CEDIA 2008 Round-up, Day 1: Universal, Panasonic, Dolby, Sony, Blu-ray, Niveus, Tivo, much, much more!

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It was a hot topic in the inbox last week, and we promised to check it out. So keeping to our word, we spent some quality time with the PlayOn Beta from MediaMall Technologies. MediaMall is all about allowing set top boxes to access Internet video. PlayOn is the consumer software version of that technology. In short, it's really cool; well worth installing if you have a windows computer and a PS3, Xbox 360 or HP MediaSmart TV.

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Each year since we've been doing this show we tale a look at the Fall TV season and try to pick shows that we'd like to watch. Back in 2006 when we first starting doing this, a good number of shows were in SD. Today pretty much all of them are in HD with the exception of a few reality shows.

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On a recent family vacation to Sequoia National Park, Braden's trusty digital camera finally died. Sure losing an old gadget is great because you know you get to replace it with the latest and greatest, but it certainly isn't ideal when you're in one of the most scenic places on the planet and happen to be the only tourist with a circa 1990 disposable camera. Since the newest digital cameras also allow for HD video capture, we thought the quest for a new camera would make nice content for the show.

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Anyone who owns a home theater system knows that a Subwoofer is essential to the experience. Watching a movie in HD with surround sound is great, but some scenes require that you feel the bass. A subwoofer does just that. An issue some have is Subwoofer placement. Its not always convenient to place the subwoofer next to the receiver. This requires that you run cable to a spot that is more conducive for the placement of the speaker. The ULS-15 has a nice feature that makes this no longer necessary. The subwoofer has a wireless connection that in most cases works great. More on that later.

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Not a week goes by that we don't hear something about the Popcorn Hour A-100 network media player. We tried relentlessly to get a demo unit for review, but to no avail. Finally, slightly weary but committed whole-heartedly to the show, Ara decided to pony up the cash and purchase one. It arrived last week and we got a chance to play with it. All in all, not a bad little unit.

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For the week Ara was on vacation and was away from his HDTV. This really made him appreciate what was missing at home. It also gave him time to think about a few things. For example, would a DirecTV and Dish Network merger be a good thing? Today we'll bring to you his thoughts and listener responses.

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In a ruling on August 4th, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a district court decision that barred Cablevision from launching a new technology it is calling Remote-Storage DVR (RS-DVR). The district court had blocked release of this service to Cablevision subscribers, but as of Monday, it's back on the table. Remote-Storage DVR provides all of the benefit of a DVR, without all of the drawbacks. You can record, playback, pause, fast-forward and rewind television just like a DVR, but you don't have to worry about ever running out of storage and you can view the programs from any TV in your home.

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After being chastised for spending too much time talking about HDTV gear and equipment and not enough time talking about what to actually watch in High Definition, we devote an entire episode to just that: what we watch on TV. As part of the discussion, we cover all the shows that are returning for the 2008-2009 season as well as those that have been canceled.

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Good News for Blu-ray Early Adopters. Since we last talked about the coming of the BD-Live era on Episode #289, we've had a chance to check out some Blu-ray titles with BD-Live functionality.So far, BD-Live is pointless - no need to rush out and upgrade your player.

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We talk about one of Ara's favorite movies, Patton. Over the weekend he watched it on Blu Ray and will tell you if Blu Ray breathes new life into the nearly 40 year old movie. And with the analog cutoff around the corner we found a small outdoor antenna that we that will make the transition a bit easier for you.

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Listener Kevin sent us a link to TidalTV.com a new service that mimics the Cable or Satellite experience over the Internet. You get a complete channel guide and can tune into shows on various networks such as CBS, MSNBC, Food Network, HGTV, Sports Illustrated and the Weather Channel. What Hulu might be to a DVR replacement, TidalTV wants to be for your set top box replacement. It's currently in Beta, so we decided to have a look to see if it might be the next big thing.

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From time to time our listeners send us emails asking us to review equipment that they are interested in buying or themselves. Recently we received an email from Kris asking us to take a look at the Orb Audio line of speakers. We were able to obtain the Orb Audio Mod 2 speakers with an upgraded Uber Ten subwoofer. The total cost for the 5.1 system was $1597 including standard ground shipping.

