In 2009 your old rabbitears will be useless.

How you can still stick it

to the cable company, without
going to satellite! (Pg 24)

Would you buy a car from a

man who didnt know the handbrake from the shifter? Then
why would you buy your TV
from Wal-Mart? Options and
opinions inside. (Pg 56)

PULP A/V
Issue 3. Volume 2. February 2008

THE HDTV
BUYING
GUIDE YOU
NEED
(part 2)

$5.99 USA
$ 7.49 CDN

The Most Trusted, Objective A/V Magazine THE FEATURE YOU MUST
Inside:
READ: STATIC SHOCK
BLU-RAY: How the underdog won a marketing war.
THE DIGITAL
HD-DVD: How the former content leader lost.
TRANSITION.
DLP VS LCD: Projection Technology explained

John Broome

Letter from the Editor

Welcome once again to another
edition of Pulp A/V, which may or may
not actually help you buy a new TV or
other acoutremonts to one you have already.
Chances are though, if youre looking at
this magazine, youre probably reading it
for one of two reasons.

The first is that you already have a pretty decent home theater
system and constantly dream to improve it, despite not having the funds
to do it. You like dreaming and theres nothing wrong with that. Wed still
be watching tube TVs in black and white on one of two channels.

The other reason is that you are contemplating buying a new TV
or something to do with it and are sick of having Consumer Reports baby
you and not actually give you any real reasons for their ratings or even
attempt to define them for home use. For those of you I hope you take
our advice as more of guidelines. Ultimately what looks and sounds best
to you is best for you and no amount of crap about white levels and color
temperatures is going to change that.

To the regular readers, welcome back and please dont hate us.
This issue has some wonderful pieces on the end of the format war, video
games as accessories and what it all actually boils down to. Enjoy.

Features Editor

John has written for Pulp

A/V since its inception.
He enjoys video games,
bubble-baths and long
walks on the beach. Email: [Link]@
[Link]

Johnny Frame
ISF Liason

Johnny has spent the last

ten years learning the art
of calibration from the
Imaging Science Foundation. He enjoys bright colors and loud
noises, Email: [Link]@[Link]

Jurgen Bessen
Proofreader

Jurgen kann nicht Englisch an allen, aber durch

irgendeine Laune der Natur
sprechen oder schreiben,
ist ausgezeichnet am Korrekturlesen.
Email: [Link]@[Link]

Juan Scopa
Retail Editor

Juaran worked in retail for

many years until finally
driven insane. Moving
from Sing Sing, NY he
joined the Pulp A/V staff to fight back
at the man. Email: [Link]@[Link]

George Stof
Jonathan Harrop - Founder, Edtior-in-Chief

Staff

Editor-in-Chief
Jonathan James Harrop

Photographic Coordinator
Fresh Prince

ASK! Commentator

George has the inability to

ask questions himself but
his extreme form of OCD
compells him to answer
questions others ask of him. He likes
ponies. Email: [Link]@[Link]

John Andrewson
Contributing Reviewer

Sections Editor
Aineed Sumelp

Creative Director
Drew A. Blanc

Principle Photographer
Len Scapon

Contributing Artist
Bud Tuggli

Deadline Copyrighter
Justin Thyme

Production Interns
Audrey Marx
Ariel Payne Diaz
C.F.I. Kare

Andrewson goes by Jeff

and gets things published
by providing less-attractive
secretaries of staff with
food and drink on weekends.
Email: [Link]@[Link]

Published at the Uof A

Computer Lab
Spring 2008 - Magazine Editing and Production
Jonathan Harrop
Class of 2008

CONTENTS

12

HEADS UP!:

Where to find
the deals this summer!
- Staff

16

RISE OF THE BIG

BOX:
The rise of Wal-Mart
- By Elliot James

33

40

Go Big Or
Go Home:

Part 2 in the HDTV Buying Guide

- By George Stof

55

The Persistent Hiss:

Static Shock - The Analog Shutoff

- By Jonathan Harrop

HD MOVIE RE
VIEWS:

