- CGI Yoda Confirmed for Star Wars: Episode I Blu-ray
As we have reported several times in the past, a CG replacement for the badly-received Yoda puppet in Star Wars: Episode I has finally been unveiled. It just one of many changes and corrections since the 2004 DVD versions of the original trilogy, due to appear when Star Wars: The Complete Saga ships a mere two weeks from Tuesday into the hands of eager fans everywhere. Available are both prequel trilogy, original trilogy, as well…
- ATSC Announces Broadcast 3D Standard
After doing some extensive studies, the Advanced Television Systems Committee has announced the development of a new 3D standard for broadcast television that will allow…
- Black Diamond Zero Edge Brings Flat Screen Aesthetic to Front Projection
Screen Innovations has long had a reputation for eating the ambient light in your media room, and now they’re eating their bezel as well, making…
Toy Story Trilogy 3D Blu-ray Coming in November
Amazon Canada appears to have jumped the gun on a tasty trio of Toy Story coming our way the first week of November, for the first time on home video in 3D. Though the cover art is cluttered up with French, as is required by law to sell in Quebec,… Continue Reading »
Vuzix’s New Video Eyewear Puts 3D All Up in Your Face
The Vuzix Wrap 1200 Video Eywear are a pair of “glasses” with a video projection inside that is equivalent to viewing a 16:9 aspect ratio 75-inch display from 10 feet. This is nothing new, but the Wrap 1200 is compatible with both 2D and 3D content, meaning you can start… Continue Reading »
Fashionable 3D Glasses Machines Debut In San Diego
Cinemark Theatres and UltraStar Cinemas have debuted new vending machines carrying stylish polarized 3D glasses for those who don’t find the standard throwaway pairs to be sexy enough for sitting in a dark room. Designer 3D glasses are nothing new, and have been produced for films like Tron, or even… Continue Reading »
Star Wars XXX 3D: A Porn Parody Brings the Franchise to the Dark Side
Independent companies capitalizing off of a major Hollywood release is hardly a new trend: cheesy animated tie-ins to the latest Disney fairy tale were a staple of video stores in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and in fact the very first DTS DVD was a knock-off of Mulan. A few years… Continue Reading »
Sony DADC Blu-ray/DVD Warehouse Burns In London Riots
Responsible for pressing and distributing Sony Blu-ray, DVD, and PlayStation game product, Sony DADC is an integral part of the company’s worldwide media operations, and today, London has lost its branch in a fire likely connected with the riots going on in the city for the last three days. According… Continue Reading »
“Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” Sets New Standards for Active 3D Glasses
Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, and X6D Limited (XPAND 3D) announced this morning a collaboration to develop a new technology standard for active 3D glasses. Dubbed the “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative,” the agreement involves the “development and licensing of radio frequency (RF) system 3D active glasses technology, including RF system protocols… Continue Reading »
AT&T U-Verse Drops ESPN 3D
AT&T has dropped ESPN 3D from their cable system, citing lack of interest. Unlike Comcast and DirectTV, who loss-leadered the channel to build interest in 3D programming, AT&T chose to charge a $10 subscription fee, which certainly didn’t help matters “We’re always listening to customers and working to make sure… Continue Reading »
Star Wars Blu-ray Has the Scenes You’re Looking For
Lucasfilm has released a new sizzle reel of Star Wars deleted scenes that will be on September’s upcoming Blu-ray disc. Included are the famous “Biggs” scenes, available to the public for the first time outside of an obscure CD-ROM, the sandstorm from Return of the Jedi, and my biggest want:… Continue Reading »
Sony Bolsters 3D for Bravia Owners
One big roadblock to 3D adoption is content. A few cable channels and a handful of 3D Blu-rays makes for limited viewing. Sony aims to change that and bolster acceptance by creating “3D Experience,” a free-of-charge on-demand streaming service. 3D Experience is already available to owners of Bravia LCD TVs.… Continue Reading »
Onkyo introduces New BD-SP809 THX certified 3D Capable Blu-ray
Onkyo just released the BD-SP809 THX certified 3D capable Blu-ray disc player. The BD-SP809 sits at the top of Onkyo’s line of Blu-ray players. In addition to Blu-ray 3D playback, the model features support for DVDs and CDs encoded with popular compressed formats such as DivX HD, MP3, and WMA,… Continue Reading »
Q&A; with Robert Bliss
Will the iPad shake up the touchpanel remote control market? Almost certainly, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing according to one of the world’s most renowned installers.
HBO requires a level of content protection that is not currently supported by Airplay/Apple TV. This is a capability that might be offered in the future as per HBO GO
Way to go Aidan! Congratulations on your discovery and deserving award.
