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Getting the Most from Your Monitor with Derek Smith

Getting the Most from Your Monitor with Derek Smith

SpectraCal founder and CTO Derek Smith talks about the importance of calibrating computer monitors to match TVs and projectors so that photos and videos edited on a computer look the same when played on consumer displays. He explains different color gamuts, ICC profiles, 1-dimensional and 3-dimensional lookup tables (LUTs), calibrating each of the steps in the video chain, how the latest version of the CalMan software addresses these issues, different types of color-measurement instruments, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:04:57

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Ultimate Ultra High Definition with Joe Kane

Ultimate Ultra High Definition with Joe Kane

Video guru Joe Kane goes into great detail about the UHD video system and what he would like to see included in it, such as wider color gamut, higher bit depth and dynamic range, less-aggressive color subsampling, higher frame rates, and better codecs. He explains why these parameters are more important than raw pixel resolution and bemoans that the current UHD standard, ITU-R Recommendation BT-2020, doesn't go nearly far enough. Plus answers to chat-room questions and more.

Run Time: 1:14:09

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Acoustics 102 with Anthony Grimani

Acoustics 102 with Anthony Grimani

In Part 2 of this informative discussion, acoustician Anthony Grimani talks about room acoustics in relation to seating and speaker placement, including the best places to put your seats, risers for the second row to maintain good sightlines and possibly provide a bass trap, speaker directivity and its relationship to room acoustics, the best places for the front three speakers, the benefits of multiple, smaller subwoofers over one big sub, the best places for a single sub and multiple subs, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:11:32

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Acoustics 101 with Anthony Grimani

Acoustics 101 with Anthony Grimani

Master acoustician Anthony Grimani provides a great introduction to small-room acoustics with lots of visual illustrations, including direct versus reflected sound, room modes, different types of acoustic treatments such as absorbers, diffusers, and bass traps, where to put acoustic treatments, a minimal "first-aid" treatment to improve the sound of a room, the best shape and dimensions for a listening room, odd-shaped rooms, electronic room correction, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:07:45

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CEDIA Wrapup with Brent Butterworth, Mark Henninger, and Geoff Morrison

CEDIA Wrapup

Having just returned from CEDIA (Custom Electronics Design and Installation Association) Expo 2013 in Denver, CO, Scott Wilkinson chats with journalists Brent Butterworth, Mark Henninger, and Geoff Morrison about what we saw and heard at the show, including the overall mood of attendees and exhibitors, important product announcements, technology developments such as 4K and HDMI 2.0, projectors, audio systems, headphones, curved flat panels, the best video and audio demos we experienced, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:11:23

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Calibrating Leo Laporte's Samsung KN55S9C OLED TV with Robert Heron

Calibrating Leo Laporte's Samsung KN55S9C OLED TV with Robert Heron

In this special episode, Robert Heron and I calibrate Leo Laporte's new Samsung KN55S9C OLED TV. We show you the equipment we used to calibrate the TV, set the basic picture controls, take pre-cal measurements, calibrate the grayscale, decide that the colors don't need adjustment, compare the measurements taken with Konica Minolta CS-200 and X-Rite i1Pro color meters, evaluate the set's video processing, measure the input lag, watch some movie clips, and more.

Run Time: 1:44:38

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4K or Not 4K with David Katzmaier

4K or Not 4K with David Katzmaier

David Katzmaier, senior editor and head TV reviewer at cnet.com, talks about his testing lab and equipment, how he reviews and rates TVs, his picks for this year's best bang-for-the-buck TVs and best-quality TVs regardless of price, the emergence and precipitous price drops of UHD/4K TVs, the questionable value of 4K at common screen sizes and seating distances, 4K content delivery, HDMI 2.0, OLED TVs, curved screens, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:05:06

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Designing Better Headphones with Paul Barton

Designing Better Headphones with Paul Barton

Paul Barton, founder and chief designer for PSB Speakers, talks about his and others' research into human hearing and acoustics to support the effort to establish a "target function" that adds a consistent "room feel" to the sound of headphones. The goal is to simulate the sound of speakers in an acoustically optimized room, which is important because commercial recordings are mixed and mastered using speakers, and because the sound of different headphones varies so widely today. Other topics of discussion include head tracking, binaural recording, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:03:08

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The Headphone Hobby with Tyll Hertsens

The Headphone Hobby with Tyll Hertsens

Tyll Hertsens, editor-in-chief of InnerFidelity.com, talks about wearing earbuds while riding his motorcycle, the recent Head-Fi meetup in Los Angeles, the extent to which enthusiasts pursue the headphone hobby, his impressions of DTS Headphone:X, the importance of the relationship between the input impedance of headphones and the output impedance of the amp driving them, his recommendations for high-quality headphones at different price points, research into establishing a standardized target function for headphones to simulate the sound of speakers in an acoustically optimized room, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:08:58

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Chat Room Q&A with Robert Heron

Chat Room Q&A with Robert Heronr

Robert Heron, noted technologist and co-host of the HD Nation podcast, joins me to answer questions from the chat room after talking a bit about his new home-theater setup with Yamaha AV receiver and Energy Take Classic speakers as well as the new Google Chromecast streamer. Chat-room questions include the Samsung F8500 versus Panasonic VT60 and ZT60 plasmas, how to get big sound in a small room, Onkyo receivers, high-end media streamers, HTPCs and NAS drives, streaming and downloading Ultra HD, lossless audio, Dolby Pro Logic IIz and Audyssey DSX, HDMI switchers, using non-THX-certified speakers with a THX-certified AVR from a home theater in a box, and much more.

