Podcast #747: Samsung HW-K450 Soundbar Review

Braden recently upgraded some of the gear in his loft because his boys were demanding a 4k television. There’s something to be said about raising a new generation of home theater enthusiasts, especially when they can help you gang up on the finance committee. They were approved for the purchase of a Vizio E70u-d3, but since we’ve already reviewed the Vizio P702ui-B3, we’ll skip the TV review and talk about what the boys decided to buy to upgrade sound in their loft, the Samsung HW-K450 Soundbar.

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Podcast #745: ViewSonic PJD5255 DLP Projector Review

We typically have some sort of backyard or outdoor theater discussion every summer when the weather is nice and we’d all like to take our movie watching to the great outdoors. We’ll probably do a more in-depth feature on the topic later in the summer, but as luck would have it, we found ourselves as the proud owners of a new ViewSonic PJD5255 DLP Projector ($339), a perfect backyard theater projector. But it’s good for much more than just outside, so you can even use it during the cold or rainy season.

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Podcast #740: Tivo Bolt Review

Cord cutting is all the rage, but for many of us, it simply isn’t an option. There’s way too many members of the household that can’t do without TV, you’re too far from the transmitters to get over-the-air TV, or the shows you really want to watch aren’t available from streaming, or you really like watching live events you can’t get over-the-air. Whatever that case, cutting the cord is a non-starter. Slimming the cord, however, could totally work. And the Tivo Bolt might be the perfect device to do it.

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Podcast #739: Yamaha RX-A850 Review

Last October Ara bought a Pioneer Elite VSX-90 7.2 Channel A/V Receiver for his family room. He was looking for something that would allow him to switch 4K content through to his Vizio P-Series 4K UHDTV. The receiver was able to do that and provide good quality sound but he was never happy with the reliability of the receiver. It wouldn’t turn on at times requiring a physical reset and it took as many as 8 seconds for it to switch inputs. One day a few weeks ago Ara had enough and decided to swap it out with a new receiver.

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Podcast #736: DirecTV 4K Review

DirecTV has added 4K capabilities to some of it’s Genie HD DVR models and we are fortunate enough to have a listener who has upgraded to the new service. Ralph Smithers, good friend of the show, was kind enough to share his experience with the upgrade process and quality of the 4K content available.

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Podcast #734: Bragi Dash Review and HDR Explained

For more than a year now we have been talking about 4K TVs and how they are supposed to be the next big thing. But in actuality the increased resolution is only mildly better than equally spec’d 1080p HDTVs. We have pointed to case study after case study that says you need very large (100” or more) screen to see a difference between 1080p and 4K when sitting at normal viewing distances. This alone is not a good reason to upgrade.

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