Dolby Podcast Episode 33 – January 31, 2008
Jack and Craig reveal some of their product picks from CES 2008 and walk listeners through Dolby’s booth at the show. Jamie in San Francisco asks for an update on what Jack and Craig are currently watching and listening to.
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Mentioned in this Episode
Jack Buser: Hello and welcome to “Dolbycast.” The insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I'm Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we're here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears.
Craig: Welcome back. Hi Jack.
Jack: How are you doing Craig?
Craig: Well, have you recovered from CES?
Jack: No, it generally takes me about a month.
Craig: Yeah, shake a lot of hands, catch a lot of flu germs.
Jack: [laughing] That's right. Every year at CES, I come down with something and this year I actually made it out unscathed.
Craig: Congratulations.
Jack: I shouldn't say that though. Is there any wood in here I can knock on or something?
Craig: [laughing]
Jack: I'll tell you what, every year I catch something and so far, I'm doing OK.
Craig: So, as we promised our listeners, this is our big CES wrap-up edition.
Jack: That's right. It was an exciting show by all accounts. We had a great show.
Craig: The cool thing was, we had the weekend free after the show. That was the cool thing.
Jack: Yeah. That's very true actually. That's very true, it comes...
Craig: The show was Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Jack: I flew back on Friday. The airport was just fine. I remember a couple of years ago trying to get back from CES. The airport was so mad I almost missed my flight. But this year was just fine. I got back right on time and wow, I've got to say, having that weekend to follow up with was just great.
Craig: Really?
Jack: A couple days downtime.
Craig: So, we have a lot to cover today so we should probably really get into it.
Jack: Absolutely, we have a listener question actually.
Craig: We have a listener question. Jamie from San Francisco writes, “We love it when you guys talk about what your listening to, what your watching”. “So, what are you guys watching and listening to?”
Jack: Well that's a great question.
Craig: You want to take it first?
Jack: Sure. Well. My answer's going to be a little bit different because I actually found a very cool piece of software. Anybody who listens to this podcast for a long time will know I am a Playstation 3 fanatic. I really love the Playstation 3 and I'm a Mac user. And, one of the cool things about the Playstation three is it supports UPnP [Universal Plug ‘n Play]. So sort of, home networking, right. So, if you have media on your computer you can transfer it over to the Playstation 3.
Except, I was a Mac user and there was some good software for the Mac for doing home networking, but this new piece of software I just ran across is absolutely fabulous. It's called MediaLink and it's by Nullriver Software. It's for the Mac and it actually allows you to share all your pictures and music and all that great stuff, so that you can stream it over your home network to your Playstation 3. And man, is it cool.
Craig: So, your Playstation three is connected to Ethernet?
Jack: That's right.
Craig: And your downloading it into the PS3?
Jack: That's exactly right. Downloading, or streaming, and essentially on my PC I've discovered, actually I should say Mac. I guess on my Mac I discovered a new service called eMusic and eMusic is very, very cool. For 15 bucks a month, just about 15 bucks a month, I get to download 50 songs. Right?
Craig: 50 songs for 15 bucks.
Jack: 50 songs for 15 bucks a month, you get to choose.
Craig: Wow!
Jack: And I've...
Craig: Not albums, but just songs.
Jack: Just songs. Just songs. So you get a few complete albums for 15 bucks. It's all legal. It's all good. It's all above the board and there's all kinds of independent music there, which I love.
Craig: Sure.
Jack: I just absolutely love. And I found a band called “ Black Moth Super Rainbow.”
[laughter]
Jack: So that's what I've been listening to and I've been streaming it over my home network to my Playstation 3 where I have my big Klipsch Reference Series system and my Yamaha AVR and it just sounds fabulous.
Craig: You know on my system and me personally, I listen to a lot of music videos and I'm really into concerts and that kind of stuff. I discovered something I had in the archives. I pulled out a disk. It's a “Who” disk that was recorded in the year 2000, Royal Albert Hall. They did a whole charity event for teen cancer, which was really, really cool. John Entwistle, the bass player for “The Who” was still alive back then and it's an incredible, incredible soundtrack if you're really into “The Who”.
Jack: Cool. That's cool. Well, ‘I'll tell you what. Let's trade. You give me “The Who” and I'll give you “Black Moth Super Rainbow” and we'll see... [laughter]
Craig: I'm afraid I wouldn't get “The Who” back. You know?
