You may still be trying to figure out what products to buy this year, but CES 2012 is less than a month away, and I'm already thinking about what's likely to be new in home theater. In prior years, the big CES trends in home theater were obvious before we even got to the show (3D, rise of Blu-ray, emergence of streaming video), but CES 2012 seems much less predictable.

The slow death of discs It's no longer appropriate to say that streaming video is the future of home theater, because the future is now. Even still, … Read more

At first glance, the Unity Home Theater is a T-shaped speaker system that looks like a Jenga tower of home theater equipment.

The setup aims to give consumers a Swiss Army Knife of entertainment with the inclusion of a 5.1 surround sound bar, subwoofer, Blu-ray/DVD player, HDMI pass-through, surge protector, and TV stand (up to 60 inches) in a single package. A power cord to Unity and a HDMI connection to the HDTV would be the only wires you would need to get started.

A home theater system without a jungle of cords that uses only one remote is enticing, but is Unity the end-all accessory for someone buying a first HDTV? I recently had a chance to speak with the co-founders of the company behind the product, In2Technologies. … Read more

Yamaha has unveiled its AV Controller App 2.0 for Android and iOS devices. The app is designed to let users not only control Yamaha receivers and Blu-ray players wirelessly but also stream music to them via DLNA and from a mobile device.

The new app also offers multizone functionality, enabling users to control music in any zone, in addition to system functions such as power, source selection, zones, DSP, and volume.

The app lets users select computers and/or NAS devices from a source list, browse the media contained on them, and stream that media to a receiver. Yamaha … Read more

Your wireless network at home, and possibly in your car, is about to get a huge dose of networking supercharge.

In a pre-CES meeting with the press today, Broadcom, maker of chipsets that power popular networking devices, unveiled its plan for the new Wi-Fi specification, called 802.11ac, and demoed its new development in in-car Ethernet cabling technology.

The 802.11ac specification--an industry wireless networking standard confirmed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) back in January--is the upgrade to the existing 802.11n specification and is considered by Broadcom to be the standard for the "post-PC era" of data connectivity. Broadcom cited a report saying that currently 55 percent of wireless clients are non-PC, which includes game consoles, set-top boxes, and mobile devices.

Unlike 802.11n, which is available in both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, the new 802.11ac uses only the 5GHz band and incorporates many standardized techniques that help greatly increase both the data rates and wireless range. It's also backward-compatible with 802.11n clients. According to Rahul Patel, vice president of Broadcom's Mobile and Wireless Group, Broadcom's new 802.11ac chips will offer the following benefits.… Read more

'Tis the season for holiday parties, and we suppose you could entertain your guests with tunes using one of these iPod speakers. But if you really want to impress your party-goers, may we suggest the 700-pound iNuke Boom?

You see, the fine folks at Behringer, a professional audio and music equipment company from Germany, weren't satisfied with building just another portable speaker system for the iPhone and iPod. Instead, it went the other direction and came up with the iNuke Boom, an 8-foot-tall by 4-foot-wide speaker that's capable of blasting 10,000 watts of power. … Read more

CNET Reader Name Withheld writes:

Hi, I own a Sony 46-inch TV connected to a receiver and cable box with HDMI. I've always thought the picture just didn't look as good as it did in the store...which I chalked this up to lack of bright store lighting/never calibrating the TV. I'm in the process of moving, so I'm running the cable box directly to the TV, and it now it looks WAY better. What's going on? Should I ditch the receiver? I really don't want to go back to switching inputs on the TV.

Thanks for your help.

Well, Mr. Withheld, interesting question.

… Read more

If you're interested in a new pair of media speakers, Audyssey's running a Cyber Monday $149 special on its Apple TV-friendly Lower East Side Media Speakers that trims $50 off the $199 street price (list price is $249).

In my review, I said, "The Audyssey Lower East Side Media Speakers have an attractive, compact design, and offer good sound with lots of bass. They're also one of the few powered stereo speakers to have an optical digital connection (for Apple TV or the PS3, for instance) in addition to an analog input."

The company's … Read more

Home theater isn't the first place you'll think of when it comes to gift ideas, but that's too bad.

Streaming-media boxes like the Roku LT and Apple TV are inexpensive and fun, plus they'll give you plenty to watch over the holidays. I've personally had lots of success giving universal remotes like the Logitech Harmony 650 as a gift. Not many people want to spend $60 on a remote, but once they have one, they can't imagine going back.

These are my top overall home theater picks, ranging from speaker system to game consoles, but if I had to pick just one it would be the Roku LT. It's a solid choice for almost anyone with at least a Netflix account and it's cheap enough to buy one for a friend.

… Read more

The days of blasting music out of a portable boom box are behind us, and while some companies still offer retro stereo wannabes for iPods, the best way to free your music but still keep it in a tight package is with a portable Bluetooth speaker.

Here we've rounded up several wireless Bluetooth speakers for your consideration. They work with all smartphones and tablets meeting the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile (A2DP) spec. These days, that includes nearly all tablets and smartphones, including the iPhone, iPad, and most Android devices.

To be clear, Bluetooth isn't known for its top-notch … Read more