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Today's Show:
We talk about one of Ara's favorite movies, Patton. Over the weekend he watched it on Blu Ray and will tell you if Blu Ray breathes new life into the nearly 40 year old movie. And with the analog cutoff around the corner we found a small outdoor antenna that we that will make the transition a bit easier for you.

Patton (Buy Now)The movie won seven Oscars when it was released in 1970 and is one of Ara's favorite movies. Ara has seen it at least ten times over the years and it has a permanent place on his movie server. So with the recent release on Blu Ray Ara wanted to see if the movie benefited from the new technology.

Key Tech Specs:

• Blu-ray 50GB Dual-Layer/DVD-9
• Video: 1080p/AVC MPEG-4
• Aspect Ratio: 2.20:1
• English DTS HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround

Impression:
The movie was every bit as good as Ara remembered it. The added benefit of HD just made it that much better. Fox did an incredible job with the transfer. Colors jumped off the screen. There was so much more detail to grab your attention. The movie was encoded in 1080p AVC and watching on Ara's 65 inch DLP was like seeing it for the first time. Fox either had a pristine print or did some great restoration because we did not see any film damage throughout the entire movie.

Audio was a bit of a disappointment for Ara. Every time we see the Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio light up we expect great things. Patton has a DTS HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 so the expectation was very high. Unfortunately the audio did not deliver. This is not a knock against next generation audio, its a knock against the audio on this disc. Very few explosions woke up the subwoofer and the listener never felt "surrounded" by the sound.

Other Features:
There is an introduction by Francis Ford Coppola and the usual "Making of" type of content. One feature that Ara found interesting was entitled "Patton's Ghost Corps". Its a documentary about the soldiers he left behind when he went to assist in the "Battle of the Bulge". It paints a very different picture of the General. One that Ara found quite eye opening.

Conclusion:
If you liked the movie when it was released in the theater of on DVD you will love what they did with the Blu Ray version. Patton sets the bench mark for how to take a Library film and bring it into the digital age!

ClearStream 2 (C2) UHF Antenna (Buy Now)

If you have an HDTV or are thinking about getting one before the Analog Cutoff early next year you may also want to consider picking up your digital TV via an antenna. Many of you are concerned that an antenna is an eye sore of that they are just too big to to deal with. Today we talk about an antenna that takes care of both those issues.

The C2 is less that 1 foot by 2 feet and has an advertised range of up to 50 miles. According to the manufacturer (Antennas Direct) the CS2 uses a new breakthrough in size and unmatched ultra efficient design and gain. So in typical HT Guys fashion we look at this antenna empirically.

Tech Specs

• Range Up to 50 Miles
• Gain of 10.2 dBi
• Consistent gain through the entire DTV channel spectrum
• Dimensions: 20”H x 10”W x 5”D

The test site for this review is 45 miles from the LA transmitters and 80 miles from the San Diego Transmitters. By the way, one San Diego station (Fox) is over a hundred miles away in Mexico and were able to pull it in. The current setup for OTA is a Winegard HD 9095P. This is a Yagi style antenna rated for deep fringe. It costs about $115 including shipping. The antenna has a 9 foot boom and has a low wife acceptance factor, not to mention HOA, and neighbor acceptance as well. With this antenna we can receive all digital channels (45) from LA and a few from San Diego.

The testing was very straight forward. Put the C2 up against the monster Yagi and see how well it did. It should be noted that Ara lives in a hilly area and that there is a house directly behind and above him. So this is not a best case scenario in the least.

There were three tests involved. The first was to stick the antenna in a window and scan for digital channels. We weren't expecting much success here but much to our surprise the C2 picked up 9 digital channels. Some of them were ones we actually watch. The interesting thing was that we picked up two channels from San Diego. Ara has mentioned it in the past but it warrants mentioning again, there are mountains off to the East and the antenna is probably picking up a reflection.

The next test was to actually aim the antenna in the direction of the transmitters and hold it outside the window. With this test we were able to pull in 12 channels. We were hoping for more because at this point it has not been a fair test and the only way to do so was to get up on the roof and put the C2 right next to the Yagi. Anything close to 45 would have kept Ara off the roof which looks a lot higher when you are up there looking down.

For the third and final test we mounted the antenna in the same position as the Yagi and aimed it in the same direction. The scan was rerun and produced 25 digital channels. The channels that were missing were ones in the higher range. Channels 50 and higher. We could have done better if our topography was less hilly or we had no houses behind us. Even still, the C2 did a great job when you consider its size and our location.

Conclusion:

If you live within 40 miles of the transmitters or you have a clean line of site and live within 50 miles of your transmitters the C2 antenna is a great way to receive free over the air digital television.

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