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I am still very new to all this and trying to keep up to speed with the technology that is available at the moment, I love looking through the Home Cinema DIY projects and am hoping to be in my first place before Xmas (put an offer on a place yesterday!)

I started thinking when I discovered this section of the forums about which magazines there are to buy and what magazines cover what?

Can anybody give me a general summary of the magazines that are available to buy in the shops and also what is generally covered in each of them? Also if you know the prices that too would be helpfull!

Thanks.

[SpencerUp]

Anybody?

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Bump

[SpencerUp]

Anyone at all?

[bxd]

Hi,

You're all alone on here.

Magazines - there are lots of opinions on the various available mags and I'll stick my neck out here. Many people (on the forums) think that the mags are a bit of a waste of time as they don't generally do any real (in depth) reviews and they are always a bit behind the latest news on the web. However, most magazines do 'test' equipment in professional labs and a good reviewer will have experience of lot's of kit and should have a good idea of what's good and what isn't.

I'm sure others will have very diverse opinions on this.

Of the AV magazines there are two worth having a look at.

Home Cinema Choice is generally a good read with good reviews (although you'll often find a similar review in What Video). It's the younger sister to What Video and tends to be a bit more "glossy" and perhaps a bit less technical.

What Video & HiDef TV - this is the older 'sister' to HCC and has changed it name slightly over the years (to keep up with the times) but What Video probably still has the best equipment reviews around. Over the years they have moved away from a 'staple' of camcorder and vhs vcr reviews to mainly reflect home av equipment. The technical aspect to the testing has been reduced over the years but this probably reflects a broadening of the readership.

If you want something really technical and in depth try to pick up a copy of Widescreen Review. This is an american mag (so it's slightly less relevant to the UK readership with regards to amps) but they do very good reviews of things like projectors. You might find one in a "Borders" bookstore.

On the HiFi side of things (they generally dabble in some av-stuff) there is also HiFi News (a bit technical and the kit being reviewed is often very expensive) as well as HiFi World and HiFi Choice which are all worth a look.

It's probably a sad reflection on the specialist market that some of the better magazines (such as Stereophile Guide to Home Theater and The Perfect Vision - both american) have gone out of print and only appear as a a much diminished 'webzine' in the last couple of years.

Brian

[IAN P]

Home Cinema Choice is the best UK mag imho,Widescreen Review is the best US mag imho.Definately need deep pockets for some of the cool stuff they review though.

[davepuma]

I occasionally buy a couple of AV magazines at the airport etc. and enjoy them but sometimes the reviews are laughable for example - in HC it states that the only negative (low) for the Panasonic TH46PZ81 Freesat equipped plasma TV is that it needs a dish Imagine that, a satellite tuner that needs a satellite dish? Jeez, no s**t Sherlock! They also did a round up of budget receivers, which the Pioneer VSX-1017 won but it was full of glaring errors, namely that it doesn't do upconversion from analogue to HDMI and can't handle LPCM over HDMI. Nope, according to the review it can do both? Come on.

I seem to recall What HiFi S&V (which in my opinion has gone down hill since it incorporated AV) making a similar boo boo of galactic proportions about the capabilities of the PS3 recently. I didn't read the article but caught the aftermath in their online forum. Their reviews are so dumbed down these days its unreal. I usually look at the star rating then try and work out how many lunches or pages of adverts it took to buy them. I guess we'll see who buys the biggest lunches when the awards are handed out soon.

I guess what I'm saying is I like them for the occasional flick through to kill time on the train/plane but to really research a particular topic or piece of equipment, I use the net and AVF in particular.

[Suave]

Hi,

Are "What Video & Widesceen TV", What Plasma & LCD TV" & "Home Cinema Choice" all from the same house? It seems if you search any on the web, one gets straight to the HCC website (which is pretty freaking crap). I thought I was going paranoid when I saw the same stuff being reviewed pretty much by these three most of the time!

Suave!

[IAN P]

Yes they are from the same "stable",the HCC website has recently changed,it used to be a lot better