Monthly Archives: October 2009

New old movies from Universal!

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

The postman knocked at the door this morning and unexpectedly delivered three brilliant Blu-ray discs from Universal. Labelled the ‘StudioCanal Collection’, these come in cardboard book-style cases, with an 18 page booklet on the movie included in a pocket. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray | Leave a comment

Deinterlacing and Upscaling difficulty

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

I have just been looking at the second disc of the brilliant ‘Ultimate Collector’s Edition’ Blu-ray version of Woodstock: 3 days of peace and music. One of the extras on this disc is a five minute featurette called ‘The Museum … Continue reading →

Posted in Blu-ray, DVD, Interlacing, Video | Leave a comment

The Simpsons – Season 21 commences

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Season 21 of The Simpsons started in Australia last night. Episode 1, ‘Homer the Whopper’, had a clever premise in which Comic Book Guy had penned his own series of comics which he hadn’t published for fear of scorn from … Continue reading →

Posted in DTV | Leave a comment

Possible reasons for differing video quality

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Regarding my earlier post (two down) on possible differences between US and Australian Blu-ray discs for quality, Sandra has written to me: I was also present the night John talks of. There is an alternate hypothesis to encoding variations or … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, How Things Work, Mysticism, Video | Leave a comment

Director’s Cut

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Warner Bros has released a bunch of new Blu-rays covering legacy titles (don’t worry, new titles are coming too: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will be available on Blu-ray from 18 November, and The Hangover from 25 November). … Continue reading →

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

‘Region A vs Region B on Blu-ray’

Posted on October 11, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Yesterday I received a very interesting email from a reader, headed as shown above. The matters raised will be, I think, of interest to other readers on this Blog, so I’m answering it here. First, here’s the email (lighted edited … Continue reading →

Posted in Equipment, How Things Work, Mysticism, Video | Leave a comment

Blu-Dendy

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Whenever a new format appears, we enthusiasts wonder: ‘Will my favourite items appear in this format. If so, how long will I have to wait?’ I’ve been through this when the CD came in, then the DVD. In both cases, … Continue reading →

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The Academy Curve

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

Look at the following graph. It shows the frequency balance of a musical section in a 1951 cartoon, ‘Symphony in Slang’, which appears on the Warner Bros Blu-ray release of An American in Paris. The scale on the right shows … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Blu-ray | Leave a comment

Be Careful What You Write on Your Blog

Posted on October 8, 2009 by Stephen Dawson

CinemaSquid has drawn my attention to a report that the US Federal Trade Commission has set rules requiring ‘Consumer-generated media’ ‘to disclose if they are being compensated by a manufacturer, advertiser, or service provider when they review an item’. Apparently … Continue reading →

Posted in Admin, Rant | Leave a comment

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 … Continue reading →

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