So what about 3d?

I am a great lover of technology. I am quick to embrace any possible improvement. I am what is commonly known as "an early adopter". The second HDTV seemed even remotely good, I dived into the pool head-first. For the record, this was late 2006 when the XBox360 got it's HD-DVD attachment and the PS3 was about to be released (signifying the arrival of Blu-Ray).

The arrival of true 1080p disks signified to me that this market was about to mature.

So what about 3d? Have I adopted that? Nope. Do I have plans to adopt it soon. Nope. Do I have any plans to adopt it? Not really. Why? Because every demo I have seen, save one, sucks hard. This is not at all unlike the 3d effects we see in the movie theater: They suck hard.

I'm going to be perfectly frank with you good folks: 3d leave me cold. I am not excited. The major reason is that the movie produces don't do anything with the media. An occasional shot which pops out at you is not worth the annoyance of the glasses. Even the most advanced 3d movie ever made, which is Avatar, still made relatively limited use of 3d.

Even when the true 1080p 3d Blu-Rays begin to arrive, which they have not, I still doubt that there is much power in the media itself.

Of course, this does not prevent marketing forces from attempted to persuade you to 'upgrade' to a 3d set. Mark ye well the following example of marking hype:

If you check out an in-store demo, you'll likely be impressed by 3D. We recently spent some quality time with Panasonic's VT25 3D plasma watching Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and it was a blast. After all, 3D adds depth and, when it's done right, can make you feel like you're inside the picture. -PC Magazine

All I can say to that is "bullshit" and "thank you for regurgitating the predigested marking hype from the advertising companies... oh wait! I forgot! PC Magazine is a marking/advertising company." In sooth, they always have been.

The quote above is proceeds from a false premise, uses fallacious logic and reaches and erroneous conclusion. Almost no one has a VT25 HDTV on display, must less equipped with the several-hundred dollars worth of glasses necessary to do 3d. Worst of all, if you have seen it, and I have, there is no there there. There's nothing special going on. The demo left me flat. I didn't want it.

Inevitably, sooner or later, I will want to buy a new HDTV. Moore's law guarantees progress in all of the basic areas of HDTV quality. I will want that increase in core-competency at some point in the future. Upgrade day may not come for two years, but sooner or later, it will come.

No doubt, this will bring 3d along with it. 3d is being rolled into all HDTVs as we speak. This will become a default feature of all HDTVs soon. You won't be able to buy a current model year without it. However, my reason for buying will not be 3d. The shit just doesn't do anything for me.

To you folks in the industry: I have to say that I really believe you are wasting your time with this 3d jazz. It is much more difficult to interpolate a 3d layer from 2d sources than it is to upscale 1080p to the so-called 4K standard. It is much more difficult for the creative film maker to shoot a movie in 3d than it is to shoot the movie in 4K with a simple RedCam.

I believe the difference between 1080p and so-called 4k is far more dramatic, far more stunning and far more desirable than the anything 3d has ever thrown at me. Every photographer and graphic artist will tell you that more pixels are better. Higher resolution is better resolution. Every gamer will tell you a higher res screen is a better screen. Every computer user will tell you that more screen real estate is better.

If I were you, I would toss the 3d thing on the back burner and work hard on the 4K thing. I will upgrade immediately for a reasonably priced 4K screen. 3d holds no interest for me.

What's up on Blu-Ray?

Is it just me, or does the Blu-Ray market seems slow and sluggish lately? There really haven't been many good releases lately.

We've had two Tuesday releases so far in June. What have netted? On week one we got the following things:

1. The Wolfman
2. A shitload of Clint Eastwood oldies.
3. Life: A BBC Documentary
4. Band of Brothers.
5. Bad Boys
6. Alice in Wonderland
7. The New Orleans Saint: Road to Super Bowl 44
8. The Red Barron

I am very pleased to announce that the Blu-Ray of The Wolfman does indeed contain the theatrical release. I already own my copy. It's terrific. I can ignore the bad stuff.

Many old-timers will be utterly thrilled by the arrival of so many Clint Eastwood goldies. I used to be a big-time Eastwood fan in my angry youth. My temperament has changed. So has my education level. While there is still an entertainment level to many of Clint's oldies, I am slumming it when I check these out. The directors and writers were aiming low. We know that now.

If you discount the Eastwood collection what is left? What are the sure-fire crowd pleasers?

1. The Wolfman
2. The Saints

That's it. There are some "maybes" on this list.

1. The Red Barron might be good
2. Life might be good.

I have to call bullshit on a few of these other releases:

1. Alice in Wonderland was straight-up bad. It's one of Burton's worst movies. It's basically a lesbian romance without the sex. You see, the White Queen is afraid to handle the Vorpal sword. Ergo, her femme girlfriend (Alice) must take on the masculine 'knight and shinning armor' roll and slay the Jabberwocky to prove her love. I must say, Anne Hathaway was perfectly cast in this roll. She didn't even have to act. She was just being herself.
2. Bad Boys sucks. This is a stupid buddy flick conceived by Bruckheimer and Bay. When those two guys get together, your first question is "who cut the cheese?"
3. Band of Brothers is over-rates. I might feel different if I was a Nam vet, but I am not.

