Dennis' Home Theater Blog

Dust and the CRT

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-10-31T23:27:42-05:00

We all hate it when you realize that haze you got used to is actually a nice layer of dust stuck to the surface of your CRT television. The status charge left behind on the surface of the screen attracts dust right out of the air. Unless you can remove the dust from the air, or prevent the static from lingering, there's not much you can do to thwart the dust .

Hepa air filters go a long way to removing most of the dust in the air, but you're just delaying the inevitable with this solution. Sure, it'll take a longer time before the dust returns in any quantity to annoy you, it'll happen none the less. There's currently no way to remove the static charge from surface of the tube, so unless you're going to watch television from inside a clean room, I'm afraid you'll have to deal with wiping the screen down every now and again.

Home Theater Sound Proofing: How Far Should You Take It?

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-10-30T21:26:16-05:00

How do you decide how much theater you really need? This is a hard question to answer.

If you're building a dedicated home theater, you should really invest time and money building a room that handles sound properly. Using staggered stud or double-walls with acoustic dampening glue will do wonders to isolate that room from the rest of your house. Even if you're not sure about investing the money to do it, your one day likely going to be happy you did.

Some people think you can compensate for sound quality and acoustics with better AV gear and speakers. That works to a certain extent, but if you really want to cut the legs off acoustic problems, you'll have to experiment with bass traps and acoustic wall treatments. No, thick drapes won't so squat to help control sound issues.

The bottom line is if you have the money, go the extra mile and properly apply sound proofing construction techniques to your new home theater. You'll be glad you did.

Updates And Additions To The Site

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-10-25T20:14:26-04:00

I've added a number of new product reviews to the site. I'm simply unable to review products myself, so instead of trying to do a half-assed review, I've compiled a list of other reviews from around the web on plasma televisions and projectors. Instead of trying to pretend that I can do a complete review on various gear, I'm defering to the expertise of my home theater colleagues who have actual hands on experience with various products. You'll find each product listed with a list of recent reviews from many sources like Audioholics, CNet, and Home Theater Mag. I'm adding to it all the time so keep checking back often.

Asleep At The Wheel!

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-10-17T20:13:01-04:00

Ok. I've been pretty bad lately at not updating the blog. You know when you start something with gusto, but then don't do it once, then twice, and the next thing you know its been over a month? Ok, good. I've been working hard adding quality reviews to the site and improving the writing of existing articles. I also plan on adding more design information like painting tips and construction tips of various home theater features.

HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray: Why The Next-Gen DVD Formats May Flop

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-09-08T20:55:57-04:00

Simply put, most people don't really know what they want. We say we want to protect North American jobs, yet we still shop at Walmart which gets many, if not most, of its products from Chinese factories. We say we want low-fat foods but McDonalds' 2006 revenue's have steadily increased year over year.

Steve Jobs and Apple have made a science of giving people what they really want with the iPod. Surveys would have you believe that consumers want an FM receiver, long battery life, and voice recording capabilities built into their portable media players. The various versions of the iPod contain none of these features yet it commands a huge portion of the portable media player market. Why is that?

People are emotional beings. That much is obvious. We love getting a product for a low price and feeling like we got a deal despite it weakening the North American economy. We enjoy the taste of a burger and fries even though we know they're not very good for the arteries. Its whats on the surface and what's happening right now that matters to most people despite what they would otherwise say.

When you ask someone if they'd buy a high-definition DVD player because it can give them more capacity, a better image, and improved sound, they'd say "Sure, I'd love that". The catch is the average Joe doesn't care too much strictly about disc capacity.

What most people really care about is that the disc they buy has a movie on it. DVD's already do that. I think the average consumer also doesn't care much about the difference between the great image of a DVD and the really great image of HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. A standard DVD movie displayed on a good quality HDTV or CRT simply looks terrific. Thats what they "see", and they don't care about the technical differences. If they did, Betamax would have won.

The next gen formats may very well be victims of their own hype. With one group saying Blu-Ray is the future, and another saying its HD-DVD, how could the average consumer know which one to buy? Most people simply can't afford to buy both players at current prices, and players that support both formats won't be plentiful or affordable.

