Podcast #480: What is RVU?

DirecTV recently began testing what they’re calling a new “media center” that will allow customers to watch live and DVR recorded programming on any TV in the house without the need for a set-top box in each room. This new media center is built on a technology called RVU. But what exactly is RVU? There’s an RVU Alliance, but what do they do? What does “RVU” even mean?

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Podcast #479: HDMI 1.5 Wish List

When we bought our first devices that supported HDMI way back in 2006 the hot devices could handle the HDMI 1.1 specification. At that time the big deal was an AV receiver that would take next generation audio formats decoded on Blu-ray players and sent to a receiver that could accept PCM audio via HDMI. HDMI is still the only way to get next generation audio into a receiver.

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Podcast #478: Optoma 3D Projector Package

It’s hard to get the full effect of a 3D movie on a standard TV screen. There’s something about being in a movie theater, where the screen takes up the entire wall, that allows the 3D to really come to life. Trying to get that big screen, IMAX feel on a home TV can be challenging. But what if you could watch 3D at home on a giant projection screen? Would that make it worth making the jump into 3D?

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Podcast #477: Panasonic DMP-BDT110 Blu-ray Player

We have been doing this show for the past six years and have had an opportunity to review a lot of Blu-ray players. So when the Panasonic DMP-BDT110 (Buy Now $135) showed up on our doorstep we were pretty sure we knew what to expect from a sub $150 Blu-ray player. We were wrong! Panasonic has raised the bar for every player out there regardless of price.

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Podcast #476: Costco Round-up 2011

The HT Guys and the HDTV and Home Theater Podcast celebrated a 6 year anniversary just a few weeks ago. Hitting a mark like that got us to reminisce about the good old days of HDTV. The days when CRT and rear projection sets dominated store shelves. The days before 3D, Blu-ray and 1080p. Back in those days, we used to occasionally visit our local Costco to see what deals we could find.

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Podcast #475: Zediva and the Blu-ray Process

Recently we were talking with an old friend of ours who works for a movie studio in the Blu-ray production facility. This got us thinking about what it takes to create a disc filled with all that high definition goodness. Today we are going to take a high level look at what is entailed in producing a Blu-ray disc.

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