Tech Tales

Panasonic Unleash Blu-ray Spinner
Things have been a little quiet on the Blu-ray front just recently.  Now that HD DVD is a dim and distant memory (except for those of us who bought the players and a ton of cheap movies) news relating to new players and titles has been a little thin on the ground.

But this week a press release hit from Panasonic relating to its new DMP-BD50 deck, this third generation player finally contains all of the features and specifications I’ve been waiting for in a stand alone player.

BD-Live and full HD audio codec support make this the spinner I want to have in my rack, but the $700 price tag is a bit of a kicker.  However, the player is due to launch in the US this Spring, with a European launch sometime after I’m sure.  Plus you can be certain that you will have to change the $ to a £ over here.  My importer of choice, Movietyme has been selling the baby brother DMP-BD30 player for some time now, so hopefully they will do the same with the 50 when it becomes available.

Like many other people here in Europe, it makes sense for me to buy a US player due to the price of US versus UK BD movies (ie they are a whole lot cheaper) and the fact that many of the major studios (Fox being the key player here) are now placing region coding on many of their discs.  I did the exact same thing when DVD first launched, imported movies from the US but had a multiregion DVD player costing probably what an import DMP-BD50 will cost.  Same prices, new technology.

Freesat
I received word from Maceie yesterday that Freesat has now officially launched here in the UK.  I’ve been keeping a very keen eye on this for some time now, and the first wave of boxes are now available.  As you would expect from the name, Freesat is a free satellite TV service (well, you have to purchase the box but after that it’s free) bringing all of the existing Freeview channels as well as a host of others delivered via satellite.

But they key factor for me with freesat is it will be broadcasting BBC and ITV HD.  Free to air HD programming, TV nirvana!  Except that part isn’t quite there yet.  The current receivers are SD only, with the HD version and the all important HD unit with built in DVR “coming soon”.  Interestingly the Freesat web site states that existing satellite dish owners “may” be able to utilise their existing dish.  If that’s the case do you still have to pay the £80 (the words money and old rope spring to mind) installation fee for someone to plug the box in?

Check out the Freesat web site for more details, anything’s better than giving money to Sky.

BD-Live From SPHE
I received word this week that Sony Pictures will be bringing their first BD-Live enabled disc to Europe next month picking the ever popular Men In Black to be the first of hopefully many titles supporting the new features.  A multi-player interactive trivia game is included as well as exclusive downloadable preview content.  As with other studios support for the format it’s a toe in the water but as good a start as any.  At least they didn’t pick the sequel   The disc is released here on June 16th.

Buzzing Subs
Finally for today, a tale of woe regarding one of my subwoofers.  I’ve had my Kef 2005.2 surround speakers for just over three years now and they have given sterling service throughout, making the junior set of 1005′s the obvious choice for my office audio set up.  But for the last few months I have had to leave the sub on permanently, because every time I turn it off and then back on it again it emits a loud electrical buzzing.

I thought it was related to the purchase of the ONKYO amp, as the problem coincided with its purchase, but the problem persists even when the sub is disconnected.  Leaving it switched on was fine for a while, but last week it started buzzing randomly, upsetting the cat.  So I took it in to my local repair shop last Friday and have since learned it is a common fault with that particular model of sub (the PSW2000) and it needs an amp board replacing.

Sadly they phoned me yesterday to say they are unable to source the board, so I have a malfunctioning sub that cannot be fixed be an independant repairer.  I’ve fired off an e-mail to Kef this morning to see if their support can help, or if an approved dealer can do anything with it.  I don’t want to be spending hundreds of pounds on a new sub, and I’m tired of lugging the 1005 sub out of the office every time I want to watch a movie

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