Monthly Archives: June 2011

Some more Blu-ray vs DVD comparisons, plus a review

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve added two more Blu-ray vs DVD comparisons. One is for the vastly underrated Denzel Washington movie The Siege, while the other is for another movie from 1998, Shakespeare in Love, which unaccountably won the Best Picture Academy Award (plus … Continue reading →

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

Dithering again

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Years ago I put up a piece I had published in Australian HI-FI on ‘dither’, the technique which, theoretically at least, can reduce objectionable distortion in digital audio recordings. Long since forgotten, I imagine, but just in case anyone is … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, How Things Work | Leave a comment

On a more positive note …

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I’ve put up a couple more Blu-ray vs DVD comparisons: Cool Hand Luke and Falling Down. You will use neither as demo material for the wonder of Blu-ray. Nonetheless, both movies are nicely watchable on Blu-ray — far more so … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Disc details, DVD, Giveaway | 3 Comments

And we have a mechanism!

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

I have been asked whether Mr Hughes, author of the loopy pamphlet ‘A Decade of Tuning Tips (Part 2)’, has given any explanation as to why putting a piece of paper under one leg of a couch, or snipping the … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Imperfect perception, Mysticism | 1 Comment

A Decade of Tuning Tips (Part Two) – 3

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Oh, I’ve been so terrible. I was chatting to someone today and whinging about the British hifi media of the 1980s, only to remember that I had failed to follow up on a series of posts started a couple of … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Imperfect perception, Mysticism, Rant | 13 Comments

Twinkles in the picture, but from where?

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

If you’ve been reading this Blog lately you will know that I’ve been using some inexpensive HDMI cables lately, marvelling at how well they work (ie. just like expensive ones). But then, last night, I was watching ABC’s ‘Media Watch‘ … Continue reading →

Posted in Cables, DTV, Testing, Video | 4 Comments

A bigger (longer?) hammer from The Cable Connection

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The other day I purchased some HDMI cables from The Cable Connection, following up on my previous post about Kogan’s inexpensive HDMI cables. In a comment to that post alebonau recommended TCC. Now I had little doubt that the Kogan … Continue reading →

Posted in Cables, HDMI | 1 Comment

A little IMDB treasure

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

The movie review section of the Internet Movie Database is often quite interesting. One of the reviews seems to be picked up randomly for the main page of a movie. Some of these seem to be from people spruiking the … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema, Misc | 1 Comment

Who needs the NBN?

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Stephen Dawson

Well, here I am in suburban Canberra on a modestly effective ADSL2+ connection with Bigpond. I’m reviewing a nice new LG TV which can, amongst other things, connect to Bigpond Movies. Here’s what it has to say about my Internet … Continue reading →

Posted in Online media | 7 Comments