CES 2009

CES 2009
We'll be at CES again, January 8-12 2009, in Las Vegas and blogging about the latest and greatest things we check out in Audio/Video connectivity and computer accessories.
And yes, as usual, we'll also be complaining about the worst and stupidest things we see. Sometimes you just can't help but poke a little fun.

With the economy as it is, this huge show may be a little more interesting than usual. Will dealers and manufacturers scramble for objects of need, rather than objects of desire?

Things have changed drastically since last year. There's no longer a HD disk war, and the whole digital transition thing is very NOW, rather than later. Wireless Audio/Video may be looking like more fact than fantasy for a change, and the real year of the HTPC may have finally arrived. People want to find ways to save money with technology more than ever before.

Please stay tuned, it is always crazy, and always fun!
We always find some time to check out some Speakers and things in high end audio, and this time we may even throw in some of our dining reviews!

High Definition TV Reception using an Antenna

Get High Definition TV for Free with an Antenna?
A lot of people are buying new LCD and Plasma HDTV's and Projectors everyday, but they can't get HDTV! With so many people upgrading the Cable TV companies and Satellite companies just don't currently have the installers or Boxes to go around. Sure, if you are willing to wait a month or so they'll hook you up, but what are you going to do in the meantime? A lot of other people already use antennas for their TV reception, but may need to upgrade what they have to get good results with the new digital channels. Well, the latest HDTV's pretty much all have built-in "ATSC" tuners which can receive local broadcasts over Antenna for free. All you need is an Antenna, and a bit of know-how to get it set up right.
What do you need to get started?
First, you need to determine what type and size of antenna you will need, which depends on your location. Different locations will be closer or farther away from the Broadcast Towers, and some Stations will eventually be at different frequencies after the digital changeover in February. While most stations will be in the UHF band, some stations are changing from UHF to VHF after the changeover. So how do you find out? There is a great website that walks you through selecting and directing your antenna.
Antennaweb.org


Just click on the "choose your antenna" button, put in your address or just zip code and fill out a few questions and it gives you all kinds of results for every "local" TV station in any direction from you. Most people will just want to aim for the main towers in the closest city. This way you don't need to rotate the antenna to pick up different stations. Those close enough to the local stations towers can often get good reception using a small indoor antenna. Just pick up a small antenna, Those far away would generally need a larger, roof mounted job - quite a bit more of a permanent installation than you may want, but hen again, it's free digital TV and HDTV which is a nice option to have if your Cable or Satellite TV service goes down or you get sick of paying for it. Anyway, it gives you the Antenna type color code, miles from the Broadcast Tower and Compass heading referenced in degrees from magnetic North. All you need to set up the Antenna for good reception. They also have a variety of FAQ's and Resource sites which should answer any other questions you may have. Another great resource is the AVS Forum "Local HDTV Info and Reception" forum where you can ask questions and read up on what people local to you are doing for OTA (over the air) Reception.


If you decide to take the plunge, we have some of the top rated Antennas, Amplifiers and Splitters to finish the job.
Please see our Channel Master Products Section.

Series of Audio "Archiving" Articles - Turntables, Cassette Decks

Well, my recession plan to dip into old, cheap media resources is evolving it seems, and so I'll be having some fun updating some of our "how to" guides with whatever I find to work. I already promised another turntable update. An additional section about cassette decks will be added as well. Why? Well a lot of people have lots of tapes of all kinds on cassette.
I happen to have some tapes that seem important to me to archive, so I got a few cassette decks from ebay to test out.
First thing I'll say - you have to be careful! Cassette decks tend to use a lot of rubber belts and rubber wheels and heads that wear out. Second thing I'll say is you can get super mega nice decks at unbelievable prices if careful....
I'm currently listening to some old Soundgarden and Tom Waits tapes on a deck that cost me $35 with shipping and listed for $1245 as I write this, and let me tell you, the tapes sound pretty nice!
I'll mainly try to give you the links to the best info I find, as well as products.

The updates will be posted here:
How to connect your computer to your stereo

Cyber Monday HDTV Cable Sale

Last day of our Black Friday to Cyber Monday HDTV Cable Set Sale.
Connect your Cable/Satellite Box or Blu Ray Player to your HDTV, three cables for under $10!
• HDMI 6 foot Cable, HDMI 1.3 Compliant
• Component Video Cable, 6 feet long, Gold plated Contacts, HD Component Video up to 1080p
• Digital Audio Cable, 6 feet long, Optical Toslink for Dolby Digital and DTS Surround Sound

Panamax - Power and In-Wall Cable Solutions

Panamax not only offers High End Power conditioners for your Home Theater and top quality Surge supressing Power Strips, but their "Max In Wall" series of Wall plates offer In wall power and AV cabling solutions with power filtering for a "Complete" solution to your In wall AV cable and power problems.

Panamax - Power and In-Wall Cable Solutions

____________________________________________________________________
Panamax power and av in wall solution Put your Power and AV cabling in the wall! Panamax has true code compliant solutions with built in power filtering. Hide the wall plate behind your Wall mounted Plasma or LCD Display, for that "no cables" look. Various versions available with modular AV connection blocks. Whether you need an In-wall power extension solution, Power and AV, or just the perfect Power Conditioning for your Home Theater or Computer - Panamax has a great solution for you.

The Pros use Panamax - so should you!
Panamax Products

Blu Ray beats Downloads!

Blu-ray earns high marks from consumers

Study finds that users prefer discs to streaming 10-to-1

Maybe propaganda, but then, I like physical disks, don't you?
I don't understand why everyone thinks downloads are the way to go. I watch plenty of Netflix instant movies, and I can't wait for them to go "HD", but would I buy drm encrypted data over a physical disk? Hah, not likely!!! Give me a disk, every time!

Disconnected - TV Antenna users Life in Hell

Whether you are an early adopter HDTV OTA (over the air) user or a regular old TV from antenna user you have some work to do if you want to watch TV at all, or all the TV you can get.
The Digital TV changeover is coming soon on February 17, 2009! That's hard enough for regular antenna users who have to get conversion boxes, but there's a fly in the ointment for early adopters who thought they were all ready to go.

