Rob from Hawaii—at least, I assume he's from Hawaii, since he started his message with "Aloha"—wants to know if DLP is still a viable option for TV shoppers:

I'm looking for a 50-inch or larger LCD flat-screen TV, and I was surprised to see that DLPs are still around. I thought they had gone away. Is DLP a good choice? Who's a good candidate to pick a DLP instead of an LCD or plasma? It looks like you can get a DLP for a lot less, and I read that a new type of DLP doesn't need the lamp replaced.

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Steven Lassair asks a perennial question that all TV owners should heed:

I'm going to get the Samsung A650, and I want to optimize the colors. Can you recommend a DVD I can use to do that? I found Digital Video Essentials on Amazon, but it doesn’t get good ratings.

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After stuffing ourselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pecan and pumpkin pie—a la mode for me—my wife and I took in a couple of movies over the long holiday weekend. As it happened, the experience clearly demonstrated the differences between film and digital projection.

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This Thursday is the national pig-out known as Thanksgiving, followed by the national sellout known as Black Friday, the official start of the holiday shopping season. Retailers normally give thanks at this time for the sales that represent a major percentage of their annual business, but this year, they're likely to have much less for which to be thankful.

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DVRs (digital video recorders) give advertisers and broadcasters fits. These wondrous devices allow viewers to quickly skip over commercials, compressing an hour-long show to under 50 minutes and avoiding all those annoying ads. But wait—those ads are what pay for the program itself, so if few people watched them, they'd lose their value, and the programs would dwindle and finally disappear.

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Joel Hoekstra asks a couple of common questions about TV specs:

My question has to do with the video processor found in all TVs. What defines a good one? Some TVs have 8-bit processors, others have 10-bit. Some have a special name like LG's XD Engine and Samsung's DNIe.

I've been looking at the specs for "Walmart brand" TVs here in Canada, like Insignia, Dynex, etc. The specs seem to match up fairly well except that most of these cheaper models have an 8-bit video processor, so I wonder what kind of performance you get from a processor like that?

Also, I see really high numbers for dynamic contrast ratio—say, 10,000:1 or something like that—but the true contrast ratio is often around 2000:1, with some as low as 750:1. What would you say is an adequate true contrast ratio?

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Here's an interesting question from Ernie Booth in Raleigh, NC:

Is there any chance that new A/V receivers will include support for OpenCable (2-way) CableCARDs? I have Time-Warner cable and a Panasonic TH-58PZ750U plasma, which does not support CableCARD. T-W supports OpenCable CableCARDs, including its interactive program guide and switched digital channels, for only $2.50/month, which is a great deal.

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Here at UAV, we're always looking for new reviewers. My staff of freelancers is already working at capacity, which means I need to find some new voices to join our ranks. If you think you have what it takes to be a reviewer, I'd like to hear from you...

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Several months ago, I posed a question in my blog, asking you how high gas prices had affected your entertainment activities. Now, of course, things are much worse as the entire economy circles the bowl, even while gas prices ease up a bit. So I thought it would be interesting to revisit the question in light of the worsening economic crisis.

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As many of you know by now, I appear as a weekly guest on The Tech Guy, a nationally syndicated call-in radio program hosted by Leo Laporte. During a recent show, I was explaining the difference between 1080i and 1080p, a confusing subject to be sure. Shortly after the show, I got a rather long e-mail from John Sullivan pointing out what he thought were mistakes in my explanation. I'll interlace my responses with his comments...

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This week at UAV, we've posted a review of Toshiba's XD-E500 upconverting DVD player. This might seem a bit odd, since we haven't reviewed a DVD player in quite a while—instead, we focus on Blu-ray these days.

We've been criticized for this policy by people who point out that Blu-ray represents a very small part of the video-disc market and that many consumers think upconverted DVD looks "good enough," claiming that the difference in picture quality between Blu-ray and DVD is much less than the difference between DVD and VHS videotape. Some go so far as to accuse UAV of being a shill for Blu-ray.

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Richard McGready recently wrote to me with several TV questions:

I'm thinking about buying a Sony XBR5 LCD TV, but I heard that Sony is coming out with a newer top-of-the-line model in a couple of months. Do you know anything about it? What new features, if any, does it have? Is it better than the XBR5? I've contacted Sony and they won't tell me anything.

