Category Archives: Compression

BBC says that it’s all in your head

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Over on the AVS Forum Blu-ray Audio and Video Specifications Thread, we whinge, rightly, about average video bitrates of less than 20Mbps, sometimes even less than 15Mbps, on Blu-ray. Still we should keep things in perspective. Apparently the BBC HD … Continue reading →

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Heat discs won by clever readers

Posted on November 13, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

 I have posted three copies of Heat on Blu-ray to three readers who undertook my Blu-ray picture quality survey. They were: Shane from the Gold Coast, Des from Queensland, and Simon Hewlett from Calwell, ACT, not far from where I … Continue reading →

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Win Heat on Blu-ray!

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Courtesy of Warner Bros, from 30 October 2009 I have three copies on Blu-ray of the excellent movie Heat (1995) to give away. This is a must-have, not only for the excellence of the movie, but the superb street gun … Continue reading →

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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 →

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Eight bits of noise?

Posted on April 16, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

In the previous post I asked at the end: ‘Is 24 bits it worth it?’ I want to do an extensive post on this in due course, but let me first make my point briefly. In that previous post I … Continue reading →

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DTS-HD High Resolution

Posted on March 23, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been after a disc — any disc — carrying DTS-HD High Resolution audio. This is, of course, the improved version of DTS. It remains lossy, but can carry more bits of data, so it is less lossy than regular … Continue reading →

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The Wall Street Journal on the re-ordering of the music recording industry

Posted on January 12, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The Wall Street Journal today has an interesting piece on how international record companies are gradually accommodating themselves to the fact of digital technology. As it puts it: But after suing some 35,000 music fans for illegally downloading songs, music … Continue reading →

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DTS vs Dolby Digital vs high definition sound

Posted on November 25, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Interesting article here about the differences in sound quality between the various forms of DTS and Dolby Digital and the new lossless formats, in which actual controlled listening tests are conducted. Bottom line: differences are subtle.

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Bring on the Blu-ray Sound

Posted on October 22, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Although I think DVD Audio is a dead format, and SACD isn’t too far off either, I still keep buying them if I see them at a reasonable price. The other day I picked up The Who’s Tommy from Amazon.com … Continue reading →

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Sony PS3 Gets DTS-HD Master Audio

Posted on May 5, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

A couple of weeks ago I was doing a piece on choosing your next Blu-ray player. I said, in short, that you’d be nuts to buy anything other than the Panasonic DMP-BD30 because it alone can do all of the … Continue reading →

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