Movies - Audio Chews: the hi-fi and music community http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/categories/movies/feed.rss Wed, 19 Jun 13 17:45:00 -0400 Movies - Audio Chews: the hi-fi and music community en-CA Jimmy stewart http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/discussion/517/jimmy-stewart Wed, 21 Dec 2011 18:10:28 -0500 Docfoster 517@/index.php?p=/discussions Because it's Christmas, memories (yes just memories) of his performance in 'it's a wonderful life' made me sob on my return walk from shopping in town yesterday. George Bailey: "Isn't it wonderful? I'm going to gaol!"
Bloody great.]]> Blu-ray in JRiver http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/discussion/404/blu-ray-in-jriver Sun, 25 Sep 2011 10:13:39 -0400 Docfoster 404@/index.php?p=/discussions I've always used PowerDVD to watch Blu-rays. PDVD does the job well enough, although one version I used developed a bug that limited PDVD appeal. Also, PDVD is a user friendly plug and play solution, without any facility to reveal what it's actually doing to the video and audio signals, let alone to tweak settings (eg audio sampling frequency, bit depth, etc.,...).
JRiver is a more transparent media player and I fancied trying it out with BD replay, something that the most recent version (v16) can do.
Though it's not a job that JRiver can do on it's own. It requires a programme such as AnyDVD HD to extract the data from the BD itself, before it can play the media. As both AnyDVD HD and JRiver 16 are available on free trial I had noohing to lose.
The result is an audio far superior to PDVD (that I believe supplies only a 48/16 audio signal to my Xonar soundcard). For me, that makes it worthwhile in itself. The sound be it dialogue, soundtrack or explosion (;-p ) is just better in every respect.
The video is at least as good as PDVD, I'll have to do some more comparisons to decide whether it's a bit better.
JRiver also is very clear about what quality of signal is coming off the disc, what it's doing to it, and what it's sending on to the dlp projector and soundcard. And, if one wants to change what it's doing or what it's sending, one can in any number of ways (many beyond my ken).
Finally, JRiver can rip a Bluray to the hard drive. I have no intention of making a library in this way - a bluray film is about 40GB (takes around an hour to rip) so one would have to have huge storage capacity. But experimenting with the hard drive rip does appeal to me on the grounds of potential improvements to the quality of playback. My ears tell me that playing a ripped CD is an improvement on listening to the CD directly, I'm keen to see if such improvements are present for a bluray disc. First comparisons suggest that there might be something to it. At the very least, one avoids the sound of the disc drive spinning as one watches.
I'd be keen to read of any thoughts on these subjects.

This Media PC thing ain't too bad!
Thanks again J!]]> A Single Man http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/discussion/266/a-single-man Mon, 16 May 2011 05:02:55 -0400 uglymusic 266@/index.php?p=/discussions
What a great movie! Performances (Colin Firth is much better than I'd ever given him credit for, must get hold of the King's Speech), cinematography, script etc.

I have to give a 'No bombs. No special effects' warning, though.
]]> A slot in Audio Chews for discussing movies/DVDs/Blu-rays http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/discussion/159/a-slot-in-audio-chews-for-discussing-moviesdvdsblu-rays Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:54:39 -0500 uglymusic 159@/index.php?p=/discussions :-S

Anyway, seen any good ones recently?
]]> Winter's Bone http://audiochews.com/index.php?p=/discussion/160/winters-bone Tue, 22 Feb 2011 07:58:23 -0500 uglymusic 160@/index.php?p=/discussions
Winner of Best Picture at the Sundance Film Festival last year, you'll love it if you sometimes hanker after 70s character-driven thrillers with no special effects or epic explosions.
]]>