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| Introduction | |
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| About This Book | |
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| Foolish Assumptions | |
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| How This Book Is Organized | |
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| HDTV Fundamentals | |
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| Getting HDTV Programming | |
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| Movie Machines | |
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| HDTV Gadgets Galore | |
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| Sensory Overload | |
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| Geek Stuff | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| Icons Used in This Book | |
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| Where to Go from Here | |
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| HDTV Fundamentals | |
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| What the Heck Is HDTV? | |
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| Oh, Say, Can You ATSC? | |
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| Powerful Performance | |
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| Video standards | |
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| HDTV standards | |
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| Compatible DTV standards | |
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| Audio standards | |
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| Perplexing Pitfalls | |
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| Shopping Smart | |
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| The 50,000-Foot View of HDTV | |
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| Flat-panel HDTVs | |
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| Projection HDTVs | |
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| CRT HDTVs | |
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| What's Important in an HDTV | |
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| Budgeting for HDTV | |
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| Finding the Right Size | |
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| Matching Your HD Needs | |
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| Connecting the Other Gizmos | |
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| Accessing your HDTV channels | |
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| Getting your analog channels | |
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| Working with your other sources | |
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| Which Features Matter? | |
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| Cables and Connections | |
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| Video Connections | |
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| High-definition video | |
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| Digital connections | |
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| Analog component video | |
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| Traditional video | |
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| S-video | |
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| Composite video | |
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| Coaxial cable | |
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| Audio Connections | |
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| Digitizing your audio | |
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| Digital coaxial | |
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| Optical (Toslink) | |
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| Attaching analog audio | |
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| RCA cables | |
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| Headphone and microphone jacks | |
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| Hooking Up Your HDTV | |
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| Taking a Look at the Different Connections | |
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| Input jacks | |
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| Output jacks | |
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| Bi-directional jacks | |
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| Connecting Basic TV Sources | |
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| Antenna or unscrambled cable | |
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| Cable box | |
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| Satellite receiver | |
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| Connecting DVRs and VCRs | |
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| DVR/VCR with antenna or unscrambled cable | |
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| DVR/VCR with a cable set-top box | |
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| DVR/VCR with a satellite receiver | |
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| Making Other Connections | |
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| DVD player | |
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| Two VCRs for editing | |
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| Getting your PC hooked up | |
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| Digital cable or satellite connections | |
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| Camcorder | |
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| Surround-sound system | |
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| Mounting Your HDTV | |
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| Planning Your HDTV Mount | |
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| Choosing a Mount | |
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| Buying Your Mount | |
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| Installing Your Mount | |
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| Disguising Your Display | |
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| Getting HDTV Programming | |
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| Who's Showing HDTV? | |
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| Looking at Who Has HDTV | |
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| Broadcasters | |
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| Cable and satellite networks | |
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| Specialized HDTV stations | |
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| Making Your Choice | |
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| All HDTV Signals Are Not Equal | |
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| Something's in the Air | |
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| Finding Local HD Broadcasts | |
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| Tuning In | |
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| Building on a built-in tuner | |
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| Adding on a tuner | |
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| Antennas A to Z | |
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| Choosing the right antenna | |
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| Installing your HDTV antenna | |
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| The Cable Guy | |
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| High-Definition Cable | |
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| Getting on the QAM bandwagon | |
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| Encrypting and decrypting | |
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| Digital Cable | |
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| Defining digital | |
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| Getting the benefits | |
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| Getting the digital box | |
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| Analog Cable | |
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| Going Boxless | |
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| Rocket Science | |
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| Planning a Satellite TV System | |
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| Service | |
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| Equipment | |
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| Receiver | |
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| Antennas | |
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| HDTV-ready TV | |
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| Cabling | |
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| Availability | |
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| Choosing a DBS Provider | |
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| Programming | |
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| DISH Network channels | |
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| DIRECTV channels | |
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| Digital video recorder (DVR) | |
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| Internet-Based HDTV | |
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| Understanding Internet Content | |
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| Streaming versus downloading | |
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| Understanding containers and codecs | |
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| Understanding file formats online | |
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| Finding a Provider Online | |
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| Apple iTunes Store | |
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| YouTube | |
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| Google Video | |
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| Movielink | |
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| Amazon.com Unbox Video | |
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| Akimbo | |
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| Understanding Your Hardware Requirements | |
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| Movie Machines | |
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| DVDs | |
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| Discovering the DVD | |
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| Dealing with Today's DVDs | |
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| Essential features | |
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| Useful features | |
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| Getting into Up-Converting DVD Players | |
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| Deciphering DVD Recorders | |
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| Finding DVDs in Unusual Places | |
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| Home Theater in a Box | |
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| DVD/VCR | |
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| DVD/PVR | |
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| Peering into the High-Def Future | |
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| Heading down the HD DVD path | |
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| The technical details | |
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| The players | |
