Oliver Carter

General musings on Popular Culture

iPad 2

When I first purchased an iPad last year I had no idea just how useful it would be. Amongst many other uses, I use it to write my PhD chapters, annotate readings, give presentations, browse the web and read books. I also use it to watch television, particularly live ice hockey, and film. The ability to stream content from my mediaserver has been an added bonus. I am even using the Posterous app to write this blog post. Without doubt, the iPad has been one of the best purchases I ever made. For everyday tasks, the benefits of tablet computing is very easy to see.

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Size Matters

Before we moved into our new house we both said that we wanted a big television. The owners of our favourite guesthouse in Beer, Devon had Pioneer 50" Plasma that always impressed us when we stayed there. Unfortunately, Pioneer, arguably the makers of the best plasma television ever produced, no longer produce televisions. After looking online to find out what are currently the largest televisions available for sale, I had decided that either the soon to be released Samsung PS63C7000 63" 3D plasma or the Panasonic TX-P65VT20B 65" 3D plasma were the best choices. With my current television at the time being a Panasonic plasma I was initially drawn to the latter. However, after a trip to the Panasonic store in Solihull I was put off by the insanely high price tag. Early online reviews of the Samsung were positive, aside from the difficulties in finding them stocked anywhere in the UK.

During our visit to the Panasonic shop we asked for a demonstration of the 3D feature found on the latest televisions. Having been disappointed with 3D films I have seen at the cinema, my expectations were very low. The demonstrator showed us a short trailer for the IMAX documentary GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE: A RIVER AT RISK (2008). The 3D effects were undoubtedly impressive but it wasn't until we had water splash in our faces and drip down the lenses of the glasses that we were surprised by the quality of the effects. 3D was not the intention of wanting a new television but it was now a welcome bonus.

The 63" plasma was being sold for a very competitive price at very.co.uk; a website that I usually do not feel confident about ordering from. As part of a package, you would have the television with a Samsung 3D Blu-Ray player and a 3D starter kit that included two pairs of 3D glasses and the film MONSTERS AND ALIENS on 3D Blu-Ray for free. My plan was to sell the Blu-Ray player in order to help pay off the television. I was also able to sell MONSTERS AND ALIENS on eBay for £50, taking advantage of the demand for 3D Blu-Ray content. Vouchers helped bring the price down by 20% and the selling of my old Panasonic made it even cheaper.

It took over two months for the television to arrive due to it's lack of availability. In finally arrived, thankfully in one piece in August. The box itself was unbelievably large in size, so much so that I could easily walk in and turn around with ease.

The immediate thing that struck me was how thin the television is. It sat perfectly on the AV stand I purchased specially for the television but, because of its size, it can wobble slightly when you walk near it. I was disappointed to find that there was no instruction booklet in the package but this was offset by the inclusion of another pair of 3D glasses. I was also able to claim for another pair of glasses as part of a promotional deal by Samsung, meaning that I now had four pairs for free.

Performance has been very pleasing; I have no major complaints about the set at all. Some online reviews have commented about some of it's shortcomings but when compared to the double in price 65" Panasonic it wins hands down for overall value.

SD content does not look as good as HD content but that it is to be expected. Some upscaled DVDs, however, such as the Optimum release of A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, look very good indeed. Blacks are strong and colours are very natural. I setup the television using settings that were suggested by someone who had calibrated their set professionally. The results continue to be impressive. The media file playback feature has been very useful, offering seamless playback of HD mkv files and easily synchronising with my media server. The internet@tv feature is somewhat limited but it gives welcome access to YouTube and iPlayer. It is a bit naughty that the television does not come with wireless as standard but it happily connects to my homeplug.

Despite the lack of 3D Blu-Rays currently available I have been able to locate numerous 3D IMAX movies, the German 3D Blu-Ray disc of GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE is excellent and has impressed everyone who has seen it so far. The standout 3D movie so far has been AVATAR which looks magnificent. Viewing it in 3D for the first time was most certainly a memorable experience.

