Here’s a list of recent events:
Well, ignoring item number four, it looked like time for a new TV!
I picked up a Pioneer Kuro Elite PRO-111FD at my local Magnolia A/V, and am completely floored by the picture quality. I’ve never seen a better picture on any set, including the fabled Sony Qualia that I checked out in Tokyo a few years ago. Incredibly deep blacks, great color rendition, and a smooth film-like resolution. Absolutely amazing.
I almost bought the Pioneer Kuro PDP-5020 ![[B001AAPEDC]](http://www.mikeyp.com/css/external.gif)
instead. It’s cheaper than the Elite, with an identical screen, but missing the “Pro” picture tuning menu as well as an ambient light detector. It turns out that I use both features. The Pro menu lets me turn off several counter-productive picture “enhancement” settings. The light sensor lets me tune the TV for my normal nighttime theater settings, then auto-compensate during washed out daylight viewing. However, if I didn’t get a great deal on the Elite, I would certainly have opted for the 5020.
If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy a TV during these nasty economic times, check out the Pioneer Kuros. And get one while you still can.
As I prepared to settle in for a Saturday evening, I embarked on the creation of a cold beverage. But alas! The source bottle had a new, confounding screw-top design not seen on previous bottles. When I attempted to turn the screw to break it free from its base, the base turned with it.
That will never do. But a man will not let a mere poorly-designed screw-top impede an essential beverage objective. This called for a new set of bar tools.
Never let it be said that anything gets between a man and his martini. Never.
At 7:30pm, I decided that I wanted to record the new Ken Burns documentary, The War, so I could watch it later. It airs at 8:00pm. My Comcast DVR was mostly full, so I spent 15 minutes tediously clicking through the abominable user interface menus, deleting one recording at a time. As any experienced Comcast DVR owner knows, the more you diddle with the menus, the slower the box gets, and sure enough, my DVR started to slow to a crawl.
I managed to delete everything I wanted, and opened the Guide to plan the recording. I found The War on KQED's HD channel, clicked on the info button, and tried to click the "other times" button to see when all of the series episodes are airing. Nothing. The button simply wouldn't work no matter how many times I clicked it.
I decided to take my chances and set a "series recording", hoping that the DVR will pick up the other 5 parts of the series. I clicked the "record series" button, examined the useless options, and clicked "record".
Pop! Click! Whizzzz!
The DVR spontaneously reset itself, and after 4 minutes of rebooting and authorizing itself, the entire channel guide was "TBA". Which, of course, meant that I couldn't schedule any recordings. Such as The War, about to air in 10 minutes.
At 7:58pm, the channel guide reappeared showing all of the program info. I clicked at fast as possible, and managed to get the series recording scheduled just before the clock rolled over to 8:00pm.
For reference, the most basic functions that allow a DVR to function are:
I watched the Tenacious D in The Pick of Denstiny DVD last weekend. Funny flick, if you like the Jack Black rocker shtick. And if you have a dts-capable sound system, as I do, you must hear the dts audio mix. Wow! As usual, the dts mix sounds incredible compared to the DD 5.1 mix, with hefty, well-rounded bass coming from the mains and surrounds in addition to the sub.
Whenever I get a new DVD from NetFlix, I always hit the options screen with hope of finding a dts audio option. I sure wish the list of dts DVDs was longer.
Almost every time I read the webcomic xkcd, I find myself laughing hysterically… then suddenly and sheepishly scanning the room to see if anyone saw me laughing at something so incredibly geeky.
I guess this makes me a Star Wars sucker, but I bought all three updates of the classic Star Wars DVDs [starwars77, starwarsdvdep1, badstarwarspq] so I could watch the "bonus" inclusion of the original, unaltered films. But I was shocked to see the picture quality to be as bad as it is.
I've owned a DVD player since they were first released, and own several first-generation DVDs, but I have never seen a film that was encoded as badly as these original Star Wars films. Jaggy lines, macro-blocking, no 3:2 pulldown, etc. I've seen bootleg videos that are better looking than this. The films are practically unwatchable on a modern DVD player with a modern HDTV, and at this point in the lifetime of the DVD format, that is inexcusable.
