During the holiday season in late 2016, UHD (Ultra-HD) TVs were flying out the doors, so It appears that UHD is now fully upon us as consumers. In addition to having a sharper picture (UHD has four times as many pixels as HD), many of these TVs...
Most Home Theater enthusiasts are familiar with the basic tenets of display device calibration: that there exists a standard to which devices must be calibrated against in order for the image to be considered...
Now that you have a basic understanding of where we are going with HDR video, we need to point out that the term “HDR” is unfortunately and confusingly used for something which has absolutely no connection to it...
At the present time HDR is most often associated with UHD, or Ultra High Definition (all too often incorrectly referred to as 4K which is a Cinema-only format). It’s important for us to mention that while much if not all HDR...
Although perhaps few of you have the means or wherewithal to calibrate your own display device, going through the motions with us and learning how the SDR process differs from HDR is going to give you a deeper...
There are two fundamental differences which change the way we approach calibration for Dolby Vision, and no they aren’t the higher peak luminance or the expanded color gamut. First is the fact that we are using...
As with any technology, especially an emerging one, a lot of things can get screwed up, but we are going to focus on some major design issues relating to how HDR displays should handle and reproduce highlights delivered...
This will be the best cost-to-benefit cash you have ever spent on your LCD or OLED based home theater.
One afternoon, many years ago now, a fellow Secrets editor and I were chewing the proverbial technology fat when the discussion turned to the future of DVD and Blu-ray. “Disc is dead!” he declared...
I have been into audio since 1974 and have upgraded may times (still have the old stuff). I now have Blue-ray and full HD projector as well as a full HD video camera. I have been looking at receivers and amps that have HDMI in and thru as well as DTS-HD...
- Brian M.
Willaston, Australia
VIZIO announced today Canada-wide availability of their new E and M series LCD TVs, as well as their sound-bar line up, through BestBuy and FutureShop. This is big news for Canadians.
Paradigm upgrades their Soundtrack soundbar and subwoofer with Bluetooth, virtual surround, and an improved remote.
Need help understanding DTS Master Audio. I have a Samsung BD-F5900 Blu-ray player attached to a Yamaha RX-V475 via HDMI. I have the audio on the Blu-ray player set to output unprocessed bitstream but when I play a movie, the receiver only displays DTS and not DTS MA. Is this because the receiver is only 5.1 channel and am I really getting the full lossless audio provided by DTS MA? Aside from the extra channel audio, should I set the player to output PCM and will I be getting higher audio by setting it to PCM?
- K. Mastrogiovanni
Galt, CA
The "soundbar" business must be booming, or at least manufacturers are banking on it doing so, as just about everyone has come out with one if not several offerings. The gambit seems logical: jam a bunch of audio transducers into an enclosure which tucks in under the typical display panel, usually with a separate small subwoofer, offering better-than-built-in sound. Onkyo is a big name in consumer AV, best known perhaps for their much lauded Surround Sound Receivers. The subject of the current review is their latest take on this mass market soundbar segment: The LS-B50, part of their "EnvisionCinema" line of products.
Brian Florian has been affiliated with Secrets since 1998. Driven by a passion for the accurate and correct reproduction of motion picture and sound, he never tires in expanding his knowledge and expertise in the field. He has authored myriad technical articles and hardware reviews, was party to our seminal DVD Player Benchmark, and has experience in illustration and graphic design. A devoted husband and keeper of cat, he works as a Technology Solutions Architect in Atlantic Canada. When he's not staring at a screen with ears perked, he may be seen fiddling with a camera, picking at a guitar, sampling some wine, or messing with an airbrush.
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