Scott joins us to talk about how the Sony OLED TV won the great Value Electronics Shootout. He's written a great article about it here. Also, this week, Scott attended a monthly meeting of SMPTE, the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, about immersive technologies. Scott says that the talk was about how 3D is essentially simulated. How do you get an authentic holographic presentation? The current solution is through Light Fields.
This year, Scott Wilkinson was MC at the annual Value Electronics TV Shootout in New York. The test was done using TVs own on board Netflix apps to keep everything even. There was even a blu-ray player which used a switcher to send the signal to each TV. Top contenders for 2019 included the LG C9 OLED, Samsung Q90R, Sony A9G OLED, and the Sony Z9F LED LCD TV. There was also the Sony X800 Pro Reference monitor used for comparison to see how close each TV came to it. All 4K, HDR. There eight professional color grading pros judging.
Tony wants to know if high-end Speaker Cables are worth the money. He spent $400 on some recently. Leo says HOLY COW. They also offer a "break in service." Is that worth the money? Leo says that cables don't need to be broken in, but the Speakers may. $400 for cables is pretty steep. There's no real way to measure if expensive gold cables are any better than lower cost cables. It's entirely subjective, whether you think it sounds better or not. But if it sounds better to you, then it is better. So, why not?
Scott says that Vizio has announced their 2019 lineup and he says that the TVs are very impressive. Vizio has been using Quantum Dot technology in their top of the line models for a few years, but this year, they have moved the technology down to the mid-range. And that's a good thing. In their top of the line Quantum PX, they have a peak brightness of 3000 NITS, which is super bright. Why so bright? Because of the high dynamic range. They need that brightness for "specular highlights" of tiny reflections. The Color Range has also been expanded.
Scott has a question from a user that wants to know how he can run his audio from the TV to his home theatre. He uses the TV's internal smart apps. Scott says that the audio return channel (ARC) that you want to use. This depends on his receiver. Current TVs have this capability. Take the HDMI out from the receiver to the ARC port. That way the sound will come out of the home theatre speakers.
This week in San Jose is the annual Super Geek Display Conference. Scott says it's the display conference of the future. And one of those future display tech advancements is Electroluminescent Quantum Dots. It's like OLED but 10 times as bright. Read his article on AVSForum here.
Scott has been testing a new in-ear monitor headphone called the REVONEXT, and when you put on the proper "tips" for your hears, the sound is really nice. Good bass, ground stereo sound. But if you use the wrong size tips, the sound degrades to being very tinny. They come with three different tip sizes and are only $30. But they're also wired headphones, so if you're a current iPhone user, you'll need a lightning adapter. Periodic Audio and Comply sell memory foam ear tips that will also work for them. Another cool function is that the cable that the IEMs use aredetachable.
Scott is back to talk about a new movie service announced at NAB .. the RED CARPET MOVIE SERVICE. Scott has been reviewing noise cancelling headphones for TechHive.com of late, and he's found that the audio quality actually improves when you turn on noise cancelling, even if you don't need it.
Leo tells Scott that he saw a movie on Netflix called the Highwaymen, and it was in Atmos! Scott says that Netflix supports Atmos at home now, as well as HDR. So it really is an impressive way to watch streaming video.
Mike's Yamaha home theatre system lost its centre channel, so he plugged in an old Luxman AV receiver and he says that the sound is incredible. Leo says that the quality of amps has changed over the years, and he's not surprised. The digital-to-analogue converter is probably much better. The choice of DAC can make a huge difference. Can he get a remote for it? Leo says if it doesn't have a remote, then no universal remote will work, since there's no remote to emulate. But if he can find out that the model did support the remote, then he can. Check out HiFiEngine.com to check.