In a couple of weeks, I'm going to buy the Star Wars trilogy for the fourth time, as Lucasfilm is finally releasing DVDs of the movies as they were originally seen in theaters.
StarWars.com is showing a cool slideshow of the differences between the original 1977 film and the 2004 "Special Edition." Under each scene, there is a caption that extolls how much better the Special Edition looks, but to me, the slideshow actually shows just how much they screwed up the film with all of the CG "enchancements".
I can't wait to see the original film again as I saw it in theaters in '77. Han shot first!
I've tuned the service menu and user menu settings for my Samsung HL-R4667W [samsungpronto, samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wsettings, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, exchangesamsung, samsunghlr4667w] a hundred times, and changed nearly every value. At the end of the day, however, I only needed to make a few adjustments to get a great picture.
Service Menu Settings:
GAMMA: 0
Sub Contrast: 80
(CCA) D-White-X: 313
(CCA) D-White-Y: 329
User Menu Settings:
Picture Mode: Standard (Movie is also good, but seems to boost black levels a bit, revealing slightly more DLP dithering)
Sharpness: 0
Color Temperature: Warm1
Digital NR: On for Component Inputs, Off for OTA and HDMI
I'll keep this entry up-to-date if (when!) I make future changes.
Comcast has a respectable lineup of about 14 or so international channels that broadcast exclusively in various languages. I thought it would be fun to subscribe to the Japanese channel so I could continue learning more of the Japanese language. Comcast's monthly price for that one channel: $25.99! You've got to be kidding me. Maybe I'll study Chinese. The two Mandarin Chinese channels? $21.99 and $12.99 each, per month.
Unlike the movie channels, which are expensive individually, but are bundled in affordable single-price packages, Comcast has no such bundle for their international channels. Instead, they are all sold individually as "International Premium Services A La Carte."
Premium indeed.
In the mean time, Japanese TV channels like Fuji News Network, JAL-TV, and others stream their broadcast over the internet for free. I know what I'll be watching.
It is cold and hailing tonight, with a forecast of possible snow. Sounds like time for a cocktail!
Here's my take on a drink called Fireside Rum:
Don't use a thin wine glass - the drink will be too hot to handle. A coffee mug will work just fine as an alternative.
I would have been a bit frustrated if I had gone through the hassle of setting up the clumsy Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr] to record Battlestar Galactica on the Universal HD channel. As soon as the Olympics ended, Comcast ditched the Universal HD channel immediately. No word on whether it will return. I'd rather have a true HD SciFi Channel anyway.
Besides, they put back the INHD2 channel, which carries a very important HD broadcast: Hockey 
The channel Universal HD was quietly added to our local Comcast HD lineup yesterday. Finally, we get to watch Battlestar Galactica in Hi-Def (instead of the grainy analog SciFi channel).
Alas, season 2 of Galactica ended last week, so it appears that Universal will be showing only reruns for the time being.
Side note: Does it seem like Battlestar Galactica suddenly switched from a space opera to a soap opera this season?
As much as a like my Samsung HL-R4667W HDTV [samsungpronto, samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wsettings, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, exchangesamsung, samsunghlr4667w], a few months ago, I noticed a problem with the picture. Darker colors were "collapsing" into a single color. Basically, dark color shades would become one color, revealing some ugly banding artifacts as well as making Anakin Skywalker look rather sunburned.
I found that I could fix this by going in to the service menu and changing the default value of SEQ SELECT from 5 to 0. As long as I didn't turn off the set when exiting the menu, this setting would stick and the picture would look fine. However, if I turned the set off completely, the picture quality problems would reappear then next time I turned the set on.
I had a Best Buy service guy come out to see the problem, and he decided to replace the "digital board". The new board didn't solve the problem, so another service guy decided to replace the "light engine." (It turns out that Samsung doesn't want service guys futzing around with any of the circuitry. Instead, they simply replace one of 3 major assemblies: the "digital board", the "light engine", and the "light bulb".) After 6 weeks, the new light engine failed to arrive, so I called the Best Buy warranty folks and they agreed to replace the set with a new one.
