Category Archives: Audio

Finding solutions

Posted on August 16, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

One of the fun bits of this job is inventing protocols to unambiguously determine different aspects of performance. While this is now largely a thing of the past (since most Blu-ray players now feature full audio decoding for all codecs), … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, Giveaway, Testing | 2 Comments

Yamaha now properly supports 1.0 sound

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Last year I whinged a bit about Yamaha because if would not handle 1.0 audio properly. Its receivers insisted on turning it into 2.0, apparently because Japanese TV had a disconcerting habit of switching between 2.0 and 1.0 for advertisements … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio | 1 Comment

Blu-ray Secondary Audio

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve just been scanning the new Blu-ray release from Sony, From Paris with Love. Like so many discs, it has an audio director’s commentary. What’s different is that this is implemented as BonusView secondary audio, rather than as a separate … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Disc details | 1 Comment

Crosstalk – 3D and audio

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I have reviewed five different 3D TVs. All five of them had noticeable problems with crosstalk. Crosstalk is a word that has been used for decades in regard to consumer electronics. It is used to label a legitimate signal ending … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D, Audio, How Things Work, Imperfect perception, Vinyl | Leave a comment

SACD comeback?

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

I’m presently looking at Sony’s new Blu-ray 3D player, the BDP-S470. Only $299! As I was exploring the player’s menu system, I came across something unexpected: a facility for handling Super Audio CD playback (you can choose between CD layer … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Equipment | 2 Comments

A Bit on the Slow Side

Posted on June 20, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

One of the enormous pleasures of being self-employed is the many exciting hours one spends doing paperwork related to taxes one must pay. Fortunately, I am in a position to temper the extreme joy by having a beer (or two) … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Equipment, Giveaway | 7 Comments

Lip Sync

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

About eighteen months ago I did a substantial piece on lip sync which was published in Sound and Image. I’ve just uploaded it, and here it is. It deals with what lip sync problems are, the processing in our brains … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, How Things Work, Imperfect perception | Leave a comment

Paranormal Activity and DTS-HD Master Audio

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Icon Film Distribution is releasing Paranormal Activity in Australia on Blu-ray and DVD on 2 April. This is a film that cost about $US15,000 to make and has since done about $US100 million at the box office. Pretty good ROI! … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray, Codecs, Compression, Disc details | 1 Comment

Efficiency of Audio Codecs

Posted on February 17, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

Elsewhere it was pointed out that in my earlier post I was counting in the bitrate of Dolby TrueHD the standard Dolby Digital core, and that this is strictly not necessary for TrueHD. The reason I do that is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Codecs, Compression | Leave a comment

More bitrates

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Stephen Dawson

In my post below I noted that The Box has both DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD encodes. I added The Broken as well. In both cases, the TrueHD encode seemed more efficient space wise: significantly in the case of a … Continue reading →

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