Sony G90 manual

$ 5.95 US • $ 7 .95 CA N S o n y G 9 0 S i z e D o e s M a t t e r ! New Products From Runco, Revel, NAD, Pioneer, Linn & Lexicon www.theperfectvision.com[...]

Ed itor -in-C hie f . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Harry Pearson Exec utive Ed ito r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sallie Reynolds Sen ior E d itor s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Greg Rogers, Video Thomas O. Miiller, Audio Greg Sandow, Music & Multimedia T ec h n ic al Edi tor , Aud io . . . . . . . . . . . .Robert Harley Assistant E dit[...]

V I E W P O I N T S 6 Editorial 7 Editorial Notes Can All That Counts Be Counted? A Forum Begins… Janet’s Index (A footnote to “Keeping It Real: Producing Classical Music Videos,” Issue 25) 9 Letters The Problem with DVD: Digital Artifacts…Targeting 14-Year-Old Boys?…Down the Primrose Path…What Not To See on DVD…Electronic Cinema Co[...]

Let it be said, at this the half-way point of summer (as of the writing), the neighborhood multiplexes find themselves wishing they could either get rid of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace or at least move a surviving copy of it to one of their lesser screens. Most of you probably know the terms that George Lucas stuck the exhibitors with: (a) a 12-we[...]

I: Ca n A ll Tha t Coun ts Be Co unte d? A Forum Begi ns W e a re runni ng C har les Ha nse n’ s resp on se to Issu e 24 as the beg inn ing o f a forum in wh ich we expl ore ho w we will ble n d the ob ser vati o nal an d the empi rical (t ests an d me as ur ement pr ogra ms) in our v ideo and audio sect ions . Our aim is not to ov erw helm the r[...]

The Problem with DVD: Digital Artifacts E d i t o r : I ha ve subsc ribe d to your rev iva l of The P erfe ct V i s i o n , and not being f ami l- iar wi th the o rigi nal, I can only say y ou see m to be off to a stro ng start. Y o u r styl e feels more academ ical ly , intell ectu - all y driven than some of your compet i- tion, and I w elcom e t[...]

Down the Primrose Path T oward Perfect Vision Forever? E d i t o r : I’ ve been wit h TPV sin ce th e firs t i ssue , an d wa s th ankf ul, ev en deli ght ed, when yo u cover e d the re maining is sue s on m y sub scri ptio n f rom fi ve y ears ba ck. That ’ s pe rfect hones ty . N o w th at you know my cre denti als , he re’ s my wi sh list [...]

tr ans it ion (I’ ve said this befo re) a nd th e fil m sec tion is fa r from its fin al fo rm. Ther e wil l be a “mi x” of revi ews , s hor t to long, wit h m o re materia l b eing cov - e red, but I’ m not r unnin g a c at a - lo g of quickie im p ress ions. Oth er ma gaz ines , as you so help full y no ted , do tha t. 3. No pr ob le m he[...]

When we embarked upon the re-launch of The Perfect Vision , I envisioned the experience as a great adventure – an opportunity to explore uncharted territory in home entertainment. Everywhere I looked and listened, there were new experiences, as the emergence of digital technology shattered the old notions of what is pos- sible in home audio. I di[...]

IVX Dead! Enough said. Too much was written about it when it was alive, so we don’t need to talk more about a company that just didn’t get it. Video at The Perfect Vision is about Home Theater, and to me that means a large screen picture. Sorry, but a 32” TV just can’t be home theater, can it? I’m not talking just about picture quality; I[...]

…i s i t ju s t a ra nd om m es h of si gh t an d sou nd, o r do e s som e - th in g r ea ll y n ew e mer g e? T h i s ge ts ano ther loo k in thi s is su e fr om An drew Q ui nt, wh o s aw a pe rf orma nce in Ne w Y or k th at ma de hi m th i nk t he mu c h- hy p ed phe nom enon m igh t be r ea l. And I, along with anyone else who’s seen the W[...]

V iaTV VC 105 V i d e o p h o n e At about the same time, during the 1963-64 New York World’s Fair, AT&T demonstrated videophones to the gen- eral public. In the early years of the space age, you couldn’t help but feel that videophones were right around the corner. Yet somehow this dream never materialized, even as the PC era pro- gressed. [...]

rec all as a se ven-ye ar -ol d s witch ing on the sys te m tha t my fat her had de sign ed, mad e, and hou se d in a met icul ou sly cra fted and venee red cabi - n et. O ne sa tisf yi ng ly la rg e c ircu lar kn ob se rve d as on /of f sw it ch a nd v olum e con - trol, another sel ected be twe en radio (wi re less !) wav eban ds, a nd a th ird t[...]

