Recent Comments:
Poll: What's the biggest Blu-ray disc still due to arrive in 2009? {Engadget HD}
Nov 1st 2009 5:06PM I'd say Star Trek and Up have to be the most anticipated releases. One is a successful "franchise reboot" (has this been overused or what?), and the other is a Pixar film, which requires no further explanation. Zachary Quinto's dead-on look and mannerism of a young Spock is worth the price of admission alone.
I wouldn't count out Gump or District 9 either; their visuals and sweeping storylines demand high definition viewing.
Panasonic's 1-inch thick Z1 plasma reviewed: playing with perfection {Engadget HD}
Oct 22nd 2009 4:51PM This set looks great, but I'll wait for it come down from its initial price. From what I've read in the forums, Panasonic's what you want if you're looking for black levels that rival the Kuro.
And plasma isn't dead! Although I own a 120 Hz LCD and love it, I just got a great deal on a Samsung PN50B860 (which also has a super-slim bezel), and the colors are sensational, with black levels as deep as you can get without "crushing" the picture. It really sings when displaying 1080p/24 films (at a perfect 96Hz WITHOUT artifacts or hitching), in addition to flawless 2:3 pulldown of 1080i material, which breathes new life into cable broadcasts and DVDs. A 54" Panny that can do all of this would be a dream come true.
Poll: Where do you buy your Blu-ray discs now, if you buy them at all? {Engadget HD}
Oct 20th 2009 4:49PM The poll should read "Where do you buy most of your Blu-ray discs?" or have multiple-selection boxes. Between Amazon's used discs and Best Buy's weekly $10 discs (which aren't all bad; they still have "Mongol" for this price and it's beautifully filmed and well written), I'm bulding up a nice collection. Can't forget about eBay's used or like new discs either, with shipping usually very low or included in the "Buy It Now" price.
Slightly off topic, but for those who haven't seen it, you MUST experience "A Bug's Life" on Blu-ray. The transfer is breathtaking and makes you want "The Incredibles" that much more.
3M optical film for greener LCDs making an appearance at FPD International 2009 {Engadget HD}
Oct 20th 2009 12:25PM I'm a little afraid of autostereoscopic film. It sounds like something that will melt my contact lenses on a 3D HD display. Or make my vision worse at the very least, ha ha. Still, it's amazing that for the first time, gimmick-free 3D could soon be mainstream like 1080p/24
is now for most diplays.
"You can't stop progress!"
- from Hardware
BTW Richard, great reporting and "appearance" in the headline.
Western Digital WD TV Live HD media player gets official {Engadget HD}
Oct 13th 2009 11:38AM I have the original model with the latest beta firmware (I think). Does anyone know if the 1080p/23.976 glitch has been fixed? Selecting this resolution makes the unit revert to 480i, which looks as awful as it sounds. I'm hoping it'll be corrected for this model at least.
HDTV Listings for September 8, 2009 {Engadget HD}
Sep 8th 2009 5:39PM Well, at least Sons of Anarchy is in HD. For the uninitiated, you owe it to yourself to watch Season 1 on DVD/Blu-ray and DVR the current ones until you've caught up. I never thought I'd care about a biker gang drama, but it's an in-your-face show with solid acting all around, especially from Ron Perlman and Katey Segal.
Too bad FX never broadcast The Shield in HD. That show, like this one, demanded to be seen in glorious 16:9.
Toshiba BDX2000 Blu-ray player coming November for $250, gives HD-DVD the final cold shoulder {Engadget HD}
Sep 3rd 2009 3:13PM @ Ken
Not trying to start anything, but how can you be sure of the number of "HD DVD owners in the world" who have simply discarded their movies and/or players? That really doesn't make sense if it means one less Blu-ray version to buy. And chances are good that the codecs and supplements will be the same to save studios time and money instead of developing a Blu-ray version from scratch. I have yet to see an AVC version of a VC-1-encoded disc from Universal, Warner, or Paramount.
If I can find an HD DVD on the Web for two bucks, it's mine---even it's a title or genre I'm not crazy about. I'm sure there are plenty of discs out there that haven't been given the Blu-ray treatment. It's just economics for most of us, not "fanboyism" or spiteful stubbornness.
PS3 Slim bitstreams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio, at last {Engadget HD}
Aug 21st 2009 2:04PM @ EM1
The MKV format may be used illegally, but you can say that for VOB (which the PS3 supports) and other formats as well. It's a legitimate, open-source format supported in various retail programs like AVS Video Converter and DivX. Western Digital's WDTV box supports it. It's going to be supported natively in Windows 7. And from what I understand, people mainly use it for ripping their OWNED, digital media for storage purposes, pirates be damned.
No way all these companies would openly support a program that encourages piracy, right? Right? : )
PS3 Slim bitstreams Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA audio, at last {Engadget HD}
Aug 21st 2009 11:29AM I can't knock the PS3 for all the formats it now handles, but MKV support would be the icing on the cake for both models. It can play back virtually any VOB file flawlessy, but this feature would eliminate the conversion process by programs like the great MKV2VOB (unless, of course, it encounters an MKV it can't play). It's just a file container, so I don't see why this hasn't happened. And what's up with the 360 not supporting either of these natively?
On a side note, kudos to Sony for allowing the PS3 for being the first and only console to support DTS in games and movie files. This should be a standard for all next-gen consoles.
Xbox 360 officially the only console to stream Netflix -- sorry, PS3 and Wii {Engadget HD}
Aug 11th 2009 5:20PM While it's awesome that the Xbox 360 has this capability, I only wish they'd have an option for outputting the streams at their native 24 hz (for those of us with 120 Hz+ displays). It shouldn't be a problem for the Xbox to output 1080p/24 like the PS3 does, since it already does 1080p/60.(thanks to the "Hana" chip). The Samsung Blu-ray players do this and it looks amazing (which is probably true for LG models as well)..Even Vudu's SD content, fullscreen and widescreen, is output at 24 Hz and upscaled.to 1080p before it reaches your TV. I'm thinking they could have a setup like Western Digital's awesome WDTV box, which accommodates all displays with a wide range of settings.
I know they can't please everyone with the system updates, but they only occur twice a year. Quarterly would be nice...