Jack: So it's kind of been a music thing for both of us then, hasn't it?
Craig: Yeah, interesting.
Jack: What about movies? Any movies that you picked up that you think are great home theater demos?
Craig: Well, I'm going to go back to music video, because as you know we've been putting together our demo reel for CES, and one of the cool things that is on our demo reel is a Celine Dion concert. And if you're into Celine Dion, it's pretty incredible. It's coming out on Sony BMG in February and it's going to be Dolby TrueHD.
Jack: I'll tell you, here's another good one is “ Transformers.” I don't think we've talked about that disk enough but that sounds absolutely wonderful and has become my go to disk for home theater demos right now.
Craig: And it's a Dolby Digital Plus encoding.
Jack: It is a Dolby Digital Plus encoding. It sounds so transparent, so fabulous. It's just the energy that was put into that soundtrack is so powerful. It really moves that subwoofer. [laughs]
Craig: Mm-hmm. You speak to some of the real big enthusiasts and they go, “Well, why didn't they do a true HD soundtrack?” Why didn't they do true HD?” “They could have done true HD.” And then you ask them, “Well did you listen to that soundtrack?”
Jack: Yeah. You just have to listen to it.
Craig: You have to listen to it.
Jack: It sounds absolutely fabulous. I'll tell you the other thing that I had a chance to listen to the other day. I went to Ioan Allen's presentation where he does the history of film sound. People that are long time listeners of this podcast know we actually have a podcast where Ioan goes through the history of film sound [on Dolbycast]. And he gave me a demonstration of Dolby Digital on 35 millimeter film. A film called “ Master and Commander.” I forgot how great that movie sounds. I don't know if that's available on DVD. I'm sure it must be available on DVD, but hearing it on 35...
Craig: It's on DVD.
Jack: It must be on DVD. But hearing it on 35 mil film with the original Dolby Digital soundtrack up on our screening room upstairs. Those of you that haven't visited Dolby might not know we have a full-on reference screening room on the top floor. There's rumors we might even have a swimming pool, but I don't think that's true. [laughs]
Craig: I haven't seen it. If there is I don't know about it.
Jack: No. It's a bad, I'm making that up.
Craig: Ioan Allen is one of the Dolby pioneers, really involved in film sound. And for our new listeners I would encourage you to go back into the archives and listen to that podcast with Ioan [on Dolbycast]. It's pretty incredible.
Jack: Absolutely, Absolutely. And, definitely check out “Master and Commander.” What a great soundtrack. Anyway, well, I guess that answers Jamie's question. Thank you Jamie for writing in. We're going to go to a short break. When we come back let's do some CES.
Craig: Let's talk about it.
Jack: All right.
[commercial break]
Jack: We are back here at “Dolbycast” covering Dolby at CES 2008. Craig I had a great idea of how we might cover our booth at CES for our listeners.
Craig: Yes, and what are you thinking?
Jack: I'm thinking we pretend as if we are walking into the South Hall up towards the Dolby booth and, what do you see?
Craig: Wait a minute. That's my idea.
Jack: [laughs] All right, I'm going to claim it as my own.
Craig: OK.
Jack: I'm going to claim it as mine.
Craig: It's yours.
Jack: What is it that you see?
Craig: OK. So you walk into the South Hall...
Jack: Yes.
Craig: ...and the first thing you see is this giant, what is it, eight ton behemoth...
Jack: Yeah, it was 8, 000 pounds. 8, 000 pounds.
Craig: ... Bumblebee from the movie “Transformers.”
Jack: Absolutely. 16 feet high. This thing was in our booth to really underscore Dolby's relationship with the entire content change from creation all the way to playback in the home. And, we had this guy in our booth to really show how tight in we were with this whole content change, and boy did people really enjoy that robot.
Craig: I understand that was the first, probably the first element of the entire show that was set up in that hall.
Jack: Absolutely, because they literally had to build the South Hall around Bumblebee.
[laughter].
Jack: Because he's just so big. I mean this thing was life size.
Craig: That's an exaggeration folks.
Jack: Listen, I have to thank the folks at Paramount for loaning Bumblebee to us at Dolby.
Craig: It was very cool.
Jack: It was just so cool having him in the booth.
Craig: So as soon as you walked in the booth and you saw Bumblebee, immediately in front of you was this huge display of our new technology.