When most people hear “Orlando, Florida” they think of Disney- world, Universal Studios, palm trees, and flamingos. They don’t usually think of darkened, car- p e t ed c onv ent i on h all s f ille d wit h f la shy im age s p roj ect ed onto huge scree ns. But t hat’ s almost all I saw in Orlando when I visited last June to attend INFOCOMM [...]

in the world of displays. As with many trade show s, the cit y hos ting In foco mm ch anges each year . But th e gen eral org ani zati o n of th e show rema in s m uch th e sam e w h erev er it o ccurs . Thi s year it wa s the hu ge ha lls of th e Orange Cou nty Conv enti on C ent er that were fil led with ma nufac turer’ s exhibi ts. The lar g e[...]

to recreate the theater experience in the home. The dominant display technology today for home-theater screens larger than 40” diagonal is CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) projection. It is used in almost every rear-projection TV and most HDTVs just recently introduced. But it is an old technol- ogy near its limit and its days are numbered. The display ind[...]

based on DLP with a native resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (16.9). Hitachi and Mitsubishi have signed agreements to develop consumer HDTVs based on this technology for sale in late 2000. The image quality of the prototype was, to my eyes, excellent. If the consumer versions can match it, and do so affordably, we may not have reason to mourn the pas[...]

o met ime s I t hi nk t hat e ver y pos iti on on a moviemaking crew comes with its special privi - leges, its perks, as it were. If you’re the script super- visor, you stand right next to the director as the film is shot, noting which takes are to be printed and any remarks the director may have about them. From this position you watch the scrip[...]

Bef or e i t pas s es t hr ough t he edi - t or ’ s hands , a f i l m i s a c ol l ec t i on of l ong t ak es f r om v ar i ous there appear to be a movie here at all? Sometimes technical problems develop – shots go out of focus, the director loses the light at the end of the day and doesn’t get some angles he fears he needs, the negative get[...]

T he edi t or s hoot s no new f oot age; w hat ev - er he does w as i n t he f i l m al l al ong. 1 T akes are stored individually for a movieola (i.e., an upright viewing -machine); they are stored in 1,0 0 0-foot reels for flatbed viewing. T he former obviously allows for much faster access to a given piece of film. guess, in working with this ki[...]

the emotion, the mood, the action, the transfor- mation lead the cut, rather than the other way around. I don’t like to let picture cuts fall on hard consonants, as that emphasizes a cut. I e njoy prelaps to pull t he nar rative along – that is, starting an incoming li ne of di alo g o ver a n o u t goin g scene – provided it doesn’t become[...]

2 In computerized editing, the movie is only edited in the video/com- puter domain; the final product is still film, which is assembled from a cut- list generated by the computer with numbers corresponding to eac h piece of negative. audience for the first time. There are always surprises. Things you worried were unclear the audience tracked perfec[...]

exicon is unique among companies building multi-chan - nel digital controllers (see “What You Should Know About Controllers,” which follows this review). Rather than approach the product category after designing two-chan- nel analog preamplifiers, Lexicon enters the multi-channel arena with a decades-long history of creating professional dig - [...]

ment. A “Bass Split” feature takes bass infor- m ati on fi lte re d fr om t he c en te r ch ann el (assuming you have a small center speaker) and directs it to the left and right channels. Inside, the MC-1 uses AD converters and DACs from a company called AKM. Both are delta-sigma devices that are supposedly better performing than the con - ver[...]

o v e r , d etail res olu ti on in th e surro und channel s was excel len t. Mov ing nex t t o Lo gic 7, Lex icon’s pro cess for der ivin g 7 cha nnel s f rom 2- ch anne l or 5.1- cha nnel sour ces, I fou nd th e ef fect wor ked r emar kab ly w ell o n fi lm soun dtr acks . (L ogic 7 e nhan ceme nts c an be c ombi ned w ith s ome THX proce ss- in[...]

shou ld menti on that my loudspea ker arr ay is less than id eal fo r asse ssi ng Lex i c on’ s s urrou nd modes . The si d e l ouds pea kers are bi-po lar (t he Rev el Embrac e se t to bi-po le for musi c sur - roun d, d i-pol e for film s), and th e rea r spe ake rs wer e the poi nt- sour ce Mirage Re ferenc e Mo nit ors. Lex icon rec - omm end[...]

