Thomas J. Norton

3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Thomas J. Norton | Mar 12, 2014 | 0 comments

Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras

When we last saw Gru, our slightly dorky but lovable and (in his own mind) super-villain, he had softened up thanks to the trio of meet-cute orphans. Gru is now happily domesticated, has renounced his bad-guy role, and has converted his villain’s lair into a production facility for a range of delicious jams and jellies.

LCD TV Reviews TV Reviews

Sony KDL-65W850A 3D HDTV

Thomas J. Norton | Mar 07, 2014 | 1 comments

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

PRICE $3,300

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Excellent color and resolution
Good blacks and shadow detail
Satisfyingly bright 3D
Minus
Typical LCD off-axis limitations
Minor 3D flicker and ghosting

THE VERDICT
It may lack the headline-grabbing, 4K bling-zing of Sony’s XBR Ultra HD designs, but this 65-inch KDL series HDTV sits at the top of the company’s bread-and-butter line and offers more than enough features and performance to satisfy a wide range of buyers.

With all the ink spilled these days about the trendy but expensive Ultra HDTVs, a plain vanilla HDTV, with its resolution of 1920 x 1080, may seem a little ho-hum. But Ultra HD (4K, or more correctly, 3840 x 2160) is still consumer 4K content-starved with its specs not yet fully complete, and the jury is still out as to whether or not it will offer significant benefits in typical home screen sizes. Its price of admission also remains high. As a result, top-of-the-line, non-Ultra HDTVs, such as Sony’s new KDL-65W850A, remain serious players in the high-end video market.

3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Escape From Planet Earth

Thomas J. Norton | Mar 05, 2014 | 1 comments

Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras
Interactivity

Gary Supernova is an ace coordinator at Mission Control on the planet BAAB. His specialty is keeping his lunkheaded brother Scorch, the planet’s superhero-astronaut, from getting himself killed on dangerous missions. But when the most hazardous mission of all comes up—to the Dark Planet from which no one has ever returned—Gary doesn’t want his brother to risk it. Scorch takes the assignment anyway, and Gary refuses to help. But when Scorch gets captured on the Dark Planet and imprisoned in Area 51 along with other alien life forms, Gary comes to the rescue.

A/V Veteran

Ultra HD Blues...and Reds and Greens

Thomas J. Norton | Feb 26, 2014 | 2 comments

Ultra HD Blues…and Reds, and Greens I recently completed a review of Sony’s new VPL-VW600ES Ultra HD (4K) projector. This isn’t a sneak peak—that would cannibalize our coverage. The review will appear in the May 2014 issue of Sound & Vision. But for those who can’t wait, I’ll just say here that while the 600ES isn’t the champ in all respects, it’s still, overall, the best-looking projector I’ve yet had in my home theater.

4K TV Reviews TV Reviews LCD TV Reviews

Samsung UN85S9AF LCD/LED Ultra HDTV

Thomas J. Norton | Feb 14, 2014 | 5 comments

2D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

PRICE $40,000

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Accurate color
Superb resolution
Near state-of-the-art black level and shadow detail
Huge, bright picture
Minus
Price

THE VERDICT
The UN85S9AF is a hyper-expensive flagship for Samsung, and more of a technology demonstration than a product for the masses. But the money, as they say in Hollywood, is up there on the screen to see.

I once joked about the humongous 100-inch-plus HDTVs many manufacturers trot out at trade shows, suggesting that the best way to get them into your house was to place the TV where you thought it should go on the slab of your house under construction, then build the house around it. Samsung’s new 85-inch (diagonal) Ultra HD isn’t that big, but it’s close.

3D Blu-ray Player Reviews Blu-ray Player Reviews

Toshiba Symbio BDX6400 3D Blu-ray Player

Thomas J. Norton | Feb 13, 2014 | 1 comments

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

PRICE $350

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Good video performance
Unique ergonomics
Vertical or horizontal placement
Minus
No front-panel display
Sluggish YouTube access

THE VERDICT
Its video performance, 4K upconversion, and atypical form factor may well attract buyers, while its slight edge enhancement and mixed performance on some Internet sites may not. But it’s clear that this Toshiba is not your father’s disc player.

It’s getting harder these days for a manufacturer to build and sell a high-end Blu-ray player simply as a Blu-ray player. The market is saturated, and the latecomers, who finally realize that DVD is not high definition and a Blu-ray Disc offers the best quality video currently available to the consumer, seem content to pop for the $49.99 Blu-ray special on aisle 5.

A/V Veteran

The Right Stuff and Dolby TrueHD Advanced 96kHz

Thomas J. Norton | Feb 11, 2014 | 12 comments

I recently completed a review of The Right Stuff on Blu-ray, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Sound & Vision as well as on this website. Since space is limited in my print review, I've decided to dedicate this blog to how I evaluated the 96kHz audio offered on the disc.

Last year, Dolby announced a new variation on its TrueHD audio codec for Blu-ray, a process that uses 96kHz upsampling of the. Its purpose is to eliminate some common digital artifacts (see Geoff Morrison's article for a more detailed explanation of how this works).

The process has only been used to date, however, on a few releases. The Right Stuff, originally released on Blu-ray in November 2013, was supposed to be one them. Through a mastering error, however, the process was not engaged. Now, two months later, Warner Brothers has re-released the film with the 96kHz upsampled soundtrack.

3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Pacific Rim

Thomas J. Norton | Jan 30, 2014 | 0 comments

Picture
3D-ness
Sound
Extras

Kaiju is a Japanese word meaning, monster—typically a big monster and a very bad hombre with anger issues. Kaiju are hard to miss, and the founder of the Kaiju feast was, of course, Godzilla the Great.

In Pacific Rim, Kaiju (gesundheit) are popping up all over, emerging from a rift in the ocean floor and stomping all over the biggest cities around the Pacific. To counter the looming apocalypse, mankind has built mechanical monsters of its own, mechas known as Jaegers. Jaeger means hunter in German, but while my first encounter with a Jaeger was a schnitzel, these Jaegers are huge machines, matching the size and strength of the Kaiju.

4K TV Reviews LCD TV Reviews

Samsung UN65F9000 3D LCD/LED Ultra HDTV

Thomas J. Norton | Jan 24, 2014 | 0 comments

2D Performance
3D Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

PRICE $5,000

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Accurate color
Excellent resolution
Good black level and shadow detail
Minus
Expensive
No full-array backlight

THE VERDICT
As with all of the new Ultra HD sets, the Samsung might not give you everything that the future of the technology will throw at it, but for now it’s an exceptional performer.

With a resolution of 3840 x 2160—four times as many pixels as in standard HD—Samsung’s UN65F9000 is one of the first so-called Ultra HD sets to hit the market and the company’s first such TV at 65 inches.

A/V Veteran

CES 2014: It's a Wrap

Thomas J. Norton | Jan 16, 2014 | 3 comments

The International CES for 2014 is history. But don’t call it the Consumer Electronics Show any longer. Just CES will do. The CEA, which runs the show (I guess it’s still OK to call the CEA the Consumer Electronics Association) wants to drop the long form, probably so we can now call it the CES show without being redundant.

In any case, a consumer electronics show by any other name is still a consumer electronics show. And it continues to be the biggest game in Las Vegas every January. Over the years it has outgrown its roots as an audio/video show to encompass all manner of electronic detritus. Computers and gadgets of all sorts now deck the halls. After the show I heard something about a Bluetooth toothbrush, but I missed out on seeing it. My life is now without meaning.

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