TESTED &
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THIS IS MORE THAN just a soundbar.
The Sonos Beam is a wireless,
voice-controlled speaker, capable of
pumping out brilliant sound quality
that fills a room or even a house. It’s
packing four drivers, five amps, and a
tweeter, laid out along the front of the
bar to maximize range. There are five
microphones, which can pick up voice
commands from across a room, even
while your music is blaring.
One of the biggest draws of the
Beam is its ability to play music from
virtually any source. Whether it’s your
phone or tablet, a network-connected
drive, or your streaming service of
choice (Spotify and Apple Music are
obviously supported, but the Beam can
al so link to Tidal, A mazon Prime Music,
Deezer, and more), this bar has got you
covered. Of course, it can link to your
TV or monitor, too, and dialogue jumps
out with exceptional quality.
The Beam is easy to set up, supports
HDMI for TV connectivity, and can be
synched to Amazon Alexa devices for
more in-depth voice control. iPhone
users can also connect directly to it,
and use their phone to issue commands
to the Beam. The Beam connects to
other Sonos products as well, should
you wish to build a network of sonic
mastery in your home.
Considering that it’s relatively small
(though weighty—you could knock
someone out cold with this thing), the
depth of bass is incredible. We were
almost afraid of turning the Beam up to
its maximum volume, lest we disturb
the neighbors.–CG
$399, http://www.sonos.comVSDC FREE VIDEO
EDITORI recently found myself
needing to pull some
old cine footage that
had been transferred
to DVDs. For numerous reasons, my
normal video editor no longer worked, so
I needed to find a tool (preferably free) that
would help me complete the task in the
kind of tight deadline that is completely
normal for such things. After trying a
few that either failed to see the files,
produced corrupted images, or had the
kind of interfaces that needed more time
to master than I had, I settled on VSDC.
The interface comes from the intuitive,
no-nonsense school of design. I was able
to skip around the movie easily, and pick
out the parts I needed. It did take a couple of
at tempt s to get the output set tings spot on,
but once done, the quality was excellent,
and the files sizes were manageable (not
something that could be said of some of
the programs I tried using).
Overall, I was impressed with how this
tool performed. While I was very focused
on a tight subset of what you’d usually want
to do with a video editor, VSDC handled
what was needed and was intuitive enough
that I’ve left it on my machine for more
fiddling when I get a few free moments.
Free, http://www.videosoftdev.comHUNT: SHOWDOWNThanks to a recent free
event, I gave Crytek’s
Hunt: Showdown a go.
It’s a strange beast,
blending elements of
horror, shooter, and battle royale games to
produce a tense, atmospheric jaunt across
the marshlands of 1800s Louisiana. It
doesn’t actually feel like a Crytek game,
apart from the savage demands it puts
upon your GPU. Even on the trusty 1070 Ti,
the game really struggled at max settings.
Graphical fidelity aside, is it fun? Yes,
but stressful. The gameplay is slow and
ponderous, punctuated by brief bursts
of intense action. Ten players are tasked
with hunting a powerful demonic creature
before escaping with the loot. Death is
permanent, so the game demands that you
recruit new hunters and outfit them with
gear between sorties. Each hunter also
levels up independently, unlocking helpful
new perks as they grow stronger.
The catch? You’re all after the same
beastie, and there’s nothing to stop you
gunning down your fellow hunters. Weaker
monsters roam the map, barely a threat,
but depleting your limited ammunition.
And you don’t have to fight; you can venture
out for a quick recon, then depart the
match with your loot—and life—intact.
$30,www.huntshowdown.comSonos Beam
Soundbar
Executive editor, Alan Dexter, and staff writer, Christian
Guyton, have been hunting for free software this monthEditors’ Picks:
Digital Discoveries
maximumpc.com SEP 2019 MAXIMUMPC 93