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Home Theater Geeks 526: Chatroom Q&A Special 4!
00:41:15
Sony/TCL Joint Venture, BT.2020, Scott's Speakers, & More!
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In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I spend some quality time answering questions from the chat room. So stick around. Podcasts you love from people you trust.
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This is Twit.
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Hey there, Scott Wilkinson here, the home theater geek. In this episode I'm going to be answering questions from the chat room. So if you're in the chat room, post your AV questions and I would love to talk about them. I do this every month or two just because I love interacting with the audience and this gives me a chance to do just that. So here, first question I see is is one I I can partly answer, but not entirely. It's from P. Sing 66950 wants to know about the best headphones and camcorder for mini personal studio and online UHD video calls. Well, I don't know that much about camcorders, I'm afraid. What I'm using for this show is a Logitech Brio, which I think is 1080p. I'm not 100 sure about that. I don't. It might be 4k but you're talking about an actual video studio. And I can't talk about camcorders because I don't know that much about them. Headphones I know more about and I would certainly recommend wired headphones instead of wireless Bluetooth. They'll be more reliable. And earbuds if you're going to be on camera. I don't know if you're going to be on camera. Not planning to be, but if you are, earbuds like what I'm wearing right now are the way to go. Unless you want to look like a geek and have big on ear headphones. You could do that. But there are tons of of good earbuds that would, that would work just fine. Not all that expensive. Sennheiser makes some really good ones. Campfire Audio makes some really good ones. These are so old I don't remember who made them but. But yeah. And the problem with wired headphones of course is that fewer and fewer devices actually have headphone outputs. But if you're in a studio, I suspect you would probably be able have a device that has a headphone output. In particular your USB audio interface that connects to your computer. That would certainly have. That's what I'm using here. A Scarlet Solo which has a headphone output and, and so I would definitely do that. Speaking of USB interfaces, audio interfaces, Scarlett is excellent. The Scarlett Solo highly recommend. It's what I use. M Audio makes a good one. Presonus makes a good one. There are a number of companies that, that make really good USB audio interfaces. And you don't need a big one. You might need a 4 channel depending on what you're doing. I myself just use this. It's a two channel interface and I just use one channel of it. The Scarlet Solo and the Logitech Brio. It's a webcam. So if you really want 4k, I'm afraid I can't help you on camcorders. That would be, that would be beyond my expertise, I'm afraid. So looks like things are still, still working, which is great. I've been having some technical difficulties lately with my, my Internet connection dropping out and so on, but it seems to be steady now. LMJ oh, seven, seven, seven. How come Sony is letting TCL take over their TV business? And what about future TV firmware updates from Sony? Great question. I address this issue in episode. Let's see, this is episode 524, I believe. Oh, I don't remember what, what number it is now, but I do address this. I talk about the Sony TCL merger. Well, it's not a merger exactly. They're engaging in a joint venture whereby they will make Sony's audio and video products, TVs, sound bars, subwoofers, speakers, receivers. I assume. I don't know about projectors. I would guess so because they have a whole line of consumer projectors. This is the. Their consumer lines of audio and video products. How come Sony allowed TCL to take over the making of the business? Because keep in mind TTCL will own 51% of this joint venture. Sony will own 49%. So TCL has the controlling interest. And they talked a lot about in their press releases and so on, they talked a lot about, you know, expanding their Market Share Using TCL's advanced display technology, which. Doesn't Sony have advanced display technology? Of course they do. Sony in fact has more advanced video processing. I would say so. I'm not sure why TCL's advanced video technology made it into that press release. They also though talked about wider global distribution and greater manufacturing capabilities, which I'm sure TCL does have. They probably have huge manufacturing facilities, more so than Sony, so that will help them make more product. And I think in between the lines of the press releases they were talking about, essentially I interpreted it as bringing prices down on Sony products because Sony products are more expensive than comparable products from other companies, especially tcl. So how Sony products will probably become less expensive, meaning that they'll be more widely accessible to a wider range of people. Will they come down to the level of tcl? I'd be surprised if they did, because if they did, then what's to differentiate between one from the other? So I suspect Sony will still be a more premium brand, but it'll be less expensive. That would be great. I suspect that's probably why Sony did it, because they had they would have access to a larger manufacturing facility, be able to stamp out more products less expensively, and therefore be able to charge less. That would be my interpretation of that. You know what? I'm gonna pull up my list of of episodes so that I can tell you what number Sony TCL and Sony joined forces. 523 Episode 523. We'll have more information about that. And this episode we're doing right now is 5:26. So there you go. And looks like Jim's going to post a question here in a minute while we're waiting for him. Twisted Mr. Cough sharp cough. Yes, we Sharp actually came became visible again at CES 2026 and in my coverage of that of CES, we did talk about that. I talked about that with Mike Heiss, who went to the show. I did not. I haven't been to CES since COVID Of course I was there January of 2020 and then Covid hit shortly thereafter and I didn't go for four years and then I haven't been since next year I've heard is the 60th anniversary of CES. So I might go, I might go to that just for old time's sake. But you know, it's a petri dish of of germs. Not only Covid, but all kinds of stuff. So I might not
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K Pop Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast Meal and Hunt Tricks Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi? It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest
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of the day it is an honor to share.
