December 2004 Archives (21 posts)
The Fog of War (2003)
The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is a fabulous documentary film. I love the way that director, Errol Morris, shouts his question from behind the camera. The production value, the original music, the motion graphics, everything is beautifully put together.
McNamara has led a fascinating life—served in WWII, president of Ford Motor Company, US Secretary of Defense for Kennedy and Johnson and president of the World Bank. Even more fascinating are some of the darker moments in US history. In WW II the US wiped out 100,000 Japanese people in a single night of firebombing. 100,000 people! The number of civilians killed in the bombing of other Japanese cities is embarrassing. McNamara feels that many generals would have been tried as war criminals if the US had lost the war.
McNamara also makes a strong point about the US having the support of its allies before going to war against a nation—it didn’t have this with Vietnam and it lost. Fast-forward 30 years and look at what the Bush administration has learned from Vietnam. Not very much it seems.
McNamara played a role in the deaths of thousands of people. Quite often in the interviews with Morris, McNamara becomes quite emotional. How do go from being US Secretary of Defense to president of the World Bank? I can’t help but wonder if McNamara has been trying to ‘atone for his sins’.
The Fog of War is worth a viewing if you haven’t seen it yet. I’ll probably watch it again on DVD—there is a lot to digest in one sitting. There aren’t a lot of extras, maybe 10 minutes of deleted scenes but who cares? This film doesn’t really need them.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 7:45 PM | Comments (0)
Beautiful Aerial Photography
These aerial photographs are just incredible. I love the Stonehenge photo.
Posted in Web at 9:01 PM | Comments (0)
The Bit Torrent Effect
Clive Thompson’s article for Wired magazine about BitTorrent. I’m amazed by how many people have never heard about BitTorrent, people that use computers every day to check their email or do their jobs. If you’re one of them then read this article.
Posted in Web at 8:00 PM | Comments (0)
The Second Coming of Apple
Not exactly a new article but an interesting read from the The Wall Street Journal.
Posted in Apple at 7:57 PM | Comments (0)
DVD Town
Movie news and reviews. I’m always on the lookout for great DVD sites. DVD Town is nicely designed, has great cover art photography, good reviews, announcements and HDDVD.org—a site devoted to the latest news on HD-DVD and Blue-Ray disc formats.
Posted in DVD Reviews and Web at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
The DVD Journal Top 10
The DVD Journal has posted their top 10 DVD releases for 2005. Their number one pick was The Rules of the Game release by The Criterion Collection. Having never seen a Renoir film, I rented this in the fall and enjoyed it. I didn’t have enough time to go through all of the extras and there are plenty.
Kevin Costner’s Open Range was their fourth pick—a movie I completely overlooked and will definitely view over the Christmas break.
Posted in Movies at 8:05 PM
The Door in the Floor (2004)
Fabulous! I wasn’t expecting much from this film and was really impressed by the time the end credits rolled. Jeff Bridges turns in a great performance as a writer and is the main reason I recommend viewing this film.
I found that the story stays with you, that you don’t want it to end, that you want to the know the characters more deeply. To satisfy my curiosity I purchased A Widow For One Year by John Irving—the book that The Door in the Floor is based on.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 8:02 PM | Comments (0)
Panasonic DVD-S97
The home theatre fun continues. Today I picked up a new DVD player—the Panasonic DVD-S97
Why a new DVD player you ask? The S97 is one of the first on the market to offer HD (high-definiton) picture quality using an HDMI cable. With the HD projector I have, this means that I can get 1,080 lines of resolution.
Right now my Pioneer DVD player is putting out 480 lines of resolution and the funny thing is that I’m already impresssed with the picture quality. I’m looking forward to seeing how much better the picture quality is using the HDMI cable.
The Panasonic site has this to say about the higher resolution using HDMI and DCDi (Directional Correlation Deinterlacing by FAROUDJA).