So what's a potential buyer to do? The answer there is to wait. And waiting is bad for business when two groups of powerful tech companies are trying to beat each other over a new format.

Until buyers know for sure which direction the looming format war is going to go, they're going to hold off dropping a few hundred bucks on a player and new discs.

You've got different groups of enthusiasts and experts who say HD-DVD has already won because of superior video quality, cheaper players, and more titles being available. Others claim Blu-Ray will be successful because current manufacturing problems are going to be ironed out sooner rather than later. They also point to the soon-to-be released PS3 that has the potential of putting a Blu-Ray drive in the living room of every Sony fanatic on the planet.

Any way you slice it, its going to take a few years before we know who's going to walk away from this fight.

How Disabling The PVR Fast-Forward Feature Is Stupid And Won't Happen

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-25T11:36:24-04:00

This is an oldie, but still a very relevant goodie.

A couple months ago, there was news of television network executives being in talks with PVR manufacturers. They were trying to convince the manufacturers to disable the fast-forward (FF) feature in their personal video recorders to force viewers to watch the commercials. As expected, this was met with some pretty harsh criticism from PVR owners.

On the one hand, I understand that television broadcasters have to make a buck. Without the ad-based business model, we wouldn't have much of the television content we enjoy today. On the other hand, its my time, and my PVR. If I don't want to watch a commercial I've seen 1,000 times already, then I'll zip through it. Thanks.

I'm willing to bet that being forced (because that's what it is really) to view a set of commercials isn't going to go unnoticed by the PVR-buying public.

Technology is changing and so are the habits, and expectations, of viewers. The VCR's time-shifting feature gave everybody the taste of being able to record a show, then watch it later. Fast-forwarding of commercials was very much possible then, and it hasn't killed the television advertising industry. I'm not against marketing, but broadcasters and marketers absolutely have to change and adapt to the new viewer reality.

You can't force the public to watch something they don't want, and you can't remove a feature they've had in every single VCR and PVR since the early 1980's. Here's a crazy idea. You have to get viewers to want to watch the commercials

KFC aired a series of ads earlier in the year where viewers had to watch the commercial in slow-motion to get a glimpse of a special promotional code. Viewers would present it at their local KFC and get $1 off their new Buffalo Snacker burger. This is a brilliant way of getting viewers to want to watch a commercial.

I personally like watching funny commercials. I just love the Geico "Caveman" ads. Especially the one where the Geico rep is apologizing to the cavemen in the restaurant and one of them orders the roast duck. That cracks me up every time.

Product placement inside television shows is another way around the fast-forward problem. I'm not a fan of this because is usually comes across as an obvious plug and, in my opinion, diminishes the effectiveness of the "ad". If its done in a very subtle way, then I think it'll be more successful.

I'm virtually certain the fast-forward feature won't be touched in any way. Why? People don't like change unless the benefit its miles above what they're used to. Any PVR owner will tell you they'd never go back to using a VCR again. With that kind of following, disabling the fast-forward feature will turn a legion of fans into a huge PR nightmare for the manufacturers and broadcasters.

My Top 10 Movies For Subwoofer Lovers

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-24T22:32:40-04:00

I'm a really big subwoofer fan. I don't think there's a more important speaker in an audio system when it comes to conveying the raw feeling of a movie. With that said, I'd like to present my top 10 movies that have kick-ass bass.
Tell me what you think and don't be shy to add your own.

10. Man on Fire. If you love seeing bad people get what's coming to them, then this movie is for you. Kick-ass acting by Denzel.

9. Battlestar Galactica Mini-Series (2003). Not really a movie, but when it comes to a TV show with awesome sound and effects, BSG definitely has it.

8. The Matrix Trilogy. The fight scene between Morpheus and Neo (The Matrix) and the highway chase scene (Matrix: Reloaded) when Trinity escapes with the Keymaker on the motorcycle. Very nice.

