| Editorial February 2007
 Your Home Theater, Their Lab
What do the 32-ounce Coffee-mate container and the Logitech
Harmony 880 remote control have in common? Each fits my hand like a glove. The Coffee-mate
container is one I never fumble with, never drop, and never turn over. It works flawlessly
every time. I marvel at that, because it’s made of very lightweight plastic. And when
I pick up the Logitech Harmony 880, it slides into my hand as if made for it. All the
buttons are right where they should be, and it’s easy to program for my specific
equipment. Both products have made my life easier and more enjoyable.
Now let’s consider a few things that have not made me
happy. Sticking with remotes, there’s the one for Toshiba’s first series of HD
DVD players. The better part of a foot long (10"), it’s badly balanced, and its
controls weren’t designed for any human hand I’ve ever seen. (E.T.’s long
fingers might work.) Did anyone actually try to use it before shipping it?
Almost a decade ago, when Dolby Surround was becoming a big
deal and a center-channel speaker began to become standard home equipment, most video
monitors had a top that could be used as a shelf on which to place that speaker. Yet the
Panasonic set that I bought had a very weak shelf. I placed an admittedly heavy
MartinLogan center speaker on it and didn’t think there was a problem, nor was I
warned that there might be. Two months later, I noted convergence problems in the upper
part of the picture, and the ISF technician who came out to fix them ascertained that the
weight of the center speaker had bowed the screen. From then on we had to converge the
screen out of norm. Panasonic wasn’t interested in discussing this with me, but
within six months they’d released a new model in which the problem had been addressed
with sturdier construction.
Today’s rear-projection monitors have
"solved" this problem by having sloped backs with no tops, thus no shelf
space. That might look sleek and beautiful, but where are you supposed to put your center
speaker? The monitor and center speaker are both parts of a home-theater system and should
fit together, but now you have to put your speaker on the floor, hang it from the wall, or
make some other adjustment. This is admittedly no problem with the newer LCD and plasma
monitors, which you can place on a stand that can also hold the center speaker, but
it’s little consolation to a viewer who has a perfectly good three- or four-year-old
floorstanding RPTV and can’t afford to upgrade every other year.
On a less critical but nonetheless irritating note, I just
received The Sopranos: Season Six, Part I on HD DVD. The picture
is gorgeous, with outstanding resolution, but its box is an inch or more taller than the
usual HD DVD, and so must sit on the shelf with my regular DVDs, away from its
fellows, and I have to make a special note in my card catalog so that I can locate it in
the future, when I’ve forgotten its size. Did that thought ever cross the mind of
anyone on the design team?
All of these user problems come about, I think, because
there’s too much haste in getting products out, and because few of them are tested in
a real living environment. Your home becomes the corporate laboratory, as manufacturers
learn from mistakes that you then have to live with. To me, this has always been nonsense.
If you’re being used as a guinea pig, then you should be paid for the service, or at
least get to use the equipment or product for nothing. After all, willingly or not,
you’re part of the research team. This is particularly true for early adopters, those
hardy souls who seem willing to put up with any expense or abuse, simply to be the first
kid on the block to have whatever it is they want. What would happen if they just said,
"No thanks"?
In the race to put a consumer high-definition video format
on the market, things have backfired a bit. Except for the aforementioned remote, Toshiba
produced an HD DVD product that worked, then continued to make it work better with
easy-to-install free updates. Several manufacturers put out discs that looked and sounded
great. Sony’s early Blu-ray discs were not well coded and had to be played on a
Samsung machine that had major defects. Thanks to Sony’s and Samsung’s
laboratory -- your media room -- these defects have been corrected. But the haste to make
waste has put Blu-ray at a well-deserved No.2 in the HD format wars.
Perhaps others, like me, are tired of being test-bench pit
stops for corporations that make more money than I will ever see, expect us to foot the
bill for their mistakes, then give them a report and like the experience. Both HD formats
continue to be low sellers as people wait for the dust to settle. Perhaps we’ve
learned something. I doubt we’ll ever go back to the kinder, gentler days when you
could actually take a pair of speakers home before you bought them and use them in the
environment they had to serve: your listening room. But perhaps the public will begin to
say "No" with their wallets to new technologies until they’re proven to be
logical and user-friendly. Why not force these wealthy, arrogant corporations to do
thorough and generous marketing tests in actual user environments before they charge a
penny? That attitude would get my vote and my loyalty.
...Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com |
