Home video

For some people, an ordinary old giant flat-screen television and Blu-ray player just aren't enough.

How much would you spend for the best of the best? Some hard-core videophiles and audiophiles dump incredible amounts of cash on home theater equipment (and fancy home theaters) that can cost as much as the average car or house. … Read more

Recently we took a poll where we asked "What's stopping you from getting a plasma?" A majority of voters rebuked my premise, picking "I love my plasma." The other responses were fairly evenly split among the choices.

However, there was a surprisingly common reason given in the comments that baffled me, and it's so bizarre it's clearly worth debunking, or at least shining the light on the facts.

So how much do TVs weigh?… Read more

In its battle against the growing trend of cutting the cord, Comcast instead wants TV viewers to ditch the DVR.

The cable TV giant on Tuesday took the wraps off X2, an upgrade to its X1 entertainment platform, which includes a new compact set-top box that will store recorded programs in the cloud. The box doesn't even have a hard drive for local storage, resulting in a form factor three times smaller than conventional boxes, and 50 percent less power consumption.

Expected to be available to consumers later this year, the new set-top box also includes voice-activated control, allowing … Read more

If you've done any research into TVs, Blu-ray players, or Blu-ray in general, you've likely seen the alphanumeric 1080p24 (or 1080p/24).

Understanding what it is, and keeping a lookout for products that can take advantage of it, can result in smoother, more natural-looking movie and TV show playback. I'm not talking about the artificially hypersmooth look of the Soap Opera Effect, but instead the correct cadence of motion at which the film or TV show was shot.

All the judder reducing -- and causing -- awesomeness after the jump.… Read more

The Xbox One may primarily be a gaming console, but one of the major focuses of Microsoft's press event was One Guide: the Xbox One's new interface for navigating your live TV content.

By including an HDMI input, the Xbox One can integrate cable TV content right into the Xbox Dashboard, serving up a prettier grid of channels than what your clunky cable box offers. It's not all that different from Google's major living room initiative -- Google TV -- and the Xbox One faces some of the same challenges if it truly wants to be … Read more

The original "Spears and Munsil HD Benchmark", released in 2009, offered some excellent patterns to help setting up TVs, and ingenious test patterns to judge the performance of deinterlacers and scalers. Though anyone could buy it, it wasn't as entry-level or as user-friendly as "Disney's World of Wonder" setup discs.

The updated second edition adds myriad new setup patterns, and a host of new tests for 3D, refresh rates, motion interpolation, additional patterns for TV setup newbies, and more.

So is it worth your $30?… Read more

Google TV, the ambitious living room operating system often maligned as slow to update, difficult to use, and less focused than alternatives like Roku or standard Smart TV suites, will finally get a major operating system upgrade later this year.

LG announced today at Google I/O that its Google TVs will get the update to Android version 4.2.2, aka Jelly Bean, in the third quarter. LG is the only manufacturer still selling actual televisions with Google TV built-in, although a few set-top boxes are available, too. LG's models, including the 2013 GA7900 and GA6400 and the … Read more

For the biggest TV, movie, and gaming experience, you need a projector. On top of all the "normal" TV jargon, projectors have their own buzz words and marketing fluff that must be navigated. Then there's the additional complexity of wiring and screens. None of these things are difficult, especially if you're armed with a handy helpful guide.

Hey, this is a helpful handy guide! Behold, all your projector tech questions answered. … Read more

Imagine carving your way down a particularly challenging slope, your skis kicking up clouds of snow, trees flying by, your death-defying stunts captured perfectly on camera. And you're all by yourself.

How would you pull off such a feat?

Short of those with a film crew on hand, or at least a buddy with a GoPro camera tracking your every move, it's hard to imagine it being possible at all, let alone while you're alone.

But you may not have to imagine it for long.

Next week, a startup called Universal Air will finish shipping out its … Read more