Home Theater Geeks (Audio)

Entertainment-technology consultants Geoff Tully and Ron Williams, just back from the 2017 HPA (Hollywood Professional Association) Tech Retreat, talk about some of the main topics of discussion at the event. Paramount among them was high dynamic range (HDR), which Geoff addressed in a presentation advocating HDR with 1080p resolution, a concept that broadcasters embrace. Ron discussed the demo he presented with Grass Valley of a live HDR camera signal shown on an SDR monitor and two HDR monitors, illustrating how HDR actually results in greater perceived detail. We also discuss the impending ATSC 3.0 terrestrial broadcasting standard, answers to chat-room questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guests: Geoffrey Tully and Ron Williams Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Peter Madnick, Chief Alchemist at Audio Alchemy and veteran member of the audio industry, talks about various audio topics, including his history in the industry, vinyl records, phono-cartridge alignment, linear-tracking tonearms, Audio Alchemy's merger with ELAC, analog versus digital audio, tubes versus solid state, high-resolution audio, sample-rate and bit-depth upconversion, DACs and jitter, human audio perception, answers to chatroom questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Peter Madnick Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Philip Jones, Product Technology Manager for Sony Electronics, talks about some of the concepts and technologies used in the company's TVs. These include the importance of color volume in the world of high dynamic range (HDR), the perceptual effects of the point-spread function and the Hunt Effect, HDR10 and how some Sony TVs generate dynamic metadata from it, the addition of Dolby Vision to some Sony TVs thanks to the X1 Extreme processor, object-based HDR remastering of SDR content, Super Bit Mapping, dual-database image enhancement and noise reduction, Backlight Master Drive and Slim Backlight Drive LCD-backlighting systems, CLEDIS micro-LED display, Acoustic Surface audio on the A1E OLED, answers to chatroom questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Philip Jones Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Peter Otto, Chief Scientific Officer at Comhear, explains audio beamforming. Topics include wave interference and how that can be manipulated to create narrow beams of sound, the difference between listening to music on headphones versus speakers, how conventional 2-channel speaker setups blur the imaging because of crosstalk and how beamforming can control crosstalk to render a better stereo image, binaural sound, immersive audio, consumer products, answers to chatroom questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Peter Otto Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Master designer Theo Kalomirakis talks about how he got involved in designing home theaters and what led him to his latest venture called Rayva. The concept is to offer pre-designed, packaged home-theater systems for rooms of various sizes at various budget levels, which cost much less than a fully custom-designed, dedicated theater room while offering very high performance. We take a look at the available floor plans and designs and talk about how all the components are integrated into a single system. Plus answers to chat-room questions and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Theo Kalomirakis Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

JVC Chief Engineer Rod Sterling digs deep into the technology used in JVC projectors. Topics include the history of their development, the difference between LCD, DLP, and D-ILA/LCoS, what MTF (modulation transfer function) means for picture resolution, e-Shift pixel shifting, different light sources, RGB-laser versus blue-laser/yellow-phosphor illumination, projectors and high dynamic range, answers to chat-room questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Rod Sterling Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Journalists Mike Heiss, Mark Henninger, and Robert Heron join Scott Wilkinson to recap some of what they saw and heard at CES. On the video side of things, there were OLED TVs from LG and Sony, Samsung's QLED LCD TVs, the concept of color volume, the appearance of Dolby Vision HDR in many TVs and UHD Blu-ray players, 4K laser-illuminated ultra short-throw projectors, and the mighty Sony CLEDIS micro-LED display. They also heard many great audio demos, including Andrew Jones' Adante speakers for ELAC, Emotiva Airmotiv speakers, MBL speakers and electronics, Lexicon's SL-1 speaker with beamforming, and Comhear's MyBeam beamforming technology. Plus answers to chat-room questions and much more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guests: Michael Heiss, Mark Henninger, and Robert Heron Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

At CES 2017, Scott Wilkinson visits various booths on the show floor to talk about what's new in audio and video this year, including JVC's new projectors, LeEco's disruptive TVs, LG's new OLED and Super UHD LCD TVs, Hisense's Laser Cast and flat-panel TVs, TCL's latest LCD TVs, Klipsch's new audio products, DEG's high-resolution audio announcements, Samsung's new QLED TV, and Sony's OLED, LCD, and CLEDIS micro-LED display. It's going to be a great year for AV! Host: Scott Wilkinson Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

In this end-of-the-year compilation, we revisit some of the most interesting moments on Home Theater Geeks during 2016, including the CTA's work on UHD, audio for the Grammys broadcast, how I met Leo Laporte over 10 years ago, lightfield technology, the new HTG theme music, quantum dots, archiving movies using synthetic DNA as a storage medium, and shooting the movie A Beautiful Planet from the International Space Station. It was quite a year! Host: Scott Wilkinson Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Journalists Brent Butterworth, Mike Heiss, and Tom Norton join Scott Wilkinson to discuss the important audio and video stories from 2016. Topics include the rapid pace of 4K/UHD adoption, Chinese TV makers, 4K/UHD content delivery, Dolby Atmos and DTS:X immersive audio, high dynamic range (HDR), Dolby Vision in commercial cinemas, headphones and soundfield virtualization, UHD Blu-ray, Amazon becoming the leading speaker brand in the US, VR headsets, answers to questions from the chat room, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guests: Michael Heiss, Brent Butterworth, and Tom Norton Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

AVS Forum Associate Editor Mark Henninger joins host Scott Wilkinson to answer questions from the chatroom, including queries about the best video image we've seen this year, HDR-capable PC monitors, whether or not ripping Blu-rays yields the same quality as the disc itself, whether or not HDBaseT will replace HDMI, portable projectors, support for HDR in Windows 10, immersive audio from headphones, music in surround, glitches in HDMI ARC, Dolby Vision HDR in the home, Sony OLED TVs, playing UHD Blu-rays from a PC, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Mark Henninger Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Grant Clauser, Smart Home Editor for TheWirecutter.com, talks about integrating the control of a home-theater system using a universal remote like one of the Logitech Harmony models or an app on your smartphone or tablet. He also digs deep into the use of a voice-control system like Amazon Alexa with an Echo or Dot and how that interfaces with a Harmony Hub. Finally, he discusses smart lights like the Philips Hue and how they can add ambiance and even act as a bias light. Plus answers to chat-room questions and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Grant Clauser Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Two representatives from Luminit, VP of engineering Leo Katsenelenson and senior optical engineer Anthony Ang, talk about the company's history in developing light diffusors and holographic technology and how that led to the formation of its Crystal Screens division, which has developed a new type of projection screen. They describe how the screen material consists of pseudo-random surface-relief microstructures, how that allows them to control the gain and viewing angle, how a high-gain screen can avoid hotspotting, answers to chatroom questions, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guests: Leo Katsenelenson and Anthony Ang Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Personal-cinema architect John Bishop talks about his approach to designing home theaters in order to replicate the ideal cinema experience as closely as possible. He advocates the use of so-called "constant-height" setups to display movies with different aspect ratios so the height of the image remains constant. We take a look at several of his projects, which illustrate the importance of seating distance as a function of screen height. Plus answers to chatroom questions and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: John Bishop Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Don Stewart talks with Scott Wilkinson about his family's business which is celebrating its 70th anniversary. He also talks about the types of filmscreens used in homes, movies, TV broadcasts, theme parks, and more. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Don Stewart Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeksThanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.