Sound & Vision May 2017

A couple of things in this issue triggered my inner consumer advocate as we went to press. First was the reader letter from James Deas (see page 14) in which he describes being trapped in the surprise sinkhole created by the TV industry’s choppy transition from HDCP 1.4 to HDCP 2.2. Remember a few years back? The manufacturers were selling cutting-edge Ultra HD televisions that had the requisite HDMI 1.4 or HDMI 2.0 interface for 4K signals, but mated with a soon to be outdated chip for copy-protection management. Didn’t really matter at first until—whammy!—Hollywood turned on the new encryption. If you have one of those early 4K sets and buy yourself a new 4K Roku or UHD BD player, you’ll be watching 4K content in 1080p, or else buying…

E-mail them to HTLetters@sorc.com. Please note: Questions about the features and functions of a particular product are best directed to the manufacturer. Questions about what product you should buy are best directed to a dealer who knows all the details of your system, your preferences, and your personal habits. All submissions are considered the exclusive property of Sound & Vision magazine and TEN: The Enthusiast Network. We reserve the right to edit letters for brevity. Due to the volume of mail that we receive, we regret that we cannot respond to every letter. A Tale of Two Speakers I enjoyed the reviews of two great value speaker systems in the January issue, the Elac Uni-Fi UB5 and the Emotiva Airmotiv T1. But two different reviewers and absolutely no comparison between the two…

15 Minutes with HDMI Forum Chairman Chris Pasqualino When HDMI hit the scene in 2003, it was welcomed as a godsend, enabling enthusiasts to replace a rat’s nest of audio and video cables with a single connection. The specification has evolved steadily over the years to keep pace with the ever-changing A/V landscape and encountered a few bumps along the way. In January, the HDMI Forum announced Version 2.1, a forward-looking upgrade of the current HDMI 2.0b spec. We recently caught up with HDMI Forum Chairman Chris Pasqualino to learn about the implications of HDMI 2.1 now and in the future. —Bob Ankosko S&V: Let’s start with some background on the Forum and the role it plays in the ongoing evolution of the HDMI audio/video interface CP: The HDMI founders announced the formation…

DIRECTV NOW Free DirecTV Now? That’s what T-Mobile is offering to AT&T Wireless subscribers who activate two lines and transfer their cell numbers to T-Mobile ONE. So T-Mobile is using an AT&T-owned video service to poach mobile customers from AT&T—cue demonic laughter... Smart TV Platforms are consolidating. Ten TV makers are using Roku and Chromecast in lieu of rolling their own... Interactive Movie Extras are being added to Comcast’s X1 video platform. Titles from Lionsgate, Paramount, Sony, and Universal will get elements such as photo galleries and video clips that are updated as the movie unspools... Sinclair’s TBD is a digital multicast network aimed at millennials. Multicast means TV stations will carry it as a secondary channel, allowing broadcasters to seek new revenue while leaving traditional network and independent channels intact... The AT&T–Time Warner Merger drew…

PRICE $399 WITH THE ISINE 10, AUDEZE completely reinvented the in-ear headphone. I’m not exaggerating. While every other in-ear headphone uses dynamic or balanced armature drivers, the iSine 10 has planar magnetic drivers, the same thin-film driver technology Audeze uses with all of their on-, and very high-end over-the-ear headphones. The driver isn’t the only unique design feature, though. The iSine 10’s wild-looking earpieces are a good deal larger and designed in a completely different way than any other in-ear on the market. At first I was concerned about the size of the relatively large earpieces. But the iSine 10 weighs next to nothing, at just 0.7 ounces, and they come equipped with ear hooks that wrap up and over your ears to secure the headphones in place. Even when I jumped…

TV Troubles I own a 720p-resolution Pioneer plasma TV. Every time I use my old plasma—now relegated to my photography studio after being replaced with a Full HD LCD model in the living room—I am blown away by the rich blacks and crisp color. It just looks better than LCD. With the arrival of 4K and HDR (finally, TV tech that can match the color gamut of the computer monitors I use for photography), I’m thinking it may be time for another upgrade. Are there any HDR-compatible UHDTVs that perform well enough to finally end my love affair with my plasma? Ed Nazarko / via e-mail In my opinion, yes. Like plasma, OLED is an emissive display technology: The pixels are selfilluminating. That, and the speed with which those pixels can be shut…