Blu-ray is here

[admin]

When I said standard def, I meant mainly free to air analogue television. Progressive DVD should look okay (in fact in Australia, 480p/576p is considered "high definition" by the government standards here, believe it or not).

I don't know, maybe I've just gotten used to watching everything in 720p (I have a upscaling DVD player as well)

Another factor is digital standard def broadcasts that aren't given enough bitrate - our cable TV supplier here in Australia offers absolutely shocking quality because of this, and watching the World Cup recently through it, it really was worse than VCD - I was literally watching a team of compression artifacts playing against another team of compression artifacts. Luckily, the same broadcast is available on free-to-air "high definition" (576p) digital, so I didn't have to suffer too much

Basically, anything with digital artifacts or analogue noise on a large screen equals a horrible picture that people wouldn't normally notice on a smaller screen.

[anonymez]

admin please don't call SBS, ABC or Seven's service "HD". thankyou . they think 50fps means HD, what a joke! bitrate starved anyway, their "HD" contains more artefacts than their SD.

bugs me that other countries are/will be getting mpeg4 avc dvb... unfortunately don't see it happening in aus any time soon

[admin]

That's why I put "high definition" in inverted commas. The good news is that by Australia's standard, we've had "high definition DVD" for years now

But all of their broadcasts are still fantastic compared to that of digital pay television. 544x576i @ 1.9 Mbit/s for only $50 per month!!

[anonymez]

But all of their broadcasts are still fantastic compared to that of digital pay television. 544x576i @ 1.9 Mbit/s for only $50 per month!!

can't imagine it being much better than analogue; except ghosting, colour bleeding and dot crawl come in macroblock form

but they do provide an EPG, right?

Seven's reason for resisting an Australian EPG is a fear of encouraging piracy.

'If one is developed, it must come with assurances and conditions," network spokesman Simon Francis says. "Precise start times (in an EPG) would allow people to burn DVDs of our programs like crazy and push them out over the internet."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztech/legal-battle-over-electronic-guides/2006/06/19/1150569266669.html

lol anything worth watching will have been on the net months before it's screened here. do they really think the lack of an EPG will deter anybody? they can't stop this, VCR's aren't selling any more and the public are after DVR/PVR's. i've been getting a full 7-day EPG for almost a year now. ninemsn keep updating their encryption to stop scraping of data they should be supplying us with; as usual, only took a few hours to work around it

[froggythrower]

This is the sony disclaimer on there brand new DESKTOP PC with a Blu-Ray BURNER inside, and if you think I am going to "Connect to the internet every time I want to watch a disc, then you are very much mistaken!!!!!
.................................................. ................................................

Blu-ray disclaimer

.. The Blu-ray Disc(TM) Media/Format is not universally compatible. VAIO
computers do not support movie playback on packaged media recorded in
MPEG-4 AVC or SMPTE VC-1 formats at bit rates higher than 20 Mbps.

.. Video recording to the Blu-ray Disc(TM) is done in MPEG-2 format only.

.. A compatible HD Ready display is required for high definition playback on an
external display. If your external display is not compliant with the HDCP (High-
bandwidth Digital Content Protection) standard, it is not capable of displaying
images stored on copyright protected Blu-ray discs. Playback of High-bandwidth
Digital Content Protection (HDCP) encoded media requires an HDCP compliant
output and HDCP compliant display.

.. Region settings are required for Movies and BD-ROM contents. If the region
setting and the region of the disc do not match, playback is not possible.

.. You may need to connect to the Internet when playing copyright protected Blu-
ray Discs(TM).
.. Your computer uses a software-based decoder to play Blu-ray Discs(TM). This
means Blu-ray Disc(TM) playback generates a certain amount of load on your
hardware resources and may make some operations and/or functions
unavailable. Additionally, depending on your hardware specifications including
the CPU performance, you may find sound interruptions and/or dropped frames
during Blu-ray Disc(TM) playback.
.. Therefore, it is recommended to close all open applications before playing back
a Blu-ray Disc(TM)

__________________________________________________ _


Modified disclaimer for sticker (limited version, Font size 8)

• Video recording to the Blu-ray Disc(TM) is possible in MPEG-2 format only.
• You may need to connect to the Internet when playing copyright protected Blu-ray Discs(TM).
• A compatible HD Ready display is required for high definition playback on an external display.
• A match of region settings are required for Movies and BD-ROM contents.
• Your computer uses a software-based decoder to play Blu-ray Discs(TM) generating a certain
amount of load on your hardware resources and may make some operations and/or functions
unavailable. Additionally, depending on your hardware specifications including the CPU performance,
you may find sound interruptions and/or dropped frames during Blu-ray Disc(TM) playback.


For more detailed information, please visit http://www.vaio.sony-europe.com or refer to the in-box
Instruction Manual.

AND HERE IS THE PC SPECS, NOT THAT GOOD ARE THEY ???

VGCRC204.CEK
Desktop VGC-RC204 with integrated Blu-ray drive
The first VAIO with an integrated Blu-ray drive!
Record, edit and relive the HD experience
3.20 GHz processor, 600 GB hard disk & 1 GB system memory


£ 1,799.00 VAT incl.
(£ 1,531.06 VAT excl.)