I've heard rumors that Sony is coming out with a TV with 240Hz instead of 120Hz. Do you know anything about that?

I've also heard that Samsung is coming out with a 3D TV. Is that true and, if so, is it any good?

What 50- to 60-inch plasma or LCD TV do you think is the best?

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You probably don't recognize the name Mel Harris, who passed away at the age of 65 on September 6, 2008. But you most certainly know the results of his work in the broadcasting and entertainment industry. Let me tell you a bit about the impact he had on TV and movie viewers everywhere...

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Canadian Rob Brown recently got an Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 projector and wants to know about my recommended settings:

I am very pleased with the Epson PowerLite Home Cinema 1080 (not the "UB" model, which wasn't available at the time I made the purchase). I have a room in which I can easily ceiling-mount it, darken the room, turn up the audio, and enjoy a 100-inch-diagonal picture! It is bright and quiet, blacks are deep, and colors are excellent.

I set up the projector according to a few reviews, but I was wondering if you have any suggestions for appropriate settings. I am especially interested in your opinion on using the auto-iris function. Reviewers differ in their recommendations on that setting. Some suggest it enhances contrast. What do you think?

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Dang! Tom Norton stole my thunder by blogging about the upcoming CEDIA Expo just one day before I was going to. Oh well, I can still add my two cents before I head off to Denver for the annual confab dedicated to custom consumer-electronics installation.

Since Tom gave you a preview of the products we'll see, I'd like to take this opportunity to address a pet peeve of mine...

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Michael Samson writes from the Philippines with some interesting questions about the PlayStation 3:

1. In order to get 5.1 audio, do I need to attach the PS3 to an A/V receiver? I tried connecting the HDMI out from the PS3 to the HDMI in on my Sony LCD TV and then left and right analog audio out from the TV to my Sony 5.1 home theater in a box (which has no HDMI input), but no sound came from the speakers. I tried the same setup with our Wii, and the sound came out.

2. If I am able to accomplish this, can the HTB assign the TV's audio out to the respective rear and front speakers?

3. Do you know if the PS3 is region-coded?

By the way, I found a website that lists region-free and region-coded Blu-ray discs.

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As many of you may know, I'm a regular guest on a nationally syndicated radio talk show hosted by Leo Laporte, aka The Tech Guy. The show is broadcast live from 11AM to 2PM Pacific time on Saturdays and Sundays, and my segment is right after the 11:30 news on Saturday.

Some stations only carry part of the show, and some air a recording rather than the live feed, so the timing may be different in your neck of the woods. To find a station near you that carries the show, click here; to download podcasts of the show, click here. (BTW, I was live in Leo's studio for the entire show on Saturday, August 2, 2008, which is podcast 479.) You can also watch a live video stream from the studio during show hours by clicking here.

Last Saturday, I followed up on a question posed by a listener who had called in the week before asking about how to configure an upconverting DVD player for a 720p display. Unfortunately, the 12 minutes of my segment wasn't really enough time to fully explain this confusing subject, so I thought it might be a good idea to go over it again here...

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Robert is just getting started in the whole home-theater game, and he has some basic questions:

What is the best LCD TV from Sony or Panasonic between 47 and 60 inches? I'm looking in the price range of $1500 to $4000.

Who is the best calibrator to hire to calibrate my HDTV?

Should I get 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound?

Which 5.1 or 7.1 system should I get?

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I got home from my THX adventure on Saturday, after three long days of hard-core tech training in a darkened room while the most perfect weather I can imagine beckoned just beyond the walls. But it was worth it—although I already knew most of the material, I did learn a number of useful things, and I got to observe the course itself to see what aspiring calibrators can expect if they take it.

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My blog is a bit later than usual this week, but I've been pretty busy. Tom Norton and I are taking the newly developed video-technician training course offered by THX at the company's headquarters in San Rafael, California, just north of San Francisco in Marin County. Tuesday was the first of three full days of instruction and hands-on lab work, after which some of us went out to dinner and caught Hugh Masekela's set at Yoshi's, a famous jazz spot in Oakland. After a wrong turn by Laurie Fincham, THX's brilliant but directionally challenged chief scientist—thanks for the grand tour of San Francisco, Laurie!—I just got back to my room.

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