No product better exemplifies the fundamental shift in home-entertainment technology than the controller. Also known as a surround-sound processor or audio-video pre- amplifier, the controller is an entirely new p rodu ct c ate gor y t ha t co mb ine s ma ny dive rse f unctions in a sin gle c hassis. T o understand what a controller is and does is [...]

nal had to be encoded as a radio frequency (RF). If you don’t want to immediately replace your cherished laserdisc collection with DVDs, you’ll probably need a controller that can decode those RF-encoded Dolby Digital discs. If your controller doesn’t have an RF digital input (typ- ically labeled “AC-3 RF”), you’ll need an exter- nal RF[...]

process takes about eight minutes, can be per- formed with the AVP installed in your system, and doesn’t erase your set-up and configuration settings. New soft ware ca n ad d capa bilit ie s suc h as DT S or MPEG dec odi ng ( by c hang ing the DSP cod e), r efi ne th e us er int erfa ce (b y up dati ng the o perat ing syst em) , o r co nfig ure t[...]

speaker systems. For example, if you have five small loudspeakers and a subwoofer, you tell the controller to filter bass from each of the five channels, and to direct it, in sum, to the subwoofer. When watching a Dolby Digital or DTS movie, the bass from the LCR and sur- round channels is mixed with the Low Fre- quency Effects channel to drive the[...]

copy -p ro tect ion prob le m), D VD -Aud io an d SACD players will have six analog outputs for reproducing multi-channel music discs. Unless your controller has a discrete six-channel ana- log input, you won’t be able to play high-reso- lution multi-channel music through your sys- tem until the copy-protection dust has settled. The six-channel a[...]

t is a conflict as old as good vs. evil. It is the war that came before wars between peoples. It is the battle between humankind and its environment and it is being fought to this day in your house. While not so noble as a life and death struggle between a Jack London hero and the elements, your battle to extract good sound from the room in which y[...]

Now that your head is swimming, choose your dimensions. The actual dimensions you select based on a ratio such as those listed below will determine the exact frequencies at which the modes will develop. Jim Thiel, the engineering brain behind Thiel speakers, calculated the fol - lowing set of ratios: 2.5 by 1.6 by 1 2.18 by 1.6 by 1 1.39 by 1.14 by[...]

letting Room Optimizer search out different solutions (just hit “start” and go get a beer, or two). Roo m Opt im izer is c oncerned onl y with th e l ow-fre quency ch aracte ristic s of your room . I ts se arch is based upon the fre - qu encies f ro m 2 0 Hz to 30 0 Hz. I t i s p ossib l e to s et the hi gh and low poin ts withi n that 20-30 0 [...]

established now that dead flat 20 kHz treble response in your room is an unpleasant expe- rience. I’m not sure if that’s because 20 kHz flat is just too much treble or too much distorted treble. I find that treble distortions are the most pernicious throughout the entire chain from recordings to speakers. The Salon’s treble seems well balance[...]

d irec t ra dia tor) to bl oat ed. T he Sa lon’s s oun dstag e c om- b ines t he b est at tri bute s of b oth typ es. It has b ette r i mage spe cifi cit y t han mos t di pole s, tho ugh i t d oes n’t r end er p in- p oint ima ges . The re is a nat ur al sens e of siz e and we ig ht to im ages gene rat ed b y th e S a lo n. T he sou ndsta ge i [...]

cians often use emphasis in the intensity of notes to build rhythmic structures within the measures of the music – it’s one of the things that separates artists from technicians. Bass that won’t get out of the way (and other d ist ortio ns) m ars t he fi ne ar tis ti c emph asi s app lied by t he m usi ci an, deny in g u s acc es s t o the p [...]

