Have Video Will Travel

Audiophiles are forever resentful when state-of –the-art video technology become their despotic overlords. Have we seen this coming?


By: Vanessa Uy


Ever since George Lucas tackled the problem of insufficient sound quality that exists in an overwhelming majority of commercial movie theaters not doing justice of the "soundtrack" i.e. the musical score and sound effects of his masterpiece “Star Wars” back in the late 1970’s. By establishing his THX program and together with Dolby, finally made a new dimension available to the moviegoers – namely good quality sound. I do admit that most horror movie’s “scariness factor” can be dramatically increased when the desolate sonic ambiance of a quiet cemetery or a haunted house can be faithfully recreated inside a movie theater. Thus the excellent results of George Lucas’ THX program was hijacked by the consumer electronics industry to sell their “Home Theater” concept. Maybe “Home Theater” is much easier to sell because the consumer electronics industry can’t figure out how to include pimps, hookers, and cocaine peddling drug dealers when they tried to sell us “Home Disco” back in the late 1970’s.

Despite concerns over high electricity consumption and the ensuing enlargement of my personal “carbon footprint”, my personal disdain – make that cynicism – over the “Home Theater / Surround Sound” industry is largely to my very personal tastes and aesthetics. Most of the “multimedia stuff” I watch domestically are what a majority of people would consider “old”. To be watching a DVD of that old Frank Sinatra version of The Manchurian Candidate or an episode of Coronation Street just four feet in front of a 3,000 dollar 150 inch plasma screen with a THX certified surround sound system is a tad too overkill for me.

The audiophile community has since harbored resentment, not only because the home theater industry made their hobby more expensive than it actually is. But also by actively – I mean actively - perpetuating the fallacy that a good audio system must / should have a large video monitor that costs similar to a budget Japanese car and is surround-sound capable with speakers littered all around the listening room. Now, the pimps, hookers, dealers, and junkies (even Osama Bin Laden?) can now come to your home via the state-of-the-art video monitor. Ok, I’ll admit that it’s a technological “Stepping Stone” to Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Holodeck” technology. But should we the consumer foot the bill for these companies R&D development? We’re not walking banks you know.

In my opinion, the consumer electronics industry has been exploiting the “video bandwagon” for one thing only – it sells. So if your selling a bona fide “Luxury Item” that most people can really do without, you should exploit the sense that they use most even if not conscientiously – their vision. Video monitors sell so easily because overwhelmingly most people use their sense of sight more than they use their sense of hearing. The “latest technology” catchphrase being used as a unique selling point describing the improved quality of the video monitors that these companies are selling are easily manifest by sight alone. The old adage of “to see is to believe” really applies when it comes to touting the improved quality of the latest models of video monitors that they are trying to sell.

The only thing that bothers me though is the way today’s consumer electronics “marketing men” use the old adage of “to see is to believe” in perpetuating the myth that sound quality is unimportant. They rely on oscilloscopes and PC compatible audio analyzers to show – or make visually manifest - how excellent their latest audio amplifiers perform. They do this even though a tube-based amplifier using technology form an era when Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower was still the president of the United States is more beautiful and real sounding than their latest model. Home Theater as a concept is really great, but it can’t quite compete yet with this thing we call “real life”.

High Definition Multimedia Content Anyone?

Does the latest generation of downloadable high definition (HD) multimedia content worth viewing and hearing in our dedicated HD-ready home theater set-ups?


By: Vanessa Uy


Nowadays, HD (high definition) multimedia content (audio and video) that can be downloaded from the net via your own home PC is of such quality that most of them-if not all- deserve to be viewed and heard in your existing HD-ready home theater system. If you’re like me – as most of anyone in the audiophile community- who thinks that your PC and home theater system should not mix (i.e. share the same outlet) because the former can degrade the performance of the latter must face a somewhat insurmountable problem. How to send that high definition movie -with the attendant surround sound data- that you legally downloaded from the net, from your PC to your home theater set up?

There are a number of systems in which you can deliver/send that HD content you have downloaded from the web. One of them is a relatively new technology - which uses your mains/ac line to send your data. Consumer devices that utilize this principle of sending data only came to the market near the end of 1997. So the ones currently available in your local AV/computer store not only works better, it’s likely to be cheaper as well thanks to almost ten years of progress. This has the advantage of avoiding the clutter that can be created when installing the necessary data-transfer cables. The problem with this system is that if you own a state-of-the-art home theater system, you probably bought with it a very good dedicated mains/ac line filter to maintain the consistently good performance of your home theater system while protecting it from electrical interference and lightning strikes. The same mains/ac line conditioner blocks the digital data that you intend to send down your mains/ac lines. Another way to send your multimedia data while avoiding the clutter of additional cables is via WIFI or wireless data transfer systems. The current generation of WIFI systems can easily handle the bandwidth required in sending HD multimedia content but will be easily vulnerable to signal interference especially if you use your mobile phone while using the WIFI system. If you want to maintain signal integrity while transferring HD multimedia data, Ethernet networks are a good choice. A word of warning though because these systems involve additional wiring if you are squeamish about the clutter factor. The latest “Cat 6” or category 6 high speed Ethernet connections are a good choice and could be a very good investment because of it’s future proof status. This is due to the fact that it can handle data transfer speeds of 10 Gigabits per second and anything faster is yet in the far off future.

I just hope that the circa-2007 PC and AV convergence will bear the fruits of a better audio and video quality that doesn’t cost the earth. Unlike the divergence of 10 or 15 years ago were hi-fi manufacturers have the luxury of producing and selling obscenely expensive AV equipment with impunity. Since all of our present media formats are digital in one form or another, convergence is inevitable due to the fact that digital data is both robust and universal.