David Vaughn

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Tombstone (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Apr 29, 2010  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tombstone.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>After a successful career as a lawman in Dodge City, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) and his two brothers retire to Tombstone, AZ looking for peace and quiet as entrepreneurs. When a band of outlaws called the Cowboys descend upon the town, the Earp's and their good friend Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) take-up arms in order to protect the town from the ruthless villains.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Tommy Boy
David Vaughn  |  Dec 15, 2008  |  Published: Dec 16, 2008  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tommyboy.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>The good news is that Tommy (Chris Farley) has finally graduated from college after seven long years&#151;and no, he didn't go to medical school. Fully educated and ready to make his mark on the world, Tommy goes into the family business of selling car parts. When his father suddenly dies, he needs to save the company from financial ruin by hitting the road with company sycophant Richard (David Spade) to sell a new line of brake pads.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Tomorrowland
David Vaughn  |  Jan 22, 2016  |  1 comments
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As a youth, Frank Walker is full of hope and aspiration, which is almost snuffed out when his entry into the 1964 World’s Fair science competition is shot down by one of the judges before he even gets a chance to enter it. But fate has a different plan for Frank, and with the help of Athena, a mysterious young girl, he’s taken to a magical place where his hopes and dreams can come true. Fifty years later, we meet Casey Newton, a science-minded teen who dreams of going to the stars and will stop at nothing to sabotage NASA’s efforts to dismantle the last remaining launch pad—that is, until the police catch her. Upon posting bail, she finds a mysterious pin among her belongings. When she touches it, she gets a glimpse of the magical world of Tomorrowland, a futuristic city that’s light-years ahead of Earth technologically.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Tooth Fairy (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  May 10, 2010  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/toothfairy.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>When a professional hockey player (Dwayne Johnson) tries to spoil the belief of the Tooth Fairy of a young six year old, he gets a summons from the "Department of Dissemination of Disbelief" and is sentenced to two weeks hard time as the Tooth Fairy.

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Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Top Gun
David Vaughn  |  Jun 05, 2020  |  6 comments
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Sound
Extras
One of my favorite movies from the 1980s, Top Gun stars Tom Cruise as Lt. Peter Mitchell, call sign "Maverick," a young hot-shot pilot picked to attend the prestigious "Top Gun" flight school and hone his air-to-air combat skills. Also appearing are Val Kilmer as "Iceman," Anthony Edwards as Maverick's RIO (radar intercept officer) "Goose," and Tim Robbins as "Merlin." Rounding out the cast is Kelly McGillis as Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood, a civilian instructor who is an expert on Russian aviation.
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Director's Intent: Kaleidescape 4K
Top Gun: Maverick
David Vaughn  |  Oct 25, 2022  |  2 comments
A couple weeks ago I explored a different way of experiencing movies at home — one that doesn’t involve spinning 4K Blu-ray discs or streaming movies from Netflix and other services. I’m talking about the server-based movie system Kaleidescape introduced way back in 2001. The system, which is available only through custom integrators, has evolved over the years yet I never had the opportunity to experience it firsthand until recently when Kaleidescape offered to loan me the company’s Strato C Movie Player with a companion server, the 48-terabyte Terra. (You can read my impressions of the system in A Marriage Made in Movie Heaven.) To further explore the Kaleidescape ecosystem, Sound & Vision agreed to run bi-monthly blog where I review titles available from the Kaleidescape store. Here is the first installment.
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Blu-ray Player Reviews
Toshiba BDX2700 Blu-ray player
David Vaughn  |  Nov 08, 2010  |  0 comments
Price: $200 At A Glance: 802.11n Wi-Fi • VUDU HDX, Blockbuster On Demand, and Netflix streaming • Superb video processing

A Streaming Value

It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since HD DVD lost the format war. Toshiba bet the farm on HD DVD, and ever since Warner Brothers and several large retailers decided to stop supporting the format, many pundits wondered how long it would take the company to release a Blu-ray player.

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Other Source Component Reviews
Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player
David Vaughn  |  Feb 25, 2007  |  0 comments

The first car I owned was a VW Bug that cost a whopping $500 in 1986. It wasn't the prettiest car on the block, but it got me from Point A to Point B. When Toshiba's first generation HD-A1 HD DVD player arrived on the scene it reminded me an awful lot of that trusty old bug: slow, ugly and clunky, but once the movie started to play, the picture was so outstanding that I could forget it's little quirks. Oh yeah, and it cost a cool $500 as well!

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Toshiba XD-E500 Upconverting DVD Player
David Vaughn  |  Oct 03, 2008  |  0 comments

<I>Editor's note: You might be surprised to see a review of a DVD player at </I>UAV<I>, since we haven't published such reviews in quite a while. For more on this, see <A href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/scottwilkinson/100308toshibadvd/">my blog about it</A>.</I>

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Toy Story 3
David Vaughn  |  Nov 02, 2010  |  4 comments
As Andy prepares to leave for college, his mother asks what he wants to do with his old toys. When they end up at a day-care center, Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) and Buzz (Tim Allen) must help the old gang escape from the toddlers' torture chamber and find their way back to Andy's room before he departs.

How do you top one of the greatest sequels ever made? Screenwriter Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) somehow captures lightning in a bottle for the third time by taking our heroes and mixing them up with a new cast of characters that include Ken (Michael Keaton), a thespian hedgehog named Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), and the evil pink teddy bear Lotso (Ned Beaty), who sentences the new toys to the toddlers' room.

Every Pixar release has been a demo showpiece, and this one is no exception. The 1080p video encode is perfect, and the DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 soundtrack features reference-quality dynamics, frequency response, and surround envelopment.

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