7. Terminator 3. Any of the chase scenes, and the bassy music when the sexy TX is driving around in the stolen Lexus.

6. The Incredibles.

5. Underworld. C'mon, Kate Beckinsale... in leather... with guns! Oh yeah -- subwoofers. The gunfight in the subway has excellent gunfire low-frequencies.

4. The Hills Have Eyes (2006) This movie has a lot of what I'd call low-frequency "mutant-freak grunge" -- music that drives home the creepy result of those 1950's nuclear tests. The unrated version is really gory. That makes it good. :)

3. Master and Commander. The opening battle scene is awesome.

2. War of the Worlds (Tom Cruise edition) - A lot of people didn't like this movie. I was disappointed to see a little too much realism in the mob scene where Tom and Co. loose their van, but otherwise it had really good bass.

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I LOVE the sound of the Ents (tree people) walking around.

Does Apple Own The Word "pod"?

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-15T22:13:57-04:00

Apple's legal department is at it again. It looks like they're going after companies that market products whose name contains the word "pod". Apple's lawyers claim that consumers can become confused with other products who's trademark appears similar to their own.

One of the companies Apple is going after isn't even a full-fledged company but a small family business. The Ellison family sells a digital score-keeping product for arcade machines called the Profit Pod.

Now Apple hunting down companies who sell devices that are obviously taking advantage of the iPod's trademark is fine. But trying to strong-arm those who's products obviously have nothing to do with Apple's media player is just crazy. Apple should be far more selective as to who it releases its hounds on because this is creating bad press for them.

How does this translate to home theaters? LoftGoods is a company that makes a home entertainment chair called the Gamepod. I wouldn't be surprised is Apple sent a cease and decist letter to them also.

Now I can't speak for everybody, but to me the word pod implies an object that's somewhat egg-shaped and compact. Something you even sit in. See where I'm going with this? The Gamepod was very well named and shouldn't have to give up its name should Apple try to force them too. My point is that Apple doesn't hold an exclusive copyright on the word "pod" and I suspect (and hope) it would lose any court fight against manufacturers whose products have no resemblance in form or function to the iPod.

Just my 2 cents.

More about Mac OS X Leopard

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-14T17:54:05-04:00

Its crazy how members of mainstream media are such poor researchers. I'd like to point at Paul Thurrot as an example. Anyone who hangs around me knows I'm a big Apple fan and I'm not ashamed to say I can be somewhat biased toward Apple's products. In Thurrot's Leopard Preview article, Paul talks about how many of Apple's newest features to be included in Mac OS X Leopard are rip-offs of Microsoft's upcoming Windows Vista.

On one level I could see where he's coming from. Apple is big on saying how they innovate, yet many of the features in Leopard have been done before. On the other hand, few companies are able to repackage hard to use features into a slick and user-friendly application like Apple can. So though I was, kind of on the fence about the stuff Steve Jobs showed off at the WWDC.

Then I read Paul Thurrot - The Best Defence Is Offence over at SmackFoo and WWDC Secrets Pault Thurrot Hopes You Miss over at Roughly Drafted. My eyes about Leopard's new features were opened like you wouldn't believe. Both authors demonstrated a clarity and understanding of the underlying featureset of both Mac OS X and Windows XP/Vista like I haven't seen before. They brought to me a new appreciation for the elegance of Mac OS X's design that makes me proud to be a Mac owner.

Ok, enough with the review of both articles. The bottom line is that I now believe Steve Jobs and his colleagues onstage had every right to poke some fun at Microsoft. Microsoft's insistance that they not break backward compatibility is one of their biggest problems. This stupid idea of ensuring that old 16bit applications continue to run under Windows or that ActiveX not be scrapped in favor of something new altogether (.NET?) is dragging the company down.

I'm just glad I left the platform behind a few years ago.

EDTV Better Than HDTV? I Don't Buy It.

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-11T13:30:26-04:00

I read this article just now over at Home Theater Resources.com on the merits of televisions supporting EDTV vs. HDTV. This is twice now where I'm told that EDTV is a "huge advance" over HDTV. Frankly I find that very hard to swallow. Here's why.