I have one mino r soni c critic ism of the Sub -15 . Until the vol - ume is advanc ed to high er lev els , it do esn ’ t res olve the sensa - tion of air moving in the record i n g v enue . This is a sensat ion tha t exist s i n t h e co nce rt hall a nd I ha ve hea rd i t r ep rodu ced by the A u dio Artist ry dipo le subw oofer s . The Sub-15 g[...]

he gleaming white livery of the Fed-X truck splintered the morning calm with a fusillade of gravel against the stone griffins sternly guarding the massive oak front door. Upon the FedEx man’s announcement: “Two items,” the door opened to reveal a man who might well be a stone Grif- fin himself, his face bearing a stern and raptor-like stare. [...]

was wi thdra w n from its sh el l and c ons igned to its whir ring dra wer mechan i s m . Messa ges dar ted again ov er the scr eens , foll owed by mu sic t h at mater ial ized thro ugh out the room, a larg e gent le beast trembli ng the wo ode n fl oor , stal kin g along the w all s, palp ating the w indow panes. In the Company of the Beast I am l[...]

again that this instrument was the first attempt at a full-range home music center, a range rarely captured or replicated by electronic devices today . All systems are biased in some way, and the three principal biases are toward time coherence, phase coherence, or tonal production. It is not possible to have all three unless you also factor in the[...]

appears on the displays when the “surr ound” button is pressed while playing an AC3-encoded source. Also useful would be a last-source-selected memory. Now if you play a disc and adjust one of the speaker level controls, then hit “Play” to start the track again, you will discover you have to press the relevant source button before regaining[...]

that are DD compatible. There are preamp outs for all five channels. Build quality in gen- eral seems up to NAD’s usual fine standards. Also included are the NAD Link jacks, which allow other NAD components (with NAD Link) that are not remote controlled to be driven via the T770’s con - troller. Very clever if one intends to stay within the NAD[...]

plished with gain biasing to the surround channels, either. I set up the speakers fair and square. But clearly, the T770’ s steering in DD mode is precise and smooth. Fi n a ll y use rs a re g o ing t o hav e to d e cid e fo r the mse lv es wh ic h fe a tu re s th ey c an an d ca n’t l ive wi th out . At its su gge ste d li s t pr ic e, th e T [...]

f you’re looking for DVD movies at the Lincoln Cen- ter Tower Records in New York, there’s no prob- lem: Just head down the escalator and there they are – banks and banks of them. Classical music video on DVD is something else. Those are buried deep in the classical depart- ment upstairs, in their own small rack in the opera room. Small is th[...]

in a hom e th eat er , do n’t tos s t hat V CR o r la serdi sc p lay e r j ust y et . K en Cra ne’s, a DVD con sum er s ales w eb site a ddre ss, a s ubs idia ry o f I mag e E ntert ainm en t , an d o ne of th e me di- u m ’ s di str ib utor s an d l icen see s, l ist s 3,7 59 ti tles (ev eryt hing fro m por nog rap hy t o op eras f ro m Mil [...]

Ka waka mi s ays . “ The gr eate r n umbe r o f cha nnel s i s u seful in dir ecti ng th at e nvelo p- in g a mbie nt s oun d.” Ka wa kami s ays th at p r odu cer s a re mo re con ser vati ve wi th t he sur rou nd s ound on cl assi cal t han t hey a re wit h p op. “ Few o rch estr as or c lass ical pr odu cers w ant t o ta ke li ber tie s –[...]

for classical music at BMG, explains, “We decid - ed to do it because the format had become stan - dard, and projected volume of hardware for last Fall was so high. This was an elaborate joint venture between various Bertlesmann compa- nies. We were shooting it in high definition, with multiple cameras, and a documentary was going to be made. It [...]

Puccini: T urandot (at the Forbidden City of Beijing). RCA Victor Red Seal 74321-60917-2. ’m inc line d to b e k ind to the l avish RCA T ur andot , and not just becaus e – as I sam ple a smorgas bord of ava ila ble big - name c lass ical D VDs, i n t h is and a suc ceed ing rev i e w – it’ s the onl y one s eriousl y cr afted f or t he med[...]

dramatic confrontation, in the second scene of Act Two. Princess Turandot of China suffers from an icy heart, and a jones toward men. Any male of royal blood may woo her, but must answer three riddles. If his answers are correct, she marries him; if they’re wrong, you guessed it: He dies. Every prince who’s tried up to now has contributed his s[...]

dot’s looks. Maybe, on a deeper level, he senses her own need to shed her obsession, but all we hear from him is that she’s beautiful. Maybe in the 1920s, when Puccini composed the piece, a preoccupation like that made more sense, but now it sounds silly. “Jeez, Cal! I know you like bimbos, but stay away from this one!” Still, this is all w[...]

