Depth of Field

When I got my new TV, I mentioned that I hadn't yet found the console buttons, and wasn't able to test the 3D features.

Well, the buttons are there, they're just capacitance switches that are only visible in bright light or when the button backlights are on. It does make them very subtle, which is, I suppose, a good thing.

And the blu-ray player finally did arrive a couple of days ago. Fortunately, we already had the cables to hook it up, so I took care of that immediately.

How does it look? Well, in a word, fantastic. I got the new Sound of Music box set for Christmas, and popped it in when some relatives were over. Once again, my daughter was absolutely rapt for the puppet sequence. But it was absolutely amazing how good it looked.

It used to be possible to tell, within five to ten years, how old a movie was by seeing it on TV and looking at the transfer quality. Well, Sound of Music looked so clear, it could have been made yesterday. (Oddly, Wizard of Oz came on TV, and I compared that to my (previously unwatched) blu-ray. The odd part was that the version on TV looked way, way better. I still don't have any idea why. Like SoM, the version from TV looked like it could have been made yesterday.)

After looking at that, I finally wanted to look at the 3D performance. The only 3D movies I have are the Shrek titles that came with it, so I popped in the first one. How did it look? In a word, fabulous.

It actually looked better than Avatar did in the theater, although I have to wonder if that was because of the 3D technology (active glasses vs circular polarization), or because of differences between computer animation and "real" life. I guess I'll find out once I can actually buy Avatar in 3D; hopefully, that'll be soon. As much as I enjoyed the movie, it ain't worth what it would cost me to get today. I'll get some other ones soon, as well (likely Alice in Wonderland, if nothing else).

One unrelated note about the blu-ray player. Turning that on will turn on the TV at the same time. While this is generally good, it'll also switch the source over to the player, which might not be, if I'm watching something on TV. It'll also automagically switch the TV into 3D mode upon insertion of a 3D disk. In any event, it looks like some control signals are passing over the HDMI cable, and that's cool to see.

So the TV improves from conditionally excellent to all-around fantastic.