Beware of Christmas Bargains!

It's the holiday season. There's also a recession. These two things combined mean that stores are slashing their prices to get things out the door and meet their targets.

So if you are in the market for a new television, projector, or surround sound system, be wary of the wheeling and dealing of the big box stores out there. Do your research first. A lot of the 'too good to be true' deals are for equipment that is two or more generations old and retailers just can't afford to hold onto it. This can be a good thing for your wallet, but with the rate at which AV technology advances, the end result may not look and sound as good as you expected.

Make sure:
1. You don't buy a heavily discounted item sight unseen. Go into the store, check it out, have a look and listen. That means turn it on!

2. You stay away from showroom models. Equipment gets treated pretty harshly on the showroom floor. Even though that 'below cost' discount is tempting, think twice about how many grubby fingers have fondled and fiddled with it and the thousands of hours it has already been on.

3. You do your homework! If you see a great deal on an LCD or Plasma in your local store's flyer, google reviews for that set and make sure it will live up to your expectations.

4. If you can wait, shop 'till you drop on Boxing Day, not Christmas Eve. The prices will be even lower and you won't be prone to make an 'impulse Christmas buy'.

5. You get your gear set up correctly the first time! You want your special Christmas prezzy looking and sounding how it should.

Call or email us to book a time for installation and calibration of your new equipment. And remember, even if you opted for the cheapest of the cheap, we can make it look and sound better!

Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year from S&S Black.

Are Digital Downloads a Threat to Blu-ray?

For those of you old enough to remember (back to 2007), there was once a war of epic proportions between two contesting formats. They were battling to the death to secure a spot in your living room as the successor to DVD. This was the war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

There were proponents on both sides of the war, each side sure that the other side would fade away and die any day. There were also the folks who cried stalemate and thought that we would just have to put up with our high definition content being split over two formats (depending on which movie studios chose to release on which format.) A few people said that it doesn't matter who wins, because by the time it has been resolved we will have digital delivery of our movies.

To cut the story short, Blu-ray won out a lot earlier than expected (January of this year). People were joyous that they no longer needed to fill their shelves with two types of discs and two types of players to own and watch their favourite flicks. But there was the lingering worry that without HD DVD snapping at its heels, Blu-ray would not be as competitive on their pricing. This has been true to an extent -- after Blu-ray won out, we didn't see as many 2 for 1 Blu-ray deals on Amazon, nor did we see the same quick undercutting of player prices. But Blu-ray has a new competitor to look out for, the aforementioned digital downloads.

The concept of (legal) digital downloading of movies and television content has been around for a while. Apple's iTunes Store has been providing downloadable studio content for over two years now and has recently introduced a selection of DVD quality releases into the New Zealand iTunes Store. The prices are often 20 percent lower than the RRP on the street, you can buy and watch them any time of the day or night, and it's ready to be transferred to your iPod to watch on the go or to hook up to a TV. It sounds pretty good, right? I sure think it does.

Why aren't we all buying our movies from iTunes, then? Well there's always the intrinsic worth of owning something we can physically hold. But aside from that, DVD and Blu-ray Discs offer a plethora of extras you don't usually get with digital downloads. The real killer of digital downloads for us in New Zealand however, is bandwidth. Your average Blu-ray Disc holds 50 gigabyte of data in the form of sound and video. Without the special features, different sound formats, etc, most movies themselves could be around 25GB. This is the amount of data you would have to download to get a Blu-ray quality movie digitally.

Here in New Zealand we are still paying our internet bills per gigabyte of bandwidth we use. With a conservative pricing of $1 per GB, a high definition movie would cost $25 just in the bandwidth it takes to download it! On top of that, there is the cost of the film itself, which if we take 20 percent off retail prices, would be around $40. So the end user would be paying $65 for a film that is available in hard copy for less than $50.

