 |
 |
|
 October 18, 2006
In This eNewsletter: |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 Project It!
By Thomas J. Norton Five years ago the era of the bulky, balky, and very expensive CRT projectors was still under way. New projectors using digital, pixel-based imagers were appearing in growing numbers, but their picture quality left a lot to be desired. If you wanted the best image, you could still get it only from a CRT. The very best of them looked fabulous, but the cost—upwards of $100,000 or more for a top-of-the-line model and mandatory outboard video processor—limited their appeal to the very rich or the terminally committed. Today's videophile can buy a digital projector for a fraction of that price that will equal or exceed the brightness, sharpness, color accuracy, gray scale tracking (color temperature), overall uniformity, usability, and reliability of even the best CRT projectors of the past. But providing a fully convincing reproduction of the inky blackness and shadow detail of a very dark scene, or the thrill of a star field standing out against the infinity of empty space, is still something that no modern digital projector can do as well as the best of those CRT designs. But they're getting there, and the best of them now perform at a level that should satisfy even the fussiest videophile. All modern digital projectors use a small fixed-pixel imaging chip, together with a projection lamp, lens, and associated electronics to throw an image onto the screen. The current digital technologies used for the imaging chips in front projectors include DLP, LCD, and LCoS. The latter is commonly marketed under more proprietary names, including D-ILA (JVC) and SXRD (Sony). Which new projector technology is best? At the current state-of-the-art, that will depend on the individual model and price. We've seen and reviewed superb examples of each. As with anything, however, you usually get what you pay for. You can expect to pay around $2,500 or more for the least expensive, well-reviewed 720p projectors, and an average of $10,000 (some higher, some lower) for more upscale, sophisticated, and feature-rich 1080p designs. Those prices are hardly chicken feed, but to the videophile that cut his or her home theater teeth in the CRT projector era, they're almost cheap. Do you do need a completely dark room to get the best from a video projector? Would you complain if they left the house lights on during the show at your local gigaplex? Or opened the emergency exit doors to let the sun in? If you have a very bright projector, the right screen, and a program source that's generally bright (like a football game), you can probably get away with some light in the room. But the image will always look better with the room as dark as you can make it. We can all get a rough idea of color quality, sharpness, and a number of other projector characteristics from an extended audition (though your perceptions may not be completely accurate, which is why we supplement our reviews with measurements). But how can you subjectively evaluate the quality of a projector's black level and contrast ratio? You can't do it by looking at a dark area in an otherwise bright picture, such as like a man's black suit in a sunlit scene. The eye will judge the dark areas in comparison to their brighter surroundings. Even a poor projector can look like it has great blacks in such a test. You really need measurement tools to get the full story, but lacking those, first make sure that the projector's brightness and contrast controls are set up correctly, and that the room is completely dark (so dark that you can't see your hand in front of your face with the projector off and the lights out!). Given those setup conditions, play a very dark scene that lacks bright highlights. The opening five minutes of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is an excellent example. How much detail can you see in the shadows? There will be some areas in which you aren't supposed to see any detail. Is the image black in these areas, or does it have a subtle—or not so subtle—gray haze over it? No digital projector will completely ace this test, but the less haze, the deeper the blacks, and the better the shadow detail on this sort of program material, the better the projector. An even more challenging test for black level is how closely the screen area blends into the black frame border around it when projecting a completely dark image (a full-screen, video black test pattern is best here, but in a pinch you can pause on a fadeout between scenes in a well made DVD). Only on the very best CRTs, in a completely darkened room, will the image area disappear into the border. A variation of this, using the same source, is to hold your hand in the light stream so that it casts a shadow on the darkened screen. Compare the shadowed region with the area around it; the less visible the shadow, the better. For me either of these tests is a gold standard for judging a projector's blacks. Digital isn't there yet, but hopefully some day it will be. With a single-chip DLP projector you'll also want to check for rainbows, a sometimes visible artifact of the