Monthly Archives: March 2009

Serenity re-encode improves quality

A couple of posts ago I mentioned that the Universal Pictures (Australasia) Pty Ltd Blu-ray release of First Blood had an identical video encode to the previous HD DVD release. I have now checked both Total Recall and Serenity, which … Continue reading

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Wasting Space?

Last night I watched Pale Rider, a Clint Eastwood Western released on Blu-ray by Warner Bros. I strongly suspect it is the same as Warner Bros releases of the movie elsewhere in the world. I find this disc interesting for … Continue reading

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Know It All

Since 2004 I have been writing a column for Geare magazine called ‘Know It All’. In each column I endeavour to explain how some bit or other of technology, or other working thing, actually does work. I’ve uploaded the first … Continue reading

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Windows Vulnerabilities

A number of years ago I wrote a review of Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0 in which I concluded it has a significant list of problems, making it a lousy word processor. Except for all the other word processors on … Continue reading

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DTS-HD High Resolution

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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Visiting elsewhere

That’s naughty of me. I’ve been hanging around elsewhere over the last ten days or so. Primarily here. That is a site for gathering detailed statistical information on Blu-ray content. I’ve contributed some information on a few discs, thanks to … Continue reading

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Overseas Blu-ray purchases

Today I received a copy of the Japanese Anime movie Akira, which I ordered on Blu-ray from Amazon. Reason: the Japanese 5.1 channel Dolby TrueHD sound track is encoded at 192kHz and 24 bits: the maximum supported by the format. … Continue reading

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To Bookmark, or Not To Bookmark?

A lot of Blu-ray discs come with a book marking facility. Such facilities have appeared over the years on a number of DVD players. Most were utterly useless, since the moment you popped the disc out your bookmarks were wiped. … Continue reading

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