Ultimate AV has a sneek peak at the Ruby’s baby brother, the Pearl. And I’m not talking about jewels here, I’m talking about video projectors. I’ve already mentioned the Projector Central Sony Pearl review which complained about the lack of sharpness of this projector. Remember that the Pearl is an SXRD 3-chip Sony projector, retailing for $5k, half the Ruby’s cost.

One very cool thing about the Pearl (or the VPL-VW50) is its ability to accept a 24p signal and display those 24 frames 3 times. That’s 96Hz. Pretty cool, huh?

But what about the sharpness? Indeed, that’s a complaint here too. But Ultimate AV doesn’t have too much of a problem with it, considering how good the projector is in other aspects. This is in direct contrast to what the other review found.

Sony VPL-VW50 Pearl SXRD Projector

Yes, this is an HD blog, but with the “Big Game” tomorrow and now Bo dying, I just have all these emotions running through me.

I enjoyed watching every game that Bo coached as I grew up.

He was always direct in what he said and he cared deeply for Michigan.

So I guess for the HD crowd the Game will be tomorrow on ABC-HD with pre-game starting at 3:00pm EST

NASA sent its first HD images down and it was shown on Discovery HD. I missed it, but I would believe that the shots should be nothing but spectacular. Hopefully we will get more content from space in HD.

Live HDTV From Space Makes History, Project Leader Says - Industries News by InformationWeek

DigitTimes has a small article about the cost of a rear-projection HDTV versus the cost of an equivalent-sized LCD or plasma display. It makes for interesting reading.

The stats are for a 52″ 1080p television, and they are:

All component costs:

LCD $1621
plasma $1749
DLP $807

In other words, it costs twice as much to hang your 1080p 52″ television on your wall instead of placing it on your floor. Frankly, I’m surprised. I thought it was more than that.

DLP RPTV half as costly as LCD/PDP for 52-inch TVs

I rarely buy extended warranties. Actually, I’ve bought two in my life. One was for a Sony camcorder, and I never needed it. The second was for my new car, just in case. I’m not a believer, generallly, in extended warranties. If I buy a DLP rear-projection set, however, I may need to rethink that.

Consumer Reports says buyers of DLP (Digital Light Processing) rear-projection sets might want to invest in a long-term warranty.

The magazine says the microdisplay HDTVs are more likely to need repairs than other high-def sets — and repair costs can be significantly higher. In addition, the DLP’s light bulb, which helps display the image on screen, sometimes don’t last more than a few years.

A little disconcerting. But I wouldn’t let it stop me from buying a DLP set. I’d just get an extended warranty!

Buying a DLP HDTV? Get the Warranty

Many early BD movies were panned. Many believe it was because these movies were encoded in MPEG2 on measly 25GB discs, while other people blame the Samsung BD player. Now thoughts seem to be moving in the latter direction, but with X-Men: The Last Stand we’re seeing a new factor: a new codec. This Blu-ray Disc movie is AVC MPEG-4 encoded, and it’s a 25GB disc.

How does it look? The reviewer at High-Def Digest thought the image quality was quite good, saying he was “pleasantly surprised by the overall high quality” of the movie. The image was a bit grainy, but that was due to the source. The colours were well saturated, blacks were rock-solid, and contrast is eye-popping. He also noted that detail was above average.

Overall, it’s great that this disc is just 25GB yet produces a great looking image. Hopefully more people will try out the MPEG4 codec to see what it can do. It would be a shame if everyone used VC1 or MEPG2 but didn’t give MPEG4 a chance.

Blu-ray Review: X-Men: The Last Stand

Everyone is watching the Sony VPL-VW50 projector. It follows Sony’s excellent VPL-VW100 projector which has received many good reviews. The VW50 sells for about half the price, but the performance is still quite remarkable. The VW50 is a SXRD 1080p projector, and will sell for $5k. That’s one of the cheapest 1080p front projectors that you can buy. This projector puts out 900 lumens, has a 15,000:1 contrast ratio, and a 200W UHP lamp. (That’s not the same as the lamp in the VW100.) It does accept 1080p, and has two HDMI inputs.

Projector Central took a look at this projector, and they had a good summary right near the beginning. They say that “the VW50 has outstanding black levels, color saturation and contrast, but the image is softer than we’d like to see from a 1080p resolution projector“.

Basically, the review says that there are lots of great things about this projector, but they can’t get past the lack of sharpness. Take a look yourself.

Review: Sony VPL-VW50 Home Theater Projector

360 Insider has some cool pics about the Xbox 360’s new HD DVD drive. They have a couple pics of the software being installed:

Installing the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive

And they also have an unboxing ceremony, with lots of pics of the HD DVD peripheral:

HD DVD Drive Unboxing

And they also mention that the HD DVD drive will work natively in Windows Vista! Which is pretty cool.

HD DVD Drives Work Natively in Vista

My favourite super-hero is Spider-Man. My favourite Spider-Man villain is Venom. It looks like Spider-Man 3 will show the beginnings of Venom’s creation, though the main villain will be Sandman. My guess is that Venom will star in Spider-Man 4.

Either way, IFILM has the Spider-Man 3 trailer for you in HD, should you choose to view it.

Spider-Man 3 is coming May 4th.

I can’t wait!

IFILM presents: Spiderman 3

This article is funny. Just reading it you see the author wanted one result and got another. Basically he asked his staff to pick the 1080i from the 1080p from the 720p HDTVs:

The verdict: If you’ve got the money to burn on the 1080p set, go for it

This tells me that his staff could pick out which TV was which just from the picture quality. He then goes on to try to dismantle the argument for 1080p for the rest of the article.

Can You Tell The Difference Between 1080i And 1080p?