Regular old TV Antenna types should see:
AntennaWeb's walk through guide to choosing an Antenna
Antenna Web's Resources (Information sites)

Early Adopters should recheck their final channel assignments taking place at the transition. Many of us switched to UHF only Antennas due to what looked like all our local stations were going to be UHF. At the changeover, some TV stations are now going to switch their HDTV signals to use high and low VHF bands which we won't get. This means changing Antennas as well as possiblty antenna amps and preamps. Quite a pita. Who knows what ATSC, OTA Digital tuner Set top boxes, HDTV cards in computers - Media Center, Mac or HTPC will be affected? Maybe not likely, but who's been testing with low and mid VHF? There's not a lot of "real world" data, yet.
Here's some good info:
HDTVexpert - Info on new VHF and UHF channel assignments
HDTV expert - Test of five antennas

I have enough problems pulling in the stations I should, just using different tuners with the same antenna setup. Where's this possibly going when I throw in VHF frequency bands? Am I the only one who thinks this might be a problem? I doubt it. More "fun" for "us", I guess.

What's better than $1 Records?

A few weeks ago, I wrote about getting back into vinyl, I got a used record player and a new cartridge for it, and since have been spending some happy weekend hours perusing the $1 bins at used record stores. We all love to shop, and we certainly all love a bargain, especially at times like these. Well, I forgot all about Yard sales... The going rate for records at yard sales is 50 cents! It is also pretty common for yard sale records to be in good shape as well. So I can get two full records for the price of a song on itunes...
I think we'll need to do a little feature on importing records into your computer soon.
We do have some information about this on our "How to connect your PC to your Stereo" page.
Let us know if you are interested and we'll try to get it done sooner rather than later.

Understanding Audio and Video Wire and Cable

We just added a new article - Understanding Audio and Video Wire and Cable
It is a tutorial on Audio and Video Cables, from a slightly technical perspective, although we try to explain things in mostly laymen's terms with examples and clear, easy to understand specifics on the differences of varying cable parameters. It is not a FAQ, but more or less an overall tutorial. We hope it's easy enough to read and learn from. Please comment and we'll fix it too your liking.
In any case, why not take a shot and see if you can add a bit to your cable IQ?

Understanding Audio and Video Wire and Cable

Thermalright

Thermalright PC Cooling Products


RAM Electronics is proud to announce it is an Authorized Thermalright dealer.
Our Goal over the years has always been to provide the best products available to save our customers the time and trouble of spending hours doing research.
Thermalright is a perfect example of this, as they are the best reviewed, most imitated Computer Heatsink Manufacturer out there. Of course you don't have to take our word for it, just read the reviews at the Silent PC Cooling sites, Gamer Overclocking Sites and Performance PC Sites and you'll soon come to the same conclusion. So if you want to build an Ultra Quiet HTPC or a Killer Gaming Rig, or just want to replace your current cooler, they have a very over engineered soultion at a great price.

Thermalright Company info
Thermalright is an elite design house that manufactures cooling products for computer components for the best quality and performance your money can buy. In 2002, AMD released its first generation Thunderbird CPU and since then they have been there every step of the way to counter high voltage and high heat with innovative design and highly acclaimed cooling solutions not only for AMD but for Intel as well. One of early well known solutions was the SK-6. With many positive and rave reviews under its belt Thermalright bolted to the top as the heat sink manufacturer mostly preferred by Overclockers and enthusiasts around the World. To this day, innovation never left their vocabulary as they keep coming up with leading edge designs staying ahead of the competition

Thermalright Products


Thermalright Reviews

New iPod Extreme - Docking Connector Line output cables

iPod Extreme Audio cables for Home and Car Stereo

We try to keep busy in the summer doing the usual summer stuff, and a lot of us do it with our iPods. If you also like to do things with your iPod, we have something new, right off the drawing board you might find enhances the relationship!



The Home Audio iPod Extreme - Awesome noise free sound with extremely wide bandwidth.


Due to the big difference in audio quality available from the iPod Docking connectors "line output" compared to the headphone output, we have designed these cables from the ground up to give you the ultimate sound quality from your iPod. We offer two types - one designed primarily for home audio use to your stereos left and right stereo audio RCA connector inputs, and one designed for Car audio with a mini stereo plug for your cars "Aux" input. Both are made with the same high grade silver plated Teflon twisted pair wires.

And the Car Audio iPod Extreme:




Mini Plug Stereo Connection for Car Audio "AUX" Inputs.
Same great sound, Same nice looks, Same durable construction. Available now to hear your iPod like you never heard it before!






Features:
· Silver Plated Copper wire
· Teflon Insulated
· Dual Twisted Pairs for low noise, excellent sound quality
· Silver Soldered
· Techflex Jacket
· Super low Capacitance for wide bandwidth
· Custom made to order in the USA!

Links:
iPod Extreme mini
iPod Extreme RCA

Setting up your new/old turntable and cartridge

Setting up your new/old turntable and cartridge
I received the old Denon DP-45F turntable I mentioned in the last blog entry and a new Grado Cartidge (RED) I bought on ebay and hooked them up to my Denon 3805 Receiver. I use this system for my Computer audio and iPod audio while working or using my computer. The speakers are Reference 3A Dulcets - it's a nice sounding little system.

While spending 5 figures on a turntable, tonearm, cartridge and ancillaries seems easy for some, it is not my cup of tea. Plus, I cannot afford tea like that! There are plenty of great, old turntables that are easy to afford for those interested in testing the waters of "analog audio" - "LP records" to us normal people.
Ebay is filled with plenty of Thorens, Dual, Garrard, Pioneer, Technics Turntables and all sorts of other brands from yesteryear that probably only 40 somethings or older may remember. There are plenty of yardsale or fleamarket options, but in all cases you have to be careful to not get a "project" TT - a turntable that needs repair. Do your homework before buying a turntable. Get a top model Turntable from the mid to late 70's and up and it should have a pretty nice tonearm. Get a new Grado Black, green, blue, red or Shure M97XE cartidge online for a good price and you have the basic hardware for high quality playback. You'll also need a receiver or amp with a good "phono" preamp section for best results.
Getting Started:
Setting up a cartridge in your new/used turntable is unfortunately a bit of a PITA. You have left CD world and are in a new land of DANGER. It would not be so difficult if your needle were indestructible, but unfortunately that is not the case. It's a teensy weensy little diamond glued onto a glob of material glued to a teensy weensy little shaft, etc. We are talking FRAGILE.
Wiring:
You have to get the wiring right, and you need to be very careful with the tiny gauge wires involved - they break very easily. The little sockets involved are certainly strange to a newbie (or more accurately - non oldbie?). The wires are color coded and the cartridge should come with a wiring guide. The markings on cartridges are so small they are hard to see and are sometimes incomplete enough that relying on them is tricky, so hopefully you have the paperwork on your cartridge.
Alignment and Setup:
Alignment in the head shell is necessary so that the cartridge stays as close as possible to 90 degrees perpendicular to the record grooves while traversing the record and parallel to the platter/record. This is not fun to do, and particularly dangerous for the needle. You can buy numerous alignment devices, but there are also easy to use printable pdf versions that you can print out, and as long as you are very careful, and can find a way to accurately poke out the "center hole" for the spindle of your turntable, they can do the job very well.
Setting up the proper "tracking weight" (how much weight the needle has applied to press down into the record groove) is hugely important to how well the needle can track the grooves, as well as how much the needle may adversely effect the wear on the grooves. It's a balance between the two you need to achieve. Too light - and you get distortion as well as groove damage since the needle has limited groove surface area contact and tends to get bounced around. Too heavy and the needle is just not compliant enough to follow the grooves with all the weight applied and scrapes off the sharp edges (dynamics and high frequencies) until you get - mush. There are digital gauges which are nice, but a bit pricey. They should work very well. Then again, "manual" gauges like the Shure SFG-2 can be had for less. The negative part is they are not "brain dead" setup gauges. You will need to be careful with your needle, you may need to read and understand directions - and at this point you are probably pretty tired of "tools" like that! In any case, a manual gauge is not going to ever stop working unless you lose it.
BIG NOTE: Always RAISE the needle before making adjustments. It will take more time, but your needle will survive the process!
Anti skating - Easy - Just set it equal to the Tracking force you use. Most turntables should work very well set this way.

