Blu-ray Accessories

Finding all of the bits and pieces required to make the most of your Blu-ray player can sometimes be a difficult task. Because Blu-ray is a relatively new technology Blu-ray accessories such as cables can be difficult to find/replace and are usually extremely expensive. The following is a list of Blu-ray accessories currently available online: Read more

Blu-ray Recorders

Recording your favourite TV shows and movies at home has become an obsession for many Australians. With the dawn of the Blu-ray players as the latest must-have item in your lounge room it is not surprising that Blu-ray recorders were not far behind. Blu-ray Recorders are generally capable of recording 4-5 hours of digital HD programming or up to 63 hours of analog programming - however these specifications are changing all the time. Some Blu-ray recorders are able to support both single-side, dual-layer Blu-ray Discs (BD) with a maximum capacity of 50 gigabytes.

The following is a list of Blu-ray recorders currently available online:

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Blu-Ray Players

For the very best high definition audio-visual experience, you will need a Blu-ray player. There are a huge range of good quality Blu-ray players available from the very cheap bottom end to the top manufacturers such as Sony, Panasonic and Samsung.

It's also taken this long for Blu-ray to get its act together and we have seen Blu-ray go through three separate profiles to land at Profile 2.0 (or BD-Live). If you're looking for the most future-proofed Blu-ray player, get one based on this.

Features to look for in a player nowadays are Ethernet and USB ports (for BD-Live and YouTube/Picasa), onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, and firmware upgradeability.

Players have fallen to below the sub-$400 mark and have become more accessible to consumers.

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Review: Watchmen blu-ray

Depending on who you talk to, Watchmen is either the best or worst movie of 2009.

As an adaptation of a famous graphic novel, Watchmen is set in 1985 but in an alternate universe.

In this dark place, Richard Nixon is still president of the United States, the Cold War is still running and superheroes exist.

However, superheroes have fallen from grace and are outlawed. And more recently someone has started killing retired superheroes, one by one. A chap by the name of Rorschach, himself a former superhero, decides to get on the case and try to get to the bottom of it.

As he narrates the story we are introduced to a number of other retired superheroes, all fearing for their safety and all concerned about the state of the world.

There is no doubting the brilliance of the cinematography of Watchmen, and a number of computer generated sequences are simply breathtaking.

The antics of the wholly computer generated character Dr Manhattan – a blue being – are particularly awesome to behold.

A film noir approach informs the movie, and a touch of 1940s gangster spirit is clear in the production.

It was a very difficult task for the makers of Watchmen to adapt it from such a complex and cult-popular graphic novel, but they have done so admirably.

The Watchmen bluray will be available in the second half of 2009.

Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still blu-ray

The original 1951 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still was a warning to humanity about the dangers of nuclear warfare.

In the 2008 revised version, the threat has been updated to mankind’s environmental abuse of Earth.

The story stars Keanu Reeves as Klaatu, an alien being who arrives on Earth with a robot bodyguard named GORT.

Klaatu is actually a representative from a group of alien races and has been given the task of judging whether humans deserve to continue living, and whether the damage done to Earth can be reversed.

As Klaatu descends his spaceship he is shot (but not fatally), and GORT responds by disrupting all electrical systems in the city of New York.

While Klaatu is recovering from his wound he escapes and, after a chance encounter, runs around New Jersey trying to evade authorities with a woman called Helen and her stepson, Jacob.

The end result is that Klaatu decides humans do deserve another chance, but because GORT has programmed the planet for destruction, the second chance will come at a big cost and change to the way humans live…

The original The Day The Earth Stood Still was a landmark film, and in many ways the remake fails to live up to its predecessor.

Although the new version has superior special effects, one might argue that the substantive feeling of the original is missing.

The Day The Earth Stood Still bluray movies are available for purchase and hire.

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