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No, it's our honor.
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It is our larger. No, really, stop.
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You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side
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and participate in McDonald's while supplies last. Victor Hernandez, VH1 says Sony TCL deal is currently a memorandum of understanding. That is true. We're waiting for the binding agreement by March, the end of this month, March 2026, and begin joint operations in April 2027. That's all correct, Victor. Thank you very much for clarifying that. So we're not going to see anything, any result of this, of this joint partnership collaboration for another year and we're, and we're still going to see Sony product. That was one thing that was made clear was that the Sony and Bravia brand names were going to continue. So it's just going to be the TCL is going to be involved in the development and manufacture and marketing of these TVs and, and audio products. So it'll be very interesting to see what happens. You know, the, one of the only reasons I would choose, I think, to go back to CE would be to go see the Sphere. If you've seen it, I'm jealous because I really want to see it. It's, it's a spectacular thing. From everything I've read, the, the audience capacity is something like 17, 18, 000 people. That's the same as the Hollywood Bowl. And I really want to learn more about the audio and video technology. It's a direct view LED display that covers, you know, half of the inside of the dome and the entirety of the outside of the dome. I have a friend who recently moved to Vegas, so I could probably avoid staying in a hotel. That would be a big plus because as anybody who's been to CES knows, hotel prices in Vegas, they fluctuate wildly depending upon whether there's anything big happening. And at ces that's a big thing. And the hotel prices are just astronomical. And if I don't have a company paying my way, which I really used to enjoy, then I think staying with a friend would be the way to go. Yes. LMJ0777. I guess I'll have one of the Last Sony made OLEDs before TCL takes over. I feel the same way. I have a Sony QD O and I love it. It just looks fantastic. And I'm wondering whether or not Sony OLED will survive this shift in, in manufacturing and development because TCL doesn't make any OLEDs and Sony gets their panels, I think from Samsung Samsung Display is the company that makes QD OLED panels for the, for Samsung OLED TVs as well as Sony. So that may stop. And TCL doesn't have any OLED manufacturing infrastructure as far as I know. And so that, that what we have, you and I may be among the last. Certainly there are some beyond what I I got. I have the. It's the A95L and they have A. Now the Bravia 8 Mark II I think is a QD OLED. I'd have to look that up. But I, I really am concerned that Sony OLED will disappear in a year or two, so that would be unfortunate. But I will enjoy mine as long as I can because it's really fantastic. I have the 77 inch and I didn't get a projector for my theater space because I projectors, they do hdr, high dynamic range, but just not as well. They can't get as bright as a flat panel tv. Now I could have gone with an LCD type tv, mini mini, LED backlit LCD tv which would have gotten a lot brighter no doubt, but it also would have had higher black levels and I'm a sucker for deep black levels. That's. There's just no substitute for it. So I went with OLED and the Sony qd. OLED was. It looked fantastic, still does, and it will for many years to come. Jim Abraham asks what kind of stereo receiver do I have? And speakers. Well, I don't have a stereo receiver. I guess you could call it a stereo receiver. It's not actually a receiver, but it brings up an interesting point that I'll get to and then tell you what I have. The word stereo has come to mean two channel, but it doesn't really. It comes from the Greek meaning solid and so it refers to an audio image that is solid. And so it can in fact be applied to a multi channel system. Perfectly well and perfectly. Truthfully, it's commonly used to mean two channel, but it doesn't have to. So I don't have a two channel system. I have a multi channel system. It's not a receiver because a receiver has preamps, processing and amplifiers in one box. That's sort of the definition of receiver. You might also say it has a radio tuner. That has been the classic definition of a receiver. I guess that probably is still true. In any event, I don't have the. My amplifiers are separate so it's what's called a separate system. I have a Marantz 8802A preamp processor. So it's got a bunch of HDMI inputs. It's got video and audio processing, and it sends the video signal out to the tv. It sends the audio signal out to external amplifiers, which are an integral part of the speakers that I have, which are