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For today's show Ara had a chance to connect with Clint DeBoer, editor-in-chief of Audioholics.com about a recent article they published entitled Long HDMI Cable Bench Tests - Monster Cable Shootout. It's a great article and a great interview.

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Sony announced on Tuesday that that they would begin offering movies and TV shows for download to the Playstation 3 through the Playstation store. Movies are available from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros in addition to the obvious inclusion of Sony Pictures titles. The system is setup much like Vudu and AppleTV, new release movies can be rented for $3.99 in standard def and $5.99 in high definition or purchased in SD for $14.99. Older titles are available for rent for $2.99 for SD, $4.50 for HD and $9.99 for purchase. So the big question is, "How does Sony's offering stack up against Vudu or AppleTV?"

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We get email after email asking for advice on when is the right time to upgrade your home theater equipment. The answer, of course, is always "right now," but that isn't always possible. Often we have to compromise in one area to upgrade another. So what components are the most important to keep up to date? Which ones can wait a while? Let's take a look.

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With money tight and more of it going to fill up your gas tank instead of your AV rack we thought it would be a great time to discuss an article on haggling. Jennifer DeFeo has written an article for Electronic House entitled "10 Tips for Haggling with A/V Retailers". We also discuss the highlights of the Entertainment Merchant Association 2008 Annual Report.

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We have been trying to get a hold of a Vizio TV for review for some time now but with no luck. This weekend while the family was in Costco stocking up on supplies Ara spent some time looking at the Vizio 50 inch 1080p Plasma. In actuality this feature is more of a Costco roundup than an in depth review of the TV.

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Happy Fourth of July! If you have the day off, we hope you're enjoying it; if you have to work, we hope you get a day off real soon. We didn't take the day off but instead interviewed John Griffin from Dolby Laboratories and tested out Google's new MediaServer gadget.

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We've never really been into special features on discs, but what if the special features weren't actually on the disc, but were on the Internet? Like it or not, BD Live looks like it's coming in full force very soon. It could be cool, or it could just be a lot of hype.

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Living large and lovin' life. Ara's back from vacation and we hit the ground running. Can you tell it's summer yet? Of course there's tons of great news and emails, but we also came across an article at lifehacker on how to turn your Xbox 360 into a streaming Netflix player. Pretty handy. Check it out.

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DisplaySearch recently released a report about what TV manufactures will need to do to sell more televisions in the coming years. One of the key features was network, and specifically Internet, connectivity. Just a couple days prior to that report we received a press release about the availability of HP's MediaSmart Connect for pre-order. We saw the demo at CES and liked the idea. All of this got us thinking; DisaplySearch says TV's need Internet connectivity, HP agrees in theory, but prefers the set top box route. If we could design our own Internet connected TV or STB, what would it do. From the 'If the HT Guys ruled the world...' point of view.

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Isn't it annoying when you want to turn on your home theater with your IR based remote control and one or more components misses the command. It could be that someone walked in front of the remote or that you just didn't keep it pointed at your system long enough for the entire macro sequence to be transmitted. That's why most integrators shy away from IR based remotes and use systems like Crestron or Control4 to transmit commands to a head end unit which then sends the commands via Ethernet, Serial, or IR via an emitter to the equipment being controlled.

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Every year CE Pro puts together a list of the top 100 custom electronics dealers in the country. Then they poll those top dealers for their favorite brands to sell in 37 different categories. Of course half the picture for dealers is how much profit they can make selling a particular product, but the other half of the picture is reliability and returns. We like to look at the list to see what all the custom home theater installers are endorsing. If you've narrowed a purchase down to two brands, it may help to swing your vote.

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Father's Day is in just a couple days. If you still need to pick up a gift, or help someone pick one out for you, we have a couple of ideas.

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Home Theater Magazine recently put a panel together to look at five different soundbars. Since we've only ever used the Yamaha Sound projector, and often get questions about models from other manufacturers, we thought it would be valuable to share their results. The full article, called 'The Power of One' was written by Adrienne Maxwell. It's certainly worth reading if you're in the market for a soundbar, since we won't cover all the details. The five models tested were from Philips, Marantz, Yamaha, Denon, and Polk.