I have been using the Sony BDP-S570 for region B Blu-Ray playback, multi-region DVD and 3D Blu-Ray. It is not the best Blu-Ray player and I currently await the release of Oppo's BDP-93 which should be the best all round Blu-Ray player. I use my US PS3 for gaming and region A Blu-Ray playback. My HD-DVD player remains. Regretfully, I sold my much loved Sony DG820 home cinema amp to pay for the Onkyo 508 3D ready amp. Whilst the sound quality of the Oppo is excellent, its usability most certainly is not. I am also convinced that it has HDMI handshaking problems with the PS3 and Sony Blu-Ray player. I intend to sell it in the near future so that I can purchase the Sony DG810 amp.

So there you have it, my current setup. By selling lots of my old gear I have been able to pay very little for everything, the television especially being a bargain.

The iPad

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If any readers were wondering about the sudden change in formatting (i.e lack of hyperlinks, italics etc) it is because I am now doing the majority of my posting via the Posterous app on my iPad. As a gift to myself for my 30th birthday I decided to buy an iPad after using one that had been floating around work. When the iPad was first announced I thought of it as nothing more than a mutated iPhone/iPod Touch and would be of no use to me. I did think that the device would be more suitable for the older generation because of its intuitive design and ease of use.

However, after using the iPad I could see how it would of use to me. It is easier to carry around than my MacBook and therefore ideal when going to conferences or travelling. The word processing and presentation iWork apps are excellent, being able to connect the iPad to a projector to give presentations is a welcome feature. I was particularly impressed by the iAnnotate app that allows you to annotate readings and export them as .PDF files, ideal for a PhD student and for preparing readings for in class discussion.

So, on the 24th September I purchased one for myself. I decided to buy the 16GB WiFi version as it was the cheapest and the one that best suited my needs. I have been surprised by how much use I get out of it. A number of my books have gone to charity shops as I now have copies of them in either the iBooks or Kindle app. The iPad will usually sit in the living room of an evening and will be used rather like magazine, dipping in and out of it. I steam videos and music from my MacBook to my iPad, watching them in bed. My iPhone now gets very little use at home as it is dwarfed by the iPad. I also find myself not using my MacBook as much.

Here is a list of some of the apps that I find most useful:

iWork: The keyboard is surprisingly responsive and using it to write documents is very simple. Keynote works fine and allows you to produce multimedia presentations, embedding videos, music and photos.

VLC: The best video player available works perfectly on the iPad, playing back all video formats apart from MKV. The only downside is having to transfer videos into the app from your computer.

Zumocast: Currently free to download from the app store. Improves on the excellent Airvideo app by allowing you to stream your iTunes library, video folders and files to your iPad. It will allow playback of any format as it will convert of the fly. A must have app.

Off: So, you are in bed and have been using Zumocast to stream media from your home computer to your iPad and don't want to have to get out of bed to go and shut your computer down. Off will remotely shut down your computer.

Kindle: Books are cheaper to buy from Amazon than the Apple bookstore. Currently reading David Simon's Homicide: Life on the Street using this app and throughly enjoying the reading experience.

Cloudreader: The best CBR reader I have used so far and PDFs look great on this app.

Dropbox: Everyone should have a Dropbox account. You can access all of your Dropbox files with ease. It also works with a number of other apps, such as...

iAnnotate: I really cannot praise this app enough. I use it to prepare class readings and for my PhD. If only more academic publishers would be willing to make books compatible with this app. Works perfectly with Dropbox.

Feeddler RSS: The best free newsreader I have used so far.

Splashtop: Remotely access your computers desktop on you iPad. This means that you can use Photoshop, Microsoft Office or any other app on your computer on your iPad. Can be difficult to control but works perfectly.

PhotoShop Express: Perfect for the quick editing of images.

Amplitude: A recent purchase. This has replaced my Line 6 Pocket Pod. Once you have purchased the iRig lead all you need to do is install the app, connect the iRig to the iPad and the your guitar to the iRig. The sound quality is excellent and the choice of different pedal effects is extensive.