Here are some good links to more info to help you out.
Info:
Align Your Turntable Cartridge:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/freestuff.htm
Tonearm Alignment:
http://www.theanalogdept.com/tonearm_alignment.htm
Cartidge Setup:
http://www.audiophilia.com/features/cartridge_setup.htm
Record Cleaning:
http://www.sleevetown.com/vinyl-cleaning.shtml

Hopefully you have local used record stores that have bins and bins of records for $1 for you to hunt through.
Have fun, and happy listening!

How to connect your Computer to your Stereo

We updated our Howto page: "How to connect your Computer to your Stereo"
[Why? I bought a turntable on ebay]

Well, we finally got around to an update of our popular "How to connect your Computer to your Stereo" page. Not a huge update, mainly added some extra info on connecting your Turntable to your computer and added links to some good free software.

It should be getting some further updates pretty soon. Why? Mainly because I just bought a turntable. Yeah, maybe I'm crazy - they are noisy, inconvenient, and can get to be an expensive hobby all in themselves, but I just miss playing records.

What brought all this on? Well, I was browsing around in the used CD store when I just couldn't help but browse through some of those $1 records they had virtually tons of. I kept finding old records I liked until the next thing I knew I was browsing through the $2-$5 sections. I stopped myself before I went crazy, since I gave up on my old Garrard Belt drive turntable years ago and had nothing to play them on.
What is it, nostalgia? I know there is a big vinyl resurgence lately, but I never once was tempted to shell out $25 for Norah Jones latest on 180g vinyl, and $2500 for a turntable. Don't get me wrong, I always enjoy listening to high end audio systems at all the high end audio shows, but give me an sacd, DVD audio or hopefully soon some Blu Ray Audio disks - nice clean digital audio on click and pop free disks! Well, I guess I miss the whole reverential process involved that I remember so well from my youth. You find that big 12"x12" square among all your other records, take it out and figure out the tracks you like, clean the disk carefully and set it down on the platter. Then you cue up the arm and move it - just right there - carefully to right over the gap in the tracks and let it slowely drop down... ahhh, I miss that.

No, I'm not one of those that thinks analog just has to sound better. I'll get back to you on that, I guess, since I don't even have a needle yet... Maybe I'm getting old and want to go back to my youth, but then it seems that a big part of the vinyl comeback is amongst the young. Young people were scouring the heck out of those huge bins of LP's. Maybe size matters? I always did miss the SIZE of Records - CD's were more like little toys. You can hardly read the writing. And Digital downloads? Yes, I have my share, but that's even more of a disconnect to having something palpable in your hands - something to sit back on the couch and look at while the record played.

So, while I don't even have the turntable I "won" on ebay - a nice Denon table (the nice Duals were just too high) that was quite nice and a bit expensive in its day, and I have not even ordered a cartridge for it yet, I am definately looking forward to getting it all together and working (supposing it arrives in one piece) .

Yes, I may get bored with the whole thing very quickly, and go back to strictly iPod, CD and my skimpy sacd and dvd audio disk collections for the ease of use, but I may not. Perhaps I'll ride out the recession picking up old $1 records that maybe I never checked out in my youth. Maybe I'll splurge on a few $3 and even $10(!) records that I know I enjoy. In any case it's not going to cost me a fortune to check it out.

How to connect your computer to your HDTV or Standard Def Television

We have done a little update to our Computer to TV/HDTV connections page. Added VGA to Component Video and DVI and HDMI computer to HDTV connection info.
We'll be updating the audio portion soon.

Netflix Roku Box/Player Review

Netflix Roku Box/Player Review

The Wonderful Idea:
Users of Netflix have had the option for a while to "watch it now" using their computer. While a lot of people complain about the service due to difficulty in setup, it is really not that hard to do. A few downloads for Microsoft Media player to get up to date and ad (of course) a DRM security update and it works - with Internet Explorer, at least.
But who wants to watch movies on a computer LCD? Sure they are great for computer displays, but they stink as HDTV's or TV's. They were not made for the job! Computer monitors are all about resolution, TV's are all about contrast ratio - two of many differences in overall design.
So how about a box, that you connect to your network, wireless or wired, connect to your TV/HDTV and/or Home Theater with any of the usual audio and video connections.?

Well here it is! The box basically allows you to watch any movie or TV show that is set up by Netflix for their "Watch it Now" Service. Connect the Audio and video as you would your cable box or DVD player, connect an Ethernet cable or Set it up for your Wireless network, enter a code into Netflixes website and away you go! I must say, the Interface itself is very "Apple like" in it's simplicity and ease of use.

A/V Connections:
* HDMI for Audio/Video
* Component Video
* Composite Video
* Optical Digital Audio
* Stereo Audio

Network Connections:
Wireless 802.11g (no n)
Ethernet
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REVIEW:
The setup time was very fast, and the entire process was easy, unless you have to enter your wireless encryption code, which is a bit time consuming. The connectivity options are perfect for most TV,s/HDTV's and Surround Sound Systems. A Coax output would help, but you can't put everything on a box of this size at this price.

