my Blu-Ray player

Hey, got my Blu-Ray player. Got it from Sue who got it from Howard who apparently bought a new one. Sue didn't really need it because she only has standard def TV. (I guess I can give it back when she gets her wide-screen TV.)

I ran XXX: State of the Union on it and compared it to the DVD running on my DVD recorder. The picture does look sharper, but it's not as great of a difference as watching a show on a HD channel on cable vs. the SD channel. Well, for one thing, the DVD does show up as wide-screen. The second thing is that my TV is 720p so that the difference between 480p and 720p isn't as big as 480p and 1080p. (Though I read that it's hard to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p anyway.)

Another difference is that the spoken audio seems softer on the Blu-Ray. I think it's made to be played on audio equipment while I'm just using the sound on the TV. When I play other tracks, the sound is louder. Adjusting the Audio DRC setting on the player (as suggested in the manual) didn't seem to make much difference. But the audio track on the special feature was louder. And when I tried Kung Fu Hustle, the Chinese audio was louder than the English. Now I'm trying the XXX DVD on the Blu-Ray player and the sound does seem a little louder (trying to compare the spoken audio volume with the background music).

Another difference was that the subtitles were smaller and smoother. The DVD subtitles were more blocky and yellow, while the Blu-Ray subtitles were white.

One more thing. I tried playing a full frame DVD (The Mummy) on the Blu-Ray player and the picture was stretched to the edges of the screen (making everything look fatter). [Trying out my full-frame Star Trek: TOS DVD -- yep same thing.] My DVD recorder actually does the same thing, but if I force the HDMI mode back to 480p, then the picture has the proper aspect ratio. (see my earlier post below) I think the TV interprets anything over 480p as a wide-screen signal and stretches the signal. (Either that or the DVD player is stretching it.) The Blu-Ray player seems to upscale everything to 1080p (looking at the info display from the TV). I don't see anyway around it. Well, maybe if I hooked up the Blu-Ray player with the A/V cables to the composite input.. (A project for later just to satisfy my curiosity. ... Yep, that works.)

Anyway, based on this initial viewing I wouldn't say a Blu-Ray player is a must-have. The Blu-Ray picture is sharper, but isn't really a quantum-leap over a DVD. I think it would be be more of a difference if you have a 50" screen or bigger (I have a 42" plasma). Or have better eyes than me.

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Playing the XXX: SOTU special feature on the Blu-Ray. The picture is stretched. Popping in the DVD into my DVD-Recorder shows that the special feature was shot in full-frame. Changing the TV aspect ratio to 4:3 shrinks the picture horizontally solves the problem for the DVD. But changing it to 4:3 on the Blu-Ray just cuts the sides off.

Don't notice any complaints on the internet about this. So maybe it's not a common problem to Blu-Ray players but a problem with my Panansonic TV. Maybe not, because I see in my anamorphic/non-anamorphic post below that the Sony had the same problem.)

... Now trying out the XXX Blu-Ray special feature with A/V cables. OK, that works. The output is 480i and switching to 4:3 doesn't cut off the edges. Actually the picture isn't that bad. I bet a lot of people hook up their Blu-Ray player that way (especially if the player didn't come with an HDMI cable in the box) and think they're watching Hi-Def.

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Now I'm trying my Criterion Collection Armageddon which is non-anamorphic wide-screen. I'm surprised to see it display at the proper aspect ratio with the Panasonic TV in full mode. But actually it's apparently automatically zooming the picture because when I turn on the sub-titles the bottom line is cut off. I guess that's a choice that Sony made, to automatically zoom non-anamorphic DVDs?

When I play the same DVD on my Toshiba DVD-Recorder in full mode, the picture is stretched horizontally. I have to set it to 480p mode on the DVD player and 4:3 or zoom on the TV to get the proper proportion. Zoom fills the screen horizontally. (Again, it's in the post below.)

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[11/20/11] OK found the fix to the problem on page 41 of the manual. Changed the Screen Format in Video Settings from Original to Fixed Aspect Ratio. "Changes the picture size to fit the screen size with the original picture aspect ratio."

XXX: SOTU feature now plays fine with black bars on each side. Also tested The Mummy Returns, King of Queens, Three Stooges. All OK. Dog Whisperer Season 2 and 3. Both are wide-screen, but non-anamorphic, so the picture is small with black borders on top and bottom as well as the sides (you can still zoom it with the TV). Season 4 is wide-screen, anamorphic and filled the screen as it should.

[7/25/12] I don't know if this is the same problem, but when I play my DVR-R recordings of widescreen, the aspect ratio is fine when I play it on the TV via HDMI (though the whole picture is shrunk, so I zoom it). But when playing it via the composite connection, when I zoom it, it just zooms vertically to fill the top and bottom bars, but the side bars remain.  So the picture looks squeezed from the sides.

Popping in my Armageddon, the picture now looks fine in full mode on the TV.  [Actually the picture looks pretty good - the Blu-Ray must be automatically upscaling]  Though the sub-titles are still cut off.

Setting the Blu-Ray player from fixed aspect ratio to original.  And back to Dogs In The City.  The picture via HDMI now looks stretched horizontally.  But via composite, the 4:3 and zoom modes look in proportion.

Putting back in Armageddon.  The picture still looks stretched vertically in zoom mode.  OK, I dunno.  I guess I'll have to work it on a case-by-case basis.  Between full and zoom.  And between original and fixed aspect ratio.

WTH Oceanic DVR?

I just took a look at the shows recorded on my Oceanic DVR. Only three are left!

Somehow they all got set to erase after a certain amount of days and those older than a couple of weeks are gone!

And the option to change the save time of the recorded ones is gone (at least I don't see it now).

I'm pissed, err I mean somewhat upset... Well good thing I recorded most of the ones I wanted to keep already.

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OK, now I see the option to change save time. Select the show and the option is two above Play. (The option is missing for the show currently being played.) It's like I turned on the option to auto-erase without realizing it. I'll blame it on myself this time, unless I see a bunch of other complaints around this time.

I still think the box reset and the settings changed. The power did get unplugged this morning.

Looking more. Turning on auto-erase shouldn't have erased the shows that were set to do not erase. So I'm back to blaming Oceanic.

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Hey cool. I see it's possible to upgrade your DVR (this model anyway) by plugging in an external hard drive.

Watson wins on Jeopardy (baby)

Machines first out-calculated us in simple math. Then they replaced us on the assembly lines, explored places we couldn't get to, even beat our champions at chess. Now a computer called Watson has bested our best at "Jeopardy!"

A gigantic computer created by IBM specifically to excel at answers-and-questions left two champs of the TV game show in its silicon dust after a three-day tournament, a feat that experts call a technological breakthrough.

Watson earned $77,147, versus $24,000 for Ken Jennings and $21,600 for Brad Rutter. Jennings took it in stride writing "I for one welcome our new computer overlords" alongside his correct Final Jeopardy answer.

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I was watched the end of it today. Actually it seemed that Jennings and Rutter knew the answers too (hey if I knew some of the answers, I know they did), but that the machine beat them to the buzzer. You could see the frustration especially with Jennings tapping the buzzer with his thumb.

So of course the computer is going to be faster than the human. It would have been a lot closer if all of them were allowed to answer the questions instead of making it a reflex contest.

Actually thinking about it from that perspective, it was kind of amazing that the humans did as well as they did.