Archive for February, 2009

So you’ve bought a nice big 1080P HD TV and a Blu-ray player. You’ve hooked it all up to your 5.1 amplifier, which didn’t suck last year, and you put in an action flick. It looks amazing, but it sounds a little flat. You might even convince yourself that it sounds good, but it doesn’t. In fact, you’re audio might actually be worse than if you were watching that movie on a regular old DVD.

Even if you think 7.1 is an over-kill and are happy with 5.1, there is a catch-22 that might prevent you from getting 5.1 unless you upgrade to 7.1.

One area of my home theatre that’s always been lacking has been my sound.  I’ll admit that as a professional film and television editor, I’ve been more of a videophile than an audiophile. But a few weeks ago I set out to upgrade to a total-solution 7.1 system including some new speakers for under a grand. I only went over by a couple hundred dollars. Getting it done around that budget wasn’t an easy task – and neither was some of the wiring. There were several bumps along the way. But the process revealed a lot that I didn’t know about the new audio formats, what it takes to actually hear them, the crap I’ve been settling for, the awesomeness of 7.1 audio, the unfortunate truth about Blu-ray and 7.1 and much more.  Buckle-up because this whole thing can be a bit convoluted.

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Around 8pm I noticed that my TiVo was recording the season premier of Chuck - and either my new projector was whacked or the episode was in 3D.  A quick trip to CVS and I was 8 pair of free cardboard 3D glasses richer.

It seems like there’s a new craze to do 3D, but has 3D technology changed much in the last 20 or 30 years?  Not really.  There’s still only 3 or 4 ways to do 3D. And without special equipment (or in every home in america) you’re limited to the red and blue glasses.  Well these glasses were blue and yellow. Read the rest of this entry »