I sure was bummed to see my replacement set look even worse than my first one! Not only did it have the color problem, but vertically straight lines had a jaggy sawtooth pattern to them (likely a problem with wobulation ).
After contemplating a refund, I had them exchange the set one more time. I was totally relieved to see that my new replacement set looked perfect. Out of the box, my new Samsung HL-R4667W had an outstanding picture that I could only achieve via the service menu on my original set.
I wrote down the firmware date as displayed in the service menu for all of the sets I had. My original set, the replacement digital board, as well as the first replacement set all had the date May 2005. My current set (the second replacement) has the date July 2005.
Here are as couple of tips I've learned from this experience:
Was it me, or was the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix for today's Super Bowl out of balance? I have a nicely calibrated system, but the center channel audio from Al Michaels and John Madden was much quieter than the ambient crowd noise. The crowd noise itself was quite loud from the rear channels. ABC's Monday Night Football usually sounds much more balanced on my system.
Some folks on AVSForum think it might have been an issue with the local affiliates. That would be KGO-TV, in my case.
Update: I watched the game via antenna, which delivers a better picture than the Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr]. Folks on the Yahoo HDTV SFBay group noted that the sound was fine over Comcast, but bad via OTA.
It's been common videophile wisdom that if you own an HDTV that has a native resolution of 720p, you will achieve the best picture quality if you feed it 720p signals. The rationale is that outboard video scalers are generally more capable than internal scalers.
This is absolutely not the case with 720p-native Samsung HL-Rxx67W [samsunghlr4667wsettings, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, samsunghlr4667w] series DLP sets (mine is the HL-R4667W). The internal scaler, based on the ATI Xillion chip set, is the best video scaler I've seen. There is no comparison to the internal 720p scaler in my Comcast HD cable box - the Samsung scaler absolutely blows it away. If you have an outboard HDTV receiver, like a cable or satellite box, set it to output 1080i or pass through a native signal. The picture quality difference is outstanding.
Combined with the wobulated diagonal pixel pattern, the ATI scaler gives 1080i a much better picture quality than on my old 1080i-native CRT HD. On the Sammy HD, 1080i simply looks far better than 720p.
Say goodbye to the old 720p rule-of-thumb. With this new generation of HDTV's, feed your Sammy the highest picture resolution possible. You'll love what you see.
Starting tomorrow, subscribers of Comcast High Speed Internet [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, comcasthdcompression, newcomcastdvr, comcastinternationalchannels] will be able to watch live and archived NHL games streamed over the Internet this season. The press release tells us everything but the important detail: what's the video resolution? If it ends up somewhere north of 640×480, the net stream will likely look much better than the local standard definition broadcast carried by Comcast's Cable TV.
Caught on Ars Technica
Every once in a while, a respected (and occasionally legendary) singer grabs some popular music, sets it to his own style, and runs with it.
Today, that musician is Paul Anka. He's taken a… bizarre… collection of hit rock songs from the 80's and 90's and has done what he does best: make them swing.
If you can imagine an old white man with a martini and cigarette in one hand, snapping his fingers with the other as he smirks out Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, well, this record is for you. And me. 
I was listening to KCSM Jazz Radio in the car when I heard a deliciously funky song called Funkaroma by Eddie Harris. I knew instantly that I had to buy a copy. But wait a second - what was a funk song doing on jazz radio? Because, according to Down Beat, Eddie was "…one of the most creative and imaginative musicians..." in jazz and beyond, who played several instruments and collaborated with many of the jazz greats. Not to mention that he practically invented the electric Sax. I can't begin to do justice to his legacy, but I can easily recommend buying The Eddie Harris Anthology .
For a couple of reasons, The Eddie Harris Anthology is a unique two disk set. First, it is a truly eclectic collection of everything Eddie played, including Jazz, Funk, R&B, and more. Second, all of the songs in the collection were chosen by Eddie himself. How do you describe a collection of mixed tunes from one of music's most underrated players? Simple: It's good stuff...
