Innehållsförteckning för January 2018 från Sound & Vision

Apple TV Went UHD in its fifth-generation box. And yes, it supports HDR... A Free Apple TV Box is what you get for subscribing to the DirecTV Now streaming service at $35/ month for 60 live and on-demand channels. You’ll have to pre-pay for three months... TiVo’s 4K Mini will support Ultra HD IP video, complementing the UHD Bolt DVR. Multichannel News reports that “it might also serve as a wholehome complement to a new Arris-made gateway that is powered by TiVo’s software and is targeted to MVPD [cable or satellite] partners”... DirecTV Now’s Cloud DVR is in beta testing, allowing storage of up to 100 hours of shows. No word on further rollout or cost... Panasonic Joined the HDR10+ crew, supporting the platform developed by Samsung and 20th Century…

4 Games, 1 Screen Do you holler, “Hell, yes!” whenever the TV announcer howls: “Are you ready for some football?!” Then ESPN’s updated Apple TV app with MultiCast is for you. Call it picture-in-picture on steroids. ESPN rolled out MultiCast just in time for football season. I made sure the feature wasn’t available through the ESPN app on my Roku TV. The prerequisite to streaming through an ESPN app is having a cable TV or satellite subscription to ESPN. After downloading the free ESPN app to my Gen 4 Apple TV, I was prompted to select Verizon FiOS as my provider. Once I entered a code via my iPad browser, I was able to start watching ESPN’s surfeit of programs through my Internet-connected Apple TV. Prompts on the TV screen…

Mike Scott of The Waterboys Pours a New Sound Palette for Out of All This Blue Career songwriters often find themselves on a perpetual quest to add new tools to their creative toolboxes in order to keep things fresh. Such has been the case for Mike Scott, chief architect of British alt-rock stalwarts The Waterboys, who turned to GarageBand and some interesting plug-in choices to fuel the almost two-dozen songs that comprise his band’s expansive new double-disc effort, Out of All This Blue (BMG). “I purchased a whole load of hip-hop plug-in tools from these big libraries I found online,” the Scottish-born Scott revealed. “One was called Strictly Hip Hop [by E Lab], and Hip Hop Militia [by Prime Loops] was another one I enjoyed quite a lot. These are…

Universal When an extraterrestrial being is left behind on Earth, he befriends a 10-year-old boy named Elliott who, as luck would have it, is in dire need to be loved and wanted. He’s the middle of three children, and his parents’ recent divorce has put a strain on the household. The pair share a bond that leads to some trouble at school for Elliott, but in the end, E.T. just wants one thing—to go home—and Elliott and his family are more than willing to help this happen. One could make an argument that Steven Spielberg is the finest filmmaker of his generation and that E.T. is one of his greatest endeavors. I was 13 when I saw this in theaters, and it was the first movie I can remember that…

Univseral Forget about the Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser, which kicked off in 1999 and launched their own spinoffs. This version of The Mummy is in fact a reboot of Universal’s vaunted Classic Monsters franchises of the 1930s onward. Although it is meant to be a horror flick, this Tom Cruise vehicle directed by Alex Kurtzman—known more for his writing on TV series like Hawaii Five-0 than for directing—is less about horror than it is about big action set pieces. Cruise plays Nick Morton, a rogue military tomb raider who awakens the ancient Egyptian princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), who was mummified and buried alive for killing her family and trying to raise the god of death in an effort to solidify her rule. Now Ahmanet wants to use Nick as…

Cohen Media Based the novel by E. M. Forster, Maurice is a ground-breaking room with a different view, projecting as much romance, passion, and class consciousness as producer Ismael Merchant and screenwriter-director James Ivory brought to their earlier hit adaptation of another Forster novel. In 1909, a student at Cambridge, Clive, urges college colleague Maurice to embrace the love of male physical beauty as described in classical literature and accept their mutual platonic love. When, despite being a viscount, another student’s life is ruined by police entrapment, Clive is shamed into a hysterical breakdown, retreating into heterosexual marriage and an upper-class career in law and politics. Middle-class Maurice, meanwhile, believes that “your deeds are more important than your words,” and so acts on his nature rather than locking it away.…

Samsung Frame TV Samsung • (800) 726-7864 • samsung.com They call it “the most beautiful TV you’ve never seen,” which is a perfect way to describe The Frame, a high-style 4K display from Samsung that morphs into wall art when it’s not in use. While the idea of concealing a TV behind artwork is nothing new—there are companies that specialize in motorized TV concealment systems—Samsung’s fully integrated execution is the most elegant approach we’ve seen. Instead of relying on an elaborate roller mechanism, the TV displays a low-light, high-resolution image when the set is turned off to create the appearance of framed art. And it is convincing, which is why Samsung chose to launch The Frame in art galleries around the world. Even more intriguing, the transformation happens like magic,…