I would have included The Guardian app and the Posterous app but neither have been optimised for the iPad yet.

mkv2vob on PS3

I regard the PS3 a great value for money media centre.  The only drawback is that it will not play certain codecs, a decision that is most likely down to DRM issues.  It is ludicrous that the PS3 does not support the .mkv format.  mkv. files have a number of advantages over other file formats, the most obvious one being high quality video at a low file size.  An application for Windows users called mkv2vob has been around for quite a while now.  This excellent app will remux mkv files into a format that the PS3 can playback and it takes a matter of seconds to do; therefore, there is no need for re-encoding.  However, Mac users currently have no such app available. Thankfully, someone has posted a workaround that will allow mkv2vob to run on a Mac.  It works perfectly.  All is needed is the Crossover software and the software found in this installation guide.  It works perfectly.  Hopefully this will help other Mac playback HD .mkv files on their PS3's, Dr Jazz, I am pointing in your direction.

Region-free DVD playback on selected HD-DVD players

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HD-DVD might be dead but players are still available to purchase both second-hand and new and HD-DVD discs are selling for next to nothing online. My first HD-DVD player was the Xbox 360 add-on which I connected to my HDMI laptop. Playback would sometimes be jerky and the Cyberlink PowerDVD was simply atrocious; some titles would not play and it was generally full of bugs. With a growing HD-DVD collection I took the plunge and ordered a stand-alone HD-DVD from the US courtesy of MovieTyme. The HD-A20 was the cheaper alternative for full 1080p playback; a mid-range model of sorts. Apart from the slow load-up times, after all these are basically computers, I was very happy with the player. It was not until HD-DVD was officially declared dead that I decided to purchase another player, the EP30, at a budget price just in case the A20 was breakdown at any point. I set the A20 up at my parents so that I could make use of the player and made the EP30 my primary HD-DVD player.

I was aware that some clever people had manage to make the first generation models of HD-DVD players, American and European, region free by modifying the official Toshiba firmware. Several weeks later it was revealed that the A20 and EP10, its European equivalent, could also be made region free. Unfortunately, the third generation models such as the EP30 are not included. So, in need of a multi-region HDMI DVD player I decided to turn my A20 from an NTSC region one SD-DVD player into an EP10 multi-region PAL/NTSC SD-DVD player. As I mentioned before, HD-DVD players are effectively Linux computers, and in terms of build the A20 and the EP10 are the same machine.

After finding the region-free firmware through some helpful, friendly people on the AVForums I followed the instructions provided. First you need to downgrade the firmware on the A20 to an earlier version using a disc. Once this is done then you can load the modified multi-region software. It is as simple as that. You now have an American HD-DVD player that can play SD-DVDs of all regions. It is also a pretty good upscaler too, not anywhere near as good as Oppo's dedicated upscaling SD-DVD players but still sound. Another bonus is that you can update the firmware and it will remain multi-region; Toshiba continue to release firmware upgrades even though the players are no longer manufactured. The only downside, and it is a minor one, is that RCE protected region one SD-DVDs require a remote control code to work. Otherwise, if you have a second or first generation HD-DVD player and would like to make it multi-region, head over to the AVForums and do some searching. You never know what you might find.

Broken laptop

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Okay, so it is not really much of an excuse for why I have not done a blog post since late July but it is making things a little difficult. Yes, my two year old Sony Vaio AR11S laptop is officially dying on me. I have no idea how it happened but the hinge on the laptop broke and will most likely stay that way as it cannot be fixed. Having to rely on one hinge is not ideal so portability has become an issue. For a £1700 laptop I come to expect more than two years usage. It has been an ideal desktop replacement and ideally it would be good to have it fixed but it looks as if I will be purchasing a new machine in the near future. The slightly off centre screen is a tad off putting and the constant worry that the other hinge could perish at any time is not ideal.