What to buy and what just

looks cool.
- Tim Storm

70

Sonys Cure for Cancer

A philanthropic new
function for the
Playstation 3
- By John Andrewson

FEATURES

THE MONTH IN HDTV:

EXTRA EXTRA!:
FORMAT WAR OVER!
READ ALL ABOUT IT!
- By Juan Scopa

89

What you should be watching

to get the money out of your
new set.
-By Johnny Frame

74

Best in HD - If youre not watching it,

you should be. Image Court. - NBC


So, the football seasons
are now in full swing, College on
Saturdays, NFL on Sundays. What
does that mean (besides lower
church turnouts)?

It means that everyone and
their Mother are going out and
buying a big screen TV.

Well, maybe not that
many, but a good many people
use football season as an excuse
to add a large TV for their living
room.

The problem is that so
many people are so concerned
about how the price will drop
before Christmas, so let me give
you a good piece of advice Ive
learned from selling TVs and
other assorted electronics for the
past two years.

Prices. Will. Drop.

Get over it.

The beauty of price drops
in electronics though is the wonderful policy of the price-match,
depending on where you buy it.
Many brick-and-mortar (read: Not
Amazon or NewEgg.

com) retailers will price-match

both themselves and their competitors up to the point you buy the TV.

A couple will even do it
after you buy the TV, usually for
30 days although longer guarantees
have been done as part of promotions. Ask the sales-person.
So enough of the price game, why
should you be buying an HDTV
instead of a big, cheap tube TV?
Well, mainly because you cant
find tube TVs any larger than
32-inches nowadays and very few
manufacturers make them anymore.

You want big TVs for the
big games right? You want to
pay as little as possible, because
were all poor college students?

Instead of going on about
LCD and Plasma, may I present
to you your best solution projection TVs.

Projection TVs are called
such since they throw the image

DLP: Its in the Mirrors

from the back of the TV to the front where you can see
it. They break down into two basic varieties:

DLP: Uses a chip with millions of individual
mirrors on it to create an
image digitally, and creates color with a spinning
color-wheel.

Projection LCD:
Uses red, green and blue
panels to create color and
the image, in much the
same way most projectors
in the smart-rooms do.

Now, dont get
me wrong you can look
totally awesome with a
flat-panel LCD or plasma mounted on your wall like
you saw on Cribs, but screen-size for money, projec-

LCD: Liquid Cool, Man

tion nets you the big-screens.

For example, Mitsubishi recently released a 73-inch model thats only 18 inches
deep and costs only a hair over $3,000.

If you can fit it, that might fit the bill
for a big-screen. Thats a very big TV for the
game. If you are married or live with your
significant other, this is nigh impossible to
sell to them.

There are two major drawbacks to any
projection technology, the first is viewing
angle, the second is bulbs.
First, viewing angle. You cant watch a projection from any angle like you can plasma
or, to a lesser extent, LCD. Because the image is projected straight forwards, the further off to the
side you move, the less detail you see and the darker
the image gets.
Having said that, most new
projections are not as bad
about it as even last years
models.
Samsung in particular has
one of the best viewing
angles of any projections
on its 81 and 87 series DLP
sets. Sonys new 3000 series
are also very good at getting
a wider viewing angle, but
neither are anywhere close to
LCD or plasma yet.
Second drawback: Bulbs. All projections, like their
name implies, have bulbs, just like projectors.
Bulbs burn out.
The average projection bulb will last about three
years if you watch it like a normal TV, like you
should be doing.
These bulbs can cost between $200 and $500 depending on the make and model of your TV and very
few retailers cover bulbs in their extended warranties/service plans. (Read: almost none, ask the salesperson and read the contract!)

Projection is a very cost effective way to get
that big TV in your living room, but beware the demon of buying too cheap TV sets are one of those
rare commodities left in the world where you get
what you pay for, with a couple of rare exceptions,
and its always better to be safe than sorry.

