RE: Slightly OT: home cinema

["Phillip Harris" <phillip.harris1@xxxxxxx>]

My copy of blade is out on loan somewhere at the moment but the opening
sequences are a good test of a display device. The reds are quite intense
and it does take a very good display to show the text cleanly without
horrendous smearing. Another "test" is the opening credits to
Conspiracy
Theory - the neon text should have a nice even glow around it. I used this
on a Sony VW10HT once and the letters all merged together in a bright haze!

Passing the old faves such as Toy Story 2 / Bugs life and Super Speedway
through are a great way to demo a device but a bad test ... they are such
clean images that it takes a really bad display to make a hash of them!

Try the opening sequence to Pitch Black - again I have it but it's out on
loan somewhere. (I really must keep track on where my discs go!) The
opening
sequences have some great firey shots which can posterise really badly on
LCD and plasma displays. There are also some great blued out and bleached
scenes which really are a struggle for plasmas and LCDs as they try to
resolve quite similar adjacent colours.

Fifth Element is another well produced disc that looks good on anything and
smacks you square and full on in the teeth on something really good. I'll
admit that I'm a plasma sceptic, so - much as I'm hoping that I'll be
posting up here that it's wonderful - I'm expecting that I won't find too
much difference from before. The result - I guess - will be somewhere in
between! I'm *NOT* an expert on displays and setting up devices ... I can
do
a reasonable setup of CRT projectors but I wouldn't delve into setting up
colour balances etc. so that gives you an idea of where I stand. It'll also
be a fairly short test (I'd guess) rather than a long term one but it
should
be interesting.

Phil