Picture Quality:
The picture quality was watchable using Ethernet or Wireless 802.11g within the same room as the wireless router. During the Netflix/Roku network quality test, the Ethernet only got three stars, while the wireless connection got 4 stars. Weird. My Internet connection hits around 3Mbps maximum on download, so I don't have the ultimate connection. In any case, the picture quality was pretty good for the data speed. It was, of course, not as good as the better DVD's and nothing like HD material, but was at least as good as many Cable TV channels, and it was really wide screen when the program material supported it.
Audio:
Optical and HDMI seem to support 5.1 surround sound fine, and sound ok. Without more time, there's nothing to add to that.

Overall:
It's a great box. It is a wonderful addition to anyone's Netflix account.

More time with the unit:
Quality seems to go up and down. Motion artifacts can be a bit annoying since data rates are rather low and original quality sometimes is lacking. Mind you everything is pretty watchable, as long as you have good Internet bandwidth. Not as much content as I'd like - but for a free* add-on to a Netflix account who's complaining?
Rediscovering old overlooked program material is actually pretty fun. Really a lot of good stuff to enjoy. Movies seem to work fine and widescreen movies are presented in widescreen, but there are few configuration settings such as stretch 4:3 to 16:9 which would be nice for plasma owners.


***This review was edited from original, which had a reference to a problem which didn't exist.

HD Recording and Playback the Gefen Way!

HD Recording and Playback the Gefen Way!
Gefens new High Definition PVR (Personal Video Recorder) the GTV-HD-PVR is a great way to record your favorite HD content for later playback. It has a great selection of Inputs - Composite Video, S-Video, Component Video and two HDMI Inputs. Connect your non-HDCP encrypted HDMI sources and HD Component Video source and record them at resolutions from 480i up to 1080i. It also has an SD Disk slot for offloading your movies to computer. A great way to archive your HD Camcorder movies or Time Shift your favorite TV Shows and movies. While not inexpensive, it is a very versitile little box that with a built-in 80GB Hard Drive.

For Professional use - this makes a great device for Digital Signage Applications!
The Link:
Gefen GTV-HD-PVR, High Definition PVR

Digital and Analog Audio Conversion, Common Problems

Digital and Analog Audio Converters:
Why, when and where do you need them?
We get people looking for solutions to Audio problems with need for Analog to Digital, Digital to Analog and Coax to/from Toslink Optical Audio all the time. Here are some common problems.

Digital to Analog (DAC):

• PS3 Digital Output to your Standard Stereo or TV input.
• Connecting Audio Device with Digital Output to Standard Stereo Connection.
• You have a HDTV with an ATSC tuner or Cablecard Tuner, the HDTV has Digital Audio out, but no Analog Audio out, and you don't have a Digital Input on your Stereo or Home Theater.
• You have run out of Digital Inputs on your Receiver and need to connect something that only has a Digital Audio Output.
• Your Receiver has a Zone 2 (or Zone 3) that you use for another room, but the Zone 2 will not pass a Digital signal to the second Zone, only Stereo analog audio.

Analog to Digital (ADC):

• You have run out of Analog Inputs on your Receiver, but still have a spare Digital input that you want to connect a stereo device to.
• You have a single coax cable in your wall and want to transmit stereo audio to another location.
• You have a Digital Recorder with no Stereo inputs, and need to connect stereo audio.
• You need to run Analog audio a long distance without loss.

Toslink Optical to Digital Coax/Digital Coax to Toslink Optical

• Your Receiver does not have enough Coax Digital Inputs for your Devices.
• Your Receiver does not have enough Toslink Optical Inputs for your Devices.

Products:
Digital and Analog Audio Converters

DEEP COLOR MADNESS

Repeat after me - There are no useful video sources that support Deep Color.
There are no useful video sources that support Deep Color.
There are no useful video sources that support Deep Color.
There are no useful video sources that support Deep Color.
There are no useful video sources that support Deep Color.

Got it? Anyone who implies that deep color is useful or will improve your Color uniformity issues or vertical banding effects is quite simply - a dummyhead.

Home is where the Plasma and Projector is

It is nice to get home from some hotel with a crappy TV and get back to all of your recorded shows and rentals and DVD's, etc and go and watch them on your HD Plasma, LCD or projector. Ahhh, home again.
How many people out there feel the need to eyeball calibrate your hotel TV? I know I do. They always look terrible with over saturated colors, too much sharpening and poor selection of video mode that is way off (vivid).
Those 19 inch TV's or whopping bigger ones like the 32 inch ones they have in some hotels are no better setup than the one at your local pizza parlor.
It just goes to show that most people have no idea that TV's are not at their best with default settings. The ISF has been trying to educate the public for years, but with limited results.
Why?
It's all about perceptions of manufacturer intent and delivery.
TV's are set up out of the box to be ultra bright and ultra razor sharp, and in no way accurate. Many of them cannot be made extremely accurate even with ISF service menu calibration. In many cases service menu calibration is not even useful.
Why? Well, that question is one to annoy the manufacturers with. First off, they should make it possible to do grayscale calibration and other crucial settings without having to go into the service menu. That way, they don't have to worry about problems with returns because of failed calibrations. It would also result in their HDTV's looking as good as possible for the largest number of consumers. Oh yeah, that would be terrible!
The trouble is that a lack of consumer education has left the whole calibration issue in some kind of alternate universe where everything is not perfect out of the box. If manufacturers would just admit to this truth, consumers and dealers and calibrators would all be able to work from the same page - truth.

OK, enough ranting. Tbush should have a new article on recording Microphones with computers real soon, for your enjoyment.