EDTV, or Enhanced Definition TV, supports fewer scan lines than the HDTV standard, but the image is non-interlaced. I admit this is a big plus in favor of EDTV. Fewer scan lines means less vertical resolution so an image will be less defined on EDTV vs HDTV if you compare the pixel count only. EDTV also forces you to sit further back from the screen or you'll start to discern the individual pixels that make up the image. This is called the screen-door effect.

On the other hand, the screen ratio of EDTV is such that you don't need any scaling to be done when viewing standard television broadcasts or DVD movies. On an HDTV, more processing is needed to scale to the native pixel count of 1024x768. And the interlacing introduces a very slight flicker into the displayed image.

If you compare two sets of the same screen size, you'll notice the EDTV's individual pixels will standout more than they will on the HDTV. Now this is where opinion really takes over.

My beef is why people are saying EDTV is better than HDTV. Despite different formats (1080i, 1080p) and the fact that not all HDTV manufacturers use the full number of pixels to display an image, HD is clearly the future of television broadcasts. Cable and satellite providers are adding more HDTV content each year and HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs are about to come around the corner. Once that format war shakes it self out, I would imagine EDTV definitely becoming a thing of the past. Already, EDTV's are unable to display HD broadcasts to the full resolution they were meant to.

Now all this is mostly for tomorrow. But for today, the majority of broadcasts are still in Standard Definition and very few people own next generation DVD players, so saving a $1,000 on a flat-screen EDTV may certainly be a good idea. But its by no means a "huge advance".

Cover Up Basement Support Posts (Lally Columns)

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-10T20:27:02-04:00

A friend of mine is planning to finish his basement. He's not into the home theater scene and thats Ok, but he did mention he didn't know what to do with his support posts.

The problem with support posts (or lally columns) is that they're always located in the most inconvenient places. They're supposed to help hold up your house so the architects space them out every 8 to 10 feet along a support beam to help distribute all that weight.

The downside for home theater builders is that they always seem to end up smack dab where you'd love to put that couch.

The bad news is that there's just no easy or cheap way to move a support post so lets not even go there. For the do-it-yourselfer, the best you can hope for is to rearrange your home theater layout to something you would still like.

If you really want to move the post, you should consult a structural engineering company. One solution to removing a support post is to reinforce the existing support beam with a stronger beam made of steel or laminated veneer lumber. Another is to supplement the support beam with a second beam. Both are messy and expensive propositions.

Lets just stick to just hiding the post. Here you can do several different things.

• Build the column into a new wall.
• Wrap the column with carpetting.
• Build a box around it.
• Hide the column within a pre-manufactured product.

If you were going to build a wall near the post, consider changing your plan a bit to hide the post within the wall itself. Wrapping the column with carpetting is probably the easiest solution for most people. You can also just build a plain box around the post. Take a look at covering a support beam for how-to's to tackle these problems.

You can also use pre-finished product. One such product is called Pole Wrap. Its a semi-rigid plastic covering that looks like a real wooden column. You can buy these products at retail outlets like The Home Depot. A standard 8' tall cover can run between $100 and $200.

Steve's OS X Leopard Demo

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-09T10:51:24-04:00

Steve Jobs gave a preview demo of the new Mac OS X Leopard (v10.5) at the Apple WWDC in San Fran on Monday. Steve was playing cheapskate by not sharing too many of Leopard's new features for fear other companies may copy them.

Now, I'm a huge Apple supporter, and I always enjoy the usual ribbing Apple gives to other companies from time to time. I especially enjoy when Apple gets put in its place too.

I really liked the new features Steve demo'd for Leopard even if some of those features aren't really part of the OS itself (iChat, Mail).

So I wasn't too surprised to wake up this morning and see a few people (like The Register and Paul Thurott) who've been complaining that these features amount to little more than a point release or that they've already been implemented or planned for Windows already. I'm sure their comments sprung up from all the Apple comments about Microsoft copying their ideas.

Well some of those negative comments are indeed warranted (we've had multiple desktops in Unix for years now), while others are not (super easy, integrated backup solution). To them I say, "Come on guys. Calm down".