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We have designed whole house video and audio systems and talked about them on our show. The one room we really haven't done much with is the Bathroom. Now We know what you are probably thinking. The Bathroom is one area in the home where you don't want to be bombarded with the worlds problems. We hear you but what if you are in the middle of a football game and your wife tells you that its time to get ready so you can go to your In-Law's? Having a TV in the bathroom sounds like a good way keep everyone happy.

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Today we got into a discussion on a recent article from the CE Pro Magazine website. It's about 17 "green" products installers can use to make their custom home theater or automation installations more eco-friendly. We thought some of the products were pretty cool. You can read the full article online. And you really need to check out "The Ultimate Remote" if you haven't already. It might give the Harmony One a run for its money.

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So you want to watch movies with Netflix watch it now but you aren't thrilled about sitting in front of your computer to do it. Netflix and Roku have partnered together bring the Watch it Now functionality to your TV. We have one of these players and have spent a week putting it through its paces.

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Today we've decided to take a little walk down Home Theater memory lane. The last couple years have seen some significant changes in home theater technology, and we've seen a few devices go extinct. A few are still on the endangered species list, but will probably be gone very soon. We'd like to bid farewell to some technological advances that changed the way we enjoy entertainment in our homes, or were supposed to, but maybe it didn't quite pan out.

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If you are a Tivo lover and have your Series 3 box so that you can watch and record HD from your cable company, you may be wondering what will happen to your service when your cable company rolls out Switched Digital service. We have great news for you! Your Tivo Series 3 will be compatible with the new format. You will need an adapter to make it work however.A few weeks ago on Show 272 we discussed the emerging mobile TV standard of the Open Mobile Video Coalition. At that time we discussed how the standard was just being deployed. We received an email from Glenn, host of 'The ZA Show' asking us to talk about a format that is already deployed called MediaFlo.

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In keeping with tradition, we have a new show full of, dare we say, great content - even though we needed to take a few days off. All the stuff you'd expect: news, email and even a discussion on how to keep your home theater gear cool. But you have to listen to the show. No notes for this one.

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If you look at our DVRs you will see that the majority of the recorded shows are of over the air networks. These are high quality programs that arrive at your home free of charge. All you need to watch them is an ordinary antenna. On today's show we will talk about what you need to begin enjoying high quality picture and sound free of charge. We hope to give you the information you need to begin enjoying HDTV for free!

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With Electronic House Magazine announcing their 2008 Electronic House of the Year awards, and Kobe Bryant winning the NBA MVP award, we thought it fitting to announce some sort of recognition ourselves. For the first time ever, we've decided to declare some 'Home Theater Heroes.' They are companies or individuals that we believe are doing the most to drive innovation in HDTV and Home Theater. We're either thankful for what they've done, are enjoying what they're doing, or are excited to see what they have in store. We know everyone on this list is extremely honored just to be mentioned, after all how many times do you get a couple of guys on a Podcast announcing your company as a Home Theater Hero? Without further ado...

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As you would imagine being a close friend of the HT Guys comes with some benefits. We have a friend that just bought the SONY KDLXBR4 46 inch LCD and a SONY Blu Ray player. He asked for some help setting the TV up and of course we said yes. Well, we said yes because it provides good material for our show. Our friend uses Cox cable, OTA and Blu Ray for his HD material.

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Mother's Day is coming this Sunday, May 11. Sure, you can be like every other guy out there and get your mom or your wife, the mother of your children some flowers or a nice meal (j/k) for Mother's Day, but is that what she really wants? Be bold, get her something she'd never expect. She won't know how great a gift it is until a few months from now, when she realizes that it's become a part of her every day life and she can't imagine living without it. Here are some of the best bet technology gifts for Mother's Day.

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Our recent discussion about the Digital Television transition prompted a few emails asking about emergency preparedness and how the loss of analog TV transmission would affect consumers in the event of a natural (or man-made) disaster. This prompted a great email from one of our listeners about the emerging Mobile Digital TV Standard. And we have a quick review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35A 10.1MP Digital Camera.

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When you're researching an HDTV, you often find yourself reading what others have posted at various forums such as AVS. In those forums they tend to use a lot of jargon and lingo that a casual TV watcher may not understand, be aware of, or for that matter even care about. Today we'll try to define a few of them and add some clarity around the whole subject. As a "spoiler warning" if you own an HDTV, especially a rear projection HDTV, be warned. We'll talk about some issues that can appear on the screen that you may have never noticed before. If you start to look for them, you might start to actually see them. If you prefer to live in ignorant bliss, you might want to skip this feature.

