In This eNewsletter:
• Surrounded by Thomas J. Norton
• Can TiVo Survive? by Scott Wilkinson
• Million Dollar Baby Deluxe Edition by Thomas J. Norton
• Digital Delivery Group by Scott Wilkinson

By Thomas J. Norton

Once upon a time, most home theaters used a simple pair of small, conventional speakers—often spares left over from a past upgrade—for the surround channels. With the surrounds generally relegated to reproducing ambience and a few simple effects, this was usually more than adequate.

Then, along came THX's dipole surrounds, and everything changed. Simply stated, dipole surrounds are designed to emulate the banks of surround speakers that line the sidewalls of theaters equipped for Dolby Surround. They were particularly popular in the pre-Dolby Digital/DTS era, when the surround track was mono, non-discrete, and simply folded into the 2-channel soundtrack (as was the center channel) by a clever matrix scheme.

As designed by THX licensees (and, later, by non-licensees as well), a dipole surround consists, at its most basic, of two full-range speakers in a single cabinet. Each of these "speakers" typically includes two drivers, a tweeter and a woofer. The two speakers are wired out of phase with each other and aimed toward the front and back of the room (sometimes directly, more often at an angle—thus the familiar wedge-shaped surround). When mounted on the sidewalls abeam the listener, the out-of phase configuration produces a null at the listener's ears. But the front- and rear-aimed drivers produce a wash of sound along the walls, thus emulating that line of theater surrounds from a single speaker enclosure.

Enter, stage left, discrete movie surround channels from Dolby Digital and DTS. Enter, stage right, surround music via these formats plus SACD and DVD-Audio. These new characters complicate the plot. Dipoles perform beautifully when most of the surround is ambience-related. Discrete instruments or voices in the rear channels, however, can sound downright strange on them. Conventional, front-radiating speakers work best on such program material.

There's also a third type of surround speaker, called a bipole. Physically, it's configured much like a dipole, but the front and rear drivers are wired in phase with each other, giving it the characteristics of a wide dispersion, direct-radiating speaker. Some surround speakers may even be switched between dipole and bipole—or even front-radiating. These are all convenient options, and in the right circumstances they might provide the best of all worlds. But they won't always be your best solution, particularly if surround music (and not video) is your primary interest.

In practice, the best type of surround speaker depends on the type of source material, the room, and the seating position. A book could be written about this subject, but in place of that, I offer a few (hopefully) useful tips. In all cases, I recommend mounting the surrounds at least two feet above ear height, if possible, in order to avoid obstructing furniture and heads.

Dipoles
Strengths: Create a diffusive, ambient envelopment. Nearly always the best choice for side mounting in a narrow room.

Okay for: Fleeting discrete surround effects such as flyovers and short transients with no readily recognizable timbre.

Be careful of: Discrete music with instruments and voices in the surround channels. In this case, mount them where the listening seats are outside the null. Timbre matching with the front speakers can be dicey at best, though less critical on films than music.

Direct Radiators (monopoles)
Strengths: Can be timbre matched to the fronts (best with identical models positioned front and back). These are the best choice for surround music with instruments discretely positioned in all channels.

Okay for: Ambience in films and music; best if mounted as far from the listener as the fronts.

Be careful of: Mounting too close to the listener, particularly directly to the sides. The ideal recommended location is 135° from front center—that is, about halfway between directly to the sides and all the way to the rear.

Unless you can manage multiple sets of surrounds for different program material (for example, dipoles at the sides for movies and direct-radiating speakers 135° back for music, with appropriate switching), choose your surrounds based on the surround program material that's most important to you.

This discussion is most relevant to a 5.1-channel system. Moving up to 7.1 channels compounds the surround choices—for example, should you go with dipoles to the sides and direct-radiators at the rear? I plan a look at that complication at a later date.

By Scott Wilkinson

A new report from The Diffusion Group (TDG), a leading consumer and new-media research firm, suggests that as DirecTV phases out shipments of TiVo DVRs—a relationship that accounted for 70% of TiVo units sold in 2004 but will account for less than 5% of unit shipments by 2007—TiVo will be forced to come to terms with an increasingly competitive market flooded with free DVRs from video service providers. This is the conclusion of a report from TCG called Can TiVo Survive? A Case Study in the Perils of First-to-Market Innovations. The report also argues that although TiVo will look to new cable and satellite relationships to fill the gap, these dealings will generate far too little revenue to sustain the company for the long-term.