When the DVD-S97 is connected to an HDMI-compatible monitor, DVD images can be upconverted to 720p or 1080i for output. The converted images have much higher resolution than the 480p images of conventional component output. You get beautiful, high-resolution theatre perfect images for today’s large-screen HD plasma display panels, LCDs and LCD projectectors.
The difficult part in acquiring this DVD player wasn’t price or availability. I managed to get once at cost like my projector (thanks Neal). The difficult part is trying to convince your wife that you need 1,080 lines of resolution, that the two year old DVD player you have is completely inferior in terms of picture quality.
Fortunately I have a wife that works in television with a bunch of guys that are very impressed with our new h-tech toys.
Posted in Home Theatre at 8:07 PM | Comments (0)
How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
Below is a mini-review of U2’s latest album from my brother Drew:
I think it has the potential to rank on par (with me anyway) with ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind’, which I loved. And after I hear this stuff live and accumulate as many bootlegs as I did from their last tour, getting repeated exposure to the songs, it might even surpass ‘ATYCLB’. One of the lingering impressions from seeing the band a couple times on the last tour and hearing a lot of boots was how well the new material translated live and was received by the fans. I can’t think of many other bands 20+ years into their career who would do 7 or 8 new songs every show. And I guarantee they’ll be doing at least that many this upcoming tour.
Of the 11 songs on the album it’s the one track which every review seems to praise that I don’t care for that much - “Love And Peace Or Else”. Of the other 10 tracks I’d say about 3 blow me away (“Vertigo”, “Miracle Drug”, Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own”), 6 are excellent (“City Of Blinding Lights”, “All Because Of You”, “A Man And A Woman”, “Crumbs From Your Table”, “Original Of The Species” and “Yahweh”) and the other one is merely good (“One Step Closer”).
I think it’s cool that a veteran band like them can get played on top 40 radio and (although I hate the expression) be relevant to a younger generation.
Posted in Music at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)
HDMI vs Component Video
Should you be using hdmi or component video cable for your home theatre? Which one is better?
I’m using component video cable with my HD projector (Panasonic PT-AE700) and HD satellite receiver. The picture quality looks outstanding.
I upgraded to an HDMI DVD player (Panasonic DVD-S97) and wondered how much better the picture quality would look if I used HDMI cable instead of component video cable. It is difficult to tell but I feel that the HDMI picture looks a little crisper with my home theatre set-up.
The results in this photo from Hi Fi Writer shows that the HDMI image is sharper and brighter.
BTW, if you’re looking for affordable cables in your home theatre set-up, I recommend Blue Jeans Cable. They are a lot cheaper than Monster cable and the quality is just as good.
The Blue Jeans Cable website also has a good article on DVI and HDMI versus Component Video which might provide a few answers for you.
GreatHomeTheater.com has another take on the HDMI/component video debate that involves an anti-piracy measure known as High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). This only affects HDMI cables and possibly the video quality of the signal.
Most of the articles that I’ve looked at don’t have a simple solution to this debate. I think it all comes down to personal preference. Try component video cables and HDMI cables with your home theatre setup to determine which looks better to you.
Posted in Home Theatre at 4:58 PM | Comments (0)
What is Anamorphic Widescreen?
Confused about terms like widescreen, 1:85:1, and anamorphic widescreen? Find out what they mean by visiting DVD Web. Oh, and if you have an HDTV or HD projector, don’t be an idiot like me and forget to set up your DVD player properly.
In my haste to see how great the picture looks I forgot to tell me DVD player that I was using a 16:9 display and not a 4:3 display.
