Author Archives: Stephen Dawson

DVD Giveaway

Posted on August 11, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Some companies send me DVDs, and occasionally they send me duplicate copies. Or, from time to time I decide to get rid of some discs that I think I’m unlikely to ever watch. So, to reward some loyal readers, I … Continue reading →

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The problem with DVD+R

Posted on August 11, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Whenever I’m writing a short piece on consumer DVD recorders, I have to pick and choose what I will actually talk about. That means leaving out some of the things I consider are probably of less importance to the target … Continue reading →

Posted in DVD, Equipment, Rant, Recorders | Leave a comment

Home theatre receiver power output measurements

Posted on August 10, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Since I outlined my measurement methodology in the entry below, here are some recent results found using that methodology (1kHz output only reported). Model Specification Power output per channel (1kHz continuous) 7 5 2 1 Denon AVC-11SR 7 x 125 … Continue reading →

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How — and why — I measure home theatre receiver power output

Posted on August 10, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

A reader, Tony, suggested a couple of months ago, that I write an article on ‘The Steve Dawson method of testing Receivers’. I don’t think it’s worth an article as such, but I would like to outline my process, and … Continue reading →

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DV vs MPEG2

Posted on August 9, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Andrew, from Canberra, writes to me: I refer to your article on the Hitachi DZ-MV580E video camera. I always like to read the Techno write-ups featured in The Guide [in the Canberra Times] each week. I think they are very … Continue reading →

Posted in Codecs, Compression, Video | Leave a comment

Apologies to all

Posted on August 9, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

I have no excuse. Just been variously busy, lazy and in shock. This last came from ballooning excess bandwidth charges. My hosting contract included 500MB per month. In recent months bandwidth has been between 1.5 and 2GB! My $38 per … Continue reading →

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Novel use for CDs

Posted on May 20, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

The humble CD, originally meant to be just a simple carrier of digital audio on a spiral track, has been finding more and more uses. First as a carrier of data and programs for computers, then as a recordable device. … Continue reading →

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AnyDVD is a a very useful tool

Posted on May 19, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Elsewhere I have been pondering on how government rules produce interesting workarounds. I was using the software product AnyDVD from SlySoft Inc as my angle into this, and it occurs to me I ought to mention the product here as … Continue reading →

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Lileks on HDTV

Posted on May 4, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

Last Friday’s Bleat by James Lileks records his observations on receiving high definition TV. Nice piece, as usual, but some technical corrections are in order. He says: Normal TV has something like 440 lines on the screen. (Or 380. Or … Continue reading →

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Independence Day gets re-released, remastered in Australia

Posted on May 3, 2004 by Stephen Dawson

In the middle of last year I pointed out a major deficiency in the mastering of the Australian PAL version of Independence Day. Namely, for the bulk of the movie, most of the video frames are constituted by fields from … Continue reading →

Posted in Disc details, DVD, Interlacing | Leave a comment