Home Theater Geeks (Video)

Mastering engineer Eric Boulanger talks about the process of mastering audio for music recordings. Topics include how he got into audio engineering after being a professional violinist, the process of mastering (especially for vinyl), the "loudness wars" (or as Eric prefers, the "loudness plague"), how he started his current facility called The Bakery, stories from mastering such titles as the soundtrack from La La Land and albums by Rufus Wainwright, Diana Krall, and Colbie Calliat, his involvement in Apple's "Mastered for iTunes" initiative, the real value of high-resolution audio, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Eric Boulanger

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Color-imaging scientist Jack Holm digs deep into high dynamic range. Topics include color volume, what artists might do with an expanded palette of colors and brightness, the actual dynamic range of most images, accurate versus preferred images, the difference between PQ and HLG HDR formats, the "look" of HLG, HLG's backward compatibility with SDR displays, the problems of delivering SDR and HDR streams, expanding SDR for HDR displays versus compressing HDR for SDR displays, the importance of the viewing environment, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Jack Holm

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Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Journalists Mike Heiss, Mark Henninger, and Tom Norton join host Scott Wilkinson to talk about what they saw and heard at the CEDIA Expo 2017. Topics include the new Sony projectors, such as the market-disrupting VPL-VW285ES ("4K for under $5K"); the new lower-cost JVC projectors; how none of the DLP projectors looked all that great (even the really expensive ones); ultra short-throw projectors, such as the Epson LS100; LED video walls; Samsung/SpectraCal auto-calibration; Fibbr fiber-optic HDMI cables; AV processors, such as the Emotiva RMC-1; speakers, such as the Definitive Technology Demand series and Creative X-Fi Sonic Carrier soundbar; the near ubiquity of voice control; our pics for the best video and audio at the show, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guests: Michael Heiss, Mark Henninger, and Tom Norton

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Tyll Hertsens, headphone maven and editor-in-chief of InnerFidelity.com, answers questions from the chat-room. He starts with a new killer headphone for less than $100, then discusses a variety of topics, including dual- and multi-driver headphones, balanced-armature drivers, whether or not price correlates with performance, how measurements correlate with performance, wireless headphones, high-res audio on headphones, his measurement and review process, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Tyll Hertsens

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Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Personal-cinema architect John Bishop discusses how he rates the performance of commercial cinemas with a 100-point scale, which provides a benchmark for how home cinemas should perform. In this episode, he focuses on the visual aspects, including viewing geometry, flat-field uniformity, light levels, screen materials, viewing angles, and other factors. Next, he offers ratings of various reference and commercial cinemas as well as some of the best home cinemas he has worked on. Plus, answers to chat-room questions and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: John Bishop

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Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Personal-cinema architect John Bishop talks about movie aspect ratios and how to accurately reproduce them. Topics include the aspect ratios of different movies through history, how some movies (such as Dunkirk and The Dark Knight) use more than one aspect ratio, his experience seeing Dunkirk in several venues with different projection setups, optical-anamorphic versus electronic aspect-ratio control, how electronic scaling affects resolution and contrast, the constant image-height approach to multi-aspect-ratio setups, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: John Bishop

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Audio engineer Bob Schulein talks about his work combining immersive binaural audio with virtual reality. Topics include the difference between VR for gaming and music recordings, different techniques for capturing binaural sound, head tracking, combining immersive audio with 3D video, Bob's latest project recording a bluegrass band in binaural audio and 3D video, binaural recordings from the artist's perspective, binaural playback with speakers, answers to chat-room questions, and more. We also play several clips with binaural audio, which can only be heard in the video versions of the podcast; the audio-only MP3 is mono, so no binaural effects can be heard in that case.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Bob Schulein

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Audio legend Bob Carver talks about what he's been up to lately with his new company, Bob Carver Corporation. Topics include tube amps and why they continue to be so appealing, new approaches to tube-amp design, increasing tube longevity, amplifier topologies, the importance of the output transformer, the relationship between power amps and speakers, damping factor, Bob's latest power amps, line-array speakers, Bob's Amazing Line Source speaker, his thoughts on subwoofers, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Bob Carver

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

Nanomaterial expert Peter Palomaki talks about quantum dots and microLEDs and how they apply to video displays. Topics include what quantum dots are, how they function, what they're made of, why cadmium-based quantum dots work best but are toxic, new materials used in the shells of quantum dots, the current and future ways they're used in TVs, replacing phosphors in LEDs with quantum dots, microLEDs and how they might be used in video displays, manufacturing microLEDs, answers to chat-room questions, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Peter Palomaki

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.

AVS Forum Associate Editor Mark Henninger and host Scott Wilkinson spend a pleasant hour answering questions from the chat room. Topics include why home projectors don't yet implement Dolby Vision, 4K/UHD projectors in the $2-3K price range, home-theater lighting control, whether we prefer the LG E7 or Sony A1E OLED TV, will there ever be a single HDR format, high-resolution audio, headphone virtualization, VR for movies, Dolby Atmos, and more.

Host: Scott Wilkinson

Guest: Mark Henninger

Subscribe to Home Theater Geeks at https://twit.tv/shows/home-theater-geeks

Thanks to CacheFly for the bandwidth for this show.