AV Adviser

Ways to get high def video wirelessly

If the analog sunset happens as is planned at the end of 2012 there's going to be people looking for a way to send their high def signal from source to screen without using wires.  The analog sunset means any high def signal that is being run through component video will be downgraded from 1080i to 480i.  It won't happen with your Blu-ray player unless you load a disc made after a certain date, but the cable and satellite providers are set to shut off your analog HD signal.  They can reach right into your set top box you know. 

In a number of situations it'll be difficult to run an HDMI line to the TV or projector.  That's why these wireless solutions are so important.  Here's a good story from trade publication CE Pro on a number products which do just that, 14 Wireless HD Options.

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

 

What makes up a home theater, a simple look

I don't understand why computer publications think they should be discussing audio, video and home theater.  I mean, I get that the computer world and home entertainment have merged.  We knew it was coming years ago.  I just don't see home theater magazines discussing and critiquing laptops and hard drives.  So why do PC magazines feel the need to talk about speakers and receivers?  Surely they aren't experts. 

Take this story from PC World, What Should I Look For When Buying a Home Theater Sound System.  It's fairly accurate but really has little to do with anything PC.  It does work as a rudimentary guide to explaining what components make up a surround sound or home theater set up.  And it may be useful to my readers.  So there you are.

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

Vizio's Co-Star aims directly at Apple TV

Vizio has had an interesting existence in the home entertainment market.  They seemingly came out of nowhere with inexpensive flat panel TVs.  At first the sets could be dismissed as second rate.  It's just not true anymore. Their TVs offer a decent bang for the buck.  The low cost and limited warranty place them in the throwaway commodity market though. 

This past year has seen Vizio entering other areas that include home theater audio equipment, computers and, the just announced, streaming media player they call Co-Star.  Using Google TV and their soon to be upgraded media platform Co-Star is positioning itself to do battle with Apple TV.  The price of $99 is even identical.  Here's the scoop from Digital Trends, Vizio debuts $99 Co-Star streaming box with Google TV, OnLive gaming.

Also up for the competition in the streaming media market is Microsoft, who announced a big software update for their Xbox 360 gaming console a couple of weeks ago.  The Xbox 360 will be far more than simply something to play games on as Microsoft tries to position it as the set top box to have in your home theater. 

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

OLED TV rollout delayed as Japan combines forces against S. Korea

At the Consumer Electronics Show this past January there was much focus on OLED TV technology.  OLED TVs have been represented at the show for years now but Sony's small screen model had been the only one available to the public.  The word this year was that the technology has been perfected to the point where larger screen sizes are ready to mass market. They were to be on shelves in time for the Olympics.  It appears that won't be happening. 

The realistic release date by the manufacturers looks more like the fall, in time for the holiday shopping season.  Expect to pay dearly for the OLED technology.  It'll be a number of years before the price comes down as was the case with plasma and LCD. 

Sony and Panasonic, the two Japanese electronic giants have teamed up.  Though adversaries, they are combining forces to do battle with the South Korea's two big players, Samsung and LG.  In the automotive industry South Korea's Hyundai and Kia are spanking Japanese stalwarts Honda and Toyota.  The same is true in electronics.  So competition in the Pacific rim has moved from company versus company to country versus country.  Competition is a good thing for the conusmers but won't bring the prices of these stellar looking TVs down any time soon. 

Here's some more details from Digital Trends, Sony and Panasonic sign OLED TV partnership agreement, will face ongoing Korean threat together.

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

My move from Windows to Mac, pt. 2 - I've grown accustomed to this place

First let me address the issue I'd discussed in my previous post, part 1, of my move from Windows to Mac.  As it turns out it was my screw up.  I'd connected the ethernet cable to the wrong port on the U-verse box. The AT&T tech who arrived last Monday morning said it was a common occurrence.  The port I used said broadband but failed to say anything about being for fiber only.  He said it's something the techs have been asking to have changed for a long time now. 

Well, after that snafu I was up and running and trying to build a system in which I could organize and run my personal and online life.  Yes, I rely on technology to streamline my life and be more productive.  That's how you harness technology.  To make it work for you and not be a slave to it. 

I have a customer who's experiencing some pain in the new Sonos and Apple Airplay system I've designed for his home.  It turns out he's owned two iPhones and an iPad for a couple of years and had never connected them to an iTunes account through iTunes on a desk top or laptop PC.  He needed to update the operating systems so that things would work. Well, that presented other issues like the fact that all his apps would be messed up.  He needed to talk with Apple Care.  Something akin to going to the dentist for him.  He detests customer service on the phone. 

I've probably talked with Apple Care five or six times in the last week as I try and figure out my iMac.  Here's my other big screw up. 