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| The movies | |
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| Being Blu-ray | |
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| The players | |
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| The movies | |
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| Getting Into DVRs | |
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| DVR 101 | |
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| Discovering the benefits | |
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| Making the connection | |
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| HD DVRs | |
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| For cable and satellite | |
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| Moving up to Series3 | |
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| Standard DVRs | |
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| What to look for | |
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| Finding a DVR that fits | |
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| Taping Time | |
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| Checking Out Your Digital Options | |
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| S-VHS VCRs | |
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| D-VHS VCRs | |
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| Connecting VCRs to HDTVs | |
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| Looking Closer at D-VHS | |
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| HDTV Gadgets Galore | |
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| Gaming Consoles | |
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| Understanding Consoles | |
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| Meet the Consoles | |
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| Going with the PlayStations | |
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| Playing with PS2 | |
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| Stepping up to PS3 | |
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| X (boxes) mark the spot | |
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| Today's reigning king, Xbox 360 | |
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| The first HD game console, Xbox | |
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| Gaming with Nintendo | |
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| Getting cute with GameCube | |
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| Moving in space with Wii | |
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| Connecting to Your HDTV | |
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| Video connections | |
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| Going with composite | |
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| Stepping up to S-video | |
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| Going component | |
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| Going with HDMI | |
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| Dealing with audio | |
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| Analog audio | |
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| Digital audio | |
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| Camcorders | |
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| Your Run-of-the-Mill SD Camcorder | |
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| Peering through the SD camcorder viewfinder | |
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| Connecting your SD camcorder to your HDTV | |
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| Enter HD Camcorders | |
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| Checking out the HDV camcorders | |
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| Getting HD video from camcorder to TV | |
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| Gadgets | |
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| Home Theater PCs | |
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| What's inside an HTPC? | |
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| Building or buying an HTPC | |
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| Media Center Edition 2005 | |
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| SageTV | |
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| MythTV | |
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| Video Jukeboxes | |
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| Jukebox 101 | |
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| Jukebox 301 | |
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| VideoReQuest | |
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| Escient's Fireball | |
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| Kaleidescape | |
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| Boosting Your Video Signal Quality | |
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| Fitting a video scaler into your system | |
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| Looking more closely at scalers | |
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| Looking for HDTV Gadgets | |
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| Sensory Overload | |
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| Understanding Audio | |
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| Grasping Audio Basics | |
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| Surround-Sound Mania | |
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| Understanding how surround sound is created | |
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| Understanding the formats | |
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| Introducing the new contenders | |
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| Dealing with Built-In Audio | |
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| Home-Theater Audio | |
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| Boxing Up Your Home Theater | |
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| Receiving Home-Theater Sounds | |
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| Setting the Mood | |
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| Choosing Your HDTV's Home | |
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| Sounds Right? | |
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| Building from scratch (or doing a major renovation) | |
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| Upgrading your existing room for HDTV | |
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| Shining the Right Light | |
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| Enhancing Your HDTV | |
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| Why You Need to Calibrate | |
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| Getting Your Settings Right | |
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| Getting Calibrated | |
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| Doing it yourself | |
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| Commercial DVDs | |
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| THX DVD | |
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| High-definition D-VHS | |
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| Going beyond the eyeball: Using calibration hardware | |
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| Bringing in the pros | |
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| Geek Stuff | |
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| TV Engineering | |
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| Lines and Pixels | |
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| Going with lines | |
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| Picking pixels | |
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| Defining Standard and high resolutions | |
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| Scanning and Interlacing | |
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| Fields, frames, and your TV | |
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| Doing the pulldown | |
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| Projecting a Good Image | |
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| Projection HDTV Design | |
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| Rear projection | |
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| Front projection | |
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| Projection TV Systems | |
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| CRT | |
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| LCD | |
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| DLP | |
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| LCoS | |
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| Screens | |
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| Thin Is In | |
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| Loving Your LCD | |
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| Everyone's Crazy about Plasma | |
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| Good Ol'Tubes | |
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| All about CRTs | |
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| CRT Pros and Cons | |
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| Navigating the CRT Jungle | |
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| Dealing with aspect ratios | |
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| Which to choose | |
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| Doing the squeeze | |
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| Getting flat | |
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| The Part of Tens | |
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| More than Ten Places to Buy an HDTV | |
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| Crutchfield | |
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| Dell, Gateway, HP | |
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| Sam's Club, Costco, Wal-Mart | |
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| Circuit City | |
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| Best Buy | |
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| ClubMac | |
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| Microsoft, Apple | |
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| Sony Electronics | |
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| More Than Ten HDTV Accessories | |
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| Kicking Some Butt (With Transducers) | |
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| Motion Simulators | |
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| Power Conditioner | |
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| DVD Changer Controllers | |
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| Show HDTV Outdoors | |
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| Creature Double Feature in 3D | |
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| Wireless Headphones | |
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| In Search of That Great Remote Control | |
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| Types of remotes | |
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| Sexy remotes | |
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| Bring Hollywood Home | |
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| Index | |