Seattle Weather sucks like a bad ATSC USB Tuner

I'm in Seattle this week for a conference and boy does Seattle weather suck. I don't know how Seattle people deal. These are some stout minded people here, when the weather is even marginally ok, they treat it like it's a beautiful sunny freaking day. Hey, it's a great city. Lots to do and see, great people, and all of that, but really, this is June weather? Having a conference in someplace like Alcatraz might be more uplifting. It's no wonder all those great grunge bands and Jimi Hendrix came from here. Weather like this must make you want to explode when you get a chance. I hope that if we ever learn to control the weather to some extent we try it out here first. Imagine this place with, like, sunshine? Whoah! Frickin San Diego would be jealous.
What else sucks? Trying to use a non hardware encoding ATSC HDTV card to try to watch HDTV on your laptop if it's a bit old or lacking in the video card department. I got a "big name" brand USB ATSC tuner at the local BB with my "rebate" (and a few more bucks) for getting my HD DVD player there. What a waste. I thought I'd be able to watch some shows in HD on my laptop here in the middle of town if the weather sucked. Well, to make a long story short, I could tune a bunch of local channels with decent signal strength but without hardware encoding I could not watch anything. Sure, my laptops a bit old, but not that old, it's still fine for watching DVD's, and I thought I might get it to work ok at lowered resolutions. Bah! No such luck. Couldn't watch HD or standard Def even with good signal strength. I should have got a hardware encoding tuner that offloads cpu intensive processing to the adapter - not the cpu, and I should have already known that.
We do sell them, but as often happens, I wasted money to try to save a few bucks. I should have sunk that BB gift card into some new Blu Ray disks like I did with the rebate for the other frigging HD DVD player I bought.
Shoulda got: AutumnWave OnAir USB HDTV GT

Ethernet Wired to Wireless Adapter

Here's a network connectivity question we get a lot.
"How do I convert my regular Ethernet connected device into a wireless Ethernet device?"
Many people have Ethernet equipped Game Consoles, Blu Ray Players, or components that are not computers and have no way to add on a PCI slot card, PC Card or express card in order to add a wireless network adapter. All those newfangled USB connections on Game consoles, Media Extenders and the like cannot accept a USB to Ethernet adapter since they have no way to load a driver on them. You have to go with something proprietary if one is even available.

Well, here's one solution. An Ethernet to Wireless bridge, that is easy to set up and use. It's also small and easy to find a place for. It's called the AeroPad Mini.

Here's the manufacturers blurb:
"AeroPad Mini is extraordinary in that it does not require drivers to function and is compatible with Mac OS 9.x, 10.x, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, Linux, as well as XBox, PS2, or Tivo. AeroPad offers genuine cross-platform compatibility.
The AeroPad Mini lets you breathe new life in your older Mac models such as iBooks, G3's, iMacs, and any computer that do not have a 802.11g wireless solution available to them (e.g. no AirPort Card slot, no AirPort Extreme slot, no PCMCIA card slot, or no PCI slot. Now these computers can be placed anywhere without the hassle of running long cables.
AeroPad Mini spares the tedium of setting up cables or opening up the computer to insert a networking card.
The AeroPad Mini has also been redesigned to be small and portable, and perfect for users on the go. AeroPad Mini is USB powered so you will never have to worry about being near an outlet, this is truly wireless computing at its best. Small size doesn't mean AeroPad Mini comes in a compromise. Zipping at 802.11g 54Mbps speeds, it is small yet cutting-edge."

and a link to the Aeropad mini

So what's your connectivity problem? Ask us and we'll give you an answer on Connectivity Today from RamElectronics.Net

A couple of Articles HTPC and Guitar to PC

Here's a great little blog post about trying to Re make an HTPC. A very enjoyable read for those who have tried.
Again the link: Trees in the Forest: The Darjeeling Limited

Hey, we at RAM have a new article as well:
How to Connect a Guitar to your computer to record and play along with music, using the M-Audio Jamlab -> Go to the article

ZOMBIE PLASMA DEATH SQUAD!

ZOMBIE PLASMA DEATH SQUAD!
Since Plasma is Dead:
Audioholics - Plasma TV is Dead
That means we have some real live zombies out there! Hopefully scientists have some of those ghostbusters meters available to probe these strange netherworld objects with. Hard to believe that our first provable contact with the postmortem crowd would happen to be with video displays! Here's hoping they are not evil or capable of violent, bloodthirsty outbursts, unless they are just entertaining us with this type of video material.
The Zombies cometh!
cnet.com
engadget.com

Quick note about a great article about online Video download services

HDTV Magazine has a must read article for all of us who complain about our Cable/Satellite Services entitled "A Comparison of Movie Download Services".
Really, don't miss this article, it's a quick review of the current and future Video Content download services. Very well done!

Appologies a Rant and a Sale

Apologies
Hello again to all of our old and new customers who were kind enough to subscribe to our email newsletter. We would like to make apologies, especially to our older subscribers as to the state of our current "upgraded" site. Our old site,while enjoyed by many people was very "old school". It was painstakingly "hand made" and had as much helpful content as we could manage to add. But it's 2008! So we had to move to a modern way of doing things. It's been hard to do. And we are way far from finished.
One painful decision was between copying our old content onto the new site or creating lots of entirely new, fresh content. We kept and updated some of our more in-depth content but decided on completely rewriting most of the rest of the site. While it may seem crazy to want to rewrite content for hundreds of pages, we are actually enjoying it. It's what we like to do - explain the basics of various forms of interconnectivity and help people understand and successfully use them.

Here are a few examples of our new content:
Video Converters
Networking
USB Cables


Of course we still offer updated versions of some of our best old sites content on our support page and all of our blog, Connectivity Today is still available.


A Rant
The upgrade to HD quality DVD player scam
DVD players that claim to convert your DVD to HD quality (1080i,1080p,720p) for your HD display are a scam. The marketing here is complete nonsense.
Your TV is going to convert the signal it is given to its own natural, resolution and refresh rate. If it is a 720p LCD it will convert whatever it is given to that. If it is a 1080p display, it will convert everything it is given to that. Feeding your HDTV 1080p from a DVD player may or may not be better than feeding it 480i, depending on the video processing of the HDTV and DVD player. Over and over, people don't get this. It is not just the player! People buying Pioneer Plasmas over the those off-brand LCD's are not just rich and obsessed with black level. Video processing is actually worth money. There are a lot of smart people paying a lot of money for stand-alone video processors. Why? Because they highly value the picture quality they are rewarded with. Putting a bit more into your TV purchase, or DVD/Blu Ray purchase can make a big difference in the resulting picture quality you watch, day in and day out for years to come. If you are obsessed with getting that 1080p signal from some oh so inexpensive upscaling DVD player to your HDTV, you really need to rethink how your system works. In a lot of cases your final picture quality will be better with an old, 480i or 480p DVD player of high quality (and they are selling for cheap). Of course you could just get an Oppo or on sale HD-DVD player to do very nice upscaling. It's never going to look like a true HD source with a good looking movie, though.

A Sale
We have a 15% off sale on Liberty THX Certified Optical Digital Audio Toslink cables
This week only?!

