Features

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – December, 2010

The Town (Blu-ray), Peanuts Holiday Collection (Blu-ray), Madea Goes to Jail (Blu-ray), Scooby-Doo 1 & 2 (Blu-ray), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Blu-ray), The Search for Santa Paws (Blu-ray), Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 (Blu-ray), Cats vs. Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (Blu-ray), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Blu-ray), Twas the Night Before Christmas (DVD), Nanny McPhee Returns (Blu-ray), Lost in Translation (Blu-ray), Inception (Blu-ray), Going the Distance (Blu-ray), A Christmas Carol (3D) (Blu-ray), Diary of a Mad Black Woman (Blu-ray), Why Did I Get Married (Blu-ray), The Wiz (Blu-ray), Meet the Parents (Blu-ray), Meet the Fockers (Blu-ray), Hunter Prey (DVD), Flipped (Blu-ray), Despicable Me (Blu-ray), The Secret Life of of the American Teenager Vol. 5 (DVD), Step Up (3D) (Blu-ray), The Legend of the Guardians (3D) (Blu-ray), Frenemy (DVD), Devil (Blu-ray), Boy Meets World: The Complete Fourth Season (DVD), Madea's Family Reunion (Blu-ray)

Communing with the Great Jazz Saxophonist Charles Lloyd – An Interview

Ever since he emerged a half century ago as music director of the Chico Hamilton Quartet, saxophonist Charles Lloyd has been at the forefront of jazz innovation. One of the first jazz artists to sell a million copies of a recording, which he made with a quartet that included a young Keith Jarrett, and two other legendary artists, drummer Jack DeJohnette and bassist Cecil McBee, Lloyd has done everything from jam with the Doors, The Grateful Dead, and the Beach Boys to birth a new music from diverse cultural and spiritual traditions.

Home Theater Movie Renter’s Guide – November, 2010

Back to the Future Trilogy (Blu-ray), Ironman 2 (Blu-ray), How To Train Your Dragon (Blu-ray), Moulin Rouge (Blu-ray), The Maltese Falcon (Blu-ray), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Blu-ray), Alien (Blu-ray), Star Wars - The Clone Wars Season 2 (Blu-ray), The Bridge on the River Kwai (Blu-ray), The Last of the Mohicans (Blu-ray), The Girl Who Played With Fire (Blu-ray), Toy Story 3 (Blu-ray), Aliens (Blu-ray), Alien 3 (Blu-ray), Alien Resurrection (Blu-ray), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Blu-ray), The Karate Kid (2010) (Blu-ray), The Kids Are All Right (Blu-ray), Charlie St. Cloud (Blu-ray)

High Definition Music Album Downloads for the Audiophile – November, 2010

Sales of high definition (high resolution or "high rez") music on discs has floundered, and producers are in a difficult bind because it is expensive to master them, and with profits on low sales being low, they are looking for a different outlet. Well, downloading high rez music is the answer. The music studios, as well as independent musicians, can simply transfer the original high resolution masters (24/88.2 or 24/96) to websites that specialize in selling music by download. The high rez disc does not have to be created, packaged, or distributed by the studio. It costs them nothing to put the music on a website store. The consumer downloads the music and burns it to a disc or plays it from a computer. The reviews here are of high resolution albums downloaded and burned to DVD-A. I listened to them with an OPPO BDP-83/NuForce universal player, Lamm LL1 preamplifier, McIntosh MC1201 power amplifiers, and Carver Mark IV ribbon speakers.

A Home Theater Build Project – Part I

We all have a spare room. Well, many of us do. And those of us bitten by the A/V bug often dream about what we would do with that room. I have such a room, and six years ago embarked on a wild odyssey to build a dedicated A/V room from scratch. How could someone with limited construction skills, moderate budget, and even more limited tool selection, go about making a clean, professional looking dedicated home theater?

Telluride Film Festival 2010

Passes were nearly sold out at this year's festival but getting around and getting into movies seemed a quite a bit easier than in past years. This might have been dumb luck or it might have been that a bunch of people were trying to see James Franco in person at screenings of 127 Hours. Usually we get five movies per day...don't miss the Telluride presentation about the past and present of 3D.

High Definition Music Album Downloads for the Audiophile – October, 2010

Sales of high definition (high resolution, or "high rez") music on discs has floundered, and producers are in a difficult bind because it is expensive to master them, and with profits on low sales being low, they are looking for a different outlet. Well, downloading high rez music is the answer. The music studios, as well as independent musicians, can simply transfer the original high resolution masters (usually 24/88.2 or 24/96) to websites that specialize in selling music by download. The high rez disc does not have to be created, packaged, or distributed by the studio. It costs them nothing to put the music on a website store. The consumer downloads the music and burns it to a disc or plays it from a computer. The reviews here represent our first set of high resolution albums that were downloaded and burned to DVD-A. Most are 24/88, but one is 24/96, and another is 24/44.1. I burned them all to DVD+R media and listened to them with an OPPO BDP-83/NuForce universal player, Lamm LL1 preamplifier, McIntosh MC1201 power amplifiers, and Carver Mark IV ribbon speakers.