by: John Sciacca

Surely everyone remembers the latest format war. I happened to be at the Toshiba press conference in January 2008; the day that Toshiba’s Jodi Sally tearfully/agonizingly acknowledged that Warner would be switching allegiance to Blu-ray, effectively throwing the final tractor trailer load of dirt onto HD-DVD’s coffin, cementing Blu-ray as the “winner.”

But have they really won? Are people buying Blu-rays?

If you read the circulated numbers, you’ll see things like sales of Blu-ray titles being up 91% for the first six months of the year. “Wow! 91%! That’s huge!” Or is it?

Percentages don’t tell the whole story. I could tell you that I had a 2500% increase in funds. I could also tell you that I found a quarter. For Blu-ray, that 91% equals $407 million dollars. Compare that to the $14.5 billion that DVD pulled in last year.

From what I see, no one is buying Blu-rays. I recently vacationed in Destin, Florida and visited the Barnes & Nobles there. The girl running the video section said she’d never sold a Blu-ray disc. I go to my Super Wal-Mart about three times a week (the reality is every bit as depressing as it sounds) and I have never seen anyone even looking at the Blu-ray section, let alone buying any.

So, what’s the problem? It’s not the quality; Blu-ray looks and sounds amazing. (Please – PLEASE! – don’t try and tell me about your upconverting DVD player. It doesn’t look as good. It…doesn’t…look…as…good.) I have been a Netflix subscriber since they started, and now I shudder when I get a disc that isn’t Blu-ray. (Even though Netflix now charges a premium for the privilege. Why I oughta….) The audio/video performance is definitely not the problem.

While it took Blu-ray a while to get their players all sorted out (profile 1.0, 1.1, 2.0… WTF!?), the players are now (mostly) up to finalized spec. And the pricing is down where it needs to be with players at the sub $200 level. So it isn’t the players.

The problem is the software. The price for movies is just WAY too high. Most Blu-ray titles are marked at $34.99 and higher. And when the Blu-ray is sitting next to the double-disc-ultimate-extended-director’s cut DVD selling for $14.99, it makes it hard to get excited about plopping down the extra $20.

So, here’s a crazy idea… This is a new format. Why not, I dunno, incentivize me to support it? Instead of $20 more, why not $1 less. By God, I might actually buy two! Especially for films that are being re-released that I probably already bought. Yeah, I’m looking at you Terminator 2 and the four versions (VHS, Laser Disc and two DVDs) I already have. (And don’t get me started on George Lucas and all my versions of Star Wars…)

What do you think? Have you gone Blu? And if so, what is the magic price point that has you opening up your wallet to add discs to your collection?

by: John Sciacca

Back when the concept of home theater was really catching on, one of the selling catchphrases used to help justify the expense was that “a home theater is the swimming pool of the 90s.” I believe I even used it in a column at some point. The idea was, instead of dropping $15-20 grand on a pool, invest that in a home theater. Great, huh?

But now that I think about it, this is a poor analogy. First, pools are frickin’ expensive. And I’m not talking crazy, Hugh-Hefner-and-the-swim-in-grotto pools. An in-ground pool can easily run well over $50,000. Granted, you can drop that kind of coin on a theater as well, but you can get something really impressive for a good bit less. Second… Well, lots of reasons. As someone who owns both a swimming pool and a home theater, I’d like to tell you why owning a home theater is oh so much better than a pool.

Pools require constant care

Skimming, vacuuming, brushing, backwashing, chemicals, etc. It’s always something. The only care my theater requires is remembering to put the remote on the charging cradle.

Everyone enjoys watching movies

There are a lot of people who don’t want to go swimming. Whether it’s body issues or not wanting to mess their hair or whatever, some people just won’t go swimming. Everyone will sit and watch a movie.

It’s never too cold for your home theater

Unless you have a heater – ka-ching! – there will be many months of the year when you can’t use a swimming pool. Conversely, the weather is always perfect in my theater.

No one will ever drown in my theater

Being able to leave my 2 year old unattended in the theater is a pretty major difference.

You don’t feel like your home theater is out to get you

My pool is vindictive. I don’t know why, but it is. When it senses I’m about to leave town, it likes to break. Preferably over the weekend when it’s impossible to get a replacement part. This also leads to…

You’ll never come home and find your home theater has turned green or black

The first thing I do when returning home from vacation is check my pool. I’ve found dead animals in the filter, a broken glass table resting on the bottom and once the dreaded black water when my pump stopped running for two weeks. My theater? Fires up perfectly every time no matter how long I’m away.

No one tracks water into my house when watching a movie

Granted you might face the spilt beverage or overturned popcorn bowl, but these are relatively minor compared to wet people going in and out of the house to use the bathroom or grab a snack.

I don’t worry about anyone peeing in my theater

OK, my 2 year old has peed on the floor of my theater, but still.

by: John Sciacca

Backing up your data is something that everyone plans on doing, but tends to get backburnered for one reason or other. Truthfully, I was no different. Even with minor scares like my power supply crapping out and the hard drive making random clicking sounds — you know, the computer basically shooting up red flares telling me that trouble was a brewin’ – I still managed to put it off.