What the heck are HDMI Amplified/Equalized Cables

HDMI "Amplified/Equalized" Cables
Here's one question that initially was a head scratcher. What's an HDMI "Amplified" cable? It is not "snake oil" unless the amplifier or equalizer is using "electro-static-intermagnetic-resonance amplification" or anything having to do with pyramids.
Well first off, there are really two types of "amplified" cables; Repeaters and equalized cables. A repeater recieves the cables signals, (which are actually split up for proper transmission over HDMI cable) re-combines them, and if its function is simply as a repeater, it splits them up again for transmission over HDMI cables again. It does help clean up signals and allows for longer combined cable runs, but that's not really its purpose. An equalizer cable is similar to the equalizers used in Pro Analog gear to correct for high frequency loss over long cable runs. It takes the signal and digitally equalizes the signal to correct for high frequency losses over long HDMI cable runs. The equalization is matched to the cable, so for best results, cables with built-in proprietary equalization will be more capable than adding a seperate booster/equalizer, or a receiving Switcher with built-in equaliztion. The difference between "designed for the cable" (built-in) and external (seperate booster/equalizers or integrated into switchers) varies widely, it can be marginal, or enough to make a large difference in bit errors, depending on the cables and associated equipment.

Note1: An Equalizer should be used at the end of the cable run, or close to it.
Note: There are those that claim that since digital cables just send 1's and 0's that means that if the cable "works" it is perfect. This is a bit off-base. The closer you get to the "digital cliff" where the signal goes out completely, the more bit errors are likely to occur in a complex "system" like the transmitter-cable-receiver system. This results in video artifacts like "sparkles" where various pixels in the display are of random color values. If bit errors are infrequent enough, they may not be noticed, but large amounts will render the video outcome unwatchable.

So do you need one of these things? It depends. How long is your cable run? If it is long, such as for a projector, or in-wall cabling an above fireplace plasma from across the room, it is likely. If it is not so long, such as for a normal receiver or Cable/Satellite/DVD/Blu Ray player to HDTV connection then you don't.
Bad - image with lots of "sparkles"

Good - No "sparkles"


These images are just resized photographs (ok, not very good photos) of actual bit error artifacts caused by long cable runs. The second image is with the addition of a simple external booster/equalizer with the same cables, and an additional cable for the EQ device to the display.

Stupid weeny nerd complaints about speaker manufacturer choices

A Ground Breaking Investigative series! *

Dispersion of speaker drivers and crossover frequencies in speakers is bothering me a lot lately. It really bugs me that in expensive speakers 6 inch drivers and a growing number of larger drivers are very often crossed over in the 2.5KHz range. It's a general rule that a drivers dispersion pattern narrows to about 90 degrees at the frequency where the diameter is equal to one wavelength. For 2.5KHz , that means 5.4 inches. Sure, if you sit in an anechoic chamber, with the speakers facing you, who cares? In a normal room, dispersion patterns play a large role in how you hear those esoterically named things like "soundstage" or "space" around instruments. With uneven responses to dispersion over the drivers spectrum the instruments will seem to "displace" within the space depending on the instruments frequency output. With regard to center cones, waveguides and alternative materials with different breakup modes - while they may help, a quick look at the in depth measurements from Stereophile among other sources will show you that with oversize drivers there is, in the end, a bad dispersion range. Same trouble for all of those 1" dome tweeters, no matter how fancy the waveguide or materials, etc, once past 10KHz things are going to get lossy on the sides real quick. If you're living in a anechoic chamber, who cares? I'm not living in one. Having some frequencies dispersed at 120 degrees or more and others at radically different dispersion angles equals overall room disparities. So, don't just blame your room for "room" problems, your speaker is often just as much to blame.
So why the big move towards two way speakers with even larger mid/woofers, real big midranges, and no super tweeters?? Dynamics is the quick answer. Louder. Cheaper is the second answer, two drivers, instead of three or four. Cheaper. Don't get me wrong, there are many great speakers out there with just such disparities that sound fantastic. They need just the right room.

*Well, just a silly rant actually.

OLD HDTV to HDMI?

We get questions all the time about connecting older HDTV's with no DVI HDMI inputs to up-converting DVD, Blu Ray player or Cable/Satellite Boxes. It's a bit of a tricky question as we mentioned when first posting about the HD Fury device back in June, 2007. You basically need two devices. The first device (HD Fury) , and this is the "key" device since the other one has a lot of options out there, but this one is very rare if not currently unique. It is also not sold in the U.S. and is seemingly not legal to do so. It converts HDMI video signals at standard HD resolutions up to 1080p into RGB analog video signal of the same resolution as the input. The tricky bit is it seems to remove any problems usually caused by HDCP with similar converters . Is that legal? Well maybe not, but if you bought an early HDTV, before the motion picture industry decided they should screw all early adopters, then it is the only way you can get the highest possible resolution video from many video sources.
The second tricky bit is that for many of these HDTV's you still have to convert from RGB to Y-Pr-Pb (Component Video). For that you'll need a RGB to Component video transcoder like the Audioauthority 9A60.

The bad part of all this is not so much the whole ordering equipment of questionable legality from overseas as it is the overall cost for both items is over $250 before shipping. This makes it a very tough decision indeed for older HDTV owners. Then again, for owners of expensive CRT Front projectors it is a very worthwhile device.

CES 2008 Last Day

CES2008 day 3
Wow, what a day! The last day of CES 2008. Never made it to T.H.E. Show, unfortunately. Too tricky to get to and too late in the day.
I did get a lot of time at the Central hall, and a little time to listen to some great stuff at the High end audio Venetian site.
The central hall starts with the huge Microsoft and Intel "booths". "Booths" is the wrong word for some of the displays you see at CES, these things are morethe size of basketball courts, or bigger. I really wish the people manning these booths were not so "friendly". It reminded me of "night of the living dead" zombies all moving in on you to attack you with information about some new gadget or technology. I got away as fast as I could.

I made it to the DLP booth. Even though many think that with the seeming demise of the Front projection TV in leau of flat panels that there is no longer a need for DLP technology, that could not be further from the truth. DLP rocks for Front projection. And Projectors are hot!
Check out the R2D2 Projector:



DLP has the new Dark chip 4 coming out, although with certain program material, you don't care so much if it's darkchip3 or darkchip4:



LG had a great booth with really attractive looking displays. 120Hz video conversion technology, to free LCD from motion blur and artifacts was all over the place this year and LG had a nice presentation on this technology which looks to be coming throughout much of their lineup. Their displays looked cosmetically great as well as visually. They have really come far in a very short time.



LG also had their Combo HD-DVD and Blu Ray players - both for computers and Stand alone. Really great stuff. Not sure if it's really needed so much if the format war is truely over.