Severtson ALR Projection Screen Severtson has been developing projection screens since 1986 when Ron Severtson invented a special optical coating for the screens used in military flight simulators. Today, the company produces an array of fixed and motorized screens for commercial venues, cinemas, and home theaters. Its newest residential screen is a 0.8-gain ambient light rejecting (ALR) model designed for use in sun-drenched rooms that destroy standard projection screens. Head Turner: The screen boasts a high-contrast, seven-layer design with a super-wide 170-degree viewing angle and is available in standard and custom sizes up to 120 inches (diagonal) with more options to follow. Prices range from $2,900 for a 16:9 fixed-frame screen to $7,000 for a 2.35:1 screen with a thin bezel frame. Severtson Screens • (866) 510-5155 • severtsonscreens.com NAD…

AUDIO Frequency response at preamp outputs of Dolby Digital decoder: Left (aqua) –0.02 dB @ 20 Hz, –0.08 dB @ 20 kHz. Center (green) –0.03 dB @ 20 Hz, –0.01 dB @ 20 kHz. Left Surround (red) –0.07 dB @ 20 Hz, –0.11 dB @ 20 kHz. LFE (purple) Normalized to level @ 40 Hz: –0.01 dB @ 20 Hz; upper –3 dB @ 118 Hz, upper –6 dB @ 121 Hz. ANALOG frequency response in Direct mode: –0.08 dB at 10 Hz –0.02 dB at 20 Hz –0.08 dB at 20 kHz –0.46 dB at 50 kHz ANALOG frequency response with signal processing: –0.29 dB at 10 Hz –0.09 dB at 20 Hz –0.12 dB at 20 kHz –28.10 dB at 50 kHz NO multichannel input to measure. Analog…

FULL-ON/FULL-OFF Contrast Ratio: 33,400:1 PRE- and post-calibration measurements were made with the Vizio M65-E0’s Calibrated Dark preset active. Maximum SDR contrast measurements were made with the set’s Xtreme Black Engine Plus local-dimming feature active. With this configuration, the Vizio’s black level measured 0.001 foot-lambert and peak white 33.4 ft-L, for a contrast ratio of 33,400:1. Native contrast of the panel (measured with Local Dimming turned off) was 3,940:1. DURING HDR tests using a Murideo Six-G pattern generator and CalMAN 2017 calibration software, the Vizio managed 763 nits light output on a 10% window pattern, 758.2 nits on a 25% pattern, and 331 nits on a 100% pattern. The TV’s measured DCI-P3 color gamut coverage was 93.1 percent—a welcome improvement over Vizio’s 2016 M series UHDTVs, which provided only Rec. 709…

Warner Bros. Ridley Scott’s stunning dystopian allegory about the meaning of life, where technology ends and humanity begins, Blade Runner—from the Philip K. Dick cyberpunk novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—draws from many influences. Perhaps the strongest are the classic Fritz Lang film Metropolis and the Heavy Metal sci-fi magazines of the 1970s. The story follows gruff lawman Deckard (Harrison Ford) chasing androids called “replicants” that are nearly indistinguishable from humans. Deckard falls in love with one of the female replicants he’s hunting, Rachael (Sean Young), who was until recently unaware she wasn’t human. The film climaxes in a brutal battle between Deckard and the inimitable Rutger Hauer playing a desperate replicant trying to extend his life. The film (appearing here in its 2007 Final Cut version) has gone…

Warner Bros. Sometimes even Batman can’t go it alone. When Poison Ivy teams with an evil alien plant-man for a scheme that could doom every human being on the planet, he first turns to Nightwing (sidekick Robin, now all grown up), but even that’s not enough. Their best hope of stopping these baddies in time is to team with Ivy’s lone confidante, Harley Quinn. Down on her luck and currently out on parole for her latest crimes, the unstable Harley is the loosest of cannons, even without her partner, The Joker. Melissa Rauch (The Big Bang Theory) replaces original voice actress Arleen Sorkin, delivering a potty-mouthed, innuendo-prone take on the beloved anti-heroine. That bit of recasting aside, great lengths have been taken to re-create the look and sound of Batman:…