STATIC SHOCK: THE

On Feb. 17, 2009, multitudes of people nationwide will
wake up in the morning as they
always do. Their power will work,
their alarm clocks will blare, and
they will make coffee just like they
always do. Then, wondering about
that days weather or how their
stocks are doing, they will turn on
their television set to find nothing
but black and white fuzz screaming

The pure digital format
frees up space on the broadcast
spectrum for law-enforcement and
military broadcasts during times
of emergency as despite containing more information, digital has
a better compression method and
therefore takes up less space on the
electromagnetic spectrum.

Another benefit of the transition to digital TV is that because

WIDESPREAD CONFUSION: The Digital Transition does not require anyone to

buy a new TV, let alone those who already have cable or satellite. .

loudly back at them.

That day marks the deadline the Federal Communication
Commission set over-the-air (OTA)
broadcasters down after 9/11 to
transition their broadcasts to purely
digital. The February 2009 deadline
was signed into law in early 2006.
Furthermore, as of March 1, 2007,
any recording or display devices
that can receive OTA signals such
as VCRs, DVD recorders and,
especially, TVs, have to include a
digital or HDTV tuners to receive
digital broadcasts.

of the efficiency of digital TV the

FCC is currently auctioning off the
lower half of the 700 MHz band
for other communications traffic, according to gadget blogs like
[Link] and [Link],
many bidders have their sites on a
national wireless internet service.

The problem is the FCC
and the Government have done a
poor job of informing the public.
They are leaving much of the job
to private groups and businesses
that will be effected by the change,
even some that arent.

Theres a lot to the digital
TV transition, many options for
consumers and many more options
and required hardware just to watch
TV. It seems daunting but its not
something that cant be laid out and
explained.
The Science of Things

An important question is
why does the government think it
can say what we do and who can
use what parts of the electromagnetic spectrum?

According to scientists,
and the law, the electromagnetic
spectrum has existed, in its current form, since the birth of the
Universe. It has not expanded,
contracted, or changed in any way,
shape or form since that moment,
billions of years ago.
Because of this, its what is referred to as a spectrum scarcity,
there is only so much electromagnetic spectrum to go around,
because of this, the Supreme Court
has ruled the government has the
right to govern what goes in what
space and charge appropriately for
it. (FCC vs. Pacifica. 98 [Link]. 3026
(1978))

Certain broadcasts take up
certain parts of the electromagnetic
spectrum, some more, some less.
The more data (or the less-effectively compressed the date) there
is, the more space it takes up.
Digital TV (DTV) will also propagate the use and adoption of High
Definition Television (HDTV)
throughout the United States.

Most local stations around
the U.S. are already broadcasting
in High Definition on their digital

E ANALOG SHUTOFF
[Link] is
an FCC sponsored
site that effectively
simplifies information about the digital transition for an
average viewer. It is
advertised occasionally on local channel,
however, during the
Super Bowl, no information was presented, a definite missed
OLD TECH: Chances are, if you have a tube-type TV,
opportunity for the
youre going to need to shell out for a convreter box.
FCC and broadcasters
in general.
feed. So why, if HDTV contains

One
of
the most common
more information, does it take up
misconceptions is that people have
less space?

Because its digital.

Digital transmissions, unlike analog transmissions are transmitted using 0s and 1s, known as
binary code. Because of this, the
data, still sent across the electromagnetic spectrum as waves, can
be compressed at the source and
decompressed at the TV, allowing
for more data sent over the same
(or sometimes less) space on the
electromagnetic spectrum.
The Cold Hard Truth
Those with an OTA antenna, rabbit ears, will need to either switch
to cable or satellite or purchase a
digital-to-analog converter box before February of next year. This is
one of the most important facets of
the changeover and is not nearly as
widely publicized as it should be.
According to the FCC, the digital
transition will affect approximately
15-20 million TV households that
rely on local over-the-air broadcasts received via antenna.

to buy an HDTV or just that everything will be available in HD in

2009, said Jared Fitzer, a Home
Theater Specialist at Best Buy and
Philosophy major at the University
of Arkansas.