Is there anyone that has use this 3D adapter kit, How good or bad do this adapter do ?
Good points John. For me it sort of helps to answer my question but for different reasons. That is: in those instances where i have a fully DDD recording on LP, the CD will probably serve me just as well. I will note that many early CDs sounded bad because they were made from compressed-for-lp slave copies of master tapes or (in the case of some “twofers” (2 albums on one disc) a smaller size file was used to squeeze all the info on a single disc (zappa’s overnight sensation/apostrophe disc was way tinny sounding and fared much better—after complaints—breaking them out into two discs at fuller CD resolution
Regqrding the sound of vinyl vs CD and distortion “hidden” in the LP, more times than not I was amazed to find out that distortion I heard on vinyl—and which I attributed to my less than perfect condition pressings—were actually on the original recording. I was surprised hearing certain records by Zappa, The Velvet Underground, Dylan, The Moody Blues and others on CD for the first time and discovering that my LPs didnt sound so bad after all ... it was the way the recordings were made!
I do believe that analog masters contain more sonic info than 44.1/16-bit clones would be able to capture. But I have to assume (unless someone explains otherwise) that for recordings made natively in the digital domain, then those recordings are what they are…. they’ll never be anything more than what the original was recorded at.
So there is probably no good reason to keep a digitally recorded LP if I can get it on CD these days… unless of course it contains a mix that was later changed/remixed
Hi Mark,
This has been my life’s work since about 1978. We had some of the first digital multitrack recorders that 3M ever built, and a huge part of my life was supervising the cutting of analog (and later digital) tape masters into vinyl, following those lacquers through electroplating, and then the actual pressing into vinyl. We had our own pressing plant, so I got to see it all happen every day, from trombonists coming through the front door to record jacket fabrication and excess vinyl re-grinding to make audiophile records.
The bigger point is not which sounds “better”—it’s what sounds most like what the mixer heard when he was working on it in the control room. If you had the privilege, as I did for years, of sitting beside a mixer listening to control room monitors and watching as he went for a particular “sound”, often worrying himself about the accuracy of the speakers and the room acoustics, you would understand that the whole goal was to try to replicate what he heard.
Analog tape was very good at that, but always lost a bit of transients, and increased the noise floor a bit, simply because of the limitations of tape. Indeed it was often quite difficult to tell whether you were listening to the console output or the one-second-delayed playback head of the 2-track master.
When digital mastering came on the scene, first on videotape (we used black and white U-matics, which is why the weird sample rate of 44,100 came to be—it’s a multiple of the horizontal sync frequency of black and white videotape) we were all amazed at the transparency. What we heard coming back from the digital deck was an identical sonic clone to the console itself, indeed showing the limitations of the console electronics.
Many consumers, however, had grown accustomed to the tracking and tracing errors and distortions that vinyl records inherently have. No vinyl record truly sounded like what we were hearing on the mix console; it was several layers of distortion removed, with the distortions coming from the cutting angle of the cutterhead, the “de-horning” process which cut off the bottom of the grooves so that the vinyl would release from the stamper, and the inherent noise of the vinyl medum itself.
A CD is a much, much closer replica of what the original mixer heard on his board than an LP could ever be. Now does that mean that you would rather experience what the mixer heard or experience what an LP listener of the era heard? That’s actually a very serious question. Almost no one who didn’t work in recording studios heard “clean” audio, and it was a very foreign sound to consumers, resulting in a lot of reluctance to accept digital media. Consumers simply didn’t understand that they were, for the first time, hearing what we had heard in the production control rooms. In many cases, the noise floor and distortion of the vinyl helped to cover up the limitations of the original master—making the CD sound “worse”.
I hope this helps, but I fear it may only add to the confusion.
NW. I bet a tactile transducer connected straight to the desk couldn’t even do that.
I have the streaming-only service. One thing that ticks me off is - I am using a web-based service, right - but there are no web-based methods of contact with Netflix - go ahead, try to find a “contact us” that isn’t a phone number! No email, no chat, nothing!
I wanted to complain about how they had lured me into their service, only to start dropping some titles I had expected to be able to watch (such as all of the, admittedly limited, selection of James Bond flicks).
I also wanted to complain that for weeks, the “Recently Watched” listing was missing.
Wow i would be pissed if i was a Netflix user pisssssed. Here is a secret people. Corporations only get away with what you let them get away with. Hit their pocket book and they will suddenly start whistling another tune.
I don’t work for Netflix and I think the author of this article is a huge baby-man with an entitlement complex.
If you don’t like it, then cancel your subscription. It’s their company and they can charge what they like. Get a life.