Category Archives: Blu-ray

I Love Warner Bros

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

I have previously whinged about region coding on Blu-ray. If you are considering purchasing a Blu-ray disc from overseas, particularly from the US, go first to the Blu-ray Region Code Info page and make sure that your contemplated purchase is … Continue reading →

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Yes, HD DVD is dead

Posted on February 19, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Well, so that’s it for HD DVD. Just Google News on HD DVD, and you will see that its demise is official. Of course, it’s only Toshiba abandoning the format, but without Toshiba the format is nothing. Interesting parallels: Betamax … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, HD DVD, Video tape | Leave a comment

Is HD DVD dead?

Posted on February 17, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

A couple of decades ago I read a slim volume called ‘The Limits to Prediction’ (I think, or something like that), which presented half a dozen papers on the art of predicting future events, and the success that was achieved. … Continue reading →

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The first hints of region free Blu-ray?

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

When I took receipt today of a review Pioneer BDP-LX70A Blu-ray player, it still had firmware 3.0 installed. This lead to a previously mentioned problem with Die Hard 4.0. I tried to update the firmware over Ethernet using the built … Continue reading →

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Kerthump!

Posted on January 21, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

I’m checking out the audio decoding capabilities of the Pioneer BDP-LX70A Blu-ray player and the Yamaha RX-V1800 home theatre receiver. To help me I have Dolby Laboratories’ Blu-ray demo disc, ‘The Sounds of High Definition’. After I had done my … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray | Leave a comment

Confusion on channels

Posted on January 14, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Oh wow, this is confusing. HDMI devices talk to each other, but what are they actually saying? As mentioned in the last item, I’ve been working on a roundup of all HD disc players. One of these is the Panasonic … Continue reading →

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

How not to review a Blu-ray player

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Okay, I’m putting together a roundup of all high definition disc players currently available in Australia. I’ve reviewed most of them, but there are three that I haven’t. One is the Sony BDP-S300, one is the Toshiba HD-E10 and the … Continue reading →

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Web-enabled features

Posted on December 31, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just been writing my reviews of HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs for Sound and Image magazine. I did a long one on the newly released The Bourne Ultimatum, which is on HD DVD, so I didn’t have much space … Continue reading →

Posted in BD-Live, Blu-ray, HD DVD | Leave a comment

Eight channel PCM

Posted on December 11, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

A reader, Michael, has emailed me about a previous post. He says: Another interesting post there. The Dolby email was quite interesting.I have older AVR without HDMI, so I have an interest in the ability of my receiver (RX-V757) to … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, HDMI | Leave a comment

Blu-ray booming

Posted on December 5, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just received a press release, issued by Sony Australia’s PR firm Hausmann Communications. It seems that providing Blu-ray support in the Playstation 3 was a pretty good idea. According to the release, market research company GfK Marketing Services says … Continue reading →

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