Sleepypete 1 Technology 0

I win again ! This time though, I'm not sure if I should be shouting about it or keeping quiet about it.

Problem :

New blu-ray player looks great, sounds great. But it only sounds great in the front speakers with nothing coming through on the back ones.

Hmm.

Cue lots of peeking in manuals, peeking on forums, peeking on support sites. And a little bit of window shopping at new kit to do the sound. I reckon I was incredibly close to shelling out on the sound widgets too :-) Until tonight that is when I got curious enough to compare the old dvd player's picture to what the blu-ray player does with dvds.

What's the difference ? And this directly goes towards answering anybody's questions with regards to "Do I Really need to upgrade to a blu-ray player ?" :-) Dvd vs Blu-ray. I'm not convinced here, the blu-ray picture is sharper with more detail. However, the blu-ray player will also improve how the dvds look. I'm quite impressed with what's called "HDMI upscaling". It turns fuzzy locks into strands of hair, that's the kind of detail improvement you get. Not sure if you'd notice it if you weren't looking for it but the extra definition does help when compared to trying a 10 year old dvd player on a new LCD telly.

For one thing, the digital HDMI lead gives a sharper picture cos it uses a better variety of Wiggly Amp (techie term) to tell the telly what to show. My old player was limited to a picture cable that was a big cause of fuzziness. Devices are a lot better now too, instead of being "just good enough" to turn bits into colours it has plenty of extra time to clear the picture up.

Let's just say that a dvd movie like the newer Star Wars trilogy (and A New Hope too) look pretty darn good when played through the blu-ray player and telly combination. Using the old dvd player gives a bit of a blocky picture.

So - blu-ray's - MEH, not convinced they offer a significant improvement over dvd to be worth costing more. Blu ray player (and probably newer dvd players) - Me Likey the better picture.

Where was I ?

Ahhh - sound. I chuck Revenge of the Sith into the old dvd player after watching it all the way through last night. I'm peeking for the lightsaber fights near the end, the new kit seemed to be a lot more fluid (i.e. less jumpiness) than I remember. But ... what's this ? The rear speakers are oh so quiet ...

Grr.

Thinking cap comes on and I start wondering why. I also switch to the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, as the bit at the start with the missile flying in is fantastic for checking surround sound. Still no sound out of the back. So I look a little further.

ARRRGGG !!!

This is where I realise I've been caught out with a laziness habit I've developed, related to listening to iTunes via my remote speakers instead of on laptops. My surround amp has 5 modes : "Music", "Movie", "Fourpoint", "Stereo" and "None". Music and Movie are a waste of time because they introduce messing around that does nothing for sound quality. Fourpoint is designed for PC gaming, where you have the PC sending 4 audio channels to the amp. Stereo is 2 channels only. "None" means it's taking the digital audio input that gets sent by the dvd player.

I'd been keeping the amp on "Stereo", thinking it would still be able to understand the more complex Dolby Digital. Oops. Never realised it also turned the surround sound signal into stereo as well, that comes via a different wire.

I've stopped banging my head on the wall now long enough to stop the neighbours getting worried and have been enjoying some of that "Sound's coming from all over the place!" surround sound goodness :-) Hopefully my long over due from Amazon Watchmen blu-ray will finally arrive in the next couple of days so I can test it with that.

So I now have 5.1 surround sound :-) And have incidentally saved myself at least £370 I now no longer need to spend. Yey ! But on the flipside, no new toys and the original problem was caused by me being a lazy idiot who assumed he knew more than he actually did.

I'll keep the money cos that'll work out to almost 925 teacakes and therefore enough cash to grin at the Little Canteen Girl at the start of every working day for over 3 years to come. And that's definitely something to look forward to :-)

End of the lesson - never assume you know everything, cos that assumption will be what catches you out making you look like an idiot.

PS Watchmen blu-ray. Ordered from Amazon Tuesday 29th. Supposedly dispatched Weds 30th. Outlander was ordered at the same time and arrived that weekend. Still nothing from Amazon, although they have refunded the first class postage fee. I reckon I'll be complaining at them again on Monday and Amazon are very close to being Blacklisted, which puts them on my Do Not Buy list. Plenty of competition out there hungry for business that will happily step in when someone lets you down.