Neither is really true. All
HD is digital, but not all digital is
HD. All poodles are dogs, Fitzer
explained, But not all dogs are
poodles, and thats a difficult idea
for some customers to get their
heads around because TV has been
the same for so long.

Fitzer also worked in the
Philippines from 2003 to 2005
training DirecTVs support staff at
a time when the exact date of the

INTERNET APPLICATION: Coupons may be applied for online, over the

phone, by mail or at your County Seat.

digital transition was unclear. At

the time we were instructed to tell
people that the government would
have plenty of info closer to and
nothing has really come of that, he
explained.
The Uninformed Masses?

One tragic side effect of
the Digital Transition is the loss of
information to a large number of
people, people who can vote. According to the U.S. Census Bureau
2007 report, about 9.8 percent of
families in the United States (about
7.7 Million people) were below
the poverty line. According
to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
as of 2007, 98.2 percent
of U.S. households had
a TV in them. Many
of those TVs are in
houses below the
poverty line and many
more barely above it.

Why is TV
so important to those
people below the poverty line? Because its free
information. It costs less
than $80 for a brand-new,
tube-type TV from most retailers and is even less from Goodwill
or the Salvation Army for a functioning one. Local channels are free
with an OTA antenna. According to
the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the cost of
expanded basic cable in the United
States was 24.52 cents per viewinghour.

After Christmas 2006, the
FCC issued its annual cable price
survey, which stated that basic
cable prices increased more than 5
percent last year and by 93 percent
since the period immediately prior
to Congress enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, ac-

cording to the report. (FCC, 2006.)

Put simply, cable or satellite
is simply not an option for people
who struggle to put food on the
table.

Twenty percent of the U.S.
population lacks functional literacy
skills. Of that 20 percent, nearly all
come from below the poverty line,
making it not only inaccessible to
many below the poverty line but
even above it. In addition many
people, rich
or poor,

do not
even
look to non-television sources for
news.

A Zogby poll in February,
2007, showed that Internet sites
topped out as the source for news
at 39.9 percent. Television came
close at 31.5 percent and even
further below that are newspapers
and radio at 12.2 and 12.1 percent,
respectively. Magazines and blogs
were negligible.

Considering cable TV is a
luxury for those in abject poverty
and the Internet doubly so, leaving

TV as the primary news source for

the majority of low-income Americans.

Apply the effects of media
transmission to an important societal event: the presidential election.
Of individuals making below
$9,999 per-year, 28.2 percent voted
in the last national election, (only
19.2 percent have internet access).

Of individuals making
between $10,000 and $19,999,
35.6 percent voted in the previous
election. (Only 23.4 percent have
Internet access). Many people
of that demographic do fall
beneath the poverty line and
many more barely above
it. (Birdsall, 2005)
That is a significant portion of the
voting public who
may not be able
to make informed
decisions about the
next national election due to the DTV
changeover and a
distinct lack of Internet
access. Luckily, the
DTV changeover occurs after the next national
election, on November 4. The
analog cut-off will occur three
months later on February 17.

The government already
has a website set up that lets people
apply for up to two $40 coupons
per household to reduce the cost
of the transition to digital TV.
People can also apply by calling
1-888-DTV-2009. One can apply
for these coupons anytime between
now and March 31, 2009, and the
coupons are good for 90 days after
the date of issuance. Considering
the primary source of application is
a website which went online Jan. 1,
2008, it seems the FCC and Government in general has managed to

ignore a significant demographic

that will be most affected by the
changeover.

national wireless internet network,

that video-replay what might those
accessible from almost anywhere.
people imagine it would have been

However the Digital TV
like? Hopefully, we shall never
Transition is also a very confusing
know.
Improvement of Awareness
milestone in government policy.