Jack: Absolutely. Absolutely and specifically talking about our HDR video technologies. HDR standing for High Dynamic Range .
Craig: That's Right.
Jack: And essentially what this technology does, if you're a long time listener you're probably already aware [of Dolby HDR Video because we talked about it on November 21]; if you're newly tuned in to “Dolbycast” then this will be news to you. These TV's aren't out on the market yet. But, essentially what Dolby HDR technology will allow your TV to do is actually look like a window onto the real world.
Craig: Hmm.
Jack: Meaning that the contrast or dynamic range of the TV itself can actually match what your eye is capable of. So we're talking really deep blacks, extremely vivid colors. It really does look like a window.
Craig: Yeah. Dolby's HDR Technology works in this next generation of LCD displays that incorporate LED backlighting.
Jack: Correct. That's right. In fact local dimming of the LED backlights.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: So what's cool is, TV manufacturers have been talking about for a long time, “This TV has blacker, blacks than this this other TV.” Well, this kind of ends that debate now because with local dimming with this H Dolby HDR Technology where you don't want light you can literally just turn off the backlight and literally pinpoint areas where you just don't want any light at all.
Craig: That's right. Dynamic, Realistic blacks and incredible contrast ratios.
Jack: Absolutely. So, really one of the big talks of the show was Dolby's HDR Technology for LCD displays. It was just great working the booth because people were so into it. It just was amazing.
Craig: And so if you move immediately to your left the first thing you saw was a bunch of new next generation AV receiver...
Jack: That's right.
Craig: ... and Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD technologies. There's approximately 31 AV receiver on the market place now.
Jack: 31 AV receivers with the new choice.
Craig: So lots of choice people. If you're thinking about upgrading your system this is a great time.
Jack: This is a great time. This is a great time and being in the booth again really underscored that for me. It was basically every major manufacturer represented with their new model AV receiver with both Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus built-in, it was just cool. I couldn't decide, I couldn't decide. I knew I had to get one of these new ones because I still have 1.2, my receiver. I love it! I love it, but man, it seems those new receivers at the show, I was like, “I think I've got to upgrade.”
Craig: I have to give kudos to John who's our producer because immediately after you walked past our AVR display, you walked into our theater.
Jack: Yes, that is if you could get in into the theater. Did you see that line?
Craig: John and Scott both did a great, great job with production in the theater. We actually gave demonstrations of Dolby Digital Plus utilizing the clip from Transformers and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. We showed some incredible new content on Dolby TrueHD: Cars, Spiderman, and the new Celine concert we just referenced there.
Jack: You love Celine Dion?
Craig: I really do. I really do.
Jack: Yes, absolutely. She's in Vegas, right? So it's very appropriate.
Craig: She had a whole run in Vegas for a couple of years, yes.
Jack: Is that right? Oh, very cool.
Craig: In the theater also, we debuted—whatever we did-there was a first time presentation to consumers of Dolby Volume.
Jack: Yes, multi-channel Dolby Volume at that.
Craig: First public demonstration of multi-channel.
Jack: Yes. So if you're not familiar with what Dolby Volume is, if you haven't listen to our past podcasts [ Dolby Volume podcast], essentially what Dolby Volume does is it solves the age-old problem of inconsistent volume levels between program materials.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: Meaning, it goes to a commercial and it suddenly blows you out of your seat and you got to turn the volume down and it's goes back to your TV show and it's too quiet and you got to turn the volume up. People today watch TV shows sitting there with the remote control in their hand all the time, and this technology finally fixes the problem.
Craig: How engaged can you be with your entertainment if you're always reaching for the remote control, you know?
Jack: Another big thing that got me is now that Dolby Volume is coming into AV receivers, and we were showing a prototype AV receiver from Onkyo actually there with multi-channel Dolby Volume, and I was thinking about how useful it would be for an iPod. You have so many different kinds of music in an iPod from so many different places. Dolby Volume is perfect for that.
For instance, I had some friends over to my house the other weekend and I just want to press “random” and have it play through a few different album, play some sort of a mix, but I was always running back to turn up and down and up and down the volume depending on what music was playing.
Craig: Dolby Volume in an AV receiver makes a lot of sense because to your point, there's a lot of AV receivers that have iPod connectivity.