Primer is one heckuva cool movie. Two engineers who dabble with physics experiments in their garage make a mind-bending discovery after finding fungus growth on a weeble. Seriously. As many critics have pointed out, Primer is the most reality-grounded SciFi film since Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey .
The coolest thing about Primer, however, is that is was made by a real software engineer named Shane Carruth. It was his first film, and his budget was a mere $7,000. It took Carruth nearly 2 years to edit the film, but the resulting story and cinematography (especially the excellent lighting) make him look like a seasoned pro. He discusses everything in detail (himself!) on the official Primer Movie message board.
I should note that the DVD I initially purchased had a defect that prevented the movie from playing past chapter 4. After I filed out the exchange form on amazon.com, I received a prompt reply and apology. They shipped me a brand new copy via 2-day air, and that disk plays without error. I'm very pleased with amazon's customer service.
A poster named blackdiamond generously posted the service menu settings for his Samsung HL-R5667W DLP set on avsforum. I compared these with the service menu settings on my HL-R4667W [samsungpronto, samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wsettings, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, exchangesamsung, samsunghlr4667w]. While most of the values were the same, there were a few differences, especially in the CCA section.
Here are the service menu defaults for the HL-R4667W (with thanks to blackdiamond for the initial compilation).
To enter the service menu, turn on the set, and using the remote, press POWER, MUTE, 1, 8, 2, POWER in rapid succession.
DO NOT enter the service menu or edit any values unless you know what you are doing!
[DDP1011(L6)]
V-Position: 30
H-Position: 60
LAMP SYNC: Pulse
INDEX DELAY: 49
SEQ SELECT: 0x5
V-FLIP: Normal
H-FLIP: Normal
GAMMA: 2
SLR: OFF
Lamp Boost: 20
Lamp Sync Delay: 0
Test Pattern: 0
[DNIe]
Test Pattern: 0
NR_MAX Y/C: 48
NR_MIN Y/C: 16
Core: 4
B_RATIO: 12000
BLACK_TILT: 120
W_RATIO: 12000
WHITE_TILT: 200
GAIN1X: 1
GAIN1Y: 8
GAIN2X: 4
GAIN2Y: 10
GAIN3X: 1
NDON: ON
CORING_ON: ON
SCALE_R: 92
WTE_CSC: YCCRGB
DITHER_MOD: 0
RED_C_COEFF: 128
GRN_C_COEFF: 128
BLU_C_COEFF: 128
RED_B_COEFF: 128
GRN_B_COEFF: 128
BLU_B_COEFF: 128
Sub Contrast: 105
Sub Brightness: 235
[ADV7402(M)]
AUTO_COLOR: Reset
SOG_SYNC_LEVEL: 8
AGC_TIM: 0
GAIN_MAN: ON
A_GAIN: 275
B_GAIN: 287
C_GAIN: 287
A_OFFSET: 0
B_OFFSET: 512
C_OFFSET: 512
DLL_PH: 0
(remaining values grayed out)
[ADV7402(S)]
All values grayed out
[Xilleon226]
Main/Sub: Main
Y/UV: Y
Filter: gh121a
[uPD64083]
All values grayed out
[MSP4440]
MDB Effect: 56
SRS Dialog: 64
[CCA(ON)]
CCA: ON
Red-x: 636
Red-y: 336
Red-Y: 88
Green-x: 295
Green-y: 617
Green-Y: 418
Blue-x: 148
Blue-y: 57
Blue-Y: 42
White-x: 277
White-y: 298
White-Y: 610
WB Spread:
Move HDMI:
DRedX: 640
DRedY: 340
DGreenX: 300
DGreenY: 620
DBlueX: 150
DBlueY: 60
DCyanX: 205
DCyanY: 270
DMagentaX: 290
DMagentaY: 140
DYellowX: 425
DYellowY: 515
D-White-X: 287
D-White-Y: 295
COMP: 0
[Cinema CCA]
DRedX: 640
DRedY: 340
DGreenX: 300
DGreenY: 620
DBlueX: 150
DBlueY: 60
DCyanX: 205
DCyanY: 270
DMagentaX: 290
DMagentaY: 140
DYellowX: 425
DYellowY: 515
D-White-X: 313
D-White-Y: 329
[SP Actuator]
Actuator Gain: 115
Actuator On/Off: ON
[OPTION]
Lamp Clear
User Reset
WB Reset: OFF
EER Reset
Lamp Life: 6h
AUTO POWER: ON
Lamp Control: Dynamic
MUTE TIME: 600ms
EDID WRITE
DELAY MOD: OFF
226 TEST PATT
DDC Protection: ON
LNA Default: AUTO
PROTECT: ON
WD COUNT: 0
All values same as COMP1 except the following:
[DNIe]
GAIN1X: 16
GAIN1Y: 12
GAIN2X: 8
GAIN2Y: 4
Regardless of your opinion about Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace , one thing thing about the film is without debate: the picture quality of the EP1 DVD is absolutely awful. The disk is chock full of everything you can do wrong with production of a DVD. Edge enhancement is apparent everywhere, giving spaceships false ghostly halos, and making the sandy terrain of Tattoine and the lush grasses of Naboo a garbled mess. Bright colors are overdriven, causing nasty "mosquito noise" artifacts in every bright scene. Filmed shots and CGI shots have a different color balance, making CGI characters and vehicles stand out like they were pasted on top of the raw film stock. Even the sound is clipping in places, and the pod race is missing the rumble I remember from the theater.
Compare this to the picture quality on the Star Wars Episode 2, Attack of the Clones DVD. Every scene is nearly flawless, with no noticeable edge enhancement and an excellent color balance. The sound fidelity really exercises a good sound system.
I'm blown away that LucasFilm and Fox would go through the effort to remaster the original Star Wars Trilogy, only to drop the ball on EP1. Maybe we'll see a "remastered" EP1 in a box set of the new Trilogy now that Revenge of the Sith has been released. Wishful thinking? Help me Obi Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.
When I watched a few scenes from my DVD reference disk (House of Flying Daggers) on my new DLP [samsungpronto, samsung1080i, samsunghlr4667wsettings, samsunghlr4667wservicemenu, exchangesamsung, samsunghlr4667w] set, I was disappointed in the picture quality. I could see lots of noise ("mosquito patterns") in the actors faces, and shimmering dithering in dark scenes. I thought this was because of the limitations of DLP technology, as I never saw these artifacts on my older CRT-based HDTV.
For kicks, I decided to watch the same scenes from the movie on my PC. I have an excellent original SGI 1600W widescreen LCD monitor, which I drive with an nVidia G-Force 5700 Ultra video card. And wouldn't you know it, the picture quality of the DVD on my PC was exactly the same as on the DLP.
This leads me to suspect that the DLP is reproducing the DVD picture more or less perfectly, whereas my old CRT "covered up" the DVD quality artifacts. This is both good and bad. Now I'm beginning to wonder, do all DVD's really look this bad? Time to plow through my collection and choose a new reference disk…
(whenever I'm actually home, that is...)
I bought a Samsung HL-R4667W HDTV last week. This is my first experience with a DLP set. The picture quality is nearly perfect - actually, too perfect in some cases. Here are my first impressions:
Like:
, VGA, and FireWire inputsDon't Like:
Don't Care:
If I can cure the dithering and banding with some calibration, this set is a keeper. If not, it's heading back to Best Buy.
If you have a Philips Pronto TS-1000/2000 series programmable remote control, and are looking for codes for the new HLR-series Samsung DLP televsions (such as the HL-R4667W or HL-R5067W), head over to http://www.remotecentral.com. Download the CCF file for the HLP-5685, created by Jeff Hayes. He's done a lot of work getting codes to function for the Samsung HLP-series, and the codes work perfectly with the HLR-series.
Buying an HDTV is really tough today. With all of the competing technologies, various resolution "standards", poor quality control, and price points that range from chump change to second mortgages, it's no wonder so many people just buy "the flat one."