Panasonic, had all kinds of insanely great plasmas going on. They had the worlds biggest 150" Plasma:

They had a great demo of their upcoming 1" thick plasmas as well.

The new Plasma series' they had great looking new plasmas in their new consumer lines, but they had such strange program material, that I just can't give you a good shot of them. I didn't see their commercial lines around, but was in a hurry.

One note: Some crazy guy from florida predicted the demise of plasma on a podcast I listen to religiously. I think you guys really need to stay away from that Gator juice! With Panasonic and Pioneer (Kuro and new extreme black) coming out with such great displays I think Plasma is still the high end choice for flat panels.


Sharp had a great booth with beautiful new Aquos LCD Diplays with 120Hz technology, their 120Hz vs 60Hz comparison was the best comparison I witnessed. You could easily see the sharper motion image on the ir demo. I know that 120Hz did not get off to a great start with some manufacturer releases not implementing the technology as well as they should have, but it seems like they are really getting the hang of it now, and LCD may catch up with plasma in the motion resolution area soon. Sharp certainly seems to have it together.
Sharp 120Hz demo:



Aquos



Sharp Commercial Projectors



Samsung's Gestapo still refuses to let people take pictures in their city block sized booth. So I won't mention all the cool or possibly totally uncool and stupid stuff they may or may not have had. I think I remember something awesome they might have had, but I can't remember because I don't have a frigging picture!

Toshiba had some lovely looking displays and all, but I could feel a pall of over the demeanor of all who entered. It was very much like people at a funeral. They had some great stuff, LCDs with very small black bezels which is my favorite cosmetic attribute in a display, they had a nice interactive HD-DVD demo with the interactive channel making little jazz musician toys move to the sweet sounding jazz music playing from an old HD-AX1 (hey I have that!) but it was a bit somber in there. Maybe it is all really over in this format war.



Adcom had a great display of fabulous Integrated Amps, Power amps, transports and the like which I can't afford, but they sure made me want to change occupations so I could. I'd get into them more, but the whole Toshiba visit has me down, so I just need to go and curl up in a ball for awhile.





OK! Back again, and now at the Venetian for some High End Audio!
You have to forgive the picture quality in these high end rooms, it is not polite to go taking flash pictures while people are listening to this stuff, and I always try and get permission from the reps who are there before taking a picture. I got to listen to about half the speakers I wanted to, since at times these guys have other stuff going on and can't be bothered - especially at the end of the last day. They mostly get guys like me who are into a free listen to stuff we can't afford.

First up, Quad. ESL speaker with II-eighty amps. Quad ESL's are amazing speakers. They are legendary Electrostatic speakers, they sound like nothing. I don't know that the imaging exactly kills me, but this kind of detailed, smooth accurate transfer of electrical currents to sound is a pretty awesome thing for a speaker to be able to do. Most average listeners would find these boring - at first.


Next was the Usher Be-718. At first, the tweeter seemed too bright, albeit extremely accurate, but as the listening material changed and I settled in and everything really seemed to start to coalesce. These were really fantastically musical speakers with excellent imaging, and really accurate reproduction. I only listened to a few songs (typical at these shows) but I really loved them while I listened. I don't know how I'd do in the long run. I have some fear that the beryllium tweeter might get on my nerves with some program material, but I could always weed them out!


From there came almost the opposite in musical selection and speaker sensibility. Von Schweikert VR-4 Anniversary. This is an immaculately done phase coherent speaker that puts the accuracy of the sound coming to your ears above all else. They are handsome, but not at all unusually so. The specs are amazing for such a small footprint, but the listening experience is quite a bit more than what I was hoping for, even with their reputation. These had a wide and deep soundstage which was solid across their frequency range, clear, accurate, musical and without what I'm now sure is phase distortion. These had similar attributes in this way to the Quad ESL, which being an electrostat does not suffer from phase distortion like most of the other excellent speakers I listened to today. Source material, no doubt was a factor in what I heard, but to describe it is difficult. To many, it may sound like a lack of treble, a lack of sibulants, a smoothing of transients. But it sounds Real. They are also incredible with the soundstage. The sax player is exactly Here. Just left and behind the left speaker. Again, the average speaker buyer wants the speaker to have detailed "crisp" highs, pouncing on them. This is for real music.
Now I am not exactly a newbie when it comes to phase coherency, I use Magnepans for my stereo/home theater and Reference 3a dulcets on my computer, but these are making me think about an upgrade.



Also listened to:
Dali Helicon 400
Morel (new prototype)
Spendor S6e

All of these were excellent or better. The Dali and Spendor did not have music playing that was usable, in my opinion to make a good analysis. The Morel was really quite amazing, possibly more enjoyable, than anything else except maybe the ESL or VR-4. Clean, accurate and lifelike, with wonderful imaging. It is a prototype, so it really looks promising.
I would have to go with the VR-4 as my favorite overall. While I think the ESL is a reference standard, it may be a bit too lacking in imaging for me. It could have been the listening material.

Missed: Vandersteen, Anthony Gallo, and everything at THEshow.

Limitations:
Spending 5-10 minutes listening to a system does not give you a real definitive understanding of how it sounds. Sorry.
It is hard for these guys to set things up in the best light. The rooms are not ideal and they have no time for any real room treatments. They have to scrap together systems hoping for a good match. It's amazing they sound as good as they do.
Dali Helicon 400


Morel (new prototype)

CES 2008 South Hall Hell

OK, today at CES 2008 we started out with the immense south hall, and then went on to the international hall, rather than the central hall. Why? Well, let me 'splain something to people who have never been to this place for a big show like CES.
Transportation is hell. Sure they have the CES buses, the monorail and taxis, but the lines for any of them at the times you need to get somewhere can be extremely long. So, you have to have a good strategy. For the buses - be early. like, really early. For the monorail the same applies along with the need to try to get on at the begin/end points when they are empty. Otherwise you ain't getting on. Packed they are, dude. So we went to the international hall (at the Hilton) and avoided the crowd at the main site. BAM! Home to your hotel or a place to eat in no time.

Another point for those who don't come is, while it looks cool and fun, it is a lot of work. Either you are there manning a booth, or you are there to wander the halls in the search for bright, shiny things to sell. If you are manning a booth, well, you have to go through the same spiel over and over, standing around all day and over caffinating to the point where you become a blabbering zombie. If you are browsing the halls, well, unless you are a marathon runner, your body is not used to walking this many miles in any week, or possibly year. In a side question, I just wonder why it is that it seems that only 1 out of 5 escalators in the city of Las Vegas actually work at any one time? And it's not enough that the hotels make you go through a maze to get to the monorail, but I really suspect some do not give you the shortest path to get there. OK, I digress. Sue me.