Things are moving forward

There is information out

there. According to new research
The
released by the Consumer ElecFCC
tronics Association (CEA) in early
and the
February, consumer awareness of
govthe event is up 80 percent since
ern2006. The study also pointed out
ment
that 72 percent of respondents were in
informed by ads seen on television, general
while 39 percent heard from friends has
and family and only 26 percent
done
found out through the Internet.
a poor

In October, the CEA conjob
ducted a survey of individuals that
thus
would be affected by the changefar of
over, and 22 percent said they
inwould subscribe to cable or satelformlite instead of sticking with pure
ing
OTA thirty-three percent plan on
those
buying a DTV converter box, with
who
or without a coupon, and 23 perwill be
cent plan to purchase a new digital afset, HDTV or not. (Fragnoli, 2007) fected.
That leaves the 22 percent of
Most
FAMILIAR: DTV Converter Boxes will hook up very similar to old
Americans who plan on doing
of the
VCRs - Cable in, cable out and put your TV on channel 3. RCA composnothing all; resigning themselves
inforite connections are available as well, for slightly improve picture quality.
to quitting broadcast programming mation
cold turkey. The CEA estimates
exists
and if trends continue, it should be
with those statistics that approxion the Internet, out of reach of the
mately 4.5 - 6 million TVs will find poorest people, or in premium tech- a tiny majority indeed that does not
know what it needs to know to fix
all dark or static, depending on how nology or audio-video magazines
the TV responds to blank signals.
either too pricy or simply unknown its problems.

Hopefully, on February 17,
to many of those affected.

The Digital TV Transition

The public awareness needs 2009 multitudes of people across
the nation will wake up in the
is unquestionably a milestone in
to be ramped up, in the extreme
morning as they always do. Their
technology.
despite being up 80 percent. No
power will work, their alarm clocks

Not only will we see high
person needs to be left without
definition television as a standard
news of the world on any day, even will blare and they will make cofbroadcast, rather than just an opif they are illiterate. If a terrorist act fee just like they always do.
Then, wondering about that
tion, but the increased efficiency
like that of September 11, 2001, oc-
and free space on the broadcast
curs on February 18, 2009, millions days weather or how their stocks
are doing, they will turn on their
spectrum allows not only for a
of people will be unaware. News
safer America through less congest- of the tragedy will be delayed. The television set and be able to decide
to leave their winter coat at home
ed emergency and military broadnational reaction will undoubton a cool, sunny February day.
casts but also the possibility for a
edly be entirely different. Without


Sonys big, black, George-Foreman-Grilleesque Playstation 3 creates a lot of heat. Anyone
who owns one can tell you how hot they get and
that leaving it on for any length of time isnt the
greatest of ideas.

Left on in a dorm room for eight hours,
paused on a Blu-Ray movie or at a critical point in
one of the ho-hum games released thus far, it will
raise the temperature about a degree and a half.

There is now a legitimate reason to leave your
Blu-Ray-player on, though.

Dont lie, we know youre not playing games.

ful

The
process
spreads out what could
have taken even the most powersupercomputer decades to do, into only a few
months by spreading it across
the internet and

Distributed by BLU- RAY PLAYER, GAME CONSOLE AND... MEDICAL MIRACLE?
Stanford University, a
client programnamed
using the idle processing power of PS3s and computFolding@Home is using the vast power of the Cell
ers the world over.
processor found in every PS3 to help researchers the

Accurate simulations of protein folding and
world over understand rare and currently incurable
misfolding enable the scientific community to better
diseases.
understand the development of diseases like Alzheim
It also means that, despite the wonderful things
ers, mad cow disease, Cancer and Cystic Fibrosis.
your PS3 can do for medical science while youre in

Folding@Home is spread across the PS3s, but
class, you have to leave it on, which warms things up.
users without the PS3 can get in on the altruistic awe
Heating issues aside, Folding@Home downsomeness too. Stanford maintains software of Foldloads a packet of information from the Stanford
ing@Home for Windows, Linux and Mac OSX.
Chemistry Department and runs a calculation and

When the PS3s went online, there was already
simulation of how proteins evolve and form into other
a fair amount of hubbub about what they could do to
proteins, in both positive and negative situations.
help. Since being added to the Folding@Home net
When its done four hours later, your PS3
work, the Sony-machines have in fact tripled the prosends that packet of information back to Stanfords big
cessing power of Stanfords Network, which couldnt
computer to be analyzed along with massive amounts
do anywhere near this many simulations on its own.
of data from around the world.