Posted in Movies at 3:23 PM | Comments (0)
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
Okay, I have to be honest. By Saturday night at 11 PM I was starting to feel a little tired. After 70 minutes into The Chronicles of Riddick I fell asleep. Part of me wants to rent the DVD again but the other part of me is saying, “why bother?” Vin Diesel? Judi Dench? It just wasn’t working for me.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 5:03 PM | Comments (0)
The Clearing
Robert Redford, Helen Mirren, Willem Dafoe. Solid acting but very predictable. Interesting use of time—Redford and Dafoe’s screen time takes place in the same day while the rest of the story is spread out over several days. I kept expecting more and was disappointed when I realized what the outcome would be.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 5:02 PM | Comments (0)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
I had a sneak peek at this DVD on Friday night (it isn’t due out until today). If you liked The Bourne Identity then you’ll love this DVD. The car chase scene is up there with The French Connection and Ronin.
The bonus features explain how they were able to bring more realism to the car chase which takes place in Moscow. Not to be missed!
Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:58 PM | Comments (0)
Aladdin (1992)
Lissa wanted to see this one again and Daniel has never seen it. So I picked up the 2-disc special edition that just came out. The last time I saw this was in the theatre in 1992.
The new DVD version has a Dolby Digital version and a Disney Enhanced Home Theatre Mix which sounded great. I have no idea what the difference is.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:54 PM | Comments (0)
The Paradine Case (1947)
The Paradine Case (1947). Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Gregory Peck. This was my first time seeing this film and I really enjoyed it. Great courtroom drama. I found Charles Laughton’s performance as a fat, sexist, cigar-smoking, judge to be quite amusing.
Posted in DVD Reviews at 4:52 PM | Comments (0)
Setting up your home theatre receiver
Stephen Dawson in Australia has a great blog for home theatre junkies. His article on setting up your home theatre receiver may shed some more light on using a Sound Level Meter (from Radioshack) to calibrate your receiver.
Posted in Home Theatre at 3:35 PM | Comments (0)
VHQ Online
Zip.ca just saw it’s market share shrink. VHQ Online.ca is the new competition and they have Air Miles reward miles as an added incentive. 10 Air Miles for signing up and 3 Air Miles per month for using the service.
Posted in Movies at 3:30 PM | Comments (0)
Loudspeaker Placement Guide
Audioholics.com has a decent guide to placing the speakers in your home theatre. My speakers are direct radiating and probably best if they are closer to the ceiling and toward the rear of the room.
If you have a 6.1 receiver then you’ll want to have dipole speakers that are closer to ear level (on the side walls) and toward the rear of your theatre. A lot of this will come down to personal preference, your receiver and the size/shape of your room.
I can think of a few people that should read this guide and position their speakers properly for better sound imaging.
Posted in Home Theatre at 3:49 PM | Comments (0)
My Home Theatre
I finally received my Panasonic PT-AE700 high definition projector last night. I was up until 1:30 AM setting it up and the wait has been well worth it.
I’m projecting onto an 88” Carada screen and I was completely blown away. Watching DVDs on a 27” Panasonic GAOO TV just doesn’t compare. In fact, I sold my TV to a friend yesterday.
I watched a little bit of Monsters Inc. (2001) last night and was amazed at the level of detail in the picture. In my opinion, a lot of these minute details enhance the viewing experience, make it more believable and help to immerse you in a film. You just have to experience what I’m talking about.
My extra long component video and HDMI cables just arrived from Blue Jeans Cable in Seattle, WA. Canada Post generously helped themselves to GST and PST. Despite this it was still much cheaper to purchase these 20 foot cables from the US.
Thanks to Neal for getting an awesome deal on the Panasonic projectors. I’ll be in my basement, er, I mean home theatre for the rest of the week rewiring my speakers and catching up on my backlog of DVDs.
Posted in Home Theatre at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)
Pogue’s Posts
David Pogue has a new blog at The New York Times called Pogue’s Posts. He rips 60 Minutes for their shoddy reporting on a recent story about a 12-year-old musical genius.
There is also a great post about LCD vs Plasma televisions that my dad sent to me last week. Pogue’s advice—don’t buy a plasma screen.
Posted in Home Theatre at 3:36 PM | Comments (0)
