I have a confession to make. I am a complete cinephile. I love films more than my own mother and the most important part of enjoying a film, storyline and cinematography aside, is the atmosphere. Many film lovers will attest that a night at the local cinema is as close to pleasure as repeatedly administering paper cuts to parts of ones own anatomy. Generally full with very loud and restless teenagers who like to test the theory of gravity by launching popcorn into the air, the local Odeon is not a good example of the ideal cinematic atmosphere. The reason I, and others repeatedly endure this less than favourable ambience is because the way to really watch a film is in it's full silver screen glory on a large screen. For many years the cinema has been the lesser of two evils when compared to watching a film at home, but thanks to brainiacs around the world, the technological hot spot of home cinema is finally hitting a high. The quality of home cinema products currently on offer is a far cry from the days of a top loading VCR with a remote control on a rope sending a scratchy signal to a 10 inch portable TV. We now have a plethora of high tech products through which to play the latest films that have a quality worth staying in for. One of the latest technologies to hit the home cinema market is Blu-ray technology. Based on the same format as the DVD, the Blu-ray disc is capable of storing large amounts of information, generally ten times as much as a standard DVD. The double layered disc is capable of holding 50GB of information, resulting in an incredibly high definition moving image with sound quality that is worthy of a Phil Spector's wall of sound. As if this technology was not good enough, Pioneer have gone ahead and pushed the Blu-ray boundary beyond belief with the release of a 400GB disc. This advancement has been possible thanks to yet more brainiac types in technology. The new disks are able to support 16 layers on each side of the disc, with the result that it is capable of storing 8 high definition films and all the associated extra features. If this isn't enough to get a cinephile salivating, I am not sure what is. Of course, being able to play this information with the desired result requires a combined technological effort. As we know, plasma screen televisions have been on the market a while now, and the new high definition sets make the scaling up of video footage an achievable process. However, even with a 60 inch flat screen TV, it is difficult to gain the same cinematic experience as gleaned from the silver screen, usually because not many people own a room big enough to allow room to focus on the pixel ratio. The way to use the new Blu-ray technology to create a home cinema experience that would turn Universal Studios green with envy is by trying a bit harder to recreate cinematic style. ViewSonic is currently selling a solution on a plate in the form of the Precision Pro 8100 projector. This little beauty will set you back a fair few weeks worth of hard earned cash, but the results are simply stunning. The clarity of image easily matches cinema projection quality, and the lack of audio connection is no drawback as it actually encourages the purchaser to opt for high quality cinema sound too. So crack open the popcorn and get yourself comfy, because there is no place for good cinema like home!
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