Category Archives: Rant

The Physics of the Spirit

Posted on November 23, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

In the dying moments of the First Cricket Test match for this season between Australia and New Zealand, one of the TV commentators remarked that the Australian bowler Mitchell Johnson was noted for being able to produce a ‘heavy’ ball. … Continue reading →

Posted in Mysticism, Rant, Testing | Leave a comment

Blu-ray and HD DVD the same … more or less

Posted on November 18, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

It used to amuse me when people would pronouce Blu-ray to be the ‘better’ format than HD DVD, or vice versa, on picture quality grounds. Potentially BD could be better simply because it had more space available. Kind of. Possibly. … Continue reading →

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

Careful of your fingers

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

This is just sad. This comes from page 3 of the manual of the Marantz AV8003 home theatre preamplifier/tuner. This is a wonder of technology and high-end performance that costs $4,499. Yet it has to have a notice in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, Rant | Leave a comment

Will BD-Live ever be any good?

Posted on October 1, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Eventually, I reckon. While I was writing the previous post a possible answer to a conundrum occurred to me. Consumer technology is not built upon an assumption of endless consumer patience. If you provide some feature in your equipment, consumers … Continue reading →

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Wasting Digital Real-estate

Posted on July 15, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

The excellent Blu-ray section of High-Def Digest is a frequent stopping point for me, especially its reviews. The reviews are usually pretty well done, but they do contain the odd error, often due to the difficulty of obtaining valid information … Continue reading →

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

HiFi funnies of the day

Posted on June 17, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

[Via Transterrestrial Musings] I have huge respect for the brand Denon. Its range encompasses decent, reasonably priced stuff (nothing really mass market) through to some seriously high end gear. But I do have to wonder how it can bring itself … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Cables, Equipment, Mysticism, Rant, Value | Leave a comment

I Love Warner Bros

Posted on May 2, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

I have previously whinged about region coding on Blu-ray. If you are considering purchasing a Blu-ray disc from overseas, particularly from the US, go first to the Blu-ray Region Code Info page and make sure that your contemplated purchase is … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Rant, Region Coding | Leave a comment

How not to review a Blu-ray player

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

Okay, I’m putting together a roundup of all high definition disc players currently available in Australia. I’ve reviewed most of them, but there are three that I haven’t. One is the Sony BDP-S300, one is the Toshiba HD-E10 and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, Equipment, Rant, Testing | Leave a comment

Insane artistic choices

Posted on January 2, 2008 by Stephen Dawson

So far as I am aware, there is no convenient book that fully describes all the range of issues regarding picture quality that I, for one, need to know. So what I have learnt has resulted from a painful process … Continue reading →

Posted in DTV, Interlacing, Rant | Leave a comment

Can’t fix what’s too broke

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Stephen Dawson

A few days ago I installed a new true HD projector, the Mitsubishi HC6000, and had a look at some HD DVDs. Great stuff. That evening I flicked on the HDTV receiver and the station happened to be Southern Cross … Continue reading →

Posted in DVD, Interlacing, Rant | Leave a comment