Home Theater Geeks (Video)

Daniel has a 9-year-old Vizio soundbar that works great except that the HDMI ARC connection just died. He wants something inexpensive to replace it; Scott Wilkinson offers some recommendations. Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Sound & Vision is the only home-theater print magazine left standing in the US, and its last print issue will be October/November 2024. With its demise, a proud and complicated history of home-theater magazines comes to a close. Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

In this gem, owner Steve turned a spare bedroom into a beautiful home theater. His unique masking system is ingenious, as is the swing-out screen that lets him access the speakers and the back of the equipment rack. It has only three seats, but this theater is an exemplar of what can be done with a small space. Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

The 2024 CEDIA Expo was filled to the brim with new audio and video products as well as a bunch of awesome demos. Journalist, consultant and jolly good CEDIA Fellow Mike Heiss joins Scott Wilkinson to discuss what he saw and heard there. In Part 3, we talk about some of the new audio products introduced at the show. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Michael Heiss Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

The 2024 CEDIA Expo was filled to the brim with new audio and video products as well as a bunch of awesome demos. Journalist, consultant and jolly good CEDIA Fellow Mike Heiss joins Scott Wilkinson to discuss what he saw and heard there. In Part 2, we talk about some of the new video products introduced at the show. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Michael Heiss Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Josh is a blind tech geek, and he asks a really interesting question about the balance between the quality of speakers and the quality of audio files. Will high-quality lossless audio files make junky speakers sound better? Scott Wilkinson offers his two cents. Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Mike has a Sony HT-A3000 soundbar, and he wants to add external speakers that will expand the sonic experience. Fortunately, Sony offers just what he's looking for. Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

PK doesn't watch movies or TV shows, only sports. He's moving and wants to know which TV technology is best for sports in his new place. Scott Wilkinson has the answer! Host: Scott Wilkinson Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Scott Wilkinson chats with Mike Heiss about what he saw at CES 2024. In part 1, Mike talks about how TVs are now vehicles for ads and commerce, how AI was everywhere at the show, and how TVs are getting even bigger. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guest: Michael Heiss Want access to the video version and exclusive features? Become a member of Club TWiT today! https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.

Scarsdale, NY, retailer Value Electronics hosts an annual TV shootout in which the flagship 4K and 8K models from major manufacturers are lined up, calibrated, and evaluated by a panel of expert judges to see which is the best. Robert Zohn, owner of Value Electronics, Jason Dustal, one of the calibrators, and David Mackenzie, one of the judges, join Scott Wilkinson to discuss day one of this year's event and reveal the King of 4K TV. Host: Scott Wilkinson Guests: Robert Zohn, David Mackenzie, and Jason Dustal Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.

TVs have gotten very smart—too smart for their own good, in fact. To see the best possible picture quality, you should really disable many of the controls that purport to improve it, but in reality, they make it worse. Scott talks about the controls that you should disable to get the best possible picture quality. Host: Scott Wilkinson Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.

THX has long been known for certifying the performance of commercial cinemas and consumer AV products. The company has also developed its own technologies, including its latest Spatial Audio, which expands 2-channel and multichannel audio into a fully 3-dimensional immersive sound field. In Part 1 of this exclusive interview, THX CEO Jason Fiber and Senior Director of Product Development Kasson Crooker explain what Spatial Audio is and how it works. Host: Scott Wilkinson Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.

Always at the forefront of technology, Chief TWiT Leo Laporte recently bought a Samsung QN77S95C, the second generation of a new flat-panel TV technology called QD OLED. While he was on vacation, Leo invited Scott Wilkinson to check it out at his home. The image is gorgeous, but the only UHD Blu-ray player Leo has is an Xbox Series X gaming console, which gave Scott some trouble when he tried to play a setup disc to make some basic adjustments. Still, the TV produces an exceptional image worthy of The Tech Guy. Get the Samsung 77-Inch Class OLED 4K S95C Series: https://amzn.to/415aeld Host: Scott Wilkinson Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.

In most cases, when you buy a new TV, bring it home, take it out of the box, plug it in, and turn it on, the picture quality is preset to look rather garish and over-the-top. Many people think that's what it's supposed to look like, but it ain't necessarily so. Scott Wilkinson shows you how to make a few adjustments so the image looks much more natural and closer to what the content creators intended. The adjustments he discusses in this episode do not require any test patterns, just your TV's remote. As he mentions, manufacturers do not always use the same terminology for things; for example, Scott recommends a Picture Mode called Movie, Cinema, or Filmmaker, but in the examples shown on the screen (which are from a Vizio PX75-G1), there are no so-named Picture Modes. Instead, the best modes are Calibrated or Calibrated Dark; try each to see which you prefer. Both will give you a more natural, accurate image than any other Picture Modes. Host: Scott Wilkinson Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.

Surprisingly, Sony did not announce any new TVs at CES 2023. Instead, the company opted to wait until March to unveil its 2023 lineup—and what a lineup it is! The highly anticipated second generation of QD-OLED is joined by new models of conventional OLED and LED-illuminated LCD TVs with upgraded processing and other new features that are sure to tempt any home theater geek. Host: Scott Wilkinson Club TWiT members can discuss episodes in the Club TWiT Discord.