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We receive emails all the time from listeners asking us about cables. Many ask what they would be missing of they were to use Component cable instead of HDMI. From a picture point of view your not giving up too much. From an audio point of view you would need to run eight RCA cables to bring in Dolby True HD or DTS MA sound tracks. Eight cables for audio and three for video. That's eleven cables to do the work of one HDMI cable. So with such a big advantage in cable management alone, we found it interesting that professional installers preferred to use component cables.

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In Episode 260 we covered various options for energy efficient home theaters. One of those involved making sure you look for the Energy Star logo on the products you buy. After all just because we want to watch HDTV doesn't mean our kids should be robbed of watching Quad-HDTV when they grow up. There are a lot of colors talked about in home theaters, white noise, black-out shades, red lasers, blu-ray...even rainbows on your DLP TV. But today we're going to continue in the green theme. Listener Greg from Michigan thought it would be a good idea to round out the discussion; we've talked about how to buy gear, now we'll cover how to get rid of it.

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First of all, you can now follow us at Twitter. Check it out and tell us what you think. There's a fun article about Great Movie Scenes for Surround Sound at Electronic House and it seemed like something cool to discuss on the show. And we've compiled a list of six 32" HDTVs for budget conscious buyers.

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Back in Episode #178 (June, 2007) we did a feature on the Vista Media Center. For that review we used an HP m8000n to run the Media Center. We talked about the features of the Media Center and how one could use the computer to run spreadsheets during the day and watch live TV or movies using an extender device at night. If you are not familiar with the features of the Media Center that would be a good show to go back and listen to. We will only be covering specific features of the Media Center as they pertain to the DSM-750.

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For today's show we'll talk about CNet's listing of the 5 best HDTVs they have reviewed. Then we get into a discussion on Hulu.com - a new video streaming site with a lot of potential.

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As most of us know the big transition from analog to digital television in the US will happen in less than a year. Either the public service announcements are starting to work, or people are just finally starting to pay attention, but our inbox is filling up with questions. We tried to cover the whole issue back in Episode 257, but we must have left out some crucial details because the email keeps coming. We'll probably need to do this again in the future, but let's see if we can clarify things a little better.

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Today we discuss what DLNA is and what it can mean for your home theater system. DLNA stands for the Digital Living Network Alliance and began in 2003 when a group of companies came together to create products that worked together. Today, there are more than 250 companies in the alliance.. They include consumer electronics, computer and mobile device manufacturers. DLNA published its first set of Interoperability Guidelines in June 2004 and the first set of DLNA Certified products began appearing in market soon thereafter. The latest version of the DLNA Interoperability Guidelines, version 1.5, was published in March 2006, and then expanded in October 2006. To become certified, products pass through the DLNA Certification Program.

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So by now everyone knows what's in Ara's Home Theater, in fact all over Ara's house, but we get questions occasionally on what Braden is using as well. To put those questions to rest, we'll get into all the details today. You've heard bits and pieces, like the recent addition of the PS3, but here's the whole system, all at one time.

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Today we discuss a recent article in CE Pro that runs down 9 A/V Receivers that you may want to consider for your next home theater. These receivers are not entry level and as such will cost a little more than your bargain receivers. For more information on the author check out his website at LeeDistad.com.

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Up until recently the only extender device available for your media center PC was the Xbox 360. On today's show we will discuss some new extender devices that are currently (or soon to be) on the market. We also discus the results of a survey that we recently conducted.

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Many of us want to make sure that we are the most efficient we can be in how we use the resources we consume. One concern that has come up in our email inbox lately is all the power that is consumed by adding so many new home theater gadgets. We're using bigger TVs than ever before, more surround sound processors are in use, often people will add a game system like and XBox360 or PS3 and still have a DVD player or a Blu-ray player along with it. Of course you have to have a DVR, and there's the whole HTPC angle; it just keeps going. With all this technology proliferation, how do we keep our electricity usage in check, if for no other reason than we want to keep our monthly bills in a reasonable range?

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