Do we really want Apple to announce features months or years in advance, only to have to pull them out of the product because of scheduling or technical reasons. I'm sure Apple has scratched a feature or two off its list from each major release of OS X. We just haven't heard of it. Microsoft's pulling features from Vista left, right, and center and is getting unbelievably bad press over it. Thats not what we want for Apple.

I'm sure Apple is keeping the cool stuff to themselves until closer to the release date.

I think the reason Steve demo'd the features he did is obvious. Its safe to show off those features because they've already been done elsewhere. Apple is [usually] obsessively protective of its secrecy. You could be sure Apple is going to demo new and exciting features at MacWorld San Francisco early next year to drive up the buzz for the release.

Why Video Games Should Leverage Surround Sound Receivers

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-07T11:32:16-04:00

Was playing Eternal Darkness last night on the Gamecube. I'm behind the times on this one so bare with me. Nintendo's Gamecube doesn't support 5.1 digital surround sound, so games are relegated to Dolby Pro Logic at best.

Eternal Darkness is one of those games that screams for true digital surround sound. Unlike other games where you have a health metre or a strength metre, Eternal Darkness features a sanity metre. If a zombie or monster spots you, you lose a few points off your sanity metre. If you lose too much sanity, then weird things start to happen. :)

Your character starts seeing blood drip from the walls, the camera angle starts to tilt to the side a bit, and you start to hear voices and other spooky things. When it gets really bad, you see things that seem to appear in your actual living room. Your TV looks like it suddenly shut off, or you get a fake error message onscreen reporting that your controller is unplugged.

Of course this happens while you're in the middle of a battle so your first reaction is to jump at the remote or fumble to the console to plug your controller back in. After a few seconds, the problem corrects itself and you realize you were just watching what appeared to be a hallucination. Its all very cool.

The surround sound is really effective here and would be even scarier if the game had distinct surround channels to play with.

If you have a Gamecube, this is without a doubt the game you have to pickup.

The creator of Eternal Darkness is Silicon Knights. They signed up with Microsoft last year to produce games for the XBox 360. I'm disappointed I'll have to get a new console to play its sequel. :(

Are The Acoustics In Your Home Theater Really That Important?

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-07T11:08:34-04:00

Are the acoustics in your home theater really that important? Now try and think about that for a moment. Many of the high-end home theater outlets keep harping that you absolutely must control a room's echo and standing waves or you'll end up with a terrible movie experience. While I agree that a really bad room isn't any fun to watch a movie in, I do think the most important factor of room acoustics is always overlooked; the listener.

I'm not one of those people who believes in "one size fits all".

When I was learning to play golf, I was taught that the correct golf swing grip is to lock your dominant hand's pinky with your other hand's index finger, and point your thumbs straight down the shaft. Though I agree with the thumb idea, I don't find the locking grip to be comfortable. I'm not professing to be a golf expert; my average golf scores can attest to that. But I simply prefer holding the club my way.

So when it came to my own home theater, this general idea really hit home on two occasions. The first time I convinced myself I needed some acoustical treatments was when I was suffering from a cold. Whenever I'd cough in the basement, a really nasty echo could be heard traveling around the corner and into the kids play area. I was actually pretty surprised because it was rather loud. But at least the echo died down quickly. Things didn't really change much after the carpet had been installed. The echo was clearly bouncing off the walls.

I was really happy to see that the problem didn't really appear during regular and loud movie watching. That cheered me up big-time. An old-school audio purist would totally balk at this, but me I'm happy. I'm sure a faint echo is there, but it doesn't stick its ugly head in my way when watching TV or a movie. And thats fine with me.

So when you take a look at your room and the stuff you read in magazines and online tells you you're going to have acoustic problems, just take a step back and judge for yourself. If you like the sound your new room produces, then thats what's really important.

Surround Sound Settings

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-08-03T22:13:06-04:00

Last night, I was watching M. Knight Shyamalan's "Signs". I like watching earlier hits from directors like this when one of their new movies comes out (Lady in the Water).