Criterion Collection When I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, as a college student, I was bored and, beyond that, puzzled: such a static set piece from the maker of Dr. Strangelove, 2001, and A Clockwork Orange. I wasn’t alone: Box office was middlin’, critics were mixed. The film now strikes me as a masterpiece, although a demanding one, as many masterpieces are. Based on Thackeray’s mid-19th-century novel about the rise and fall of an Irish upstart seeking to connive his way into British high society, it’s a string of gorgeous pictures, as gorgeous as many paintings in a museum, and Kubrick modeled many shots on paintings by Hogarth, Gainsborough, and other artists of the era. Many criticized Kubrick for this indulgence, complaining that the film felt like a museum.…

Installing In-Wall/Ceiling Speakers: Part 1 A few months ago in this column (October 2017 issue), I listed 11 must-have tools for your DIY toolkit, laying out the minimum tools you need in order to tackle some basic audio/video installations. My previous columns tackled wiring and mounting a flat-screen TV (November and December 2017), and now we’re installing some speakers! Whether you’re looking to add (or expand) music around your home, or add some Atmos overhead speakers, understanding wiring and installing new speakers is a great skill for any A/V enthusiast to have. Planning is a massive part of a retrofit, so this month we’ll focus on making sure you can actually install speakers where you want. You’ll need your cordless drill, some drill bits, a tape measure, Creep-Zit flexible rods,…

PRICE $2,143 as reviewed SURROUND SEPARATES ARE generally regarded as a step up from receivers. If you want the biggest and best, and have to ask their prices, you probably can’t afford them. But ask me the prices of Emotiva’s new BasX surround preamp/processor and multichannel amplifier, along with a set of compact speakers from the same series. The answers are $599, $499, and $1,045, totaling $2,143 for a 5.1-channel system of electronics and speakers. That would buy a midpriced receiver and a decent (but probably smaller) satellite/subwoofer set. Odds are the receiver would have more features than Emotiva’s pre/pro. But those features would have to share a chassis and power supply with current-sucking, signal-polluting amp components, whereas Emotiva’s separates separate the pre/pro from the amp, offering the potential for…

THIS graph shows that the A-500’s left amplifier channel with two channels driving 8-ohm loads. Measurements for THD+noise, crosstalk, signal-tonoise ratio, and analog/digital frequency response were all within expected performance parameters. Full details available at soundandvision.com. —MJP SPECS Power Output: 5 x 80 watts (8 ohms, all channels driven), 5 x 110 watts (8 ohms, 2 channels driven) • Dimensions (WxHxD, Inches): 17 x 4 x 15.5 • Weight (Pounds): 26.5 • Inputs: RCA analog (5) • Outputs: Binding posts (5) • Additional: 12-volt trigger (in/out)…

UHD BLU-RAY wonder woman The Hero We Need Many filmmakers would surely crack under the challenges of finally bringing Wonder Woman to the big screen. But the remarkably gifted Patty Jenkins (writer/ director of 2004’s Monster, her last feature) tackles the ambitious production— an action-heavy World War I– era period piece—with educated gusto, thoughtfully honoring and expanding upon the beloved heroine’s legacy. Of course, none of that matters without the right star, and Gal Gadot’s Princess Diana combines strength, brains, and innocence to give this movie an irresistible heart. A race of Amazon warrior poetesses, living peacefully on the magical island of Themiscyra since the time of the Greek gods, is suddenly dragged into an ugly conflict not of their making. Agent Steve Trevor arrives on their shore, pursued by…

Paramount A dangerous crime wave hits the beach as legendary Lt. Mitch Buchannon leads his squad of lifeguards on a mission to prove you don’t have to wear a badge to save the day—despite being told to keep away from the trouble by both the police and his boss. Along for the ride are a trio of new recruits including former Olympian Matt Brody, who made the cut because of the positive PR he will bring to the team. To find the mastermind, the team must break some rules, go undercover, and put their careers in jeopardy to keep the beach safe from nefarious business interests. While I certainly know of the TV show Baywatch, I doubt if I’ve seen more than five minutes of it through the years. I…

Lionsgate Shot on a budget of $5 million, acquired for $12 million, and promoted with a $20-million marketing budget, The Big Sick grossed $50 million worldwide and claimed much acclaim. For me, The Big Sick initially came across as The Big Suck, but on a second, more sobering screening, it made sense, building from the characters’ youthful shallowness to emotional growth into something like near-human depth. The autobiographical coma-rom-com tells of Chicago standup comedian/Uber driver/ Pakistani Muslim Kumail Nanjiani (playing himself). One night he stumbles onto a one-night stand with a white therapist, Emily Gardner (Zoe Kazan), which shockingly turns into interracial coupledom, forcing both to confront cultural differences—arranged marriages, second dates—and abandon the whole idea. The film picks up and really finds its stride once she collapses with a…