Feature News Stories (636 Posts)

Mark Levinson, Lexicon and Revel To Merge To With Harman Professional - Over 130 Jobs Lost

There are several things that generally happen with business mergers, no matter what industry is under discussion. One is that some specialty items that were available from the individual companies cease to exist. The other is that a lot of people lose their jobs. Continue Reading

CES 2009 Report From HomeTheaterReview.com Editor Andrew Robinson

The 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada wasn't all that HomeTheaterReview.com editor Andrew Robinson had hoped it was going to be. In this exclusive report, he talks about what he feels was lacking at the event. Continue Reading

Polk, Bose & Video Players To Suffer From Circuit Liquidation

A lot of average Joes and Jills are going to be severely inconvenienced (at minimum) once Circuit City goes away, removing yet another easy source of obtaining electronics from the landscape. However, the closure is hitting a lot of manufacturers even harder. Continue Reading

Circuit City Liquidates But Could Be Reborn After Auction

There is at least the possibility of a silver lining in the massive, dark clouds currently sending rolling thunder and incendiary lightning down onto poor Circuit City. The company has gone from filing Chapter 11 to door-closing Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Continue Reading

CES Show Attendance Slips To 110k At First Report

For most trade shows, one hundred and ten thousand attendees isn't a bad number (unless we're talking Comic-Con, in which case it would be a sign of the Apocalypse). However, for the Las Vegas-based Consumer Electronics Show, that's a drop from previous years. Continue Reading

Apple To Lower The Price of More Songs To $0.69 Per Track

Apple has announced that it will now have two prices for single songs in their iTunes Music store. New and very popular songs will now cost $1.29 while many other tracks will have a lower cost of $0.69 each. The new, lower price is partially designed to make piracy of songs less desirable. Continue Reading

Viacom and Time Warner Find Middle Ground In TV Channel Fee Deal

Avoiding the heavily publicized standoffs that have occurred between various networks - ABC and Fox come to mind - and a number of cable and satellite companies, Viacom and Time Warner have reached a deal allowing the latter to continue to carry the former's programming. Continue Reading

Will CES 2009 Flop Because of The Sagging Economy?

Everybody who has ever been involved in running a convention knows the nerve-wracking dread of head counts. Will enough bodies come through the door to make the event worthwhile? It seems strange to imagine that this could be a consideration for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Continue Reading

Holiday Wishes From HomeTheaterReview.com

Happy holidays to all of our readers. Despite the recession, there are reasons for optimism in the world of home theater. Technologies are getting better and better and prices continue to drop. Soon, it may be possible to watch 3D without the use of those annoying glasses. Audiophiles may soon be listening to music on 24/192 audio files. Continue Reading

Greed is Good: New Private Equity Firm Looks To Invest In AV Companies

Finally, some potential good economic news for the AV business: DMC Capital announced today they will be looking to invest money in consumer electronics companies in various ways. With all apologies to "Wall Street's" Gordon Gekko, greed, for lack of a better way to put it, is overcoming fear with regard to the future of the AV industry. Continue Reading

BCS National Championship Game Coming In 3-D To Theaters

The BSC still doesn't have a playoff system, but the two teams selected to compete for College Football's mythical national championship will be seen in 3-D. Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corporation will be broadcasting the game at theaters in 35 states via its proprietary CineLive satellite network using the Sensio 3-D format. Continue Reading

More Evidence Howard Stern is Going To Leave Satellite Radio

Inside Radio has reported that Howard Stern is saying he will be leaving Sirius-XM radio when his contract is up in two years. "The King of All Media" was the most highly publicized signing for the satellite radio giant who originally inked him to a five-year deal worth nearly $500,000,000. Continue Reading

Report: Tweeter May Reopen While in Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

Twice, an industry trade magazine, has indicated that the Tweeter chain of electronics stores may reopen its doors tomorrow to further liquidate their inventory. The company recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Tweeter was one of the largest mid-level retailers in the marketplace and had previously acquired regional retailers like Bryn Mawr Stereo, Hi-Fi Buys and Dow. Continue Reading

Five Times the Resolution of 1080p - "4k Video" and the Digital Cinema Standard

Blu-ray won the HD wars, but it has yet to really take hold because it took awhile for the price of players to come down and for quality titles to become available to consumers. The next frontier in HD video will be something called 4Kwhich is a digital cinema format with a resolution of approximately 4,000 horizontal pixels. Continue Reading

Sirius Radio Hanging On By a Thread With Subscribers After Merging With Unpopular XM Music Content

The merger between Sirius and XM satellite radio hasn't been a smooth one for the company or for consumers. Mel Karmazin has more or less destroyed a lot of the most popular music programming on Sirius. On-air talent is no longer being heard on the air and subscribers now have to pay more money to get additional tiers of programming. Continue Reading