Intel® Pentium® D Processor 940 (3.20 GHz and 800 MHz FSB)
Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (English version)
600 GB (RAID 0: 2 x 300 GB SATA) hard disk
1 GB (2 x 512 MB) DDR2-533 SDRAM, maximum 3 GB with 3 x 1GB
NVIDIA® Geforce™ 7600 GT graphics card with 256 MB DDR SDRAM (we recommend a monitor with true DVI-connection in order to get the most out of the picture quality)
Integrated Blu-ray optical drive (BD-RE/DVD±RW DL)
Wireless QWERTY keyboard with pointing device (touch pad type), wireless optical mouse and remote control
Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside logo, Intel Centrino, Intel Centrino logo, Intel SpeedStep and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other count

[RFBurns]

i seen this week a 103" HD plasma from panasonic to be released soon. the largest of it's class apparently. all being said about the price is, it is compared to a high priced luxury car. was on GMA the other day
http://www.i4u.com/article4860.html

Problem with a 103" plasma is that it wont be easy navigating that thing through your average doorway or hallway and around corners. Plus the fact that it is very heavy, which would require monster wall mounts and very sturdy studs to bolt to.

LCD is the way to go. It is far cheaper to replace a lamp at $170.00 in an out of warranty situation than it would to replace a 103" plasma tube at around 4 grand.

Plasma is a gas filled flat tube, and like the flourescent lamp, that plasma tube will go out, just like any ordinary CRT tube.

So choose carefully and think of down the road after your warranty is out. Besides, LCD technology is surpassing plasma by 10 fold.

Plasma was good for the start of the wide screen tv. But it is in fact a tube just like the old CRT and has the same drawbacks as the old CRT. The only differences is that the high voltage used is less than a normal CRT, and it is flat. But their weight can come close to a normal CRT too.

Happy shopping!!

[LT. Columbo]

hello RF

i agree, it's ridiculous. this one actually is a floor model though. i'd sooner just get a decent projector one day.

[nwg]

hello RF

i agree, it's ridiculous. this one actually is a floor model though. i'd sooner just get a decent projector one day.

Then, you can get big pictures like this. The bottom image is my widescreen TV and the top is the projected image. They both show the film.



Big version

[LT. Columbo]

the projector looks better to me. how big is your screen size right now nwg? also what can a guy expect to pay for a DECENT (not top of the line) projector nowdays? (in U.S. dollars)

[RFBurns]

hello RF

i agree, it's ridiculous. this one actually is a floor model though. i'd sooner just get a decent projector one day.

Hi Lt. Columbo!

Indeed, for a picture bigger than 60" I would go with an LCD projector also. Those units are cheaper than a large plasma, and cheaper to replace the projection lamp, around the same price for an LCD rear projection unit, $170.00 +- a few bucks. And they are very configurable for any installation requirements, and considerably lighter in weight than any plasma unit.

The LCD imagers inside the rear projection units and stand alone projectors are of incredibly high quality, producing a picture extremely accurate to the incomming signal source. Again folks, these high resolution monitors, projectors or direct pannel units, can reveal unwanted things from analog
sources.

I recommend to anyone shopping around for a high definition unit to have the salesperson demonstrate the unit with both a digital signal source and an analog signal source so that you can see the differences before taking the unit home only to be frustrated by the reproduction of analog signals and their noise contents. Also have the salesperson go through the various picture modes and width/zoom modes on these wide screen units so you can see how these features affect various video signals. Some units have circuitry that attempts to "clean" analog signals, so you might want the salesperson to also demonstrate these features as well. They do not clean signals to a point that you could eat off the screen, but they do a fair job. Sometimes the source has so much noise that the correcting circuits could actually make the signal worse. Sony calls their correcting circuitry DRC, or Digital Reality Creation. Other brands have their own little name for the correcting circuits.

Happy HD shopping!

[RFBurns]

Sharp has a good line of LCD projector units that range from about $1,300.00 on up to about $3,000.00. These price ranges cover their low end to middle class units.

Sony's cheapest LCD projector is about $3,500.00. Its a very small unit with one heck of a bright projected image. Although its a Sony and I work for Sony, I would not hesitate to purchase one of the Sharp units as those low end projectors put out some impressive and vivid pictures!

[nwg]

the projector looks better to me. how big is your screen size right now nwg? also what can a guy expect to pay for a DECENT (not top of the line) projector nowdays? (in U.S. dollars)

The projected image is 80" and the TV is 28". The projected image is 9 times bigger. The lamp is supposed to last 5000 hours. It is current less than 1500 hours. The lamp would probably last the life of the PJ as long as it isn't overused. It also doesn't have overscan like the TV.

The projector isn't HD capable so, I will be replacing it in the future. I would go for a Panasonic AE900 LCD or a Sony HS60 for a bit more money. These are HD and come with HDMI connections. They should also beat my current PJ by a factor of 10. My model is four years old already.

Pansonic AE900 £1000/
Sony HS60 £1500/

I don't know what they go for in the US but I would guess around $2,500 - $3,500.

[LT. Columbo]

ty nwg. one day i'd like to upgrade, given my space it would be better to go with a projector. i'd like to have some guests over sometimes where everyone can watch the screen comfortably. i've seen some options about the screen too;

paint on
fixed screen
roll down
electric roll down

i'd like the electric!

[nwg]

As I spent all my limited money on the projector. I settle for a window blind attached to the celing. I can raise and lower it. It doesn't look good in daylight but it works fine in darkness.

Projector setup

[LT. Columbo]

lot cheaper too. nice set up nwg