Though it pains me to admit it I think I will be purchasing a MacBook Pro when the new versions are released in late October. Being able to have a fast machine that can dual boot Windows and Leopard will be handy and Final Cut Pro should make fan dubbing a less arduous process. That is not to say that I will be getting rid of my AR11S, it will just have to stay in one location for the time being.

So, in summary, despite the dying laptop I am still blogging and building fan DVDs. Hopefully this will be the start of a flood of new posts. I completed several fan DVDs over the summer and intend to post details shortly.

Sony Playstation 3

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I really am slacking aren't I? Things have not been letting up and my poor blog is suffering but I will now make yet another attempt to make regular posts. So, what has made me want to post again, well, I recently purchased a PS3 and I am truly amazed with what a good piece of kit it is. After HD-DVD died I thought about getting a decent Blu-Ray player. I currently own two Blu-Ray players: my Sony Vaio AR11S laptop and a Samsung BDP-1000. Even though the former is a multi-region player, it struggles to play Blu-Ray discs that are not encoded in MPEG-2. Simply put, the laptop is just not powerful enough to playback AVC or VC-1 encoded Blu-Ray discs. The latter, however, is a quality player that I picked up very cheaply but it only plays region B Blu-Ray discs and takes a long time to load up some titles. Some users have even reported that the Samsung will not play some releases.

The PS3 has received numerous favourable reviews as a Blu-Ray player with many purchasing it to use primarily for this purpose. Even though I would not consider myself to be a 'gamer' as such, the added bonus of playing games is yet another welcome attraction. So, I decided to take a bit of a risk and purchase a US PS3 as US Blu-Ray discs and PS3 games are much cheaper than UK ones and I can use the Samsung BDP-1000 to playback any UK discs I own. I ordered the player from the ever reliable MovieTyme as they offered a bundle that contained a free Blu-Ray copy of Spider-Man 3 (2007) , eight other Blu-Ray discs of your choice and the Blu-Ray remote control that unfortunately is not included as standard. I ordered it on a Monday and it arrived on the Thursday. Thankfully, the PS3 is multi-voltage and, unlike most US electronic hardware, does not require a step-down transformer. All you would need is a 5amp 3-pin 'kettle' lead and you are good to go.

To put it simply and with as little hyperbole as possible, for its price, this is the best Blu-Ray player currently available. Disc loading times are not an issue and the firmware can be upgraded to allow new features. Another bonus is that PS3 Blu-Ray player is future proof, for now, unlike some of the earlier Blu-Ray machines like the Samsung BDP-1000 which will not be able to access all of the disc content on recent releases. The UK disc of Pan's Labyrinth (2006) looked superb but one of the best Blu-Ray releases I have seen so far is No Country for Old Men (2007). The level of detail on this disc is astounding. But what is even more impressive about the PS3 is its other features. It has built in wi-fi, upscales DVDs (sadly only region one discs) and will playback the majority of media files. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Unlike other consoles, the PS3 allows the user to have greater control of the console. You can upgrade the internal harddrive with relative ease (instructions are included in the PS3 manual!) and even install a separate operating system. Linux has been successfully run on the PS3 system, albeit with some limitations, by some users which is very exciting as Xbox Media Center is currently being rebuilt to run on Linux operating systems. This means that my trusty old Xbox could soon be replaced as my main media center. The capabilities are there and it is just a matter of time before XBMC is ready.

So with a PS3 you are not just purchasing a high-quality, upgradeable Blu-Ray player and a games console but also a powerful media center. I have successfully played back a number of MPEG-4 files from my USB flash drive and now I am considering purchasing a cheap external 500gb harddrive. I find it hard to believe that upon its launch the PS3 did not sell as many units as expected. Now, with HD-DVD well and truly dead, demand for the PS3 is increasing as people are now starting to see the potential of this machine being a powerful media center.