So, the South hall is big. Way too big. Inhumane. But awesome.

Obligatory Booth babe shot:



Monster had a huge both, as usual. We love Monster for being the first company to actually provide good cables you could pick up for your stereo or TV at a local non high end shop, we do think their cable department has let their marketing department get a "little" too much power, not to mention their legal department. (please don't sue!) I mean, they are still using the whole "flux tube" thingy? That is soooo 90's, dude. We do, however, like their power products. They look awesome. Not sure why they still have the red displays when the blue is just so much cooler looking, though.


Monster Power:


New Monster III units have voltage readouts:



Kimber Kable is a high end cable manufacturer that I respect (along with Straightwire and a few others). They give you measured specs - really good specs too, and they manufacture cables at a very high level of quality. They use cable geometries that actually have an effect on the specs, they don't just make up some new supposed problem to attack. An example - they have a new version of their 8TC (an old standard with excellent performance for the price) but the only difference is the colors on the teflon insulation. It's more WAF freindly. That, my friend, is good engineering vs marketing. I just wish they'd do a free "Select Series" drawing during CES. People would camp out.
www.kimber.com



New Kimber Kable 8TC and 4TC



Calrad had their usual fairly compact booth that was totally filled with great stuff,
Small sample:


Calrads XLobby Media Center and a whole lot more, HTPC on steroids at a price that pushes the some buttons in the Whole home A/V and control worlds.
We are a Calrad Distributer, so check with us for delivery and pricing.
www.Calrad.com
www.Ramelectronics.Net



Thermaltake is awesome. Not only do they keep coming out with a plethora of great htpc and big, desktop cases but they are doing great power supplies, drive cases and fans. Their Toughpower with Q-fan power supplies are not only very efficient (Green) but have extremely low noise levels, so these may be a good choice for your HD-HTPC. They go way up in wattage ratings like many gamer Power supplies as well.
www.Thermaltake.com



Audioquest as always has a lot going on with their cables, and they are some very nice cables. We have a hard time buying into their whole "DBS" thing, as there are dielectrics available that we think are certainly good enough for the signals involved - call us "gomers" or skeptics", whichever you like. I doubt that NASA is using the science involved there, but then again, NASA probably doesn't have tube amps and such. In any case they also make really great connectors that are a bargain in the high end world. Now they have a new installer line of connectors and cable, their ITC line. Seems quite impressive from the demo we saw.

www.Adioquest.com

Zalman had some nice and as usual, quiet HTPC cases available, as well as their spectacular array of CPU and video card coolers. They also had 3d video software for games. It was cool, but not like their usual beautiful, quiet pc/mac cooling solutions.
www.Zalman-usa.com


There was a large HDMI booth with significant manufacturers. Some were very interesting. Others, were very much gestapo like in the questioning of your business practices and possibly your lifestyle. HDMI is a lovely one cable solution (despite the connector) but the CES proponents you have to try to talk to with questions and complaints are almost always angry, paranoid fascist types. Dudes?
But, hey the Gennum booth was super!


The international booths are always interesting, and we make sure to check them out and take a lot of pictures. There are secrets there, but we can't explain. At CES a lot of deals are made, a lot of partnerships are created. The best companies find the best partners. They go back and forth on design and specs until they are both happy and test demo units at each iteration. Manufacturing 101 . Hello?

And then there are those companies that distribute all the crap that doesn't sell, because it is funky, defective or nobody wants it, or because the manufacturer quit that business... And they sell it cheap... some people I know think it is an example of "dumping", an attempt to destroy the competition in the market, to take it over and rule the market, then raising prices.
I just think we are currently biased to price over quality throughout a larger scale of the consumer market than usual. Time will tell. I think it will change if the wider scale of the economy improves.

Well, there was a lot more we checked out, but time doesn't permit mention at this time.
We still have the central hall with a zillion LCD's and Plasmas to check out, and then some nice relaxing listening to do at the high end audio area at the Venetian, my personal desert for all of this blisterization on my feet. I also hope to hit T.H.E.Show - the other high end audio show going on here at the same time.

CES2008 Sands Convention Center

Hey, we finally made it here to Vegas for CES 2008, and started our Trek at the Sands Convention Center in the afternoon. There are many items here in the "innovations" awards area that have already gotten a ton of press, so we'll pick on some of the good and bad among them, and add some of the quirky and/or cool products that end up at the Sands.

Robots were all around, not just carpet cleaners for a change.
Here are some "interactive robots with sensors that respond to your motions, more or less.
Some are friendly:


Some are manly:


Some are, er, different:


Here's a great one for a fathers day present, it cuts the grass!


Lian Li always has a few mega super killer PC Cases. This was big, red and beautiful:


Arctic Cooling had some very nice cooling products:



"Innovations"
Addlogix Has a nice PC to TV Wireless video streamer that looks rather promising
You may want to check for availability since we sell Addlogix
http://www.ramelectronics.net



Here's a remote that could be great - if they only they bothered thinking about the ease of use of the "Play" button, stop, rewind, etc. All the same size and type - real cute but not easy to feel in the dark.


Now this is more like it:

Logitech is apparently getting their act together

Here's an innovation in ugliness:

B&W has come out with the strangest looking iPod dock ever devised. It probably sounds fabulous, but it looks like an unexploded WWI bomb, or something.


An Innovative waste?

Kensington Liquid FM: Automatically finds the best frequency for your ipods signal. But does it sound better than any other ipod fm transmitter?




Sorry, that is it for now. Tomorrow is a full day in the South hall and Central Hall - where the real action is!

CES 2008

Starting on Tuesday, January 8th, we will be at CES2008 in Las Vegas Nevada. I'll be posting from there tuesday, wednesday and thursday on the various electronic atrocities available for your consumer dollar in the upcoming year. Of course there will be all kinds of promises of wireless audio and video breakthroughs, whole house a/v sharing, new exciting processors from Intel and AMD (they are still in business, right?) , of course there will be a new, exciting version of HDMI to upgrade all of your Home Theater components to, and all kinds of wild and crazy ideas like connecting your refrigerator to the Interweb. I'm excited, we're excited and so should you be. Everyone else promises great coverage, but this year we'll deliver what you want! Booth babe pics, right?