AV Rant #287: On The Spot with Clint DeBoer
Liz is off in Amsterdam doing whatever people do in Amsterdam (Tom guesses something to do with tulips) so Clint DeBoer steps in with some really atrocious audio (his mic got fried in a lightning strike). Tom cleaned it up the best he could. Looking for a new streaming device? Here’s a graphic to help you out. Funny part is that everything is 1080p except the Wii. Clint has Dish so we talk about the new Hopper box. Time Warner CEO out of the loop? Who would have guessed? Tom wonders what it will take to get the people in power to understand what we want. He’s thinking rebellion. Dolby Atmos – the reason Tom might go to the theaters again. Coming to your home…never. This week’s soup-to-nuts: Tom puts Clint on the spot for TV recommendations. Thanks for listening. Now, don't forget to:
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I wish Clint was on more often….
Hey Tom,
Your Mona Lisa analogy doesn’t work. I’ve made the necessary modification
If you had millions of dollars and you wanted to buy the Mona Lisa and they wouldn’t sell it to you because you live in the U.S., but would sell it to you if you live in France so you go to war with France is what is going on with digital media.
Clint,
Cable companies charge through the nose for their DVRs. $18-$20 per month per BOX, depending on your provider.
Cable card paired with a HTPC is a much cheaper option. First cable card is FREE. And you can record 4 streams.
That said, the hopper sounds very cool for a pay tv option.
It’s funny how the Dolby Atmos article asks what DTS might do to “one up” Dolby. I believe that question was already answered before the article was even written!
http://www.srslabs.com/content.aspx?id=2512
DTS aquired SRS a couple months back, and I have to believe SRS’ MDA (Multi-Dimensional Audio) format is exactly the sort of thing DTS will use to “one up” Dolby.
Both Atmos and MDA are making use of “object based” audio. Rather than mixing audio into discrete channels (such as the standard 5.1 arrangement with discrete “Front”, “Surround” and “Center” channels, etc.) 3 dimensional sound “objects” are created instead, with height, width and depth information. So rather than a sound engineer or mixer saying, “I’m going to put this sound in the Surround Left Channel”, they can instead say, “I’m going to put this sound at these x, y & z coordinates in this 3D listening space”.
Just as Dolby Atmos can then use as many as 64 discrete speakers to precisely place that sound “object”, DTS SRS MDA can use either a whole bunch of speakers, or just the same phase and time alignment “trickery” that SRS already uses in order to create pseudo-surround sound from just 2 speakers. More speakers can mean more precise and clear placement, but fewer speakers can still create the illusion. What’s truly different is the audio mastering, and on that front, SRS already seems to be ahead of Dolby.
FAVORITE PART ….18:23 – 18:34
@Alex S.
Your $20 is in the mail.
@David
When I was using Brighthouse (~5 years ago) I believe they were charging around $6.95. According to their website, (additional) HD DVR rentals are now around $11.95/mo with a standard STB running $9.95.
I’m sure those costs can be higher, and honestly, who knows what a la carte pricing is on the initial service configuration.
Game of Thrones: Season 1 is available on Blu-ray now…other than the odd special features menu structure, they are very well done. Audio especially is top-notch.