HiFi Writer Blog

If your Samsung BDP-1600 Blu-ray player is networked, upgrade it

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I plugged in a Samsung BDP-1600 Blu-ray player this evening, whereupon it automatically asked if it could upgrade itself from version 1.0x firmware to 2.04. As is my practice, I told it to go ahead and went and did something else. I don’t know what, if anything, the firmware repaired. But when it had finished it had access to You Tube videos. Very clever.

Posted in Blu-ray, Equipment, Firmware | Leave a comment

‘NDAs are evil’

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I just wrote a 650 word email to Twentienth Century Fox Home Entertainment. My editor, Jez Ford, used just three words to basically say the same thing in response: ‘NDAs are evil’.

Trying to keep in contact with the various distributors of Blu-ray discs has been difficult. From my point of view — largely because they are so responsive and helpful — the best companies are Warner Bros, Paramount, Roadshow Entertainment and Disney.

The worst has been Universal Pictures. Most of the time they don’t even respond to email, and review discs are few and far between.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox have been variable. I am loathe to criticise them because they both came to my rescue, three years ago, with Blu-ray discs when I had the first couple of players heading my way, and nothing to play on them. But over the last year or so, they have been quite unresponsive to my email. Nice enough on the phone, but little happens.

So once again I got into contact with the latter today, since I need a packshot for my recent Blu-ray vs DVD comparions of The Transporter. It wasn’t available through the company’s online press office.

I was heartened to discover that one of the excellent PR people from Paramount was now with Fox. Unfortunately, new rules (not his fault) have been put in place by Fox corporate, technically ‘TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT LLC, with offices at 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, California 90064’, if I can quote from the ‘CONFIDENTIALITY AND CONTENT PROTECTION AGREEMENT’ it has disagreeably exuded.

Apparently, one can only receive review copies of Fox Blu-ray discs and DVDs if one signs this agreement.

Had I signed this agreement, I would not have been able to even mention on this Blog that I had signed the agreement unless I had written permission from Fox to do so! Don’t believe me? The 130 word definition of ‘CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION’ says, in part:

Confidential Information includes, for example and without limitation, information, techniques, and processes related to the creation, promotion, marketing, selling, and distribution of Fox’s products, including without limitation creative processes, content protection measures, marketing plans, customer and supplier identities, pricing, other competitive information, the status of discussions or negotiations between Fox and Recipient, and the terms of this Agreement or any other agreement between Fox and Recipient. Confidential Information can be in tangible or electronic form or conveyed verbally.

I’m quoting this at length, because anyone who actually signs it probably won’t be able to. Don’t believe me? Clause 2(a) says:

Recipient shall hold Confidential Information in trust and confidence on behalf of Fox. Recipient shall not disclose Confidential Information to any third party, except as specifically approved in advance in writing by Fox.

No journalist should sign this. The preamble says:

In connection with the Purpose, Recipient may acquire highly sensitive and valuable information and materials from Fox, and both parties wish to ensure that these information and materials are protected and kept secure in their mutual business interests.

As I wrote to Fox, decling to sign:

In fact, the job of the Recipient is to provide interesting and useful information to the readers of the publication. Sometimes (virtually never in my case) that may not be in Fox’s business interest.

But it would have been easier to say what Jez said: ‘NDAs are evil!’

Meanwhile, should you read in your local newspaper or a magazine or on a website a review of a DVD or a Blu-ray disc from Fox, you should perhaps query the publication as to whether it is bound by a ‘CONFIDENTIALITY AND CONTENT PROTECTION AGREEMENT’.

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

Region A

Posted on October 2, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Region A Warning Panel

Madman Entertainment today sent me the Blu-ray versions of Afro Samurai and Afro Samurai: Resurrection. Both look like they are going to be very interesting.

The reason for this Blog post is just to chuckle over an interesting little quirk with the former disc. It is coded Region B, which means it will work in players from Australia and Europe, but not in those from elsewhere The way I check the region coding is by forcing the region code on my computer to Region A, then Region C, and finally Region B. This disc would only play when I set the code to Region B. But if it was set to either Region A or C, the graphic above was displayed: ‘This Blu-ray disc will playback on Region A players only’.

My guess: the disc was prepared in the US for Madman, and the authoring house forgot to change the graphic. Madman would probably never notice, because they’d do all their quality control in a Region B player, so the rejection screen would never appear.

Actually, aside from the region coding issue, this disc seems very similar indeed to the US release (which is region coded ‘A’). They have the same playlist file name, and the same actual transport stream file names. They use the same video codec and have the same average video bitrate. They both lack subtitles. They also have the same average audio bitrate for their Dolby TrueHD track.

Oddly, though, they differ in their two channel Dolby Digital audio track: the US version gets 640kbps while the Australian version gets 448kbps.

So just another of those amusing quirks one comes across.

