You actually know what some of the crazy doodles on the side of an HDTV means when it comes to video--720p, 1080i, 1080p. Congrats, you're ahead of most people, like my mother. But do you understand the alphabet soup of audio, the confounding constellation of logos on your Blu-ray player's box? While there are basically two rival home-theatre audio encoders--Dolby and DTS--they each have several different quality levels and options for different scenarios. Yeah, it's a lot to keep up with, and it annoys us too. So we asked Dolby and DTS to put down their guns for a sec and help us sort it out.

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Behold the Greatest Workstation of All Time: the Emperor. I mean, come on, anything that looks like it can control a turbolaser battery or fire a giant anti-matter death ray must be the greatest workstation of all time, period. But according to Patrick Laflamme Duval—business developer for manufacturer Novelquest—the name is not a Star Wars nod, but a reference to the emperor scorpion's tail:

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Toshiba TVs (in Japan) will be the first to feature good old Dubbly's newest technology, Dolby Volume, a smart system aimed at leveling off eardrum-shattering sources and content—hopefully eradicating the twin evils of loud-arse TV commercials and poorly-mastered MP3s. Here's how it works:

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Hey kids! Mr. T here, tellin' you that watching too much TV is bad for you. But if you're stuck inside, maybe you're sick with a cold or something, then this new TV by Dolby and SIM2 Multimedia might be good. It's got some cool local-dimming LED technology —1,838 of the suckas— that dynamically adjust backlighting for the best picture. They say it's got infinite contrast ratio: no shit! Guess that's the High Dynamic Range part. Has 1920 x 1080 pixels, 46-inch screen and is designed by an Italian-sounding guy. Giorgio Revoldini. Say What? You want to buy it? It's a protoype, sucka. [7 Gadgets]

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In Yamaha's CEDIA booth, their flagship surround sound bar, was audio magnificence amidst the din. In my house, the sound was big and lively, but I ran into some problems, too.

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I love the YSP series soundbars from Yamaha, but two points: their prices, and fact that you can't table mount em without blocking the bottom part of a flat panel. The Japan-only YSP-500 has only 18 individual sound beam drivers as opposed to 42 in the YSP-4000. It's also only 24-inches long, will fit easily under a TV and costs only $647. It support "Dolby digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6" and as Paul Strauss notes, you need a sub to really get the most out of this soundbar. Unfortunately, there's no mention of HDMI inputs. If YSP wants to go mainstream, Yamaha should bring this setup here. [Technabob]

I've had the pleasure of testing out the fourth-generation Yamaha surround sound bar, the YSP-4000. You know, the box that sits under a TV and projects 5 discreet beams of audio using Cold War direction Sonar steering from Submarines. This generation has had its trapezoid shaped array turned into a more of a hexagon, and the chassis is more rigid. There are HDMI inputs, and upscalers for analogue content. And there are DSP modes for stereo music sources that did not exist before. Does the fake surround work? Hell yes, better than ever.

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The Pitch Everyone who's been wondering what Jerry Seinfeld's been up to—other than cashing syndication checks the size of Tonga's GDP—need wonder no more: Judging by this promo, he's voicing the protagonist in DreamWorks Animation's forthcoming Bee Movie. (And how nice of him to find work for Patrick "Puddy" Warburton, who plays the audio engineer.) In this 30-second snippet, Jerry's bee mightily flaps his wings into a studio microphone, blasting Puddy through a concrete wall and into the ladies loo. How can such a tiny insect achieve such mighty volume? Why, thanks to Dolbee—er, Dolby—Digital technology, as the kick-out logo informs us. Cute, but why is the already ubiquitous Dolby Labs straining to reach the grade-school demographic?

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Today, Yamaha introduced a new flagship in its YSP "sound projector" faux-surround bars. The YSP-4000 is a follow-up to the YSP-1100, with a similar setup: 40 individual "beam" drivers that have individual amps, and two midbass speakers. The YSP-4000's main upgrade seems to be HDMI pass-throughs, and analogue/720p/1080i upscaling to wonderful 1080p.

No word on who makes the upscaler, but I notice that their new flagship receiver uses a not so great scaler by the usually high-end Anchorbay.

But back to audio. Those speakers all coordinated by a DSP, and by tweaking delay and volume, convincingly eliciting sweeping surround audio that seems to come from all 360 degrees, and then some. There are "seven Cinema DSP programs (three movie, three music and one sports)" and "Dolby Digital, DTS, Dolby Pro Logic II and DTS Neo:6," all of which are selectable via the remote and on screen display or LCD. The YSP-4000 is iPod and XM ready and goes for $US1800.

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