Posts Tagged “bluray”

What is happening to DVD Tuesdays? Twilight was released on Saturday and Bolt was released Sunday on Blu-ray (regular DVD releases Tuesday). I stopped at Best Buy to get a copy and found an array of blue tag specials on Blu-ray titles. Needless to say I ended up spending a little more than I planned on.  If you want to add some low priced titles to your collection, head over to Best Buy sometime this week, before the deals are gone…

Read the rest of this entry »

As I said in my post on Upgrading to 7.1, a few weeks ago I set out to upgrade my amplifier and speakers to 7.1 – hoping to keep it under a grand. Initially the amp I was looking at was the Sony STR-DG820 which retails for $399. I considered Sony because my Projector is a Sony and they were advertised to work well with each other. Luckily, I’m somewhat of an impulsive shopper and when Best Buy didn’t have the Sony on hand, I started looking at alternatives. 30 minutes later I was driving home with the harman/kardon AVR254. Read the rest of this entry »

So you’ve bought a nice big 1080P HD TV and a Blu-ray player. You’ve hooked it all up to your 5.1 amplifier, which didn’t suck last year, and you put in an action flick. It looks amazing, but it sounds a little flat. You might even convince yourself that it sounds good, but it doesn’t. In fact, you’re audio might actually be worse than if you were watching that movie on a regular old DVD.

Even if you think 7.1 is an over-kill and are happy with 5.1, there is a catch-22 that might prevent you from getting 5.1 unless you upgrade to 7.1.

One area of my home theatre that’s always been lacking has been my sound.  I’ll admit that as a professional film and television editor, I’ve been more of a videophile than an audiophile. But a few weeks ago I set out to upgrade to a total-solution 7.1 system including some new speakers for under a grand. I only went over by a couple hundred dollars. Getting it done around that budget wasn’t an easy task – and neither was some of the wiring. There were several bumps along the way. But the process revealed a lot that I didn’t know about the new audio formats, what it takes to actually hear them, the crap I’ve been settling for, the awesomeness of 7.1 audio, the unfortunate truth about Blu-ray and 7.1 and much more.  Buckle-up because this whole thing can be a bit convoluted.

Read the rest of this entry »

When my Xbox HD DVD drive wouldn’t mount under windows inside of VM Ware (gosh, why would I need that?) I decided to pick up the LG GGW-H20L. It is a Super Multi-Blue optical drive that reads basically every disc format including Blu-ray and HD DVD and also burns Blu-ray RW’s and RE’s. I picked mine up a the local Fry’s Electronics here in Vegas for around $250.

Here’s a tip: if you want one get it NOW! In case you haven’t heard HD DVD is dead and LG doesn’t make this drive any more.

Installing it is tricky because this drive has a sata connection and the Mac Pro’s standard connection for optical drives is Ultra-ATA. There are two ways to install a Sata optical drive: First there are some kits which include an Ultra-ATA to Sata adaptor that plugs into the back of the unit and then provides a sata connector. But I’ve found these a little hard to install as the cables don’t really lock in and come loose too easily when sliding the drive bay back into the mac. Also I’m a little leery of using the interface adaptor with one fear being a speed loss, although it’s probably fine.

The second install method is to use one of the unused sata connectors on the Mac Pro motherboard. This is a slightly more involved process because the sata connectors are hard to get to. But it’s no match for a phillips screwdriver. If you’re game I’ve worked up a how-to guide with lots of photos. It is christening the new guides section of the site…  >>READ…

Happy New Year! About an hour ago there was a roar outside that sounded like a 747 driving down my quiet residential street. It was the constant and combined blasts of thousands of fireworks going off 10 to 15 miles away at the Las Vegas Strip. It was so loud that it could even be heard over the phone. My buddy David and I were discussing our predictions for 2009. At this late hour I can’t remember all of them, but here are a few to get the ball rolling. Jump in and add your own predictions down in the comments…

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday in Part 1 I covered the unboxing and reported that the HW10 is awesome. Today I’m going to continue the review and talk about my home theatre setup and show some high quality photos of the amazing 1080P picture projected on my wall. Read the rest of this entry »

Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas indeed!

For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve had a Sony Cineza HS-51 front projector and loved it. There’s something special about having a movie theatre in your living room. The HS51 is 720P, which from mostly NTSC upconverted sources, has been sufficient. With HD-DVD and Bluray I got to see the quality of 720P HD but wondered if 1080P would be noticeably better. A few months ago the lamp started going and I ordered a replacement. It was like having a new projector – bright and clear. However, about a month later I got home from a trip, turned it on and the screen had blue splotches all over it. Something failed, probably the LCD panel.

Which brings me to the VPL-HW10… I have to say that I have the coolest wife in the world because since the failure of the HS-51 she’s been on board to get a new projector as soon as we could swing it. Friday I ordered the Sony Bravia SXRD 1080P VPL-HW10 direct from Sony, but this time I added the 5-year warranty. So let’s get on with the unboxing…

Read the rest of this entry »

[digg=http://digg.com/movies/Cloverfield_BD_and_DVD_Bonus_field_issues]

While I rarely go out to the movies (because of my awesome home theatre setup), I did see Cloverfield in the theatre. Like many others, I wasn’t a fan of the extreme shaky-cam which literally left me nauseous. I need to start with my opinion on the camera shake choice – because it’s relevant to what’s happening with the bonus features: I feel that they could have toned down the amateur-home-video-shake and still conveyed the cinéma-vérité “real found footage” feeling. I loved the idea of the movie and was impressed with the execution, but hated the over the top shaky-camera work. It made the movie very difficult to watch and therefore less fun. However, it was an artistic choice on the part of the filmmakers.  Whether or not I agree with it’s necessity and/or effectiveness – it was technically correct.  It was their choice.  And even though I found that choice very annoying, I still looked forward to getting the movie on Blu-ray to get more info about the cloverfield mythology and see all the bonus features.

Well, the bonus features are harder to watch than the movie – and this time it was NOT an artistic choice…

Read the rest of this entry »

I got an email today from SlySoft, the makers of the DVD, HD DVD and Blu-ray “backup” software called AnyDVD HD, stating that they are changing their business model. Starting Jan 1, 2009 they are moving to a yearly subscription fee for software updates.  No information is available yet as to how much the subscription renewal fee will be, however they did say that current owners of the software will continue to get free updates.  The new policy only applies to customers who purchase after the end of this year, and they are offering a 20% off incentive to purchase now and get a lifetime of updates.  Here’s what the email (and their website) says: Read the rest of this entry »

I believe that despite the current economic troubles this holiday season will mark a huge jump for BluRay traction – especially if this deal is any indication of what’s coming. If you’re in the market to upgrade to BluRay NOW is the time to jump on it. MacMall has the Sony S350 for $199.99, which is half the original retail price and $100 less than the current sale price at the Sony store. This player is fully BD 2.0 capable and has an ethernet port on the back for all those useless BD-Live features and firmware updates. This is THE player to get unless you’re going to opt for the PS3.  And 199.99 is the price we’ve all been waiting for.