from a company called Grimani Systems, which is the brainchild of Anthony Grimani, who. Who I've had on the show more than once. He is a brilliant, brilliant guy. He's an acoustician. He has a company that does acoustic treatments and analysis, and he has a speaker company that makes speakers. And those speakers all come with their own power amps, so they are what are called active or powered speakers. Now, interestingly, in many cases, powered speakers have the amplifier physically inside the cabinet of the speaker. This is the case with Bluetooth speakers, for example. These are not that. The. The amplifiers are outside of the speaker cabinets. They're in a rack. They actually come from an Italian company called powersoft. And they get fed with digital signals, and then they translate those into analog and send the analog signal to finally to the speaker. So they have digital crossovers in them. They can be controlled over the Internet because they have Ethernet connectors. So they're very cool in that regard. And there's a picture of Grimani Systems. They make a pretty wide variety of speakers. I have the Rixos S. You just passed by it. If we come back a little bit, those are my front, right, and left speakers. And they sit on either side of the tv. And then I have a Rixos center channel. I forget the model number. If we scroll down, we'll probably find it. There it is. The H. H2, I believe, is what it is. That is the center channel that's sitting just below the tv. And then my surround and overhead speakers are the Rixos W, which. Let's see if we can find that one here. It's a. It's a wedge speaker. There it is, the Rixos W. And it's actually the. Probably the wd, now that I think about it, which is. There it is. So this is a speaker that has a woofer and a compression tweeter in a waveguide, horn type waveguide. And that's sitting on the ceiling. You could mount it in the ceiling if you wanted. You could mount the Rixos S on the ceiling, in the wall as well, in the center as well. But I mounted them on the wall. I don't care about no speakers visible. And I thought it might be better for the resale value of the house if I didn't have big holes in the walls and the ceiling doesn't matter anyway. I just mounted them on the ceiling. There are two of those Rixos w the wedge type speakers just behind the listening position and to the sides for the side surrounds. Two in back for the back surrounds and two in front of the side surrounds pointing down toward the listener for the Atmos channels. So that gives me a 7.2.2 system. I have two Atmos speakers above and I have two subwoofers also from Grimani. They are the Zeta, I believe, subwoofers and I have two of them because I'm a strong believer in having two subs in a room which helps if you place them correctly, helps you minimize the room modes. So there it is. Single 13.5 inch driver, 600 watt amplifier. And that one also interestingly, the amplifier is outside the box sitting in the rack. Now Grimani, as I said, Anthony Grimani is, is a genius and I am so thrilled to have his system in my, in my theater. It's not cheap, these are not cheap speakers, but they're all handmade basically in the United States. So. And they're designed by Anthony Grimani, a certifiable genius. So that's why I have them and I love them. They just sound great. Hey Robert Zones in the chat room. Hey Robert, good to see you and thank you for your kind words. I do like to keep everybody informed as much as possible on video and audio. And that, that's great. I'm sure glad to see you here. See here DMS 7362. What is your, what in your opinion is the best sub 2000 UST projector. UST stands for ultra Short Throw. It's the type of projector that you place near the wall where the image is going to be and it shoots up at a steep angle and fills a certain size of screen with, with the image. That's what it's designed to do. Sub 2000 well, there are actually quite a few and I would have to say that there's one company, one chinese company called 44 movie and they make one called the Theater which is very, very good. Now if I look back and see if I can find some that we, we recently did a coverage of the UST shootout that was done, I think. Well, Robert Zone, you've done one. I think at least one. And there have been other companies that, that have done, you know, UST shootouts and if I can find one, I will, I will be able to tell you which ones were the Best that they, that they found. Boy, there's, I got a lot of files with that. Anyway, I'm gonna look for that and, and see what I can find. In any event, the 4 movie theater is, is highly regarded. I believe that's under $2,000. Well 21.992 200 bucks. Okay, a little bit over but it's, it's really, really highly regarded. And let's see. Sony, let's see. Yeah, Projector Central is a place that does USD shootouts and in fact let me look for them, See if I can find something that, that they did here. Projector