Author Archives: Stephen Dawson

On a completely different topic

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I try not to litter this blog with my political views, except when they are relevant to home entertainment stuff. But if anyone is interested, I’ve had a piece published on Unleashed/The Drum on the ABC website in which I … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, Misc | Leave a comment

No, the Nazis weren’t the first

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Apparently someone has found a couple of half hour 3D movies made by the Nazis back in 1936. Well, what better excuse could there be for expressing one’s amused contempt for America? This occurs in the UK lefty newspaper The Guardian … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Cinema, Rant | 1 Comment

What is Blu-ray 3D?

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Last year saw a nearly unique sporting event in Australia. For only the second time in its 113 year history, the Australian Rules football grand final ended in a draw. This is so rare simply because the rules of the … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Blu-ray, HDTV | 4 Comments

Metropolis cometh, Buenos Aires version

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

To say the movie Metropolis is influential would be an understatement. Some 84 years old, it still scores 8.4, putting it at #94 on IMDB’s Top 250 list. Last week a new episode of Futurama (‘The Mutants Are Revolting‘) was on … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Cinema, DTV | 2 Comments

The Loudness Wars

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The previous post, Greg Borrowman made reference to ‘The Loudness Wars’ and gave a small explanation. But he has now drawn my attention to a very useful little video that explains what this means in practice. It is here, and … Continue reading →

Posted in CD, Imperfect perception, Music | 3 Comments

Guest comment on Warner Bros disc policy

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

This is in regard to the previous post, in which I’ve disclosed Warner Bros’ rather strange actions on disc reviews. I passed this on to my editors, as well as to the local head of Warner Bros here in Australia. … Continue reading →

Posted in BD-Live, CD, DVD, Testing | 2 Comments

Corporate madness

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I have kind of heard this before, but only today have I gotten around to confirming it. Warner Bros Home Entertainment no longer supplies review discs—Blu-ray or DVD. Instead it has some kind of online facility which reviewers are supposed … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, DVD, Giveaway, Testing | 4 Comments

Tilting the lens on The Social Network

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The other night I watched The Social Network on Blu-ray, and soon I’ll be writing a review of it. But I wanted to highlight here one brief part of it: a section starting around 84 minutes into the movie, called … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Imperfect perception, Video | 2 Comments

Old cables, new, and HDMI puzzles

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Recently I was using a 3D full HD front projector, and I was pleased to find that my old 10 metre Kordz ‘Diamond’ HDMI cable worked fine with it, including with full Blu-ray 3D. Then a few days later I … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Blu-ray, Cables, HDMI | Leave a comment

The imaginary world of colour

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Colour is a construct of the mind. Out in the real world what we perceive as colours is simply a small subset (less than an octave) of the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. Evolution has endowed us with a mechanism … Continue reading →

Posted in Imperfect perception, Video | 1 Comment