Category Archives: Video

Over-rating our capabilities

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Subjective assessment of home entertainment equipment is important because there are characteristics of performance which aren’t well conveyed through measurements. I am not saying that these things aren’t captured by the measurements (thoroughly and carefully conducted); merely that few people … Continue reading →

Posted in Imperfect perception, Mysticism, Rant, Testing, Video | Leave a comment

Slavish copying into picture quality disaster

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The Australian version of the BBC TV show Top Gear is growing on me. Unfortunately, it copies the original so slavishly that this extends to some of the more horrible photographic choices. In particular, it follows a practice about which … Continue reading →

Posted in DTV, Video | Leave a comment

‘600hz sub fielding’

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

A member the public has written to one of my editors asking, in short, what is ‘600Hz sub fielding’? The editor passed it on to me, and my initial thought was: ‘I have no idea’. Fortunately our correspondent quoted some … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, How Things Work, Video | Leave a comment

7669

Posted on April 4, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

While examining The Fifth Element I noticed that there was a one minute long video file on the disc, with no apparent linkage from the menu. So I dragged it into a video player and discovered that it was a … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Testing, Video | Leave a comment

Disclosures and subjectivity

Posted on February 24, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

This morning my attention was drawn to my disclosures page on this site (click on ‘Disclosures’ above). Having more or less forgotten about it, I went and had a read. Two things struck me. First, it was woefully out of … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Equipment, Rant, Video | Leave a comment

Yay for Eastman Color!

Posted on February 13, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

My brother has drawn to my attention a truly fascinating article published (perhaps, republished) in the Journal of the National Film and Sound Archive, an Australian government body. Entitled ‘Crying in Color: How Hollywood Coped When Technicolor Died‘ (PDF). In … Continue reading →

Posted in General Tech, How Things Work, Video | Leave a comment

Nailing Down An Issue

Posted on January 21, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

You may have noticed that in my previous post I didn’t mention which Blu-ray player I was using. That’s because I don’t like accusing players of misbehaviour until I’m very certain of my ground. Since doing that post I’ve been … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Disc details, Testing, Video | Leave a comment

Regulations got around, as usual

Posted on October 15, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

A while back some or other agency of the Australian government was talking about banning TVs that were threatening to destroy the planet. Something about using too much power, and therefore causing too much carbon dioxide to be generated. As … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, Power consumption, Video | Leave a comment

Deinterlacing Demo

Posted on September 5, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

In the previous post I mentioned grabbing some video for a test clip. Here is a somewhat similar test clip I currently use. Use? Overuse! The clip is 3 minutes and 34.8 seconds long and I’ve watched bits of it … Continue reading →

Posted in DVD, Interlacing, Testing, Video | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in 3D, How Things Work, Video | Leave a comment