V erdi: Attila (La Scala production), Image Entertain- ment ID4360PUDVD. Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur (La Scala production), Image Entertainment ID4362PUDVD. Dvorák: Symph ony N o. 9, “From th e N ew Wo rld” ( Her- bert v on Kar ajan c ond uctin g), So ny Cla ssica l SVD 48 421. V ivaldi: The Four Seasons (Herbert von Karajan con- ducting), Sony [...]

ing the language of written text), it seems to vio - late the spirit of the DVD interface to provide no way to pick a language once, and stick with it. The Karajan discs also let you choose sur - round or standard audio. But I’m not impressed with the sound either way, or with the sound of the Scala discs, which also offer 5.1 surround, but (and [...]

Paging through the chapters is an eerie experience. At the st art of eac h one , t he re’ s Ka raja n on sc re en, hi s fac e inscrutable, a mask of – what? He projects, at best, a statue- li ke ins tit uti ona l p erso na , “H err Mu s i c Di re ctor of All Europe,” as he used to be sarcastically called, in charge not of music, necessarily[...]

Surrounded! Roger Reynolds: Watershed (Mode 70, DVD) . . . . . . . . . Jargon ere we have a first that needs attention – “the first music DVD [the package says] designed to totally utilize the medium’s full 5-channel capability.” I just wish it were better, and less pre- tentious. The composer, Roger Reynolds, is (as he probably won’t for[...]

a ttent ion only if yo u ca r e t o giv e it s ome. I admit I’m skep ti - c al abou t the need for so much comm enta ry . Shouldn ’t the mu si c s peak f or i tsel f? Bu t t h en maybe t he te chnique s reall y a re so new t ha t we all need ori en tat ion. Still, I knew we were in trouble when Reynolds tells us, with all the emotion of a libra[...]

wandering, questing wiggles to a pulsing, stylized sun, all choreographed to the music, but far more gripping. (Imag- ine a dance with choreography more interesting than the musical score.) The largest, longest work we’re given is a 1996 compo- sition with the name Watershed IV , and it’s a tour de force for Schick’s percussion. He stands in [...]

Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare. Rhino 74469. $19.99 (DVD). al va dor D ali sa w h is paintings come alive in it. Groucho Marx said it was great vaudeville and the last chance that burlesque had of surviving. Disney designed its co st umes . It co mb ined e le- ments of A Clockwork Orange , What Ever Happened to Baby J a n e , D r a c u l a ,[...]

creatures surround him, place him in a wooden coffin, but suddenly, to our surprise, he bursts out, runs through the screen, and lands on stage, while the dancing spacemen remain in the film. Soon, the aliens locate Cooper, and one by one they smoothly jump from their places on film to the stage. Before “Escape” concludes, Cooper and his pursui[...]

rev iews scr olli ng ac r oss t he sc r een, and the man y im ages of e ndless pave- men t, t unnels, an d i ndistin ct a utomo- bil e hea dligh t s vagu ely g lowi ng f r om neon -lit gridl ock. Mu ch roc k jour nal- is m m ight as we ll be p rin ted i n a tab loid, beca use of its sensa tional pur- su it of r um or an d hy pe. Th is f il m expo s[...]

practicing its independent philosophy before “Internet” was even part of our vocabulary . By remaining true to its standards, Fugazi is, without question, in a league by itself. Champi - ons of free speech, free thought, the homeless, minorities, AIDS research, and the elderly, the group rejects violence, racism, homophobia, war, alcohol, drugs[...]

rock show. Furthermore, Fugazi’s principled way of being a rock band doesn’t tend to appeal to the kind of people (i.e. frat boys, wanna-be’s, rednecks) who attend rock concerts in order to get high or smashed or both. One thing Instrument does not provide is a sense of Fugazi’s musical evolution. And so I urge you to listen to the band, sa[...]

rom the moment of its rebirth two issues ago, The Per - fect Vision has addressed itself squarely to the difficult concept of “multimedia.” Essays from Greg Sandow and HP in Issue 24 sought to define what multimedia is and is not, and to imagine its possibilities. Sandow, in a piece that touched on unfolding technical developments, offered the [...]

Is this achievable with multimedia involving music? Can the whole be greater than the sum of its parts? On a Monday evening in May, I attended a production that was certainly a close approach, one that sugges ts i nterest i ng prosp ects f or multimedi a’ s future. The occasion was a performance of Richard Einhorn’s V oices of Light , along wit[...]

Einhorn has emphasized that V oices of Light is not a film score for The Passion of Joan of Arc , and he feels that any attempt to compose one would be folly. As he told me a few weeks after the Avery Fisher performance, “There have been some 30 scores written for the film. This figure comes from an article I’ve read; I’ve been able to docume[...]

