Announced today, Dolby has added a new trick to their TrueHD encoding. It allows studios and authoring houses a way to upconvert standard 48 kHz content (the sampling rate of most movies) to 96 kHz for Blu-ray.
At an event at Dolby headquarters in San Francisco, I got a chance to hear the results. Interestingly, it was quite... interesting.
Music servers are everywhere these days. Simple or complex, inexpensive or expensive, technically you're using one right now to read this webpage. But not all music servers are alike. The audio quality can vary greatly. For example, things like well designed digital to analog converters (DACs) are a huge part in getting good sound from your digital music.
Enter Olive. The San Francisco based company has been making gorgeous high-end music servers for several years now. With the 06HD, they're aiming right at the audiophile market.
Toshiba today announced their next generation HD DVD players, which has to be some kind of record. After all, the first generation of players has only been out for 6 months. The HD-A2 is $499 and will be out in October. It’s still 1080i. More interesting is the HD-XA2, at $999. This one (shown) is 1080p and HDMI 1.3. It will be available in December.
JVC teased us with some video shot in 4,000 by 2,000 resolution shown on a projector of the same resolution. They even hinted that such resolution was possible in consumer equipment. Don’t hold your breath.
Sony, not to be outdone by other 1080p projector announcements (see below), unveiled the VPL-VW60, a replacement for the VW50. They claim a doubling of the native contrast ratio, and an available anamorphic lens system to watch 2.35:1 movies without black bars (on a 2.35:1 screen). Even cooler, you can align each LCOS (sorry, SXRD) panel to within 0.1 pixels. So any jarring in shipping or installation can be tweaked out to remove any colored halos. It’s shipping this month for “under $5,000.”
There’s not a ton different than the slightly less expensive Sony VPL-HW30ES projector we reviewed, but probably enough to justify the higher price for some.
I'll be honest, I can think of few things less sexy to review than an antenna. This isn't because they're not useful, it's just without a lot of specialized equipment, there isn't much I can say about them.
I live in The Valley, with a direct line of sight to the HDTV transmitters that cover all of Los Angeles. On the clear day each year, I can see Mt. Wilson from my front door. TV reception is so good, I could stick my finger in a TV's antenna input and my dome could probably pull in a signal. Picture that for a second.
But The Leaf by Mohu is actually kinda cool, and looks very different from any antenna I've seen.
Judging from the sheer number of comments I got on my last blog entry about Blu-ray, I’m beginning to suspect you don’t care about these next generation DVD formats. If so, why? Or if it’s just because ya’ll find me boring and aren’t reading my blog anymore, that is just fine with me. I can just talk to myself. I find myself very amusing. Ask anyone.