Shootout. This was in 2025. Okay. So that was pretty recently. And that was the screen that the screening room did that in Colorado Springs and they had. There were five projectors that were under basic review. The Sony VPL XW8100ES, $36,000. Yikes. Oh, I'm sorry. This is not ultra short throw. This is regular. My mistake. Sorry about that. Let's see where is ust? I know I had, I had it somewhere here. I think I found something. Oh, okay. Let's see. I was looking where I was. There we go. There we go. From Projector Central. Thank you very much. See the Hisense PX3 Pro. Yeah, that's very good. But it's 3, 500 bucks. The Hisense L9Q even more. 6,000 bucks. Epson makes, makes some nice usts but those are on the expensive side. LG. Yeah, that's, that's more expensive. Four movie theater premium. 2,800 bucks. Okay, well we're still above the 2,000 mark. H, N O M V D I C nom, Vidic P 2000 ust RGB 1100 bucks. Sammy Prescott gave it three and a half stars. Yeah, I'm not sure I would, I would go with that because it's a name, a brand, I don't know. So I would be a little, a little hesitant on that. The 4 movie is, is certainly one if you can spend a little, just a little more than your two thousand dollar budget. You really happy with that one.
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Let's see Lava being how close are consumer televisions to meeting the full BT 2020 HDR specification? I'm starting to see panels listed at 110% plus of P3. I'm curious if any are hitting or nearly all of the BT 2020 space. Great question, great question. At CES 2026 there were a lot of companies claiming to hit BT 2020 100%. Not true. It's a lie. They, they can't do it. The only type of display that can even has a hope of actually meeting BT 2020 are those based on red, green and blue lasers. And even that's tough. Now these new TVs which are using red, green and blue mini LED backlights, they're called RGB mini LED TVs. They were all over Cesar. They were all claiming 100% BT 2020. It's impossible. It can't be done. Because BT 2020 primaries, red, green and blue are monochromatic. That is they are single wavelength which only a laser can achieve. LEDs are physically incapable of achieving it. Now what one industry person friend of mine who I shouldn't name has told me they Very well. If you imagine the CE CIE diagram which is this horseshoe shaped diagram that has a triangle in it, the vertices of the triangle, the three points corner points of the triangle define red, green and blue. And the area of that triangle on these new RGB mini LED TVs might very well be similar or the same to the RGB triangle itself. Okay, here's a, here's a picture of the CIE diagram with a drawing of what would roughly be BT 2020. And you can see that the three vertices of the triangle actually lie on this curved line. The curved horseshoe shaped line is known as the spectral locus. And colors on that line are single wavelength colors. Everything inside of that horseshoe shape is not single wavelength. Any point within is a multiple of wavelengths. So and, and LEDs cannot achieve single wavelength. So imagine a triangle similar to this one but maybe rotated A little bit, so that none of these points are actually on the spectral locus and it might have the same area as this triangle. And so they can say, look, we've got 100% of BT 2020. No, you have 100% of the area of the BT 2020 triangle. But your, but your red, green and blue are not single wavelength colors. They're not. They can't be. So the answer to Lava Being's question is that consumer televisions currently and with any imagined technology that I can think of, cannot achieve BT 2020. They can't. It's impossible. They can get to P3, which is also known as DCI Digital Cinema Initiative, which is the color range that is used in digital cinema, and they might even be able to get past it. But those red, green and blue points, those primaries are not monochromatic. So it's possible for TVs to achieve them. They can't achieve BT 2020. The only way to do it is with lasers. And the only displays with lasers are projectors. So it is theoretically possible to get to 100% BT 2020, real BT 2020, using a RGB laser based projector. I don't know of any that have actually claimed that yet, but they're the only ones that have even a possibility. Let's see, Let's see. Lord P. Is the inclusion of AI in these newer TV models, LGB and for example, a waste of money given everyone's eyes are different and the auto image adjustments may not be beneficial. Another great question. The goal of any video display is to meet the standards and the characteristics of the display used to create the content. And at least that's my opinion. And so it needs to hit a certain white point, it needs to hit certain red, green and blue primaries. It needs to have a certain range of brightness and you don't need AI for that. So the AI adjustments are, I think, primarily used to compensate for different