V I D E O olor is critical to the performance of any home the- ater. Most of us instantly recognize the problem with our neighbor’s TV, orange faces that look painted for Halloween or dull washed-out colors in a parade. We may not have problems like that in our equipment, but even sub- tle errors in color accuracy will produce unnatural flesh- to[...]

normalized in the diagram. We are actu - ally about 20 percent more sensitive to the green curve than the red, and about 40 times less sensi - tive to the blue curve. As the wavelength of light varies, the probability that a cone will absorb that light depends on its spectral response, but all light absorbed by the same cone contributes equally to [...]

Commission on Lighting) was created in 1927, and in 1931 established a colorime- try system to describe colors using a simple system of numerical coordinates. I won’t delve into the details behind that system other than to say it is based on the tristimulus response principles discussed earlier and experiments that were done with human observers.[...]

is that col ors c reated by f o llow ing the video signal ’ s “reci pe” for mixing light fro m the red, gr een , and bl ue primaries will resul t in wrong colors. Hence, the colors from consumer moni tors must be wrong ! How wrong is a fun ction of t h ei r deviat ion from the standard, and I’ll l ook at how to measure it below . B ut t hat[...]

ar e us ed i n so me cir cums ta nce s. Remember that although the signal lev- els are the same, the actual brightness of light from each primary is not the same, that is determined by calibrating the reference white color to D65. Ch an gin g t he sig na l lev el s o f al l p ri ma ry col or s tog et her d oes n ot ch ang e the CI E (x, y) c hro ma[...]

linear will be dis- cussed at another time, but with the availability of digi - tal signal processing, such transfor- mations are practical, but expensive. Some approximate corrections can be made more simply on consumer displays. 7. Color and Hue Adjustments I have shown that color accuracy is a function of grayscale and phosphor accuracy when a m[...]

h e u lt im at e i n ho m e-t h ea t er disp lay d evices ar e t he 9” CRT proj ector s. Siz e ma tters in C RT proj ector s bec ause i t en able s high er re s ol ut io n an d b ri gh te r i ma ge s . S o n y ’ s n ew VPH -G90U h as en tered th i s e li te m ar ke t a t an at tr a ct iv e $35, 000 pri ce to do bat tle w ith e xist- ing pro duc[...]

The G90 comes with two manuals. One is an operator’s manual that describes the basic user controls and the other an installation manual. The manuals are reasonably good but they could have done a bit better job explaining the basic memory system concepts. The service manual also left out a key point, failing to note that the status mode must be o[...]

te r or a mo ti on -ada pt ive 3 -D co mb fi lte r w hen u sin g the co mp osit e i npu t. Performance My overwhelming first impression of the Sony G90 was its razor-sharp image clarity. The 9-inch CRT technology reveals the resolution limits of projectors with smaller CRTs. I sup- pose it was even more impressive that the first things I looked at [...]

ne of the more exciting announcements at the last Consumer Electronics Show was the introduction of the Runco DTV-930, which significantly altered the price-performance curve for CRT projectors. The DTV-930 was cloned from one of Runco’s most successful products, the widely acclaimed IDP-980 Ultra. Conservatively built and highly reliable, the ID[...]

to accommodate the three lens assemblies and input connec- tors, and then slopes gently downward toward the rear. There are no handles or other means for lifting the projector so it can be quite awkward when lifting to a ceiling mount position. The three lens assemblies are recessed into the case with just their rims exposed on the front bezel. The[...]

A ccurate color reproduction depends on how well the projector’ s red, green, and blue primary colors matc h the SMPTE C standard phosphors, combined with the accuracy of the white-point color temperature. The projector ’ s white point has been calibrated to match the D65 standard white-point at 75 IRE. T he projector ’ s primary and complime[...]

horizontal and vertical scan frequencies and other source information can be displayed at any time. A phosphor saver function is provided to periodically shift the horizontal and vertical image position on screen to avoid a CRT burn. This function can be turned off if desired, although I believe it is a worthwhile function to use. If a very slight [...]