My surround sound system supports Dolby Surround and Dolby DTS, either of which kicks in when a DVD supports one of the two formats.

Most surround sound systems also feature DSPs (digital signal processors) which offer a faked surround sound mode for broadcasts which don't fully support Dolby Pro Logic and other true surround sound encoding formats. Just because you know for a fact a certain show was recorded in Pro Logic doesn't necessarily mean the channel its broadcasted on will support it. This is especially true for syndicated TV shows.

Anyhoo, the way a television broadcast sounds will be different depending on the sound settings you choose, whether Pro Logic or one of those faked surround modes. In my case, setting the sound mode to "Movie" results in stronger, clearer volume coming from the front three speakers, with some soundtrack stuff from the surrounds. Though I knew a DVD would force the use of DTS or Dolby Surround, I didn't expect the fake surround mode to still be in effect, but I was wrong.

Ever since I mounted my surrounds to the ceiling, I couldn't help but wonder why they sounded so muffled. (I had previously removed them from my living room because the little tike had started walking, and of course grabbing anything within 3 feet of the floor thats not nailed down, so bye-bye speaker stands). I had basically forgotten how surround sound was supposed to sound like.

I'm watching Signs and could certainly hear background music and other effects, but something just didn't feel right. The surround sound effect just wasn't as impressive as I would have expected it to be.

So I start fooling around with some of the sound settings switching between None, Music, and Movie (best for TV shows IMHO). While switching between them, a particularly powerful scene was on, namely the actual house invasion part where the aliens are running around on the roof. When I switched to None, I was completely shocked to hear the quality and intensity of the effects from the surrounds. I was so happy to find myself back to what I remember before starting the basement project that I zipped back to a bunch of different scenes I'd expect some good effects and I wasn't disappointed.

The moral of this story is to be sure to leave the DSP settings that simulate surround sound effects off when watching a DVD or digital television. You'll be happy you did.

Satellite HDTV

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-07-28T21:45:23-04:00

So no, I don't yet have an HDTV in my new home theater yet. Why? Money, thats why. Oh and two kids aren't helping the pocket book either. Though my cable provider isn't bad, they don't offer any high-def channels, so right after I purchase a widescreen TV (or projector I think), I'll be swinging by the Bell store and signing up for Expressvu.

I think I'll be renting the receiver though because I want the HD PVR model with dual tuners. The whole hard drive thing tells me I don't want to be on the hook to deal with a warranty plan if it fails so renting is the only option for me. I like how it has two remotes, one is infared while the other is RF. I'll be able to use the RF remote and its tuner in a different room while the HD tuner stay in the family/theater room. I can't wait for that, but first I have to go buy some formula. :)

1 1/2 Years to Build My Home Theater

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-07-27T21:44:48-04:00

It took me about 1 1/2 years to finish my basement, and its still not 100% done. Back when I started, I didn't expect it to take as long as it did, but looking back on it now it went by pretty fast. All I have left to do is adjust some of the door frames, mount the door trim, and finish up the baseboard trim.

The ceiling has to be done too, but thats just really cosmetic. Besides, its nice to have access to any wiring up there. I'm going to be putting soundproofing up there as well but thats as I have some extra money. I'm surprised how little you can hear upstairs so the soundproofing is even less of a priority.

Why Microsoft's Zune Is Going To Be Another Money Losing Venture.

Dennis%20McLaughlin — 2006-07-27T09:44:28-04:00

Microsoft is said to be working on an iPod killer. As someone who's been working in the computer industry, primarily supporting Windows machines, for the past 20 years, I highly doubt Microsoft have any clue how to build a consumer device. The reason the XBox is doing well, contrary to its financials, is because Microsoft is packaging something people actually want. Surprising, I know. Despite what I think is a fluke (the XBox), Microsoft has never, and will never, understand the consumer the way Apple does. All Microsoft care about is controlling a technology and then licensing it to other players. This way they can keep control of that particular industry as they have for the past couple decades. Sit in front of a PC and you still have to deal with DLL-hell and other crap. The boys at Metroxing have a great article on it.