Audio News for April 23, 2010

by | Apr 23, 2010 | Audio News | 0 comments

Vudu Offers Avatar With Extras – IPTV movie service developer Vudu is now offering the blockbuster hit Avatar with bonus content – which is not even offered on the Blu-ray disc which streeted yesterday. This will also be a 28-day advance digital delivery of the film  over Vudu’s rival Netflix. The extra content – in standard def only – is available at no extra charge and includes a behind-the-scenes look at the equipment director James Cameron invented to shoot Avatar. It is available for purchase in HD and HDX hi-def formats for $25 and standard def for $20.

Nobel Prize for Physics
– With all the controversy about whether or not President Obama should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, the other prizes have been ignored. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics, for example, was shared by Charles Kao for his work as young engineer at the UK’s Standard Telecommunications Labs – together with Wilard Boyle and George Smith for their invention of the CCD (Charged-Coupled Device), a digital-imaging chip. Kao’s achievement was determining the best wavelengths and optical properties of glass fibers to use for fibre optics. His work resulted in today much of the major backbone files of all our audio and video being carried by optical fibres. Boyle and Smith were at Bell Labs looking for way to improve memory chips, and they discovered that an early prototype worked much better when the lights in the lab were off.  They had discovered the photoelectric effect, and eventually came up with the semiconductor-based digital-imaging chip used in video, cameras and elsewhere today.

New Classical Music Site – Passionato.com – a new destination for connoisseurs of classical music – has been launched. It offers the largest available collection of CD-quality DRM-free classical music downloads. There is no subscription fee and no membership requirements to sign up for. Labels include DGG, Decca, Virgin, EMI Classics, Naxos, Chandos, Telarc, BIS, etc.  Users may choose downloads in either 320kbps DRM-free MP3 files or CD-quality lossless FLAC format.  The site also offers recording information as well as reviews, profiles and information provided by the All Music Guide, Gramophone, Oxford University Press, BBC Music Magazine, the Penguin Guide and Fanfare.

More Audio Shows – is scheduled for May 1 & 2 in Detroit. The AKFest 2010 will take place at the Sheraton Detroit Novi. There will be vinyl replay, solid-state and tube amp devices, a variety of hi-res source components, plus horn, box and panel speakers. Exhibitors will play source material brought in and nearly everything is available for immediate sale with delivery following the event. Details at AudioKarma.org

One June 11-13 there will be an audiophile event in Washington DC, the Capital Audiofest at the historic Glenview Mansion on the grounds of the Rockville Civic Center. This casual event for audio buffs is for those interested in hi-quality tube and transistor audio equipment, analog and digital playback sources, audio accessories, and buying and selling LPs and CDs. There will be live musical performances on two evenings plus an indoor audio swap meet on Sunday morning.

BBC Proms for 2010 – The “world’s greatest classical music festival” is the BBC Proms series, with 76 concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall  and 13 chamber concerts at Cadogan Hall this season.  All the concerts are available online on BBC Radio 3.  The programming is extremely varied, and visiting orchestras include the French National, Berlin Philharmonic, Rotterdam, Cologne Radio Symphony, Danish Radio Symphony and the Minnesota Orchestra. Programs that caught our eye were #2 with Bryn Terfel and Amanda Roocroft, #26 with both Mahler’s 4th and 5th conducted by Valery Gergiev, and #41, with Scriabin’s First and Stravinsky’s Firebird, also conducted by Gergiev.

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