I attached a Western Digital 1 terabyte hard drive to my iMac.  I'd used it as a back up on my Dell Windows PC.  The idea was originally to dump all of it's 500 gigs into the Apple Time Capsule, but since I was using that as my Time Machine I couldn't.  Ok, then I'll leave the Western Digital hard drive connected to my iMac.  Afterall, the iMac recognized the content. 

So I took all the music files I wanted in iTunes and drag and dropped them into the music folder of the internal hard drive of the iMac. Then I imported the music into iTunes.  Big mistake.   I didn't need to drag them into the music folder. By doing so and then importing into iTunes I'd made duplicates of all the songs and my iMac 500 gig hard drive was practically full. No wonder Time Machine was trying to back up so many gigs of data.  I found this out after spending about an hour on the phone with Apple. 

In that time the tech convinced me to hard wire the Time Capsule and use it as my wi-fi router.  This meant having to call AT&T and have them either explain how I could shut off the their wi-fi or have them do it for me.  I cringed at the thought of having to call AT&T but it wasn't too painful and shortly I had my system optimally configured.

Back to iTunes.  In my haste to rid myself of the Dell Windows PC and enter the world of Mac I never configured my iTunes so that I could retrieve it on the Mac.  No big deal.  I'd been running two accounts anyway.  One for my iPhone, iPad and one iPod and another for a 160 gig iPod.  I wanted to go back to just one account.

Organizing music files is like the modern day version of sorting through a record collection, not as tactile but perversely fun for me.  After discovering my faux pas in duplicating my music on the iMac I decided to delete it all and start over.  This time I restrained myself and only added about 90 gigs of music from the Western Digital hard drive.  With Spotify I really didn't feel the need to import full albums as I had access to most of them via streaming anyway.  The physical mp3s are mostly important for my DJ gigs.

So you want to know how I divided up the music on my iPods that had previously used two seperate iTunes accounts?  I simply made two playlists, A to L and M to Z, and dragged my library into the them according to artist. 

There's still so much to learn and discover on my Mac.  A reader reminded me of David Pogue's Missing Manual series of books so I bought the one pertaining to switching from Windows to Mac and downloaded it to my iPad.  Am I a Mac guy now or what?

If you have any questions or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

 

My move from Windows to Mac, Pt. 1 - A painful first 24 hours

Over the past year I've been considering moving from my PC-based world to the world of Macintosh. I've been in both worlds for the past decade first buying iPods, then an iPhone, and most recently an iPad and Apple TV. I love Apple. In fact I'm using dictation to write this post. Although I do have to do some corrections as the dictation isn't perfect, or is it my speech.
So yesterday, on Father's Day, I took my 14-year-old son, a computer whiz, to the Apple Store to buy my first iMac. The Apple Store employee answered all of my questions and soon enough I was walking out the door with my new iMac and a 2 TB Time Capsule.
Back home the first order of business was to dismantle my Dell PC and its peripherals. Of course that was after backing up anything I wanted to save onto my 1 TB external hard drive. The desktop and surrounding floor all cleaned up of accumulated dust and dirt we were now ready to set up the iMac.
As predicted setting up the iMac was a breeze. We were connected to the Internet through my AT&T U-verse box right away. I began the initial backup onto my Time Capsule.
While that was going on I began to do some poking around on the machine. The iMac informed me that I had six software updates to attend to, the only one of which I can recall was Java. Once the updates were done it asked me to restart the computer in order to complete the task. I should have waited until the initial Time Capsule backup was complete but forgot and restarted the computer anyway.
Now I doubt that that misstep caused the following problem, but I can't rule that out yet. When the iMac rebooted it took the U-verse box down. Meaning I lost my phone, television, and internet. A red LED light next to service on the box indicated something was wrong.
I unplugged the U-verse box and rebooted it a few times to no avail. I then decided to disconnect the ethernet cable from the back of the iMac. Sure enough the U-verse box rebooted successfully with no service issue. But when I reconnected the ethernet cable to the iMac and tried to access the Internet there was no connection.
Now I had to decide whether to call Apple or AT&T, guess which one I chose? I spent the next hour and a half talking to Apple Care, eventually talking with a senior adviser named Matt. After trying a myriad of adjustments and reboots with the iMac including swapping ethernet cables, changing configurations, etc. we were left with no connection to the internet. Matt decided the fault lied with the U-verse box.
And that could be because there is no local ethernet LED light lit on the box. But why would the U-verse box fail at that particular moment when I rebooted my iMac for the first time? The telltale sign for Matt was that the IP address started with 169 indicating that it was self generated by the iMac and did not come from AT&T.
I spent the next 20 minutes talking to customer service at AT&T. The conversation ended with him setting up a service call to my home this morning between 8 AM and noon. He said I'd be charged $50 for the call if the fault did not lie with AT&T. You can be sure I'll pass be passing that bill on to Apple if that's the case.
So now I wait for AT&T to arrive. I have many hours and a challenging road ahead trying to assemble my computer and Internet habits into a productive system in the new world of Macintosh. Unfortunately everything is on hold right now. Stay tuned.