Any home theater that uses a CRT front projector cap a - ble of graphics- or data-grade resolution needs a way to reduce the visibility of scan lines and remove inter- lace artifacts, which become painfully unpleasant on a big screen. Until recently the devices (line doublers) for doing this with credible quality have cost over $7,500. For my own m[...]

fi lm s ource s but does n’t mat ch th e qua lit y of in ver s e - te lecine dei nterl acing . Performance My primary source for evaluating the IEV was a Sony DVP- S7000 DVD player, using its composite, S-Video, and compo- nent outputs to test the various Turboscan inputs. I also used a Pioneer CLD-97 laserdisc player with its composite and S- V [...]

the red bar. At the hori zon tal edge b etw een th e cyan bar an d magen ta patch (or the mag enta ba r and c yan pa tch) on t h e VE d is c co lor ba rs, t here were t wo or t hree da rk bl ue s can lines; t hese were part ial ly bro ken up into rows of jiggli ng dots above an d be low the tr ansitio ns. There wa s al so s ome b leedi n g of the l[...]

pu t). From th e setu p menu s, you also s elect wheth er you want 16.9 f ormat te d v ideo ou tput. Thi s i s cal led “wid e,” which m ight no t be self- expl ana tor y but the on-sc reen graphi c m a kes the mean ing clea r . Y o u can al so se lect w hethe r y ou w ant the dig ita l au dio ou t- pu t t o b e 24 bi t/48 kH z or 24 b it/96 kHz[...]

ly, the remote of the DVL-91, like that of the Theta Voyager, has no back lighting. Given the small size of many of the buttons, it is easy to hit the wrong one in the dark. L i ke a ll o f Pi o ne e r’ s r ece n t co mbi p la y er s, the DV L -9 1 has a sm al l dr aw er o n t h e f ro n t to pi c k up CD s or D V Ds a nd a l a rg er dr a we r fo[...]

In the last issue, we previewed a prototype of the DVDO iScan Plus line doubler, a breakthrough product at $699. Its price and key feature, inverse-telecine processing, threatens to restructure the line-doubler market. Inverse-telecine is a process that can convert interlaced video from film sources to progressive video without creating deinterlaci[...]

Edinburgh Intl. Film Festival August 15 – 29, 1999 Edinburgh, Scotland Montreal World Film Festival August 26 – September 26, 1999 Montreal, Canada Black Filmworks Festival of Film and Video September 1 – 3, 1999 Oakland, CA T elluride Film Festival September 3 – 6, 1999 T elluride, CO T oronto International Film Fest September 9 – 18, 19[...]

o many Americans, Roberto Benigni and his film Life Is Beautiful materialized out of nowhere. Who was this odd foreigner who suddenly jumped to the front of the line and garnered three Oscars: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Actor (a first for an actor in a foreign subtitled film), and Best Dramatic Score? Recently, in television interviews and in[...]

Though a number of films in which Benigni appears have not reached the US, many of his ear - lier efforts have been available for some time on home video in this country. As of this writing, none of his films have been released on DVD (with the exception of the just released Seeking Asylum – see sidebar). But while you wait for the soon-to-be rel[...]

persona, it is the second that gives us a glimpse of his remark- able chameleonic abilities as an actor. While comical, gang- ster Johnny is also a menacing figure and one to be feared, even if not taken completely seriously. This basic premise is not unlike that of the little known Buster Keaton film, The King of the Champs-Elysée , a 1934 French[...]

o rig inal Pin k P an ther fil m – go fig u re ). Sa d t o s ay , th o ug h , th e f il m ju st d oe sn ’ t w ork. Th e d ra mat ic pl ot of inte rna ti on al in tri gu e (the kid na pp ing of the Pr in c es s o f L ug as h pl ay e d by Deb rah Fa re n ti no ) is mu rk y an d un i nt e re st ing. T he comi c p lo t wi t h w hic h it is in ter t[...]

he fanatics among you will know, by the time you read this, that the long-awaited Stanley Kubrick boxed set of seven films, released through Warner Home Video, is a great big disappointment. I am, at the time of this writing, just experiencing that first wave of anger and incredulity. The DVD set was released, officially, on the very day this artic[...]

hanced) that came from UA/MGM some months ago, with all the flaws of that release, including the image “sharpenings” that leave everyone, from man to apes, outlined by fine miniature halos. The picture is soft and the colors a bit on the pink side (on both my viewing devices). I doubt that 2001 should ever be seen on home video, no matter what [...]