multi-segment color wheel used to emulate continuous color. It looks just like it sounds; a fleeting flash of red, green, and sometimes blue in some program material. I've found it most obvious when you move your eyes, even a little, on a dark scene with a few bright lights such as streetlamps. Not all viewers are sensitive to this artifact, and projectors are now much improved in minimizing it. But not all of them are equal and none, for me, have completely squelched it. Also look closely for white field uniformity, sometimes a problem on LCD and LCoS displays, but not with DLP. To check for it, watch scenes from a black and white film and look for odd splotches of subtle tints like magenta. Should you look for a 720p or 1080p projector? Good question. If you can afford it, and all things being equal (though they never are) go for the 1080p, particularly if you watch a lot of high-definition. The price structure for 1080p projectors took a sudden turn for the better (for the consumer) at the recent CEDIA Expo in Denver, and while we have yet to test some of the more exciting new models, they showed a lot of promise. But we expect to see some real bargains in 720p designs as the battle for 1080p market share heats up and the more expensive 720p models gather dust in their warehouses. If they don't look like bargains now, they will soon. Other things to be aware of include the fact that all projection lamps will dim with age long before their rated useful life is reached (replacements average around $300-$400 with a few notable exceptions that cost more—check before purchasing the projector!), and the importance of projection screens. The latter, in fact, is such an extensive subject on its own than we'll cover it in more detail in next month's eNewsletter. For now, just be aware that you should include at least several hundred dollars in your budget for a simple fixed (non-retractable) screen. |
|
 | |||||
 |
|
 |
Panasonic's AX-100U Home Theater Projector Panasonic's PT-AX100U high-definition home cinema projector produces "Hollywood" images with 2000 lumens of brightness and ultra-sharp HD pictures up to 200 inches diagonally. Now through December 31st get up to $300 in Blockbuster Rentals.* *40 movie and game rentals with a mail-in rebate. Value of up to $300. panasonic.com/projectors |
|
|
 | |||||
| |||||
 |
|
 By Shane Buettner
Angela Speziale Named Publisher of UltimateAVmag.com & Home Theater Magazine "Angela's extensive knowledge of the consumer electronics industry and deep relationships in the community make her the ideal person to oversee these properties and I'm thrilled to have her on the team" said MacDonald." Her breadth of experience in consumer electronics and publishing make her uniquely qualified to bring innovative solutions to the challenges facing the consumer electronics community today. " Ms. Speziale is based in New York and can be reached at 212-716-8468, angela.speziale@primedia.com.
Whither Blu-ray? In early October, the defective Samsung BD-P1000 (with the promised firmware fix not yet delivered) remained the lone standalone Blu-ray player available to consumers. Panasonic's DMP-BD10 just starting to turn up at retailers in the past week. Sony's PlayStation3 is still due in late November, and Sony's web site is still showing October 25th as the delivery date for its standalone BDP-S1 player, though a check at a local Best Buy indicated that they would not have it until the first week in November. Pioneer advised us on October 16th that they are still on track for an early November release of their BDP-HD1. Let's hope we start seeing all of these players soon! There are more new Blu-ray releases coming down the pike every day. Tuesday October 10th saw the Adam Sandler comedy Click, the first 50GB dual-layer BD, hit stores day and date with DVD. I just received a Blu-ray screener copy of the CGI-animated Steven Spielberg-Robert Zemeckis production Monster House in advance of its October 24th day-and-date with DVD release. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a properly functioning Blu-ray player on the market when Mission: Impossible 3 hits stores on the Blu-ray format on October 30th? What makes this all the more critical is that since it's acknowledged that the Samsung player shipped with a defective setting in one of its video processing chip sets, we really don't know yet what the Blu-ray format is capable of. The titles are coming in every week, but frankly, we at UAV have not felt comfortable speaking of their quality yet because we simply don't have a player that offers any chance of discerning the format's strengths and weaknesses. I'd be quite pleased to be writing something more upbeat about Blu-ray in next months' newsletter.
PS3 To Decode Dolby TrueHD Although all the Blu-ray players announced so far are backward compatible with DVD, neither the Sony or Pioneer players will reportedly play CDs. PS3, on the other hand, will not only play CDs, but SACDs as well! It's also hotly rumored but not quite confirmed that the PS3 will also include HDMI 1.3. The fully loaded PS3 will retail for $599. And did I mention that it's also a rather hotly anticipated game console?