HD-DVD: A Eulogy

So it is official, Toshiba are no longer making HD-DVD players and the three main HD-DVD affiliated studios have jumped ship. Despite electronic manufacturer LG announcing that they have no plans to stop building HD-DVDs the format is all but dead, only being in existence in the US since April 2006. Expect US HD-DVD releases to cease this summer and prices of discs, and players, to fall drastically. The third generation HD-EP30 can be found online for around £69.99 and if some rumours are to be believed, can be found in stores for £39.99. Australia is the place for those still wanting to bolster their collections. EzyDVD and DVD Crave are listing a number od discs for between £2.50 and £4.30, excluding shipping of course. Second hand HD-DVD disc prices are dropping slowly but some good bargains can be found at Amazon Marketplace, eBay and Wherehouse.com (my new favourite cheap retailer for quality second hand discs!). Perhaps HD-DVD can stay alive for longer in Europe? There are a number of attractive releases still on the horizon in Germany.

So why did HD-DVD fail? I don't think that it ever had a chance. With all the fuss about downloads and digital rights management, Blu-Ray clearly offered the studios a potentially more economically safe medium. My first HD format player was a Blu-Ray player. I believed that it was the superior format because of its high bitrate and studio support. But I was seduced by HD-DVD. Releases such as Casablanca and The Thing persuaded me to purchase a HD-DVD player. After a year of owning the format I have over 50 titles and the collection is still growing. My Blu-Ray collection pales in comparison with only 17. Why the difference? I always felt that there were more classics available on HD-DVD with only meagre blockbuster titles on Blu-Ray , catering towards the gaming audience who owned a PS3. At least the death of HD-DVD will now change this.

So to finish this post I thought that I would identify my favourite HD-DVD discs and also the worst. Let's start with the favourites:

Zodiac

This two-disc director's cut is about as good as HD-DVD gets. The transfer of the film is faultless and the extras, which are also presented in HD, are first rate. Even the packaging is top notch.

The Thing

The release that persuaded me to purchase a HD-DVD player. A solid transfer of a classic horror film with all the extras from the DVD release. This is now available for around £4 at EzyDVD.

Casblanca

Can older black and white films look good in HD? This answers the question, looking like it was made recently. You will be amazed at the level of detail present in this transfer. Still not available on Blu-Ray.

The Warriors

Okay, this might be the new director's cut that incorporates the comic book-esque transitions but it is still great to see this classic cult film given such great attention. This features another high quality transfer from Paramount.

Blade Runner

The five disc US HD-DVD release surely must be the final word on Ridely Scott's oft revisited film. Has anyone managed to watch everything contained on each of the five discs yet?

Other notable mentions are Training Day (which has a far superior transfer to the Blu-Ray discs), First Blood, Bug and King Kong.

We've had the good so how about the bad?

Basic Instinct

A guilty pleasure (and not because I wanted to see Sharon Stone's crotch is HD) but this contains one of the worst HD-DVD transfers I have seen. Pixellation is noticeable especially during scenecs containing a lot of red. The US Blu-Ray release has to be much better than this poor Studio-Canal disc.

Pan's Labyrinth

I have been patiently waiting to see the film on HD-DVD but the picture quality of the US HD-DVD release is very poor. Being New Line's only HD-DVD release it was believed that this would become a future collector's item. I am not sure if that is enough to persuade me to keep this one.

The Fugitive

The level of edge enhancement on this transfer is awful making it possibly the worst quality HD-DVD I have seen. Stick to your SD-DVD!

HD-DVD, we hardly knew ye

"TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research) is planning to give up on its HD DVD format for high definition DVDs, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research), a company source said on Saturday."
So there we have it, an official end to the format war has come much sooner than most had anticipated. But with the aggressive remediation of technology it does not come as a surprise to see a fomat last for only a year and a half. It is just a pity that such a consumer friendly format did not last longer. So Blu-Ray it is with all of its region coding, DRM, outdated codecs and high price tags. I have no intention to sell off my HD-DVD collection and will be on the look out for some bargains over the next few months.

Source: Reuters