A Glance: First soundbar to use SRS TruVolume audio processing • Operates on stereo signals • Wireless sub works with no setup hassles
High and Wide
Vizio is:
(a) a flat-panel video brand
(b) an audio brand
(c) a serotonin reuptake inhibitor
(d) a line of rimless eyeglasses
(e) a typographical error
If you guessed (a), you were wrong. The correct answer is (a)+(b).
Volunteers connected with a joint public/private service program will help ease the transition from analog to digital television broadcasting for low-income households, minorities, seniors, the disabled, those who live in rural areas, and those who don't speak English.
Price: $1,299 At a Glance: DAC, headphone amp, preamp for digital sources • Asynchronous USB input • Makes your audio files sing
The Wadia 121 calls itself a decoding computer. While the term DAC (digital-to-analog converter) also fits, Wadia understands that nomenclature is destiny. This product just may be destined to change forever the way you hear high-resolution music files, signaling a new chapter in audio history that no audiophile can afford to ignore.
The Wadia 170 iTransport is the first iPod docking device to coax a digital signal out of the iPod (incidentally, my 82-year-old mom loves hers). Till now the iPod could output only a line-level analog signal to docks. How Wadia managed this is a story yet to be told. The company insists that there is no need to pay a hacker to crack the case –- the 170 is Apple-approved. Price: $379.
Back when digital-to-analog converters were a totally new component product, Wadia was out there will some of the first and best products. That tradition continues with the Wadia 151 PowerDAC mini. It's also a 50-watt stereo amp. Maybe just the thing for your two-channel hideaway. Price: $1195.
Wal-Mart has become the latest online music retailer to shut down the encryption-key servers for its DRM-encrusted downloads. As a result, anyone unfortunate enough to have bought the latter will have to burn them to CDs for archiving. Otherwise it will become impossible to transfer them to other computers and players in the future.
Is the disc doomed? It isn't good news for hard-copy video formats when a chain the size of Walmart announces that it will devote less space on the sales floor to both DVDs and Blu-ray discs.
Mark Fleischmann
Price: $350 At A Glance: First soundbar to use SRS TruVolume audio processing • Operates on stereo signals • Wireless sub works with no setup hassles
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