Could Movie Downloads Kill Both Next-Gen Formats? New movie download services are cropping up all the time, and two of the latest entries into the game are worth paying attention to. In mid-September Apple computer not only announced it had begun selling movie downloads of feature films from Disney, Pixar, Miramax and Touchstone through its online iTunes Store at "near DVD quality" (640x480), it also announced its plans to release in 2007 an "iTV player," a Mac Mini sized set-top box designed to stream downloaded movies from the computer to the living room via Wi-Fi. Viewers no longer need be anchored to the computer screen to watch their flicks once they're downloaded. Movies downloaded from iTunes will cost between $9.99 and $14.99 per download, and the iTV player is targeted for Q1 of 2007 for $299. Apple sold a billion songs way faster than McDonald's sold a billion burgers, so this is a significant series of developments. In early October Universal teamed up with the online movie download provider CinemaNow to offer The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift via a service it's calling "Burn to DVD." On the same day as the DVD was released in stores users could log onto CinemaNow and purchase a "downloadable DVD version" of the movie that can be burned to a blank DVD for just $9.99. Not only can you get the artwork and jacket, the burned DVD has all the special features, commentary tracks, 5.1-channel surround sound, etc. and can be played in "virtually any DVD player." As impressive as this is, it's a far cry from DVD/HD DVD combo disc of Tokyo Drift that shipped the same day as the standard DVD. The HD DVD features pristine 1080p video, 5.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus sound, and U-Control interactivity, which is a customizable set of features that run over the movie and are available only on HD DVD. But, will the mass market care about any of that when they can download and burn the DVD quick and easy for $10? My hope is that as large screen HDTVs proliferate people will see the inherent value in the next-gen formats. Because of bandwidth limitations it's difficult to imagine we'll see downloads with audio and video quality rivaling that of Blu-ray and HD DVD at any time in the near future. There is no question that these new disc formats will remain the premium quality experience for hardcore enthusiasts. The question is whether one or both will become niche, specialty formats like Laserdisc, while downloads consume the mass market. With so many other choices emerging, can we expect another packaged disc format to become as monolithic and successful as DVD? |
|
 | |||||
|
|
 |
Mitsubishi HDTVs with six colors. For true gaming realism. Enjoy the rich beauty of car crashes, helicopter explosions and alien worlds to the fullest. Mitsubishi is the only HDTV maker that uses six colors—not the traditional three. With 1080p DLP imaging for the highest-def available. www.6color1080p.com. |
|
|
 | |||||
| |||||
 |
|
|
By Thomas J. Norton
Lost: The Complete Second Season and Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5 Tom Norton follows the continuing DVD sagas of the two best shows on television.
Lost: The Complete Second Season
Picture 3.5* (out of 4*)
Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5
Picture 3.0*
It's hard to say when that cycle was broken. Soaps have always done ongoing plots, of course, but with rare exceptions prime time television took a while to catch on. But as broadcasters have begun to recognize the addictive nature of such shows we've become engulfed by them. They are, in effect, an outgrowth of the mini-series, but in this case the tightly woven plot threads run for a whole season, or even for the entire multi-year run of a show. The only problem comes when a show is cancelled in mid-run with no opportunity to tie all the loose ends together convincingly—which has happened more than once! While I don't claim to have sampled every show on television, it's hard to imagine better examples of the ongoing drama than Lost, which is one of ABC's highest-rated shows, and Battlestar Galactica, which deserves a far larger audience than the fiercely loyal one it has found on the less widely-watched Sci-Fi Channel. With Lost, when we last left the unlikely survivors of a plane crash on an uncharted tropical island they had just opened a mysterious hatch to. . .where? Like Season One of this frustrating yet compelling series, Season Two answers this and other questions while it teases us with new ones. It also tells us more (and less) about the Others, another group of people who also inhabit the island and whose origins and motivations remain foggy. The show remains as intriguing as ever, though this second season does have its share of slow episodes. And while I'd have to go back and watch all of Season One again to be sure, it also seems to me that S2 makes heavier use of flashbacks, which deepen our understanding of the characters but also slow things down (this tendency appears to be continuing with the start of Season Three). Nevertheless, this is page-turning television at its best. As is Battlestar Galactica. If you've been avoiding this new series because of bad memories of the short-lived 1970s version, you're missing what may be the best show on television—of any type. If you're avoiding it because it's "sci-fi," you're missing a rich human drama. Yes, the show does have a science-fiction basis. But there's little technobabble, no bizarre-looking aliens (apart from one model of the humans' arch enemy, the robotic Cylons), no ray-guns, and only an occasional space battle.
