Our 10 Best Software Award winners.

Nothing less than our picks for the best demo material of the past year.

Who needs the movies? Some of the hottest sights and sounds on Blu-ray have their origins in the airwaves.

I hate to admit it, but I’m becoming a bit of a TV junky again, after swearing off all but a few essential shows a few years back.

I had been managing fairly well, actually. Honestly, I had.

Then Blu-ray came along.

Push your home theater to infinity and beyond with these out-of-this-world sci-fi flicks on Blu-ray

In the annals of motion picture history, perhaps no genre has stoked the imagination and stimulated the senses quite so well as science fiction. There's something about gleaming metal entities and blinding bursts of projectile plasma that gets the juices flowing—and sets subwoofers in motion—in a way that mere earthly action never will.

If you’re shopping for a new display, don’t leave home without these indispensable Blu-ray discs. 

Over the past six years worth of “Show-Offs” columns, I’ve devoted who knows how many thousands of words to one singular goal: giving you the tools you need to blow your hair back, tickle your retinas, and prove to your guests that you have the best home theater on the block.

That assumes, of course, that you actually do have the best home theater on the block.

Avoid the crowds and get your money’s worth with these spectacular concerts on Blu-ray.  

I’ve just about done with concerts.Not that I don’t love live music—nothing compares to being in the same room with talented musicians doing their thing—but it's just not worth the hassle anymore.

Where is the joy in paying $250 for a nosebleed seat, only to have to strain to hear the music over all of the Chatty Cathys, while some old drunk dude in a two-sizes-too-small Motorhead T-shirt spills Bud in your lap? With the advent of Blu-ray, I honestly cannot find a reasonable answer to that question.

Looking for some sweet surround sound music to show off your system? Stop looking for discs and start looking at internet downloads.

If you’re still looking for great high-resolution, multichannel music Show-Offs on disc, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re looking in the wrong place. These days, digital distribution via the internet has risen from the ashes of DVD-Audio and SACD as the format of choice for discerning audiophiles in need of a 5.1 fix.

Make your system sing with these great musical movie moments.

I’ve covered my fair share of music and movies here in Show-Offs over the years. Interestingly enough, as I look back over previous columns, I notice a distinctly never-the-twain-shall-meet approach to the cinematic and lyrical media.

What’s the biggest mistake that so many theater designers make these days? It isn’t improper speaker placement. It isn’t improper display calibration. Nor is it subpar acoustics. No, the biggest mistake I see so many theater or media room designers make is the relegation of video game systems to the kids’ room.