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: So you connect your iPod into the device and have the full benefit. We should also say that one of the other benefits of Dolby Volume is that it enables you to hear referenced audio mix even when you're listening at low volume levels.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: It compensates for the way we hear midrange as we start to reduce the volume in our home theater system or in our television set.
Jack: That is a very cool feature, I love that.
Craig: So we debuted Dolby Volume—I got it right that time...
Jack: Yes.
Craig: ...and it was in a prototype Onkyo AV receiver with the Texas Instruments' platform. We also showed the freeskill platform at our show. So we're making a lot of progress in getting Dolby Volume into the [inaudible.]
Jack: It's exciting, I cannot wait. I have seen other technologies, and they will remain nameless, but there are other technologies which try to fix this problem. With my music that I'll playback on my iPod, I tried to fix the problem and it just either doesn't fix the problem or it crushes the audio, it crushes the dynamic range. With Dolby Volume, I'm hearing it at the show just really drove that point home for me, too, which is how pure and pristine the audio is going to through that album. It's one of those features which I will turn on and just leave on.
Craig: Yes, truly.
Jack: It is very cool.
Craig: So just the opposite of theater, we had some components that really showed off Dolby Digital Plus.
Jack: Yes.
Craig: You want to talk about that?
Jack: Absolutely. For me, you know me, I'm really in to this new idea of Internet content delivery it's having the Vudu box in the booth was absolutely cool.
Craig: And in your home, right?
Jack: And in my home.
Craig: There you go.
Jack: As you know, Vudu is using Dolby Digital Plus to deliver all of their movies over the open Internet to their box, all legally of course. You either rent or buy the movies. They've got high definition movies now, they've got 5.1 channel audio all things to Dolby Digital Plus, the thing is absolutely wonderful.
Again, I have an AV receiver without Dolby Digital Plus, and I will hopefully remedy that soon, but my AV receiver just thinks it's Dolby Digital. It's great because the Dolby Digital Plus comes down, over the air I guess I should say over the Internet the cloud, into the box and the box just turns it into a Dolby Digital bit stream so that my AV receiver thinks it's just plain old Dolby Digital. It sounds wonderful!
Craig: For our listeners in the European marketplace, we should say that the DVB format, Digital Video Broadcast format, for Europe has adopted Dolby Digital Plus as an optional audio standard. And there were a couple of TV announcements at the show.
Jack: Absolutely, absolutely. So it's great to see Dolby Digital Plus getting the traction out there. Obviously, it's had a lot of traction in HD DVD and Blu-ray, and now, thanks to the flexibility of the format, it's actually able to solve all kinds of problems in broadcast and for the Internet and all kinds of cool stuff.
And we should definitely give a shout-out to our latest employees, employees that were formerly of a company called Coding Technologies, which Dolby acquired, they're now called Dolby Sweden and Dolby Germany, who have a wonderful new format called aacPlus. And we were showing some of that as well in the booth. aacPlus is able to get CD-quality stereo sound at data rates of like 32 kilobits a second. They can do 5.1 at 128 kilobits a second. If those mean anything to you. Heck, I encode MP3 files at 192 kilobits a second. The fact they can do 5.1 DVD-quality sound at 128, it's just, oh...
Craig: It's remarkable.
Jack: It's remarkable.
Craig: High-efficiency, high-quality.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: And it's a lossy codec.
Jack: It's unbelievable.
Craig: It's incredible.
Jack: You'll see it referred to as aacPlus. You'll also see it referred to as HE-AAC. And I've got to say, as a Dolby employee, we're really excited that these guys are on board. This is great technology, and I'm so excited to see what's going to happen in the future.
Craig: Truly. And there's going to be some great announcements coming up, well, very, very shortly.
Jack: Absolutely. This is actually a really good bridge to another cool area of our booth that we showed this year, which was mobile phones.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: The guys at the company formerly known as Coding Technologies, now part of Dolby, Dolby Germany and Dolby Sweden, have managed to get aacPlus pretty broadly adopted inside mobile phones, and so we had a lot of mobile phones which now featured, essentially, Dolby sound. It was great. And we're going to have more of that, actually, in an upcoming show, and it's called GSMA. It's the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona . And I cannot, for the life of me, think why I'm not going to Barcelona . [laughs]
Craig: I might be, so I'll give you a full report.
Jack: That's so cool. We're going to be showing not only the aacPlus technologies there, but we're also going to be showing Dolby Mobile. And Dolby Mobile is a suite of technologies that allow phones to, essentially, do surround sound. I mean, that's just the coolest thing.