After installing 1.6 Firmware, Folding@Home

can be downloaded from the Network tab in the CrossMedia Bar menu. The application requires 250MB of

hard drive space. Once launched, the application will
automatically download a work unit from Stanford
University and begin computation.

Why bother donating all that computing power
to help study the causes of diseases such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, cystic fibrosis and many cancers?
Well, theres some serious good karma you can get by
not even actively acting (Chinese philosophy springs
to mind), but if that doesnt get you going, you can
watch microbiology and biochemistry unfold before
you and move it around with the controller, which
WHILE YOU WERE OUT: Your PS3 cured cancer,
actually looks pretty neat.
discovered a cure for the common cold and developed a
vaccine for AIDS. Well, kind of. Its helping.


Last issue we wrote a piece touching on the
next-generation format war between HD DVD and
Blu-Ray Discs. Professionally, Pulp A/V was sitting
on the fence with both players, all the better to off you,
dear reader a more balanced view of both formats.

All that said, our office Blu-Ray player has
gone through some changes of late its gone from a
Playstation 3, to a Panasonic DMP-BD10 and then upgraded to a DMP-BD30 and as of January 5, upgraded
once again to a Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD.

Why the splurge and constant upgrades? Well
the format war is over.

January 4, barely a week before the
Consumer Electronics Expo in Las Vegas,
Warner Brothers announced that it would be
exclusive to the Blu-Ray format. Almost
immediately thereafter, HD DVD tucked
tail and ran, canceling its conference and left a skeleton
crew to staff its booth.

Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO of Warner Bros,
said the move is a strategic
decision focused on the long
term and the most direct way
to give consumers what they
want, and he noted, The window of opportunity for high-definition
DVD could be missed if format confusion
continues to linger.

Warner will continue to release on both
HD DVD and Blu-ray until May 2008, but after that,
its BD only.

Meyer raises an interesting point.

Even though my cohorts and I at work sold
over 200 HD DVD players of some kind to customers who chose the cheaper format and based on the
content available at the time, many times more were
sitting on the fence completely, opting to stick with
their current DVD player or go for an up-convert DVD
player.

Meyers supposition that if confusion contin-

ues to linger then there might not be a window holds

a lot of weight. Many technophiles hold out hope for
HD on-demand movies to replace hard copy media.
Many other technophiles believe that video and audiophiles will always prefer hard copies of their movies
and the average movie-lover will too.

In that case, another format might come along
(such as VMD from Europe, a considerably lower-tech
version of HD DVD and Blu-Ray, unlikely, but the
same idea) that supplants both, having had the consumer foot the bill for an inevitably fruitless format
war.

It appears thats not the case
anymore.
Warner Home Video and
Warner Brothers. Combined with the other
movie studies signed
to Bu-Ray (that would
be everyone except
NBC-Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks)
control about 70 percent
of the movies distributed nationwide. Worldwide sales are
predominantly Blu-Ray as well.
Players have dropped significantly in price, as have the discs
themselves. The Toshiba HD-A3, formerly $299.99 now comes in at a paltry
$149.99, making it, in practicality, one of
the best up-convert DVD players out there.
Good luck finding one though.

If youve been thinking of picking up either
format, or are just finally ready for a new DVD player
in general and have an HDTV, a Blu-Ray player might
just be a sound investment, the way things sit now.

Then again, three weeks ago we were telling
people it was likely the format war would end up more
like Xbox and Playstation than VHS and Beta.

HIGH-DEF MOVIE REVIEW

This month - A break from the reviews to examine the
implications of the end of the Format War.