Category Archives: Blu-ray

1080p24 – is it worth it?

Posted on December 4, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

Reader Peter Greed emailed me recently, drawing my attention to a Highdefdigest forum discussion on the value of 1080p24. This thread hangs off a pretty good article on 1080p24 from Joshua Zyber on the subject, entitled ‘What’s the Big Deal … Continue reading →

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Decoding, yes, but in which box?

Posted on December 1, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

The other day I emailed Dolby a question concerning where it thinks Dolby TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus will end up being decoded. I think their views also related to DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution, although of course … Continue reading →

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

Remastering pays off

Posted on November 30, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

Some months ago I did a comparison spread for Sound and Image magazine on the differences between Blu-ray and HD DVD picture quality. To be frank, some of the BDs I compared with rather disappointing. One such was The Fifth … Continue reading →

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Weirder Blu-ray

Posted on November 25, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I didn’t actually watch Die Hard 4.0 (known to Americans as Live Free or Die Hard) the other day when I received it. But on Friday I spoke to Pioneer about this Blu-ray disc’s behaviour in its BDP-LX70A player. I … Continue reading →

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Blu-ray blows, or how to let the opposition win

Posted on November 21, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I must confess that in the Blu-ray vs HD DVD stakes, I’ve been somewhat partial to Blu-ray. I think it has been because of the larger capacity of the disc than HD DVD, at least in their first incarnations (HD … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Firmware, HD DVD, Region Coding | Leave a comment

Sloppy Post Production in Kingdom of Heaven?

Posted on June 17, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

When I was on the scrounge for Blu-ray discs last year (it’s difficult reviewing Blu-ray players when you don’t have any discs), I hassled various movie distributors until they shot a few my way. One company to come through was … Continue reading →

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The HD format war already coming to an end?

Posted on April 11, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve been saying pretty much from the start that eventually there will be dual format HD DVD/Blu-ray players. But I wasn’t expecting it for maybe three or four years. Well, the pace of technological improvement continues to accelerate, and already … Continue reading →

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Blu-ray vs HD DVD – is Blu-ray hobbling itself?

Posted on April 10, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

Some years ago I received a DVD player for review. Before I had a chance to get it out of the box, I received a call from the PR company. The previous reviewer had accidentally left a DVD in it, … Continue reading →

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So, is Blu-ray really any better than DVD?

Posted on November 19, 2006 by Stephen Dawson

Well, judging by the detail of the pictures shown to the right, it most certainly looks like Blu-ray is much better than DVD. The discs concerned are the Region 4 DVD of A Knight’s Tale and the Blu-ray version thereof. … Continue reading →

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Blu-ray and popup menus

Posted on November 17, 2006 by Stephen Dawson

Blu-ray has many wonderful things going for it, especially the sheer detail of the picture quality (more on this on another day). But one of the coolest things for me are the pop-up menus. Blu-ray is capable of delivering three … Continue reading →

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