In the United States where broadband subscribers pay a flat fee for all they can eat bandwidth, digital downloads are a real threat to Blu-ray in the not so distant future. But as long as we have bandwidth restrictions in place in New Zealand, I can't see high definition digital downloads taking off.

When Does 1080p Really Matter?

The mass adoption of high definition television introduces a plethora of seemingly alien nomenclature. 720p, 1080i, dynamic contrast ratio, 100Hz motion enhancement, integrated digital tuner... the list goes on. When it comes to this new terminology it can become hard to distinguish fact from fiction; to differentiate what should truly influence your buying decision from plain old marketing hype.

Today we address the issue of resolution. That is how many pixels (individual dots on the screen) make up that flat panel television you're thinking of buying. The higher the resolution of a display, the more pixels on it, and the more potential there is for a sharper, clearer image. Let's throw in and decipher a bit of jargonese: 576i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. These are a few numbers you may have seen if you've looked at the detailed specifications of an HDTV. Each number represents the vertical height of such a display in pixels. A 576i signal (the standard 4:3 PAL broadcast signal) is 576 pixels tall, whereas a 1080i display is 1080 pixels tall. The letter following the number determines whether the image is 'progressive' or 'interlaced'. Take your average 720p television. Since it is wide screen the display will be 720 pixels tall and 1280 pixels wide (that is an aspect ratio of 16:9.) The 'p' in 720p determines that every time your television is sent a frame you get all 1280x720 pixels. A 1080i TV on the other hand is interlaced, so instead of getting all 1920x1080 pixels every frame, you get half that (1920x540 and those 540 lines are every second line) but at twice the speed.

There are a couple of marketing terms floating around that you may have come across: HD-Ready and Full-HD. The HD-Ready label essentially denotes that a television can accept and display both 720p and 1080i signals. An HD-Ready display may be able to accept 1080p signals, but they would be downscaled to 720p. A 'Full-HD' television is one that can accept all current HD resolutions, 720p, 1080i and 1080p and will output them at 1080p. That is 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels, progressively.

'Great', you think, 'I'll get a Full-HD set!' More pixels, more clarity, right? Here's that old ambiguous answer: Yes and No. Yes! A 1080p television gives you the potential for a sharper, cleaner, clearer image. But in reality that may not be the case... for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are no television broadcasts in New Zealand broadcast at 1080p. TVNZ and Sky broadcast their channels at 720p and TV3 broadcasts at 1080i. So any television you are watching over the air is never going to show off the true potential of that 1080p set. Secondly, our eyes can only make out a certain amount of detail from a certain distance (especially as we get older!) A person with 20/20 vision watching a 42 inch flat panel television will not see any difference between a 720p image and a 1080p image from any further than two and a half metres. With a 50 inch set, you need to sit closer than three metres to start to see the improvement of 1080p over 720p. Now to even the scales... Even though there are no broadcasts at 1080p, there is content available at 1080p and currently that is in the form of Blu-Ray Discs. With the right set-up, you will truly be able to see the improvement in picture quality of 1080p over 720p. That, and, 1080p is the 'futureproof' resolution. There is a possibility in the future that broadcasters will have the technology and the bandwidth to broadcast signals at 1080p. But by that time, your high definition television will probably be due for a refresh anyway! The second reason that 1080p might be a goer, is that even though the majority of content that you watch will not be 1080p, every resolution under that will be 'upscaled' to 1080p. That is, a 1080p television will interpolate information from a lower resolution and still display it at 1080p. The resulting image will never be as good as a 'true' 1080p image, but most times it will be better than the same image on a lower resolution display.

With the costs of 1080p televisions in New Zealand still substantially higher than their 720p counterparts, you need to judge for yourself which suits your needs best. There is no use paying twice as much money for a 42 inch 1080p set that will sit four metres from the seating: at that distance a 720p set will give the same perceived resolution. Likewise, if you are a movie connoisseur with a growing Blu-Ray collection, then a 1080p set is a wise choice.

For more information on what sort of display is right for you, contact us now and we will be happy to help you with your buying decision.

