Author Archives: Stephen Dawson

Expectations destroy results

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Later, experimenters at Caltech felt that Feynman’s very presence exerted a sort of moral pressure on their findings and methods. He was mercilessly skeptical. He loved to talk about the famous oil-drop experiment of Caltech’s first great physicist Robert Millikan, … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysticism, Testing | Leave a comment

Audio subjectivism

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

My brother has drawn my attention to an episode of ‘Skeptoid’ in which (third item) the magical benefits of expensive audio cables are dismissed, along with the value of face masks in combating swine flu, the radioactive dangers of depleted … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Cables, Mysticism, Testing | Leave a comment

Slavish copying into picture quality disaster

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The Australian version of the BBC TV show Top Gear is growing on me. Unfortunately, it copies the original so slavishly that this extends to some of the more horrible photographic choices. In particular, it follows a practice about which … Continue reading →

Posted in DTV, Video | Leave a comment

New Blu-ray vs DVD comparisons

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Here are some new side-by-side Blu-ray vs PAL DVD comparisons that I’ve just put up: Disaster Movie The Queen Sin City Sleeping Beauty Some really stand out, such as this shot of a newspaper in Sin City: It’s not just … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Disc details, DVD | Leave a comment

Widescreen ‘pan and scan’

Posted on June 17, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

A few weeks ago I recorded The Da Vinci Code from high definition TV, since I was too busy to watch it during broadcast, and in any case I wanted to test out the Panasonic Blu-ray recorder I was reviewing. … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, DTV, HDTV | Leave a comment

Blu-ray video inputs and outputs

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Blu-ray players have to cope with many more signal standards than DVD. On the audio side, the latter deal with PCM, Dolby Digital, DTS and (for non-US players) MPEG2, whereas Blu-ray players must deal with all of those, plus two … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Equipment | Leave a comment

Blu-ray Audio

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Over at the ‘Unofficial Blu-ray Audio and Video Specifications Thread‘ on the AVS Forum, a Russian contributor has put up specifications for a couple of Blu-ray audio discs. Note, there’s no particular format difference between Blu-ray audio and regular Blu-ray. … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Compression | Leave a comment

Time to stop using ZoneAlarm for my protection, it seems

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Well, that’s irritating. For quite a few years I’ve been using ZoneAlarm Pro for my computer security needs. I’ve currently got three licences for three computers. It provides a firewall, antivirus, and a few odds and sods to keep my … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, Computer | Leave a comment

Sound, Branching and Disc Real Estate

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

My Blu-ray disc data gathering project continues, in which I try to determine as many technical and standards details as possible about Blu-ray discs. Of the nearly 300 Blu-ray discs in my database, 98 now have a ‘Completion’ score of … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Disc details | Leave a comment

Warner Bros, Roadshow Entertainment and Gran Torino

Posted on May 30, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Most Warner Bros Blu-ray discs are fairly basic in their organisation. They lack BD-Java, BD-Live, BonusView and so on. I’m not complaining, because Warner Bros has been pretty aggressive at getting its back catalogue out there in the new format. … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Disc details | Leave a comment