Weekly Site Roundup (11/10/03)

ARTICLE SPOTLIGHT
Holiday Shopping Resource Index
Halloween is over, the Thanksgiving turkey is slow cooking in the oven. Dad's in the basement getting that old furnance started back up, and its time to get those winter clothes out of the closest. The winter holiday shopping crunch is now upon us. Buying decisions need to be made. Where do you start? Before heading out the door with newspapter AD in hand, check out my Holiday Shopping Resource Index. The index includes several important resources for a successful holiday shopping experience, includng: Shopping Survival Guide, What's Hot and Not, Before You Buy information for a variety of products, and Home Theater Top Product Picks. This resource in the perfect jumping off point for every Home Theater or Gadget Holiday Shopper.

HOME ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY NEWS HEADLINES
Bose Sues CEDIA Over “Electronic Lifestyles®” Trademark (Audio Revolution)
International CES 2004 Expected To Be Largest Ever (TWICE)
Sony Celebrates WEGA Anniversary (TWICE)
Cambridge SoundWorks Introduce Four DVD-Audio Systems (High Fidelity Review)
Toshiba, NEC Rally Support for `HD-DVD’ (TWICE)
DVD-Audio Council Members Announce Seventy New Titles by Year End (High Fidelity Review)
RIAA Details Anti-Piracy War (Stereophile)

PRODUCT OF THE WEEK
Kenwood HTB-206 - Home Theater-In-A-Box
If you already have a DVD player, this inexpensive, but feature-packed, system may be for you. The package consists of a fully functional Dolby Digital/DTS AV receiver with a Dolby Pro-Logic II decoder, which will create a surround sound environment from any two-channel music or movie source. Power output is a respective 100X6 WPC and also comes with all speakers including a Subwoofer. Explosive sound for a very modest price; great for smaller rooms, such as apartments.
Manufacturer's Site

FEATURED LINKS THIS WEEK
Cobalt Cables
NEW Premium cables and interconnects for your home theater or audio system. Execellent cables, especially for installations requiring long lengths. Five Star rating from your Guide

Audio/Video Forum
Great source for DVD movie reviews and home theater discussion.

FROM THE HOME THEATER FORUM
TV Audio Newbie Questions
From MHABER2:
I have a small (21" or so) Sanyo television circa early 90s, and am considering hooking up a pair of bookshelf speakers to it. It has two composite (RCA) sound out jacks, labeled "variable" in paranthesis. My question is do I hook up the speakers directly to the TV, or do I need a receiver? I will also be using a VCR, DVD and two game systems with the TV...
Join in on the discussion.

FROM THE MAILBOX
From Mike:
Robert, I’ve got two questions for you. I own an older model Yamaha receiver that doesn’t have a built-in Dolby Digital or DTS decoder. It also does not have optical or coaxial inputs. I am now in the market for a DVD/VCR combo (b/c my Sony DVP-S560D doesn’t play DVD+Rs) and I am wondering if I should buy one with a built-in DD and DTS decoder? Will it give my system the ability to process DD and DTS sound with my old receiver even if I don’t have optical or coaxial inputs? I am better off buying a separate DD and DTS processor? Am I out of luck until I decide to buy a new receiver?

Second question – I’ve been looking at various DVD/VCR players and have found that a few have 10bit/54mHz Video D/A as opposed to 10bit/27mHz. Can you tell me what this means? I assume the greater mHz the better, but will I even notice the difference?

Thanks in advance for your help. I’ve been searching the Internet for a week trying to find answers to these questions with no luck.
From Your Guide:
If your receiver is one of the later model Pro-Logic only AV receivers, check to see if it is "dolby Digital/DTS ready" by way of having separate 5-channel inputs for an external DD/DTS decoder -- if so, if you could purchase a DVD player that has built-in decoders, you can use the 5-channel analog outputs provided on such DVD players to hook up to any receiver that has a set of 5-channel analog inputs.

However, if your receiver does not have 5-channel analog inputs, you would have to buy a new receiver to get the benefits of DD or DTS as such receivers would have the digital optical/digital coax connections for decoding DD and DTS, and you wouldn't have to get a DVD player with its own built-in decoders.

Also, whether or not you would notice the difference in video processing -- it would depend on the TV and output/input connections used between the DVD player and the TV.

FINAL WORDS

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Stereophile Guide To Home Theater.
Stereophile Magazine.

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A Special Reminder: Although I update this site regularly, sometimes I miss broken links, this is especially a concern as old product listings expire and new ones have different link addresses. If you encounter any broken links in my articles or listings, just bring it to my attention so I can correct the address or delete it from the site if it has expired and can no longer be accessed.

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