S&S Black Proudly Supplying Marantz and Jamo Brands

From the Norwegian harp and violin in the snowy opening scene of 'Fargo' to the upbeat eccentric bluegrass vocal trio in 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?', the musical score in a film captures our hearts and souls, engrossing us deep within a film. (Can you tell we're fans of the Coens?)

Often times we don't consciously notice the score in the background of a powerful scene, but it's the music behind the picture that tugs on our heartstrings, makes the hair on our necks stand on end and makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Without a great musical score to guide you through the ups and downs of a film, you will find something greatly lacking. Likewise, you need the right sound system to fully appreciate the layers of music beneath the rumble and bang of the sound effects.

This is why S&S Black is proud to announce that we are now carrying two of the world's most highly renowned musical brands; Marantz and Jamo. You don't have to go much further than Marantz's slogan to know you're in for a treat: "because music matters". And what better to play all that breathtaking music through than Danish designed Jamo loudspeakers. Marantz and Jamo; a combination that is 'unfailingly musical'.

If you want to hear those subtleties in the soundtrack of your favourite movie that just aren't coming through on your current system, give us a call and we'll show you what you're missing.

The Olympics and the Future of HD in New Zealand

The 2008 Summer Olympic Games are in their fourth day today. Although the Kiwis are not yet up on the medals board, we have the rowers, the swimmers and the hockey team making their way through the heats and to the finals. The Games' host China currently tops the charts with nine gold, three silver and two bronze medals. Our Aussie friends across the ditch are fifth on the list with two golds and three bronzes all in swimming events.

If you were lucky enough to have Freeview|HD up and running in time for the opening ceremony, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did! If not, make sure you take this opportunity to contact us to get the Olympics in high definition in time for all of the New Zealand finals coming up. The quality of the picture and audio is breathtaking, after watching content in HD you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. And remember, with Freeview|HD you'll also get more coverage of the games with the new channel TVNZ Sport Extra.

High Definition is certainly moving along in New Zealand. Nearly all of the flat panel televisions currently on sale in New Zealand are high definition sets. Freeview|HD has been out for nearly four months now and this month Sky has released its high definition offering, MySky HDi. Some competition in the market is just what we need to catch up with the rest of the world. (The majority of programming being recorded in the United States is in high definition and there are hundreds of channels offered in HD over there -- compared to the seven HD channels currently available in New Zealand.) With Sky, TVNZ and MediaWorks all competing in the high definition arena, we can look forward to some great programming in HD over the coming months.
Our philosophy at S&S Black is to get the best quality out of the gear you already own. If you own an LCD or plasma TV and you are still watching standard definition content, then you are getting the same picture quality (perhaps even worse!) as you would from a CRT that costs thousands less. Contact us today to discuss how you can make the most out of what you already own.

Olympic Games in High Definition

In less than one week, on Friday, August 8th, TVNZ will send out their first true high definition broadcast across New Zealand's airwaves: the 2008 Summer Olympics. 2008 is the first year that the Olympic Games will be broadcast worldwide in high definition. The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on the 8th of August marks the first true high definition broadcast for TVNZ. The signal will be sent over Digital Terrestrial (that is, received by an aerial, not a satellite) in 720p format, with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound. This format offers more than five times the clarity and resolution of a standard television picture. Watching the 2008 Olympic Games in high definition, will make you feel like you are really there (without the smog and heat of Beijing). Contact S&S Black now for more information on how you can be ready to watch the world's first Olympic Games in high definition.

Freeview|HD launched on the 14th of April this year and broadcasters have been sending out upscaled standard definition content since then. TV3 has been broadcasting selected primetime material in high definition since the launch of FreeviewHD. After the Olympic Games, TVNZ will also broadcast selected primetime material in high definition on TV ONE and TV2. You will be blown away by the outstanding quality of high definition picture and sound. For more information on how you can enjoy high definition television in your home, contact us now.