NRK1 gikk over i HD (720p50) til OL-åpningen 12. februar. OL i HD er stas! Sjekk ut OL i HD på NRK1! NRK har også en genial OL-streamingtjeneste som viser alt som skjer ‘live’ i høy kvalitet (www.nrkol.no).
Archive for the ‘Digitale media’ Category
OL i HD er stas!
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Blu-ray endelig i hus!
Tuesday, July 14th, 2009
Da har jeg endelig fått ut fingeren og skaffet meg en Blu-ray-spiller! Etter å ha planlagt å kjøpe Panasonic DMP-BD50, for så å bli for sen, og deretter Panasonic DMP-BD55, for igjen å bli for sen endte jeg opp med en Panasonic DMP-BD60. Grunnen til at jeg valget Panasonic var for det første at den har fått glimrende testeresultater og omtaler rundt omkring og for det andre at jeg har Panasonic flatskjerm som den kan kommunisere med over Viera-link. (Det siste er noe oppskrytt). Dessuten var den billig! (1995,- på komplett.no).
Nytt filformat: mp3HD
Thursday, March 26th, 2009
“New Format Provides Ultimate Audio Quality”.
Thomson og Fraunhofer har introdusert et nytt filformat, mp3HD.
Men hva er egentlig nytt? Nyheten sammenlignet med det tradisjonell MP3-formatet er at mp3HD støtter tapsfri kompresjon. Men det gjør forsåvidt allerede både FLAC, Apple Lossless og diverse andre. Så, ingen nyhet. Formatet støtter ikke en gang samplefrekvenser over 48 KHz og maks bitdybde er 16 bit per sample. Så det støtter faktisk ikke 96/24 eller høyere, i motsetning til de fleste nye formatene introdusert med bl.a. Blu-ray – er det da HD?!?
DRM free uncompressed music download from HDtracks
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008Finally things start to happen. HDtracks is a new online record store offering DRM free downloads of uncompressed music. Currently they are offering AIFF, FLAC and MP3 (320 kbps), which means its files are compatible with all digital players, and they even they plan to extend their offer to also include downloads in HD, meaning 24 bit/96 kHZ, which match the quality of DVD-Audio. I really need to buy the Slim Devices Transporter soon…
The catalog of HDtracks is currently quite limited, but it holds some titles of i.a. Henry Rollins Band, Ray Davis and The Kinks, Norah Jones, The Byrds and some other interesting artists. The price charged for a complete album is $ 11.98 which is quite reasonable.
I’ll test it out as soon as I get home to my Squeezebox. You should test it out too at www.hdtracks.com.
Update:
Unfortunately, I just realised that HDtracks offer their dowload services to US citizens only :-(
Nine Inch Nails with free downloadable record in high-resolution
Monday, May 12th, 2008Nine Inch Nails have just released their latest album “The Slip” for free download on the net! This is the second album available as download from NIN, the previous being “Ghosts”.
The Slip is available in both MP3 (320 kbps), FLAC and high-resolution WAV (24 bit/96 kHz). Downloading of the largest files are offered as torrents and downloads in just a few minutes. And not only is it free, but they even encourage to distribute it and share it with friends under the Creative Commons licence. The physical CD will not be available before July. It will be interesting to see how much that will sell… But even though NIN offers this download for free I would be happy to pay for such services in the future.
As you may have notices from my previous postings, I have been waiting for someone to do this for a long time. Until now I have been forced to by the CD for then ripping it to achieve this quality. Now I finally get full CD-quality and above without having to go via the physical media. (Unfortunately my Squeezebox only supports 24 bit/48 kHz).
This is the way to go, Trent!
Download the album at www.nin.com.
mini-test: Koss PortaPro
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
OK, I admit it. I am a follower! (That was hard for a guy who claims to be a techno-geek)
Just recently I bought a pair of Koss PortaPro headphones to replace my crappy earplugs. The PortaPro has been in the market for over 20 years, launched in 1984, and is just as image building as the iPod for portable music, and they are more popular than ever. I must admit that is quite impressive.
The PortaPro sounds great, maybe a little too much BASS, but very open and clear. They are also very comfortable to wear, and they have a open construction, meaning you hear the surroundings good as well (important feature to avoid being hit by a bus or bicycle sneaking up from behind :-). I can now even look street cool and listen to good music at the same time.
Source of music from this brief test was Steely Dan’s Aja, which is a fantastic album, encoded and compressed at 192 kbps WMA and played back from my Sony Walkman. I haven’t tested the PortaPro on my Hi-Fi setup yet, and I very much doubt they will even get close to my AKG K 240 studio monitors, but then again, they weren’t designed for that purpose either.
Please share your experience!
Sony’s revenge
Friday, February 29th, 2008As you may have noticed the HD format war is finally over. Toshiba and HD DVD has retired from the market and Sony can celebrate their revenge over VHS. Hopefully most manufacturers will now launch products and prices can come down to a reasonable level. Personally I am waiting for a Denon or Marantz, but any input is welcome. But what will happen to SACD, one of the other format victories from Sony? (Well, Sony has nearly managed to kill this format them selves, but that’s an other story).
So what did actually happen? One important aspect is of course Sony’s support for Blu-ray as a standard feature in all PlayStation 3 game consoles. But more important is probably the major studios’ support for Blu-ray, also from those initially supporting HD DVD. Without any content HD DVD couldn’t stand any chance.
But despite the victory, Blu-ray is still premature. PlayStation 3 was delayed several times waiting for the Blu-ray technology. And even if there already a significant number of players out there, only a few support the Blu-ray profile 2.0 which is what could be considered the first full specification. Blu-ray profile 1.1 was released only to get reduce the head start of HD DVD, but should probably never been released, because it is only with profile 2.0 you get full interactivity and ethernet return channel functionality. But anyway, the pre-release was very necessary to cope with the competition from HD DVD and it obviously succeeded.
Congratulations Sony!
Squeeze me!
Monday, January 14th, 2008
As you may remember from previous postings I have ripped all my music and stored it as audio files on my network storage server. So, you might ask, what are you gonna do with it there? Well, I agree, music is no good on a server if you can’t listen to it. So to listen to it I have bought a network music player called Squeezebox. Squeezebox from Slimdevices (now Logitech) is a Hi-Fi network music player supporting almost all music formats including MP3, WMA, AAC, AIF, WAV and FLAC. It also has a hi-grade Burr-Brown DAC with solid stereo cinch connectors in addition to both electrical and optical S/PDIF output for connection to a even more serious DAC, if you have one. I have connected mine to my Rotel Processor, not because of the audio quality, but because this one supports even more audio formats like HDCD and DTS.
The audio quality of this device is very good! At least in my ears. It is definitely as good as a dedicated CD player in the same price range (299 USD). As a consequence my Pioneer SACD/CD player is no longer in use. At least not for playing ordinary CDs. SACD and DVD Audio however is an other story. But anyway, I’m to lazy to get up from my chair to put on a SACD so I end up listening to the standard CD version through my Squeezebox anyway. That’s how good it sounds. If you want something better, you can either upgrade to Slimdevices Transporter, which is their absolutely high-end alternative, or add a Benchmark DAC 1 to your Hi-Fi system. (more…)
R.I.P. audio CDs
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007
I have now got rid of all my CDs. That means the physical media, not the music on it. All music is carefully ripped and stored as audio files on my network storage server. (more…)
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