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

Old Blu-ray Players

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player Over the last three years I have developed a number of standard measurements and tests that I conduct on Blu-ray players, and now I have a spreadsheet with the details for more than twenty players recorded. This includes such things as timing for starting play on certain discs, audio handling, deinterlacing performance and so forth.

Back in late 2006 and early 2007 I reviewed the first three Blu-ray players available in Australia: the Samsung BD-P1000, the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and the Pioneer BDP-LX70. It would have been nice to apply the same tests to those three players, but at the time I hadn’t thought them out, nor did I even have the discs I used to do them.

So, I wonder, do any of you out there, preferably local to Canberra, ACT, have one of these models that you would care to lend to me for a day or so?

Posted in Blu-ray, Equipment | Leave a comment

Woodstock on Blu-ray

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The latest issue of Australian HI-FI magazine carries my reviews of the Blu-ray versions of Sleeping Beauty and Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music. As I note in the latter review:

No chapter listing is provided with this version of the disc, and the ‘Scene Selector’ pop up is not all that clear. You can download a PDF of the track listing from my website, from the link on the front page at www.hifi-writer.com.

I quite forgot about that, but I remembered this evening, so I’ve put a link on the front page. The 253kB PDF is here. When printed out, it should slip neatly under the clips inside the Blu-ray case.

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

HD Pulp Fiction cometh

Posted on September 30, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I was just trawling through Roadshow Entertainment’s publicity website to get ahold of a packshot of A History of Violence for my forthcoming Blu-ray review, when I stumbled on the fact that Pulp Fiction is due for release by Roadshow in November. In view of the appalling state of the DVD, this is great news.

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

A Decade of Tuning Tips (Part Two) – 2

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Cover of insert Perhaps ‘the worst book ever written‘ was actually the second worst.

A while back I mentioned this little pamphlet, and promised to come back to it. Well, here goes. First, the claim by the author, Jimmy Hughes:

I have experienced every one of these techniques in practice, and can vouch for the effects produced.

This is one reason why I am extremely cautious when it comes to subjective reviewing. And here is one of those techniques:

… put a small piece of plain paper or card (that is, a piece with no writing or printing on it) under one of the feet of any piece of equipment with an even number of support points. You can use this technique very successfully on audio and video equipment, as well as on larger objects like refrigerators. I achieved marvellous results by putting a piece of plain white card under one foot of my sofa and chairs –visitors have often been amazed when I’ve demonstrated the effect on the sound produced by removing the card from under my sofa, and they could not see what I was doing.

I have this vision. Mr Hughes has some friends or acquaintances or relatives in his living room. He does something out of their sight and enthusiastically proclaims that — surely!!! — they can sense the muddiness and sheer lack of tunefulness that his music system now produces, compared to moments before. In the face of his certainty, and his child-like delight, who but a churlish individual such as me could disagree?

If you are thinking about giving this technique — the effect of which Mr Hughes vouches for — a whirl, do remember to make sure that the card you place under the foot of your sofa or chair does not have any writing on it. No one can say what the effects are if there is indeed some text imprinted on the surface. Permanent damage may result.

Posted in Audio, Imperfect perception, Mysticism, Rant | 1 Comment

Manthropology – the worst book ever written!

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

There can be no doubt that Manthropology is the worst book ever written. Its prose is of a lower standard than that of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It is shorter than the Holy Bible. It is less engrossing than the movie Terminator 2.

Can you dispute any of these clear facts?

If not, then on the author’s own argument, his book is the worst.

His argument appears in an interview on Australian ABC Radio’s ‘Counterpoint’ program on 14 September 2009, to which I have just finished listening. The thesis of his book is that ‘every man in history, back to the dawn of the species, did everything better, faster, stronger and smarter than any man today.’ Or so says his publisher’s page.

In the interview the author, Peter McAllister (apparently ‘a qualified palaeoanthropologist’, which makes me depair for that science), argues his case. From memory:

Rapper ’50 Cent’ can only remember 6,000 lines of verse, whereas Homer (the ancient, not the Simpson) could remember 30,000 and some Serbian of around a century ago could remember 350,000.
David Beckham doesn’t spend three or more hours each morning devoted to making himself pretty, unlike the Fulani tribemen of somewhere or other.
A Neanderthal woman could beat Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime in an arm wrestle.
Homo Erectus had similar sized sockets to modern man on their limb bones, but thicker actual bones.
Pygmies are better fathers than modern men because they spend 47% of their time with their kids.

I gather — I hope!! — that the book is supposed be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Because the style of argumentation is ludicrous. You could use it to ‘prove’ any proposition, no matter how ridiculous. The formula is simple: take a specific element of the object in question and, unattached to any other aspect of the object, contrast it unfavourably to what you consider to be the very best comparable attribute possessed anywhere, at any time, by any thing.

For goodness sake, Neanderthals and members of Home Erectus aren’t even the same species as us. You may as well complain about a modern man’s swimming ability because he would be bested by a shark!

Posted in Rant | Leave a comment