My procrastinating came to a head one day when my computer totally locked-up. After installing some updates and running a virus scan, not even the failsafe control-alt-delete worked. After a hard power down, the computer booted up into DOS and the monitor immediately began filling with screen after screen of code. This went on for several minutes until finally the desktop came on…totally blank!

I was instantly overcome with that watery, narrowly-avoided-a-horrible-car-wreck feeling. Had I stumbled across a virus that wiped my drive clean just for giggles? Was this the Conflicker worm rearing its ugly head? But most importantly, had I just lost my precious, irretrievable data? Every digital photo and video we’ve taken of our 2 ½ year old. My 8,000 song music collection. Eight years of Sound & Vision articles. Fifteen years of financial records. And every other scrap of data that makes up the unique 0s and 1s of what I hold dear.

Fortunately, the desktop returned to normal and my data was intact, but in those few moments, I became a true believer and I immediately ordered a hard drive, the Western Digital My Book Mirror. Out of the box, this wonder is pre-configured for RAID 1, meaning that it uses the 2 Terabytes as two mirrored 1 Terabyte drives. With some free software found on the Net, the computer now automatically performs back-ups weekly. Beyond the fear of losing data from a drive crash, I now have a small data “vault” that is easily evacuated in the case of emergency. (I live in hurricane prone Myrtle Beach.)

Spend a few seconds and consider what you’d lose if your computer suddenly had a grand mal. Sobering, no? Whether you buy a large external drive, use Network Attached Storage (NAS) or a bunch of USB drives, pay for remote storage or just routinely burn everything onto a DVD (or Blu-ray), make sure you’ve got a back-up plan in place and stick to it!

by John Sciacca

Remote controls are such a great idea, that we have decided that virtually everything needs one. Lights, ceiling fans, car starters, dog training collars, and of course every piece of consumer electronics known to man. There are even remote devices to help you find your other remotes. Surely, when the alien overlords come to enslave us all, they will take a look at the heaps of these discarded remotes littering coffee tables across the land and know that we are one lazy bunch. Actually, this might ultimately save us, since our obvious laziness will show that we probably aren’t going to be much good as slaves anyhow, but…

With that in mind, the idea of purchasing another remote might smack of Caligula-level excess, but many times that is exactly what is needed. To paraphrase my favorite bit of Middle-earth poetry, what many people need is “One remote to rule them all.”

Modern systems are so complex that they need one remote that can play quarterback to everything. Even something “simple” like watching TV can require five or more button presses on three different remotes. The good news is that there are many great remotes under $500 that can tame even the unruliest of systems.

But if you want total control, you might need to step up to a controller that costs $1000 or more. These remotes add features like radio frequency for “no pointing” operation, source power sensing and logic to know when to turn components on or when to leave them alone and RS-232 and IP control for even better communication with your system.

Further as homes continue to get smarter, everything becomes more intricately interconnected. And if you don’t want your home becoming totally self-aware and sending Terminators back from the future to attack your ancestors, then you better make sure you can control everything. And this is where the smartest of remotes come in, capable of interfacing with all manner of your home’s sub-systems: lighting, HVAC, surveillance and security, irrigation, pool and spa control, etc.

In the end, the best remotes allow you to truly enjoy your system instead of studying for the doctoral exam of figuring out how to operate it, and that makes a great remote one of the smartest investments you’ll ever make.

by John Sciacca

One of the hottest lifestyle trends right now is outdoor living, and there is plenty that can be done to expand your entertaining options beyond your home’s four walls. But no matter how nice your space, you can’t really entertain outdoors until you have some audio and video to liven up the party.

Whether you opt for an inexpensive stereo receiver, use your surround system’s Zone 2 output or enjoy a Macked-out whole-house A/V system, options for getting your music outside are more plentiful than ever.

For A/V gear, the outdoors is a far different world than cushy indoor living. Whether it’s surviving the cruel desert sun, bearing up to unrelenting snows, living rust-free in the coastal salt air or just gutting it out in the toxic death clouds of LA, anything that is going to remain outdoors permanently has to be designed for it. Chances are your favorite speaker manufacturer has a model for the task. Just don’t expect it to look like a speaker. Because, God help you if you have a party and have to endure the indignity of someone pointing out that that plastic encapsulated monitor with sweet-sweet music pouring out of it is actually a speaker. It’s far less shameful to choose a model that disappears ninja-like into your landscaping. Rock speakers are very popular, as are models that resemble planters. Several manufacturers have even created models that resemble landscape lighting. Others can be buried in the ground or mounted to the underside of a wood deck.

When placing speakers outdoors, resisting the urge to skimp out and use a single pair of speakers is key. Imagine your backyard as a Super Wal-Mart for a moment. Minus the long lines, the forlorn wails of hundreds of children and the incessant calls over the PA, of course. The point is, Wal-Mart could put a single speaker in the center of the store and play it loud enough that everyone could hear the desperate calls of sales at the meat counter. However, it would be barely audible to some and soul-witheringly loud to others. Far better to have many speakers spaced out all playing a controlled and comfortable level. Same goes for your backyard. Trust me on this; more is almost always better. Your friends and neighbors will definitely thank you.

Now, load up a playlist on your iPod, grab a beer, and get outside and start living!