Reviewed by Stephen Withers, 27th July 2010.
Overall the P65VT20 is an excellent display that is hampered by an unfortunate processing problem. The greyscale performance and colour accuracy are reference and the black levels are the best you will see on any consumer display currently available. As a 3D display the P65VT20 is also excellent with a very sharp, bright and detailed 3D image that is almost entirely free from crosstalk. In addition the performance with 24p and 60Hz 2D material is equally as impressive with a sharp and nicely rendered image. Unfortunately this is not the case with 50Hz material and since a great deal of people's viewing material will be in 50Hz this could be something of a problem. Read the full review...
In this edition of the Home Cinema podcast...We discuss the latest HDTV's tested and reviewed, plus we discuss Quattron technology and 3DTV. Presented by Phil Hinton and Steve Withers.
Tonight I was amongst an exclusive group of people invited to view a demonstration of XenForo software.
It has been developed by the key ex-developers of vBulletin software and it is very impressive.
Brand spanking new and using the very latest coding techniques, I hope when people get to see it, they will be as excited as me. XenForo™
It will be some time before we upgrade to the software because it's not available just yet, and it will take a while before all the specialised extra features we need (like iTrader) are created for it.
But if you want to get a 'sneak peek' of where AVForums is going, you can take a look.
I have commissioned a new design for AVForums and wanted to keep you aprised of the progress.
The existing look of the site is based on the original vBulletin design, which is several years old and looks dated compared to modern websites.
The look of a website has a large effect on how new visitors regard it. AVForums is about AV technology, usually at the cutting edge of consumer electronics and should have a design which projects that.
At the same time our long term members like the existing feel of the website and will likely not want things to change too much.
I feel it's important that we are open and transparent in how we are shaping the future of AVForums and that everyone in the community has some input into how it develops. Hence this thread.
I am hoping that our wider community will appreciate why we need to update AVForums and support us in this endeavour. I have previously invited suggestions on what design ideas people have preferred for AVForums and that feedback has been useful. Thanks to all who contributed.
To answer what I anticipate will be the most frequently asked questions, at this point in time:
The current fixed and variable width styles will remain available to use.
We have another new menu system now online (we seem to change it often, don't we?!)
This one was written for us by Kier Darby, the vBulletin lead developer from 2002-2009.
The core menu system used within vBulletin has never changed. We use it for the drop-down menus in the navbar for Quick Links etc.
The main menu system used at the top of the site was a secondary system used to create more tiers and designed to mimic the core menu system. It used several additional image files and lots and lots of javascript. This menu is the one we have changed often and never been happy with.
The changes we implemented today enhance the core menu system so that it does everything we need. As a result the main menu system we had running the tabs and more recently the redesigned top menu has been removed completely.
So now our new menu is
Easier to use because mega menus allow a better overview of the available links
Faster, using over 100k less javascript
Faster because it uses many fewer images
Faster because we have one single menu system rather than two
Faster because there is no need for a noscript version of the menu for search engines.
More search engine friendly because it uses HTML and
Reviewed by Stephen Withers, 27th July 2010.