amounts of ambient light in the room. Now we've had auto adjust TVs for a long time, many years, and they have little cameras or at least little sensors that detect the amount of ambient light in the room and then maybe raise the black level or the bright level or change the colors. I don't like them and I don't use them. I mostly watch in the dark and I realize that I'm maybe even in the minority there. People want to watch in bright light and it's more social. I'll agree with that, certainly. So there may be circumstances where you do want to adjust the image. The Picture mode, the picture parameters to compensate for having a lot of light in the room. But what I would do in that case is if the TV has what are called ISF modes, it will have ISF bright and ISF dark. And that refers to ISF bright rooms, to bright rooms and to dark rooms. I would just choose ISF bright and let the TV do its thing in that preset picture mode. Having AI do these adjustments, you're exactly right. People's perceptions are not all the same and so having the AI do it might be good for one person and not good for another. I would rather, I would recommend that you adjust the TV to be as accurate, to follow these guidelines as closely as possible and have that be your baseline. And then everybody watching the TV will have a different perception. But there's no way the AI is going to know, oh, your perception of red is different than this guy's. So I'm going to adjust the reds for your perception. They can't know that. So what are they going to do? If they, if, if the AI adjusts it for you, then somebody else is going to see something really wacky. Use the baseline of calibration or of the good preset picture modes, which are cinema or movie, ISF bright dark filmmaker mode, and that becomes the baseline. And then everybody, at least you know that the TV is reproducing the content as the creators intended. So that's how I feel about that. How big do short throw projector images get? I was looking at those a few years ago. They typically get into the 90 inch, 100 inch, up to 120. I think Hisense might go all the way up to 150 inches. So the optics of the particular projector will determine the maximum size of the image and also how far away the projector is placed from the screen on the wall. By the way, I do not recommend just projecting the image onto a white wall that it needs. The UST projectors require a special kind of screen that take light coming at them at a steep angle from below and then reflect it out straight to the list listener, viewer. So don't do it on a wall, it'll look terrible. You need to get a good screen. So 100 and 100 inches is typical. 120. Some will do 150. Now here's a follow up related to one of the questions I talked about a little earlier. Some of the high end UST3 laser projectors are claiming to hit the BT 2020 spec. They are a bit beyond my price range and I'm not surprised. UST projectors, high end USD projectors can be in the 4, 5, 6 thousand dollar range or more. I believe the the high end Sony one is like $50,000 something like that. Five figures anyway. And if they use RGB lasers they can in fact be tuned to hit BT 2020. But doing so is probably not cheap. Which is why projectors that can do it are not cheap. They're going to cost you a lot of money. And there's no content, almost no content mastered in BT 2020. So do you really need it? I don't think so. Not until there's content. This relates to whether or not you need 8K because there's no content that is created in 8K resolution so you don't really need an 8K TV. Similarly, I don't think you really need a BT 2020 display because there isn't very much content. Now I will tell you this. The movie, what was the movie called? It was called Inside Out. Pixar movie. Great movie. There's a scene where the protagonist, the the emotion Joy is in a weird secret place in the mind of the person that she inhabits. That and there's a scary clown in there. That scene is actually in BT 2020. Now whether or not you that happened, you could reproduce that from the ultra UHD Blu ray I don't know. But it was in the theaters. It was in BT 2020. Most of that movie is in P3. But the fact that you that that they did a little bit in BT 2020 was kind of interesting. I thought. So there you have it. Half hour just flies by, doesn't it? I do love spending time with the chat room and I look forward to doing it again. Now in most cases, if you have a question for me, you can send them by email to htgwit TV and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show. And if you happen to have a home theater that you're probably proud of, send me some pics. I'd love to see them. And I would love to feature any good home theaters right here on the show in my Home Theater of the Month segment. So please do. Until next time, geek out.
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Foreign.
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