About Me...
Updated 21st August 2007
Well, the first basic thing about me is that my name is Dom Robinson,
I'm 35, I hail from the city of Manchester, that's me on the right from
some time ago and no I don't associate with the "Mad Fer It" Gallagher
brothers, even though I once worked not far from their home town of Burnage.
I first started using the Internet in October 1990 while studying for a
degree in Computer Science and Management Science at Keele University.
While there I regularly visited Cheeseplants, Foothills and
then The Talker.
I came out with a 2(ii) and some would wonder why I've got a top-secret
job in government (ok, so it's not top secret at all :), but while
I'd much fancy a job doing what I do as a hobby on a daily basis - writing
reviews and developing my knowledge of HTML - finding a job which trains you
in HTML as you go is as rare as finding a needle in a haystack, since many
jobs expect you to know it all first.
After leaving in June 1993, it wasn't until nearly a year later when I started
my
music chart analysis online,
after having to take four months off work due to my
Aortic Valve Replacement operation.
I had sweet F.A. to do while sitting twiddling my thumbs and in addition,
compiled a complete list of all available
widescreen videos,
which was later
published in What Video from January 1995 for three months in separate parts.
A reprint was due in Home Cinema Choice in November 1996, also featuring
a list of all available
PAL widescreen Laserdiscs
and an article,
"The Whys of Widescreen",
describing why those black bars on your TV are 100% necessary.
In the same month, I had two brief reviews of two widescreen videos,
Nikita and Platoon stating why they're best seen
in widescreen, and detailing a couple of "killer scenes", twenty snippets
of trivia and supplied all the aspect ratios in Home Entertainment's
The Wide Ones supplement.
In October 1998, I wrote an article for Home Cinema Choice, comparing
three home-cinema "surround-sound solution" speaker packages from Boston
Acoustics, Philips and Yamaha. More recently I have had an article published
in the October 1999 issue of Home Entertainment all about the pleasures
and pitfalls of buying DVDs on the internet.
I have also compiled a list of all available UK PAL region 2 DVDs, which is
online
HERE and update my
reviews, of which there are over 620 DVDs and over 50 games, on a daily
basis. (See the left-hand column for the various reviews pages)
In April 2001 I appeared in an episode of Right to Reply reporting on
ONdigital and the piracy of their smartcards, a review of my experience of
which can be found
HERE.
I thoroughly enjoyed the experienced and worked with some fantastic people
on the day (recorded Wed April 4th and broadcast Fri April 6th), but sadly
Channel 4's deputy commissioning editor, Francesca O'Brien, made a grave
error by cancelling the show after 18 long years, with no chance of a
substitute, claiming that there was no need for such a programme because there's
so many channels about, but if you ask me there IS a need for such a show
because of the same reason!
After appearing under the London Calling and SonicState banners,
I now have my very own site in DVDfever.co.uk. The music chart
analysis continues apace, there's a listing of the latest films showing at
Showcase Cinema, Manchester
as well as film reviews.
As of February 2007, there are also reviews of PC, Playstation 2, Xbox, Xbox
360 games and those of older consoles including the Dreamcast and the original
Playstation.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