Craig: We'll have some very exciting announcements with regards to Dolby Mobile. Stand by.
Jack: Stand by. Dolby sound on your phone.
Craig: So let's talk about probably the most beautiful paint job in the booth.
Jack: Oh.
Craig: And one of the most beautiful interior applications within the booth.
Jack: I've got to say, I saw Bumblebee getting a little bit jealous about what we're about to talk about.
Craig: He was. I have a feeling he was thinking about moving over there and crushing this display.
Jack: [laughs] Exactly. We had a Ford Flex, which is an unreleased vehicle from Ford, which supports our Dolby surround sound technologies for automobiles. So, obviously, if you think about it, a car is probably the best possible listening environment, outside of a tuned studio, for surround sound.
Craig: And we were showing some new Dolby Surround technologies for the car.
Jack: We were. The Ford Flex, actually, was a joint venture, if you will. It was sort of a cooperation, I should say, between three companies: Ford, Sony, and Dolby. And we all worked together to make sure that the sound system in this Ford automobile is absolutely amazing.
Get this: It has surround sound, brought to you by Pro Logic II, so that all of your stereo sources can suddenly be played back over stereo, 5.1, or even 7.1. You have a touch screen in the car that supports, essentially, what Dolby's calling our Advanced Surround Fader.
Craig: OK.
Jack: You can actually move the sweet spot of the surround sound image anywhere in the car you want, essentially. You have this touch screen. You move these crosshairs up and down, left and right. So, if you want to be, as the driver in the center, right there at the sweet spot, you can move it over there. You can fade the whole thing forward, so if you have kids sleeping in the back and you still want your 5.1 sound, you can listen to your soundtracks without bothering them. I mean, it was just the coolest thing.
Craig: Sounds really cool. I didn't get a chance to hear it, I was so busy with so many other things.
Jack: Oh! Oh, man, it was the coolest! Not to mention Funkmaster Flex. Come on!
Craig: There was a rumor that Bumblebee had a hangover.
Jack: [laughs]
Craig: I thought I read that somewhere. Did you see that?
Jack: That's very funny. Yeah, that was our friends over at Engadget. They pretended to interview Bumblebee. It was pretty funny.
Craig: So, enough for our tour of our booth. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of our faves from the show.
Jack: Absolutely. We'll be right back.
[musical interlude]
Jack: Hey, listeners, you can now call in your question to our new toll-free phone line: 888-6-DOLBYC. That's the letter C, as in cast. That's 888-6-DOLBYC.
Craig: And we are rolling. And we're back here at Dolbycast with Mr. Jack Buser...
Jack: How you doing?
Craig: And Craig Eggers, me.
Jack: We're going to be talking, now, about some of our favorite stuff at the show.
Craig: No, we're not.
Jack: Well, you want to cover those camcorders first.
Craig: No, we're not.
Jack: I think that might qualify as some of your favorite stuff in the show.
Craig: It is some of my favorite stuff. We've talked about taking your home movies and making Hollywood productions out of them, and one of the coolest things that we talked about in the past in our podcast, Jack, is Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator which enables a camcorder now to capture a 5.1 surround mix.
Jack: Absolutely, that was very, very cool. Certainly one of my favorite things in the show as well because it is very, very high on my gear list and my birthday was just...
Craig: Nine camcorders from Sony in a multiplicity of formats: standard definition DVD, AVCHD that you can take the disk out, put it into your Blu-ray player hard disk drive. Panasonic got some Flash memory camcorders.
Jack: Those are cool.
Craig: Very cool stuff. So both Sony and Panasonic are supporting multi-channel audio in their camcorders.
Jack: Very cool.
Craig: It's very cool and especial shot-out to my boys back here for putting together a really great demonstration with consumer content. They went out with consumer camcorders.
Jack: I know, it was so cool.
Craig: It was so very cool.
Jack: It was very cool. Well, now that we're on the topic of multi-channel, not that's the topic we talk about often, but I have to bridge here something that was at CES that got some buzz. I didn't actually get to see it, but I actually caught them on TV later on and it's those new multi-channel guitars from Gibson. Did you see those?
Craig: I've heard about them.