One main reasons that buying an HD set is so difficult is the incredible amount of misinformation available. HDTV manufacturers have created plenty of expected marketing speak, and press amateurs have fumbled countless "reviews," but the vast majority of hype, misunderstanding, and just plain wrong-headedness comes from the various user forums on the net. Just spend 30 minutes googling for the difference between the various DLP chipsets or the virtues of EDTV plasma screens, and you find page after page of outrageous claims and garbage usage "tests."
Between the hype, there are some useful sources of technical information. The ExtremeTech site has a fantastic four-part analysis of competing display technologies (though it does occasionally read like an ad for DisplayMate).
When armed with the right technical information, and a resolve to stay within your set budget, the main thing you really need to do when choosing the right HDTV is actually quite simple:
Trust your eyes…
Oh, and make sure your retailer has a generous return policy.
I have a Toshiba 42H81 rear projection HDTV. I bought it back in 2001 when the only kind of large HDTV you could buy was a rear projection CRT , and there were only two available that were smaller than 50 inches. The Toshiba was the best buy.
Rob, a co-worker of mine and fellow audiophile, and I were bantering about our 'old' Toshiba's earlier today at work. As fate would have it, I got home, turned on my 42H81 to watch the baseball game, and noticed that the blue convergence was completely out of whack. It has the horizontal pin cushion pattern that you see when the convergence is being reset. This makes the picture all but unwatchable. While a replacement convergence IC is probably the fix, Toshiba's are not what you'd call DIY-friendly systems.
This isn't the first problem I've had with this set.
After 6 months, I was watching a hockey game and noticed an annoying, thin white vertical patch along the left 3rd of the screen. Turns out this is a defect present in most all Toshiba's at the time, and there is no fix available. Luckily, it's only visible during bright white scenes, but it still sucks.
After 18 months, the set refused to turn on. Luckily, my MasterCard doubled Toshiba's 12 month warranty, and a repair guy replaced about $350 worth of fried electronics. I have no idea how much his labor would have cost.
On the plus side, there were lots of Toshiba enthusiasts, especially at The Home Theater Spot forums, who pointed out ways to get the best out of the set. And I must say, after removing the glare screen, disconnecting the SVM edge enhancement circuits, calibrating the convergence with a giant mylar convergence grid, and setting correct black levels with the Avia DVD , the set could look stunning.
For a while.
Until the convergence drifted. Or the "white line" appeared. Or the set spontaneously turned off. Or now, having the blue convergence go bad.
House of Flying Daggers is my new reference DVD. I am absolutely blown away by the incredible use of color in this film, and the DVD reproduces each scene flawlessly. Vibrant interiors, dimly lit forests pouring with greens, and blinding snow scenes all serve as fantastic backdrops to colorful traditional Chinese costumes.
The sound quality is a special treat, particularly the 'echo drum' scene, which envelopes the listener with sounds of pebbles ricocheting from marble floors, and bouncing from dozens of drums.
The story itself is basically a romantic tragedy, so if you're looking for a Kung Fu flick, there isn't as much wire-fighting here as you might expect. That said, there are some great combat scenes.
Got a high end home theater? Get this disk.
Domaine Chandon, the Napa Valley descendant of Moet & Chandon, is well known for making delicious sparkling wines (aka Champagne). But when I visited the winery recently, I learned that they also make varietal wines, including a very nice Chardonnay, a true Carneros Pinot Noir, and get this, a Pinot Meunier.
I've never tried a Pinot Meunier before, and the Chandon left me wanting more. I suppose I would describe it as a Pinot Noir with attitude. Think of subtle plum, cherry, and… Havana tobacco… overtones. (I'll probably get dinged by the wine snobs for that one.)
Both the 2002 and 2003 vintages were well worth trying, if you can find them.
I now have a replacement for my dead Comcast DVR, and I've noticed two interesting things:
1. The hard drive doesn't chatter loudly like the previous Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, comcasthdcompression, newcomcastdvr, comcastinternationalchannels] . The drive does have a slightly noticeable hum (a bit louder than the drive in my PC), but it is far less annoying than the incessant chatter.
