Author Archives: Stephen Dawson

HDTV vs SDTV again

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Last night one of the Australian Idol judges, Marcia Hines, was wearing this brilliant jacket. Brilliant, that is, from my point of view. That’s because it was white with a strong, very narrow, closely spaced, near horizontal, black stripe. Brilliant … Continue reading →

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Juno ‘Digital Copy’, let’s dig deeper

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Let’s dig a little deeper into this whole ‘Digital Copy’ (DC) thing, discussed in the previous post. My brother, presently holidaying in Austria, has written to me suggesting that I ‘should install a Firefox or Maxthon browser and set up … Continue reading →

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Brilliant Idea, Dumb Name

Posted on September 4, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Well, here I am live-blogging at the Republican National Convention where … okay, hang on, I’m not doing that at all. Instead I’m semi-live-blogging as I attempt to grapple for the first time with a ‘Digital Copy’. In my title … Continue reading →

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DVD Dominance

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Yesterday Warner Bros sent me the three Dirty Harry sequels on Blu-ray, along with the ‘Limited Edition Giftset’ Blu-ray for Batman Begins. I watched the latter last night and it was glorious. Great movie to begin with, and superb picture … Continue reading →

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3DTV

Posted on August 26, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Back in the early 1970s I entered a $100 bet with a school friend to the effect that before we died some form of effective, commercial 3D TV would be available. A hundred dollars seemed like a lot in those … Continue reading →

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VHS Weirdness

Posted on August 22, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Well, there you go. It looks like I don’t have too many readers after all! Or none, anyway, that have any spare VHS tapes. Happily charity came to the rescue. More to the point, I went to the Salvation Army … Continue reading →

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VHS Help!!!

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Independently of each other, my brother and my daughter have both suggested that I should do a pictorial comparison of VHS to DVD to Blu-ray. I think it’s a smashing idea and I’ve got the technical capabilities to do it. … Continue reading →

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And another BD/DVD comparison

Posted on August 19, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve added six comparison shots to my review of Independence Day. Here’s the first one:

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Audio calculations

Posted on August 18, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

The editor of Australian HI-FI, for which I write, has just emailed me a link to the most incredible and useful set of calculators I’ve ever seen at Sound Studio and Audio Calculations Online – Acoustics Conversion Engines. Okay, they’re … Continue reading →

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Two more Blu-ray/DVD comparisons

Posted on August 18, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve now done comparison shots between the Australian DVDs and Blu-rays of The Fifth Element and Full Metal Jacket. By coincidence, these are somewhat related. The first Blu-ray release of each of these in the United States was heavily criticised. … Continue reading →

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