"TiVo's new president and CEO, Tom Rogers [formerly CEO of UAV's publishing company, Primedia], will face many challenges as he leads TiVo into its post-DirecTV chapter," says Scott Kipp, author of the report and a contributing analyst with TDG. "Service-provider relationships will no doubt be the company's initial panacea, but while such relationships may be cause for short-term optimism, their ability to contribute significantly to the company's bottom line is limited.

"TiVo's long-term survival requires a major transformation in its branding and positioning strategies," Kipp continues. "It will simply not survive as a DVR solution provider. Instead, it must become a true 21st century media company, combining consumer electronics, digital audio, Web-based video, and T-commerce strategies, each with a significant Internet component.

"When consumers think of digital media content and platforms, 'TiVo' should be the first brand that comes to mind. Pulling off such a major shift in branding from DVRs to services will no doubt require tremendous marketing and public-relations efforts, as well as building partnerships with other new media players. But TiVo's very survival depends upon transforming the brand by transforming the platforms and services with which the brand is associated."

Other key findings from the new report include:

• TiVo's recent deal with Comcast will face many difficulties and have little impact, if any, in terms of moving TiVo DVRs. Architectural differences in software will lead to limited deployments and compromised functionality (especially when compared to stand-alone TiVos).

• TiVo's forthcoming Series3 HD DVR with Multi-Stream CableCARD and built-in networking will be too expensive for most consumers and thus require substantial carrier subsidies to impact the market. With cable and satellite companies leasing similar products for little or no upfront costs, the HD models of the Series3 will see tepid sales.

• TiVo will win its patent dispute with Dish Network but won't see significant revenue from the litigation.

• TiVo will remain unattractive as an acquisition target unless its stock falls to record lows—an event that has been made more likely due to the departure of DirecTV. Should a suitor emerge, the buyer will most likely be a broadband content distributor or a large consumer electronics company—an Apple/TiVo merger is not out of the question.

By Thomas J. Norton

Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 (anamorphic). 132 minutes. 2004. Dolby Digital 5.1 (English and French). Warner Brothers 70998. PG-13. $39.98.

Picture ***1/2
Sound ****
Film ****

If someone had told me 15 years ago that, by 2005, Clint Eastwood would have two Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director to his credit and Steven Spielberg would have only one, I would have dismissed the remark as the ranting of a Dirty Harry fan boy. But Eastwood, the taciturn actor who got his start in spaghetti westerns and the old TV series Rawhide, has become not only one of our most consistent actors, but, more importantly, a director who can deliver hit movies that even hard-to-please critics love.

Million Dollar Baby is based on stories from the book Rope Burns: Stories From the Corner by F.X. Toole. It may not only be Eastwood's best film, but also his most controversial. To describe the controversy here would be to give away the plot, which I will not do. And even though a questionable aspect of the ending tempered the film's impact for me, there's no denying that this is a powerful story.

When aspiring boxer Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) approaches crotchety gym-owner and boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), Dunn's reply is "I don't train girls." He also remarks that, at 31, she's too old.

You can guess where the movie goes from there, but you won't guess where it ends up. Yes, it's a movie about boxing, and the intensity of the ring action presses the limits of the film's PG-13 rating. But it's really more about the relationships that develop between the three main characters (Morgan Freeman, as the old boxer and gym assistant Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris is the third). Most of Eastwood's best films have been about relationships, something you would never have expected from the early action potboilers he starred in.

In addition to Best Picture honors, the film also won Oscars for Best Actress (Swank), Best Supporting Actor (Freeman), and Best Director.

The video transfer is very good. There are no serious artifacts, apart from some false contours and odd color distortions in the deepest shadows of chapter 35 (just as Dunne leaves the hospital room). But I saw these nowhere else in the film, and only on the DLP projector I used, the otherwise superb Yamaha DPX-1200 (under review). I did not see them on either the Sony Cineza VPL-HS51 LCD projector or a 51-inch Hitachi CRT RPTV.