While Lost: Season Two is a full 24 episodes, Battlestar Galactica: Season 2.5 has only 11. The latter show's broadcasts are split into two half-seasons, separated by a hiatus of several months. That arrangement can be a little frustrating for fans, but it largely avoids the annoying in-season repeats that plague Lost and most other major network shows. It does mean, however, that to get all of BSG's second season on DVD you have to buy both the Season 2.0 and 2.5 box sets, at $49.98 each, making this a very expensive purchase (almost in Star Trek territory). But it's worth it, and heavily discounted prices are available, particularly online. Both of these shows look outstanding on DVD, but with significant differences. Lost is crisper, more colorful, and essentially noise-free. BSG looks far better here than it does with the grim audio and video quality offered on the Sci-Fi Channel, but it still has some issues with softness and video noise. These vary from scene to scene, however, and aren't a constant distraction. They might even have been used deliberately to enhance the dark and gritty nature of the show, or are simply artifacts in the source material—material that could not be reshot due to budget constraints. Both series may be seen on television in high-definition, Lost in 720p on ABC, and BSG in 1080i on Universal HD. In the latter case, the HD rebroadcasts come several weeks after a show's first run on the resolutely low-def Sci-Fi Channel. Neither boxed set looks as good as the high-definition broadcasts, but without a side-by-side comparison they are more than satisfactory, even as seen on my 78-inch wide projection screen. Both sets also have excellent audio, though BSG has the more interesting soundtrack. The music, heavy on sampled and synthesized percussion and orchestra, is atypical for a sci-fi series and one of the best television scores I've yet heard (it has also spawned two CD soundtrack compilations). The sound effects are also more than adequate, and while not as dynamic as you'll find in a major action film, they never sound anemic or underproduced. Lost's soundtrack is more subtle, makes less aggressive use of bass and surrounds, and has a less memorable (but still effective) score. But it takes off when it has to, as it does in a major action sequence in the season's extended, final episode. Both sets have enough special features to keep viewers busy after viewing the shows. Commentary track fans will eat up BSG, which has some sort of commentary on every episode, deleted scenes on most of them, and several "Making of" featurettes. Lost is skimpier with its four episode commentaries, but includes an entire seventh disc with featurettes, deleted scenes, and bloopers. I hope the market will soon justify competitively priced high-definition versions of these great programs. There are already rumors about Battlestar Galactica on HD DVD from Universal, but no hard announcement. Lost, distributed by Buena Vista (Disney) would almost certainly be a Blu-ray release when its time comes. But that time may be a while off—for both series. In the meantime, these standard definition sets will not disappoint. |
|
 |
 |
| Subscribe to our other eNewsletters: Stereophile, Home Theater, Shutterbug |
|
|
| To unsubscribe, simply reply to this email with the word 'unsubscribe' in the subject or body of the email. |
|
| Subscribe To This Newsletter • Ultimate AV Home Page |
|
| Privacy • Contact Us |
|
| Copyright © Primedia Magazines, Inc. All rights reserved. |
In the past, most television series had self-contained episodes with storylines that began at the top of the hour and ended before the closing commercials. Once you knew the characters and the general premise, you could watch such shows occasionally and never be lost. Viewers weren't challenged to remember ongoing plot threads from week to week. And the rerun channels never had to worry much about the order in which they broadcast episodes of old hit shows.
I do know some fans who remember the cheesy 1970s version fondly and can't be brought to watch this re-imagining (Starbuck a woman!! Sacrilege!). Such fans may be harder to bring around than the cheese-avoiders who haven't seen the show because they're sure it must be a carbon copy of the original. It isn't. The new BSG is dark, serious, thought provoking, character driven, has fine special effects (when required—the story and characters take center stage here, not CGI) and is enhanced significantly by an outstanding music score. For my money, it's even better than Lost. And both programs become infinitely more compelling on DVD where they aren't interrupted every ten minutes by commercials.