Podcast #574: WD TV Play and Projector vs Large Format TV

Media players have become the bridge to all our content. Whether that content is located in the cloud or on a server somewhere on your local network, these media players turn the digital bits into hours of multimedia enjoyment. We’ve looked a few devices over the years and they keep getting better and better. The WD TV Play is the latest one we look at and at $70 (Buy Now) its priced in about the middle of the pack. 

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Podcast #573: The Future of THX and Roku 3

When Netflix decided to get into the streaming business, the company needed a device in your home theater to stream movies to. Just weeks before the box, codenamed Griffin, was to hit store shelves, the project was canceled. But it didn’t die, it came to market under the Brand name Roku and started its own little revolution.  Roku continues to innovate and recently announced the launch of the Roku 3.

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Podcast #572: iTunes vs Vudu vs Blu-ray

We’ve watched streaming media go from incredibly choppy and blocky to smooth and nearly HD. As bandwidth increases so does the quality of streaming media. You can easily listen to CD quality audio but streaming Blu-ray quality video is a ways off... or is it? We have an interview with Mark Henninger, an AVS Forum “Newsbreaker”, and we discuss a series of articles he wrote where he compares movies on iTunes, Vudu, and Blu-ray.

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Podcast #571: 802.11ac - Wireless you can believe in

Most of us have wireless networks in our homes these days, there’s nothing like the convenience of instant Internet without wires. But we’ve also come to the painful realization that our wireless networks just can’t live up the the rigors of HD streaming, especially if we want to stream multiple videos to different TVs. But as they say with technology, if you don’t like it, just wait a while and someone will fix it. Supposedly the new wireless spec, 802.11ac, can do just that.

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Podcast #570: HDMI Cable Throwdown, High Priced vs Generic

A few weeks ago we received an email from a good friend of the show, Jack, telling us about an article he read about HDMI cables. He pointed us to a comment to the article where a reader said that with better HDMI cables changing channels resulted in the tuner locking onto it about a ½ second faster than with cheap cables. (Note: in the accompanying video we credit Michael with sending us the email and actually seeing a difference in lock speeds. Michael helped us with the setting up the test cases).

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Podcast #569: Wireless HDMI Options

We have reviewed a handful of wireless HDMI systems in the past, and have been impressed each time at how much better they’re getting and how quickly the prices have fallen. An unfortunate incident in the Russell home recently required a replacement wireless HDMI setup, kicking off a new round of research into what is available on the market now.

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