2. The sound quality is better. I can't explain this, especially since I used the coax SPDIF connection on both DVRs. My only guess is that the audio settings on the old DVR were incorrect. For the audio settings on the new DVR's Audio Menu, I use Optimal Stereo, Advanced, No Compression, Stereo Output (not Matrix Surround).
After having a brand new Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr] for a whole 4 months, the DVR has stopped functioning. For those of you who are computer veterans, the box is making the familiar squeaky clicking sounds of a dead hard drive. I've of course lost all of the recorded shows.
This kinda sucks worse than it normally would, as I'm in crunch mode at work right now. That means:
1. I can't watch any prime time shows without a DVR
2. I'm not able to be at home for a cable guy to bring out a new box
Bummer, eh?
I sure with there was an HD TiVo with CableCard support!
When passing through Boonville, CA, you must stop at the Anderson Valley Brewing Company, home of the excellent award-winning ale, Boont Amber.
AVBC just release a wild new ale called Summer Solstice Cerveza Crema. I've never had another beer like it. It really has a very smooth, cream-like texture, without tasting carmely sweet. It is so hard to describe, yet so easy to drink that I definitely recommend giving it a try, if you can find it…
(That link to Boonville above is actually a satellite picture of the Brewery)
I now have four shows on my Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr] that will neither play nor allow me to delete. The Comcast DVR has so much promise, but it is so damned clunky and buggy that I can't believe I still deal with it sometimes. But jeez, once you get hooked on a PVR , you can never really go back.
What I like:
PVRWhat I hate:
There is a lot of baseball being broadcast in HDTV this year, and I'm loving every minute of it. I get HD via an antenna on my roof (OTA ) and via Comcast cable, but since most HD baseball is shown only on Fox Sports, I usually end up watching the feed via cable.
There is a noticeable amount of 'tiling' and 'blockyness' on just about every Comcast HD channel, and I find it especially noticeable when watching sports like baseball. Why is this the case, and why is it that I don't see this degraded picture quality when watching sports via OTA?
A fellow HD enthusiast asked Fox Sports the same question, and Fox confirmed our suspicions: Comcast does indeed re-compress the already compressed HDTV digital signal. The full reply is posted on the Yahoo HDTV-in-SFBay group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HDTV-in-SFbay/message/17145
Add that to yet another re-compression step in the Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr], and you have one crappy HD picture.
Ever wonder what would happen if your DVR wasn't aware of Daylight Savings Time? Those of us on the west coast with Comcast DVRs just found out:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HDTV-in-SFbay/message/17063?simple=1
http://www.dvrchatter.com/viewtopic.php?id=219
Fred Kaplan at Slate has written a well-informed article about the picture quality on Warner Bros. recent DVD releases. He calls WB the new Criterion, as they seem to be going out of their way to re-release classic films with the best scanning and bit-rate possible. I love seeing popular media finally understanding that picture quality matters.
As someone who owns the first DVD release of Casablanca as well as Warner's new special edition, I can vouch that the picture quality of the new version is indeed absolutely stunning.
As a kid, I had the entire collection of Star Wars action figures (and still do), but I think my favorite action figure toys were actually Micronauts. These things were so cool - you could take them apart and snap pieces from different figures together. And they had a super-cool pneumatic tube transportation thing. Totally cool stuff.
It looks like after 25 years, the Micronauts are returning!
(caught this on BoingBoing)
Paul, an Englishman at my office, turned me on to a brilliant reality show on BBC America called Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. Gordon Ramsey is a famous English chef who's called in each week to help struggling restaurants get in shape and get better business.
Ramsey is also an acerbic, arrogant, intimidating, cuss-up-a-storm bastard.
Seeing Ramsey barge in to a kitchen and humiliate the entire staff, belittle the head chef, and tell clueless owners that they've got no business running a restaurant is a total blast to watch. It's a little like watching a train wreck unfold in reverse.
Don't miss it. (FYI, I have no idea when it airs, as I set it up in my Comcast DVR, so Tivo it!)
Pedro: If I win, you can be my secretary or something.
Napoleon Dynamite: Sweet!