Jack: Oh, man! I was trying to get away from the booth long enough to go see it and I couldn't find it, but I heard all about it. I actually saw a TV program where they demonstrate these guitars. Actually, each string, it's called the Digital Les Paul HD.6X Pro, and each string comes out on a different channel. So if you are one of these professional mixers, you can actually wire in each string to a separate channel on your mixer.
Craig: Right.
Jack: Pan them all around separately and create all these new 5.1 and 7.1 effects using separate strings on the guitar.
Craig: You know, Jack, for the guitar players who insist on using super ultra light strings, Gibson's got a servo driving tuning keys now.
Jack: Yes, automatically tunes the guitar. Yes, very cool stuff. So that was cool, what else is cool in the show, Craig?
Craig: Well, I tell you what. I had a chance to go down to the Sherwood booth and talk to Jeff Hipp of Sherwood prior to the show. They are introducing an AV receiver called Sherwood Newcastle, it will be out this summer. It has a room optimizer mode from a company called Trinnov. I didn't get the chance to hear it and they were actually showing an industrial application of it and they're going to take the industrial application, obviously, synthesize it into a consumer type of experience. But I will tell you that John, our producer, went down there and listen to it and came back...
Jack: He was telling me about this.
Craig: He was incredibly floored by the technology.
Jack: Yes, absolutely, it's like a $15, 000 professional room tuning piece of kit that they're putting inside a consumer grade AV receiver. It just sounds amazing.
Craig: For the people who can't position their center channel properly, either behind the TV, above the TV or directly underneath it, it really solves that problem of "How do we get dialog to really be focused on the screen itself?"
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: Then the other thing that John told me about which is you can actually move the surround field around to fit your listening position in the room.
Jack: That's cool.
Craig: So if you're not directly on access with that monitor, apparently through this room calibration mode, you can move the surround field back and forth.
Jack: That is cool. So that's an AV receiver from Sherwood, the Sherwood Newcastle. Very cool.
Craig: Yes, and it's suppose to come this summer.
Jack: Oh, man, that is cool. I may have to buy a new one.
Craig: It'll interesting to watch and listen to.
Jack: Well, what else was good at the show. I got to tell you, there were a lot of big trends that I saw, lot to talk about displays, of course, this is CES. Displays are getting thinner and thinner and thinner. They had some unbelievably thin TVs at CES.
Craig: Unbelievably, thinner than a what, an iPhone?
Jack: An iPhone.
Craig: It's that amazing?
Jack: Unbelievable, unbelievable.
Craig: What's interesting is, thin displays are very, very cool, but when you start talking about thin displays, you ask yourself, "What are they doing about the audio?"
Jack: Yes, absolutely.
Craig: Sharp had a really, really cool solution because a lot of times, you're not putting your flat panel display on the wall. You buy a nice looking piece of furniture that you want to put your components in. They have a product called TV Bench and I had a chance to see it, it's beautiful, it's absolutely gorgeous. You put your Sharp LCD on top of it, and inside the TV Bench is a whole component speaker system...
Jack: That's right, yes.
Craig: ...with digital amplifiers.
Jack: I saw that.
Craig: It has Dolby Virtual Speaker built into it.
Jack: It has Virtual speakers so you get 5.1 out of your TV stand.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: That's the coolest thing.
Craig: It really is.
Jack: Yes, absolutely, I saw that.
Craig: It solves that problem of, "How do we deliver the highest quality of video at a really attractive cosmetic display, while simultaneously delivering the audio that's so necessary for completing the experience.
Jack: That was very cool. That was very cool. Another big trend in TVs, and actually, almost every device at the show, was connecting to the Internet.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: I mean, it's just amazing how quickly the Internet has penetrated consumer electronics devices. It's unbelievable.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I mean, we saw TVs connecting to the Internet. We saw set-top boxes, DVRs connecting to the Internet. People are downloading movies; people are downloading TV shows. We're really seeing quite a revolution now that everything's becoming connected online. It's really amazing, some of these new features.
Craig: And while you're talking about interactivity, there's also interactivity in the next-generation formats also, right? The optical formats.
Jack: Well, that's what I was about to say, right? I think some of the folks that were doing some of the coolest things with online functionality and the Internet was actually the next-generation optical disc formats.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: We saw a demonstration of, actually, some of these new interactivities where, actually, they overlay a game on top of the movie. So as the movie's playing, you're like playing a game along with the movie, which was very, very cool. Also, of course, alternate endings, like going back up to the Internet and bringing up an alternate ending to the movie that might not have been there when you bought it, the ability to put in a disc--and let's say it's a CD or a standard-definition DVD...