Alien Resurrection – we find each at its correct aspect, 2.35:1 for all save the James Cameron-direct- ed Aliens , done here at 1.85:1. All are enhanced for widescreen displays. All are in Dolby 5.1 surround, which, as we shall soon learn, is not always an unmixed blessing. And all have value-added features, ranging, at the simplest, from Resurre[...]

g oe s b e yo n d th e f ilm it sel f , sin c e th rou gh v ideo w e ha ve c om e t o, e ss en ti al ly , th e p re se rva ti o n of f il m h ist ory . B u t is , for in s ta n ce , T h e La st S t a r fi gh te r r e a lly al l tha t h is - to r ic all y sig nif ic a n t in the pio ne e rin g of dig it al eff ect s as i ts li ner no tes pr oc lai m[...]

– opportunity to run riot with the colors and they do. Dreams has some of the most beautiful visuals you’re going to see short of the next world and this transfer does them full, full justice. It is one of those rare instances where high-tech movie reproduction in the home is fully justified by the visual content of the film you’re seeing. Wh[...]

Elizabeth. Shekhur Kapur, director. With Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth), Joseph Fiennes (Leicester), Geoffrey Rush (Walsingham), Christopher Eccleston (Norfolk), Richard Attenborough (Cecil). 1.85:1 Widescreen. Dolby 5.1. Polygram Video. Enhanced for 16.9. Mrs. Brown. John Madden, director. With Judi Dench (Queen Victoria), Billy Connolly (Brown), Anto[...]

you regularly hear on ER , all of whom act as if they were in a T udor version of The Godfather – is to turn high drama into high kitsch. Dir ect or K apu r ’s f lor id, me lod rama tic vis ual s tyle o nly ma kes b ad ma tter s wo rse . Ka pur dot es on s hor t, p unch y , M T V -li ke t akes, i n w hic h he ty pical ly ra tchet s u p the f or[...]

ing a number of successful mainstream films such as Waterloo Bridge (1930), Showboat (1936), and The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). But it is his wildly popular horror films – Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – for which he is chiefly (and rightly) remembered. (The titl[...]

an d the Mon ster in one, he kill ed of f th e poor , undere ducated ou tcast he was born and – us ing piec es of other lives real or im agine d – reco nstitute d him sel f as the so phist ica t e he always want e d to be. The only ves ti g es o f t he ol d “Jimmy Whale” ar e fou nd i n his fi lm s, which, l ike t he patch wor k mon sters t[...]

Kubrick’ s Eyes Wide Shut . . . . . . . . . yes Wide Shut is one of those films that has the main - stream movie reviewers (I don’t dare use the word crit- ic in this context) in cloud cuckooland, with their assessments reading more like Rorshachs than having much to do with Stanley Kubrick’s last film. If you’ve seen the pic- ture, reading[...]

The Seventh Seal. Ingmar Bergman, director. 1957. B&W; 96 minutes; 1.33:1; Dolby Digital Monaural. Criterion DVD. h e Sev enth Se al was th e film t hat ma de Ingm ar Bergman internationally famous. After The Seventh Seal (and Wild Strawberries , which appeared later that same year, 1957), Bergman the brooding Swede was an inter - national succ[...]

whose existence he can no longer quite believe; the cynical squire has learned to take life as it comes, without the prop of divinity. Together they are Everyman (and Bergman), and together they face the questions that vexed and haunted the Fourteenth Century and our own: In a world beset by evil, in a world that God has seemingly deserted, in the [...]

feelings breaks through the allegory with moving power. The great set piece on the hillside, where the knight and the squire share “communion” – here a bowl of milk and a plate of straw- berries – with Jof and Mia has a beauty of spirit and gor- geousness of language that are as deeply moving as Bergman intends the scene to be. In spite of [...]

What The Perfect Vision Is About: The Perfect Vision positions itself as “The Journal of Digital Audio and Video.” We cover major facets of the home enter- tainment arena: video equipment (HDTV); audio equipment (speakers, digital power amplifiers); convergence technology (DVD drives, digital-signal processors); multimedia and music software; f[...]

Aerial Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 2 www.aerialacoustics.com Alphasound & V ision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7 6 www.alphasound.com A udio Products International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P age 60 www.sound-dynamics.com Audionut.com . . . . . . . . . . . [...]

EVENT EXPER T A EXPERT B EXPERT C SIGNIFICANCE 1 = Minor 5 = Major First consumer Dolby EX products go on sale Q4 1999 Q4 1999 Q4 1999 1 High-resolution, multi-channel digital audio output Q4 2000 Q4 2000 Q1 2001 4 on DVD-A and SACD players (IEEE1394 or Universal I2S) C: Important to achieving formats’ sonic potential. Electronic cinema (digital [...]