Run Time: 1:08:50

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All About Chromecast with Barb Gonzalez & Mark Henninger

All About Chromecast with Barb Gonzalez & Mark Henninger

L-R: Mark Henninger, Barb Gonzalez

Mark Henninger, AVS Forum Newsbreaker, and Barb Gonzalez, aka the Simple Tech Guru, discuss Google's Chromecast media streamer, including what it is and what it does, what streaming outlets are available, how it differs from other media streamers and from Google TV, the difference between using it with iOS, Android, and computers running the Chrome browser, what they would like to see added to it in the future, how well it works in terms of stream reliability and AV quality, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 58:21

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The Art of the Speakerbar with Andrew Jones

The Art of the Speakerbar with Andrew Jones

Andrew Jones, Director of Loudspeaker Engineering at Pioneer Electronics and TAD Laboratories, talks about Pioneer's new "speakerbar," the SP-SB23W, including the basic design philosophy behind it, details about the drivers, the RF-molded MDF and wood laminated enclosure, the use of active DSP-based crossovers and EQ, the included wireless powered subwoofer, how he got the main drivers to go down to 110 Hz, why he decided on a 2.1 configuration with no simulated surround, the decisions he had to make so that the retail price for the system would be $400, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:07:46

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40 Years of Dolby with Ioan Allen

40 Years of Dolby with Ioan Allen

Ioan Allen, Senior VP at Dolby Labs, talks about how cinema has changed since he joined the company in 1969, how Dolby's professional technologies find their way into consumer applications (such as Dolby A professional noise reduction morphing into Dolby B and C for cassettes and Dolby Stereo for commercial cinemas transforming into Dolby Surround for home VHS tapes), the concept of symmetrical encoding and decoding, the transition from film to digital cinema, a detailed description of Dolby Atmos, what's wrong with home theater, the problem of high volume levels in commercial cinema, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:01:13

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The Future of Projection with Don Shaw

The Future of Projection with Don Shaw

Don Shaw, senior director of product development for Christie, talks about the transition from film to digital projection in commercial cinemas around the world, 2K vs. 4K projection, the release and display movies in native 4K, laser-illumated projectors, color gamuts, high dynamic range, high frame rates, 3D, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:01:15

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Live from New York, It's CE Week!

Live from New York, It's CE Week!

Scott Wilkinson roams the exhibit hall at CE Week in New York City to find out what's new from companies such as Epson, Sharp, Toshiba, Sony, Screen Innovations, Vutec, Kaleidescape, Digital Projection, Audio Design Associates, Leon Speakers, Dish, Audio-Technica, and others.

Run Time: 55:58

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The Science of the Room with Paul Hales

The Science of the Room with Paul Hales

Speaker designer Paul Hales talks about the flaws inherent in broadband room EQ used to "correct" sound systems in home theaters, direct vs. reflected sound, speaker directivity and sensitivity, dynamic range, standing waves, the difference in behavior between low frequencies and higher frequencies in a room, the problems of an overly damped room, the concept of directional bass, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:09:08

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To 4K or Not to 4K with Josh Kairoff

To 4K or Not to 4K with Josh Kairoff

Video-industry consultant Josh Kairoff wears a fantastic suit and tie covered in test patterns as he talks about his recent trip to Orlando, FL, for the annual InfoComm trade show. Topics include new 1.9mm LED direct-view displays, large LCD panels supplanting projection systems, the importance of a balanced systems approach to video with an eye toward the specific application, the convergence of AV and IT, what's important and what's not about 4K, HDBaseT, wireless AV, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:05:57

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Semper Head-Fi with Jude Mansilla

Semper Head-Fi with Jude Mansilla

Jude Mansilla, founder and editor of Head-Fi.org, talks about his headphone-review process, surround simulation in headphones, comparing different headphones at CanJam during the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (which he started), the quality of in-ear monitors, custom-molded vs. universal-fit in-ear models, noise-cancelling headphones, his favorite over-the-ear headphones and in-ear monitors, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Run Time: 1:05:56

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T.H.E. Show with Michael Fremer

T.H.E. Show with Michael Fremer

Michael Fremer, editor of AnalogPlanet.com and audiophile extraordinaire, talks about the surprising popularity of audio shows around the world, focusing on T.H.E. (The Home Entertainment) Show held last weekend in Newport Beach (actually Irvine), CA. We discuss what we saw and heard at the show, including super-expensive speakers from TAD, Perfect8, and MBL as well as super-inexpensive speakers from Pioneer and everything in between. Also discussed is the problem of hotel-room acoustics, answers to chat-room questions, and much more.

Run Time: 1:08:04

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2013 Value Electronics Flat-Panel Shootout

2013 Value Electronics Flat-Panel Shootout

ISF calibrator Kevin Miller talks about the Ninth Annual Value Electronics Flat-Panel Shootout, which he helped set up and conduct on May 10 and 11, 2013. In contention were three plasma TVs (Panasonic TC-P65ZT60 and TC-P65VT60, Samsung PN64F8500) and three LED-LCD TVs (Sony XBR-65X900A, Panasonic TC-L55WT60, Samsung UN55F8000). Kevin discusses how the candidates were selected, how they were set up and calibrated, the evaluation process, a comparison with a Pioneer Kuro, and the final results, along with answers to chat room questions and more.

Run Time: 1:07:45

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