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: And the application will recognize it, go up online, and then find the high-definition version of the entertainment that you're enjoying. So it was very, very cool. I saw a demonstration. I guess it was Incubus, a CD. They put it in. All of a sudden, it went online and it says, "Oh! Well, here's the high-definition version, and if you want to add it to your Netflix queue, or if you want to buy it at Amazon..."
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: I mean, that's just too cool.
Craig: So I have to tell you, and I think you might agree...
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: The coolest thing at the show was not shown publicly.
Jack: What was that?
Craig: Shout-out to my friend, Greg Roberts, who used to work for United States Precision Lens.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: They built all the lenses for projection TVs.
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah. [laughs] I know what you're talking about.
Craig: And now the company's Corning. They're back in Ohio .
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: Greg had this device that he pulled out of a pocket that was, what, maybe three and a half inches long...
Jack: At most, at most.
Craig: Maybe an inch and a half wide, maybe two inches wide.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: And what, a half inch, an inch deep.
Jack: I mean, it looked like a couple of USB keys stuck on top of each other.
Craig: Yes.
Jack: It was tiny, tiny, little thing.
Craig: I literally jumped out of my shoes when I saw it, and I came running to you.
Jack: Well, what was it? Explain what it was! Explain what it was!
Craig: You were in the middle of a presentation, and I interrupted.
Jack: I nearly died... Well, what was cool. Listeners, you don't know what this is yet, so we've got to tell you what it is.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: This thing is a tiny, tiny, little device that Craig's friend pulled out of his pocket and said, "Hey, check this out," and shot it against a wall, and it was a projector.
Craig: A 640x480 resolution projector.
Jack: I couldn't believe this thing! It was based on an LED.
Craig: Mm-hmm.
Jack: So the LED provided the backlight, and the 640x480 display. And this guy was shooting a projection image up on the side of the wall. It was just unbelievable. I mean, never again. If that thing comes out on the market--when it comes out on the market--I will tell you right now, I will never, ever be in another meeting again...
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: [laughs]
Craig: You think about it. You've been hearing about projectors like this that you can fit in your briefcase, but who thought that you'd be able to fit it into your pocket?
Jack: Absolutely. And you know I'm a projector nut.
Craig: Yeah.
Jack: So seeing that, I was just like, "Man, this is just too cool."
Craig: Well, wait a second now. Let's be honest now. It's a projector for PowerPoints and that type of resolution.
Jack: Yeah. But just to see that functionality is very cool. This is conjecture, but I could see that. Why wouldn't you integrate that into a laptop or something like that at some point?
Craig: But if I know you, Jack Buser, you'll be watching movies some day on it.
[laughter]
Jack: Hey, why not? You're caught outside your house on the go, and you want to watch movies up on a big screen, got this thing on your keychain. [laughs] Why not?
Craig: Yeah. Listeners, I have to say, when you think about it, the theme of CES, if there was one undercurrent, it was probably lifestyle.
Jack: Yeah, absolutely.
Craig: Lifestyle. And obviously, that little projector is a great lifestyle example.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: The thin displays.
Jack: Absolutely.
Craig: Dolby Volume.
Jack: Internet connectivity.
Craig: Internet connectivity.
Jack: Absolutely. Convenience. Accessibility. The fact that people want this high-definition, next-generation experience, and they want it to be accessible. They want to be able to get at it.
Craig: Exactly.
Jack: And that was really the theme of the show. It was very, very refreshing. I thought it was a great CES, in all.
Craig: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jack: I'm so excited to see some of these new products come out on the market. It was VERY cool.
Craig: So that is pretty much our wrap-up.
Jack: Sounds good.
Craig: From our perspective.
Jack: Any listeners out there, please do send in your questions or comments. So, if any of our listeners were at CES, we'd love to hear about what you thought the coolest things at the show were.
Craig: Definitely.
Jack: And we'll be sure to mention it.
Craig: And a shout-out to the AVS Forum, and Aaron and Braden. I saw them and spent some time with those guys.
Jack: Absolutely. Oh, it was great seeing those guys.
Craig: Great guys.
Jack: Absolutely. Well, listen. We are Dolbycast. I am Jack Buser...
Craig: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we will talk to you next time.
[music]
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