If you have any questions or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com
John Hannibal

Explaining Spotify to those who still don't get it

I hear the question all the time when I mention the game changing way to listen to music.  What is Spotify?  They usually follow up with, is it like Pandora?  In one sentence it's ten bucks a month to have the largest music collection in the world. 

I found this explanatory video of the service on YouTube.  It's not a dynamic presentation but it'll explain it for you.  Thank me later.

 

 

The Sonos subwoofer arrives June 19

A couple of weeks ago Sonos introduced their own subwoofer.  It goes on sale Tuesday June 19. 

As I've told many a customer and my readers, Sonos is the best distributed audio product in the past ten years, possibly ever.  What's surprising to me is that no one has come along to compete with them.  You'd think Apple would've given them a run but luckily for Sonos they've let them have the category. 

The Sonos Sub is simply a wi-fi enabled speaker that delivers the lower end sound that's missing from the standard mid to high range drivers found in most speakers.  The sub will work best in designs where the Sonos system is set up wirelessly.  Often times I design Sonos systems with existing equipment or incorporate it into an already installed distributed audio system.  In which case, I simply plug a Sonos piece into the pre-amp/amps that are centrally located. 

I'm going to be suggesting this compact addition to the Sonos line to current and future Sonos fans.  And believe me when I tell you, once someone has Sonos they become a fan.

The joy of control

Control is the key element of custom integration.  You can have the best home theater, the best distributed audio system, the best lighting system, but if you can't figure out how to work it properly it's wasted. 

The simpler you want to make control of the system the more expensive it is to attain.  That's because of the "under the hood" programming that needs to be done to make it easy.  Those entry level all-in-one remotes may accomplish 95% of the job but it's alot of steps to memorize.  Push this button first, then switch this side toggle, ok now push that button, wait 3 seconds and then push that one.  Sometimes it's better to just grab the remote designed for the product, but who wants all of those remotes cluttering the table. 

Sometimes it's hard to convince a customer of the need for something more expensive that will make their life easier.  I try to show them the joy of control on a simpler platform, like choosing music from a digital library.

During the summer months I spend much time on my gazebo where I have speakers running from my distributed audio system in the house.  Most of the time I'm listening to digital music as opposed to CDs (though technically that's digital too but you get the point).  It used to be I'd be choosing things from my iTunes library via Apple's remote app for the iPhone and iPad.  That is until Spotify.

Spotify doesn't make a remote app but there are third parties that do.  I don't need to use iTunes because Spotify on my desktop computer integrates everything from the iTunes library into their program. In other words, all my Beatles music shows up on Spotify even though it's unavailable through streaming.  If you have it in your personal collection it'll play it. 

My iPad rests on the table on the gazebo and from the third party Spotify remote app I can choose what I want to hear.  Tired of a certain song I simply tap to fire up another one.  The simplicity of navigating through millions of songs is so much fun and a great example of what control can do for you.

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal

My favorite is designing a home theater from scratch

I'm all about the music.  That's why those of my generation got into the custom audio/video business, our love of music.  So setting up a distributed audio system in a customer's home is great.  It speaks to my life's mission statement "to enrich people's lives through the sharing of music".  Still, I have a project that I find more satisfying.  I love to design a home theater from scratch.

When a customer gets in touch with me and says they have a room they aren't doing anything with and would like me to come up with a creative space in which they can watch TV or movies, I'm thrilled.  The beauty is that I'm now closely associated with (our sister company) a builder and remodeler.  That means we can accomplish any dream. 

Of course, that depends on how much the customer is willing to spend on the project.  The "money's no object" client is rare so I usually have to deal with practical parameters.  No worries.  It still gives me a chance to create a space that I would enjoy.  That's key to whatever project I'm undertaking.  After taking diligent notes on a walk thru, ascertaining what the home owner desires, I always imagine myself as the customer.  What would I want if I were he or she.  And, of course, with a careful eye on the budget because I am imagining it to be my money being spent. 

That's quite contradictory to the perception of a salesperson.  I've seen it so often.  A competitor oversells the customer with equipment and the like that he will never find any gratification in.  The customer is left with a bad feeling, a bit of buyers remorse.  In the end, the salesperson made some extra money in the short term but will not see the referrals that could have garnered him much better rewards down the road. 

I'm off to do an initial walk thru of just such a blank canvas space.  Time to get creative. 

If you have a question or if I may be of service email me at radiohannibal@gmail.com

John Hannibal