The color palette is also solid, but intentionally subdued. The images are generally crisp without obvious edge enhancement, but some softness here and there keeps the video from earning a top rating.

The shadows in the film are detailed enough to keep the story clear, but this DVD is a real test of any display's ability to present deep, rich blacks and decent shadow detail. Several very dark scenes instantly make this the new dark-scene champ—and a video-display demonstrator's worst nightmare. Chapter 35, mentioned above, is bad enough, but chapter 5, at night in the gym, is a real torture test. Even my two-year-old Hitachi CRT rear projector—one of the best I've ever seen—had trouble showing any real detail in the deepest shadows. If your display produces rich blacks, you're in luck. But if it also shows little going on in the darkest grays, it has a lot of company.

Chapter 5 also offers what may be the definitive scene for checking DLP rainbows. Watch the shot where Scrap first holds the punching bag for Maggie, then lets it move freely. Most of the scene is darkest black, but the bag, moving slowly, is illuminated by a sliver of light on both sides. If you don't see rainbows along those bright edges, especially when moving your eyes just slightly, you probably never will. You either have a rainbow-free display or are insensitive to this artifact.

The sound isn't spectacular or showy. The dialog is natural-sounding and articulate. As for effects, the boxing scenes with a cheering crowd are about as flashy as it gets, but it's more than enough to serve the film. Eastwood's sparse score (which he wrote, too) fits the film perfectly, though for me it faded into the background for most of the movie's running length. In fact, disc 3 of this 3-disc set is a CD of the film's score. Considering how light the score is in the film, the $29.95 standard 2-disc edition might be the better buy.

The three major extras in the 3-disc set are on disc 2. They include a roundtable discussion with Eastwood, Swank, and Freeman moderated by interviewer James Lipton (from cable TV's Inside the Actor's Studio) and a documentary, "Born to Fight," which is essentially another discussion with the actors, filmmakers, and real-life female boxer Lucia Rijker, who also appears in the film. A "Producer's Round 15" featurette, yet another discussion with the producers and screenwriter Paul Haggis, completes the package. Fans who want more conventional "Making of" extras will be disappointed by these largely "talking heads" features. But I found them all interesting, even when the conversations devolved into "He/She was great to work with/a fine actor/a gifted director" territory. For once, the hype was deserved.

By Scott Wilkinson

Twelve of the consumer-electronics industry's best regional distributors have formed the Digital Delivery Group, an organization dedicated to helping manufacturers and custom-installation professionals provide the latest in fully integrated audio, video, networking, and home-automation systems to consumers. The organization plans to significantly broaden the scope of the traditional relationships between distributors, integrators, dealers, and manufacturers.

Many consumers expect that different electronic devices from various manufacturers will work together in a seamless "plug-and-play" fashion, but installers know this is not always the case. The Digital Delivery Group will help custom installers fulfill these desires by providing them with access to new technologies as well as training, technical, and sales support. Similarly, DDG will also work with the manufacturers to help them develop new products, marketing tactics, and sales programs that better meet the needs of custom installers.

"We are dedicated to bringing next-generation technologies and systems to the custom-installation channels in a logical, consistent, and above all understandable fashion," says David Kaplan, executive director of DDG. "Content is everywhere. It comes from multiple locations, through multiple sources, and exists in multiple formats. Customers want that content delivered seamlessly, and DDG will help make that happen. The group's mission is to be the leading source for sales and education of existing and emerging products in convergence, integration, flat-panel television, and new technologies."

As executive director, Kaplan will manage the group's operations and its relationships with its partners. Kaplan is an experienced industry executive and former vice-president at Magnolia Hi-Fi, Infinity, Terk, Huppin's/OneCall, and Meda Systems.

Digital Delivery Group's founding members bring a broad array of experience to the task at hand, with many years of distributor, retail, factory, and marketing knowledge within the group. Mark Friedman of Custom Audio Video Distribution in New Jersey and a former senior vice president of Onkyo USA will serve as group president; Paul Collins of PCA Distributing in Southern California and Steve Presti of Easy Access Distribution in Massachusetts will serve as co-vice presidents; Ed Smith of Custom Distributing in Georgia will serve as secretary; and Bob Oliver of Custom Plus Distributing in Washington state will serve as treasurer.