Pedro offers you his protection
We saw Badi Assad at the International Guitar Night performance last night in San Francisco. Badi (pronounced 'BAH-djee') is a great guitarist and outstanding singer from Brazil, but what makes her really unique is her ability to make rhythmic and musical sounds and noises with her voice, hands, and it seems, her whole body. She'll make percussion 'clicks' with her tongue as she hums a melody, and as she plays, you can see her almost comically slap her own cheek while her mouth is open to make a sweet 'pop' sound that fits the song perfectly.
Although I've been listening to her music for several years now, this was the first time I've seen her live, and it was a performance of pure musical talent that I'll never forget.
I discovered Badi by listening to an Audiophile Chesky Records CD I was using to tune my sound system. Chesky included an nicely produced recording of Badi on the CD, and I recognized her name from Guitar Player magazine.
Even though I have the Comcast DVR with HDTV over cable, I'm watching today's SuperBowl in HD via my trusty RCA DCT-100 and rooftop antenna. Why? The picture quality is better. Granted, the Comcast picture is good, and plenty watchable, but here are some of the differences I can see with today's game:
Is the Comcast DVR recompressing HD on-the-fly, like it is with the SD channels? Or perhaps, do I have a stronger signal via OTA than cable?
The crummy analog picture quality of the Comcast DVR [superbowlcomcastdvr, comcastdvrdst, comcastdvrdelete, comcastdvrdead, comcastdvrwar, comcastdvravsforum, newcomcastdvr] box has me actively researching solutions for building my own HDTV PVR . I didn't expect to discover that the Electronic Frontier Foundation supports and encourages people to build their own HD PVRs before the FCC-mandated broadcast flag goes in effect this summer.
Thank you EFF!
BTW, did you know that ElGato makes an external HDTV decoder with FireWire output?
There are a lot of great HDTV big-screen monitors available these days, but nearly all of them have maximum resolution of 1280×720, which supports the HDTV resolution 720p. Unfortunately, 720p is not the highest HDTV resolution - 1080i is. Even though 1080i is interlaced, the ultimate way to view 1080i content is on a screen that supports true 1080p progressive-scan resolution. An ultimate version of that screen, in my opinion, is the Sony Qualia.
When I was in Japan a couple of months ago, I got to see some Qualia stuff in person at Sony's headquarters, and I was blown away by the perfection of the picture quality. Click the thumbnail to see a full 1.2MB close-up.
According to a pull-out section in this month's Sound & Vision magazine, it looks like Sony is only releasing two Qualia models in the US this year, both big and expensive. We can only hope that they release more soon, or its back to Japan for me!
I've had the Comcast HD-DVR for about 2 weeks now. I'll write a review after I finish reading a thread about it on AVS Forum.
AVS Forum is a killer place to get all the hi-fi and video info you need, but sometimes the amount of information can be overwhelming. The "Official Comcast 6412 w/ iGuide Discussion" thread is 119 PAGES long… so far...
The Anchor Brewing Company in San Francisco makes the well known and loved Anchor Steam Beer. Recently, I discovered that Anchor also has a distillery called, appropriately enough, the Anchor Distilling Company.
If you like gin , try Anchor's Junipero. Unlike Bombay Sapphire's silky yet robust flavor, Junipero has a distinctly floral and spicy taste. It just might be a key ingredient in the quest for the perfect martini.
The Star Wars Episode 3 teaser one-sheet is for sale at http://shop.starwars.com/Product/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=503. I don't think it's one of the better Star Wars one-sheets, but worth adding to my one-sheet collection.
A much cooler poster is the Japanese teaser for Return of the Jedi. Check it out: http://shop.starwars.com/Product/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductID=180
I can't for the life of me understand why people use store-bought margarita mix, especially since a perfect margarita is so simple to make without it. You only need three ingredients:
Just put some ice in a shaker, add 1.5oz tequila, 1.5oz triple sec, and the juice of 1 whole lime. Shake it until it's ice cold, and strain in to a martini glass. Done! Ahhhh… sip the perfection.
Note: if you want to make a Waborita, just add a splash of Blue Curacao to the martini glass.
