Painter Print

Introduced in 1982, the compact disc was intended to provide
better sound than the 40-year-old long-play record album,
popularly known as the LP. Using a laser rather than a diamond
needle for playback the compact disc was smaller, more
convenient to use, and less susceptible to damage than the LP. A
bonus was that the format was said to offer “perfect sound
forever.” “Forever” isn’t that long these days; improvements in
digital sound have come along in the last twenty years and the
music industry introduced two new formats this decade that are
designed to improve upon the “perfect” sound of the compact
disc. Those formats are the Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD) and
DVD Audio (DVD-A.) Over the years, various audio publications
have criticized the sound of compact discs, describing the sound
as “harsh”, “brittle” or “sterile” compared to the sound of the
LP. After years of research, SACD and DVD-A were introduced
several years ago and introduced sound that was said to be
cleaner and more natural than that of the compact disc. In
addition, these formats offered multi-channel sound, and artists
such as Pink Floyd
offered special multi-channel versions of their albums to entice
sales. It hasn’t worked, and sales of both formats peaked in
2003. What is interesting, however, is that both formats still
trail the LP in sales!

According to the Recording
Industry Association of America, the combined sales of
SACD and DVD-A were less than those of the LP in 2004. The music
industry is in a slump at the moment, and sales of all formats
were down last year. But sales of LPs were down 13% from 2003,
while combined SACD and DVD-A sales were down 33%. It would
appear that the new formats are failing, even though they are
said to be superior to the compact disc. The LP, on the other
hand, continues to have steady sales. While the major labels are
still somewhat hesitant to release new product in LP form,
labels that specialize in reissuing older material, such as
Classic Records, are releasing as much product as their
manufacturing capacity will permit. It is worth noting that much
of this reissued product comes in the form of high-quality,
limited edition LP pressings that often carry premium prices of
up to $50 per title. Why are records continuing to sell while
the new formats fail?

There are several reasons why
records are outselling the new, “superior” digital disc formats:

The day will never come when records
again become the dominant music format. The convenience of
portable players for CD, SACD, and DVD-A discs and MP3 files
outweighs the advantages in sound quality that records offer
over those formats. Nevertheless, it appears that a small but
steady market for records remains very real, and that that
market exceeds that of the new “improved” SACD and DVD-A
formats, which will probably soon go the way of the forgotten
Elcassette, Minidisc, and 4 track tape formats of the past.

Fancy dress parties have been around since for centuries and were particularly popular in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries. Italy is particularly well known for contributing to the popularity of fancy dress parties. There, the masquerade ball reached frenzied proportions. By the time Queen Victoria took the throne much of Europe, especially England, had lost its appetite for masquerade but still had a keen interest in fancy dress parties. The Queen’s interest in literature, poetry and history had a tremendous impact on the themes for fancy dress parties throughout her long reign.

During a time when Europeans entertained often and lavishly, fancy dress parties were often called upon to break up the monotony of what might have been another otherwise boring social event. Almost any notable figure in history and literature was likely to spur the imaginations of fancy dress party guests. While characters from literature, especially the Shakespearean plays, remained popular choices for fancy dress parties throughout much of the century; a quest for increasingly unique and creative costumes began to appear.

Fancy dress parties were concentrated among those who could afford to devote the time and money to such lavish events; however that didn’t mean that a few peasants didn’t make their way onto the guest list. Throughout most of the 19th century there remained a keen interest in the less fortunate as the subject for possible fancy dress costumes. This interest was more likely than not spurred by the fact that peasant style costumes gave ladies the opportunity to step outside their normally rather strict social codes. While it would have been unthinkable to appear dressed in a ensemble that allowed too much cleavage or the ankles to show at any other event; much could be forgiven when inspired by fancy dress parties.

Concepts and ideas were also likely to appear in the form of costumes to be worn at fancy dress parties. Seasons and holidays were popular choices. Creativity allowed ladies to makeover costumes used for prior occasions to suit their whimsy for an upcoming fancy dress party. With just the addition of a few trimmings, an otherwise ordinary gown could be transformed into a representation of anything the lady wished.

Today fancy dress parties are not as popular as they were during the height of the Victorian era. The opportunity to dress as your favorite historical character, or any character for that matter, has unfortunately often been relegated to Halloween. Should you have an upcoming event to celebrate, or just want an excuse to get some friends together, why not consider throwing a good old fashioned fancy dress party? Chances are you have just the right ensemble in the back of your closet that can be reworked with a few embellishments to form the perfect costume.

About the Author

Ian Wide writes for many home and leisure sites such as www.fancy-dress-wear.co.uk.

In an LCD TV or “transmissive” display, a light source shines
through a panel of liquid crystals in order to display an image.
A white diffusion panel behind the LCD redirects and scatters
the light evenly to provide a more uniform image than most
competing technologies.

The LCD face consists of two transparent layers which polarize a
liquid crystal layer sandwiched in between. The front layer of
glass is etched with a grid pattern on the inside surface to
form a template for the liquid crystals. Liquid crystals are rod
shaped molecules that bend light in response to an electric
current; the crystals align so that no light can pass through.
Each crystal acts like a camera’s shutter, either blocking light
or allowing it to pass through. A pattern of transparent or dark
crystals forms the image. This same technology has been around
for awhile, even in such unsophisticated items as digital
watches.

LCD TVs use an “active matrix” LCD; the most advanced type of
LCD. The active matrix design is based on TFT, or thin film
transistors. These are tiny switching transistors and capacitors
that are arranged in a matrix on a glass substrate, they switch
the LCD pixels on and off. In a color TV’s LCD, each color pixel
is created by three sub-pixels with red, green, and blue color
filters.

One of the biggest challenges for LCD TV manufacturers has been
speeding up the pixel response time, (how fast an individual
pixel’s color can change without blurring) so that fast moving
images don’t exhibit motion lag or “ghosting”. This is
especially critical for larger-screen LCD TVs, or for LCD TVs on
which much of the viewing will be HDTV, or DVD movies.

An important difference between LCD technology and Plasma is
that an LCD screen doesn’t have a coating of phosphor dots; LCD
TVs color is created through the use of filters. This keeps
image burn-in from being a problem— which is good news
in-particular for people who might use a video gaming system or
PC on their TV. Another benefit of owning an LCD TV is the
energy efficiency of this technology. LCD TVs typically consume
60% lees power than comparably sized tube-type, direct-view TVs.

In most ways that really matter there isn’t much difference
between LCD TVs and Plasma TVs. Both of these highly popular
types of flat panel TVs are thin enough to be placed virtually
anywhere, and both produce images that are startlingly clear,
sharp, and bright. The most notable difference is screen size.
The majority of LCD TVs have a screen size measuring 30 inches
and smaller. Plasma TVs are, for the most part, uninhibited by
measurement restrictions.

Basically, LCD and Plasma TVs are different approaches to the
same result because the both create superior images using
radically different technology.