So what do we have this week? You know what we have? We have exactly one release this week: Shutter Island. As you know, I liked this movie quite a bit. I blogged about it several times. Good flick! The rest of it this week is rubbish.

1. Caddyshack is one of the dumbest comedies of all time. The Snickers bar floating in the pool tells you everything you need to know about the level of this film. This is the absolute quintessential stoner movie. People laugh because they smoked weed, not because the jokes are funny.
2. The Illusionist is a very over-rated romance, that is very popular among teen-girls. It's basically a darker version of a Harlequin romance. That is the audience demographic: Teen girls. It was okay, but the movie irritated me by wasting the talents of some of my favorite actors. Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Rufus Sewell, not to mention the luscious Jessica Biel.
3. From Paris with Love was almost a total cinematic catastrophe. This was awful stuff, far worse than Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. This one insulted my intelligence 25 times.

Let us remember that in literary circles, the Harlequin is a wooden clown who is often an emissary of the Devil. This theory forcefully applies to the Canadian publisher.

The list doesn't get much stronger next week. The solid goldie is Flash Gordon (1980). This is the comedy with the great European actors and the amazing Queen sound track. That is one of the most under-rated movies of all time. I thought it was very funny.

Other than that, we get the Book of Eli, Darkman, and a new box for Enter the Dragon. Bouy...

There really seems to be no rhyme or reason to Hollywood's choice of Blu-Ray releases. There are so many great titles in their back-log. Yet, they continue to focus on releasing bad comedy on Blu-Ray. Stop me if I am wrong, but what do you gain by putting bad comedy on Blu-Ray? Money? I doubt it. Show me the proof on the bottom line. I don't believe you.

I think this release schedule proves several things:

1. Piracy is hurting the release schedule for Blu-Ray. Since the bottom line is lower than it might otherwise be, studios have less incentives to invest in the upgrade process. This is why we get fewer releases.
2. It would seem the recession is still hurting the uptake of Blu-Ray. When I look down this long list of bad comedy and Rom-Com (which is terrible by definition), I see release schedule which is mom-friendly and kid friendly. This suggests to me that there is just one Blu-Ray player in the house, and that is in the family room.
3. Right now, studios do not see a profit margin in releasing some of their better titles. They are holding them out for a better climate. With a W shaped recession on tap, we may be waiting for sometime.

What would l like to see released? Let me give you a new top 11 release list:

1. The Incredibles
2. Star Wars (the original)
3. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc
4. Apocalypse Now!
5. Alien
6. Aliens
7. The Exorcist
8. Monte Python and the Holy Grail
9. Blue Velvet
10. Princess Mononoke
11. Barry Lyndon

I gave you an odd number just because I didn't want to leave Barry Lyndon off the list. I just can't believe that some of these all-time classics didn't lead the way into the Blu-Ray era.

The #1 pick on my list--The Incredibles--was a runaway smash hit in 2004. Everybody loved it. It is one of my favorite movies of all time... Maybe even my absolute favorite. Why this movie wasn't at the head of the class in 2006 is beyond me. Why Pixar has delayed a release is beyond me.

Star Wars and Aliens have both been shown many times in glorious HD on cable TV. HBO used to show Star Wars all the time. The SciFi channel shows Aliens every couple of weeks. Why they haven't released the Blu-Ray is utterly beyond me.

Every other film on that list is a classic in one way or another, and should be released.

Blu-ray weekend

I've been shut in with a bad head & chest cold this weekend. This one is bad, real bad. Fortunately, it was raining like hell yesterday, and I did have 3 blu-rays from Netflix to keep me company. The three are:

1. The Watchmen
2. Paranormal Activity
3. Inglorious Basterds

The Watchmen Redux

Jesus! This movie is far worse than I remembered! I thought I would give it a second chance on the possibility that I might have missed something. Well... I did. This movie is far more absurd, preposterous, and laughable than I remembered it.

There are a large collection of terrible scenes in this movie; scenes that caused a lot of bad belly laughs this time around. I can't really blame Snyder for it. These scenes are all in the graphic novel as well. When you try to shoot these preposterous scenes with a serious and dramatic tone, they only come out more laughable. Regrettably, the tone of the novel is serious as well. Zach was just being faithful to rubbish.

Consider the pivotal scene on Mars. Laurie Jupiter (Silk Spectre II) has to convince Jon (Dr. Manhattan) to save the world from nuclear amageddon. We have a completely nonsensical scene full of dialog about predestination. They argue about his bizarre perspective on life in the universe. Laurie insists that Jon "do that thing" he does, and make her understand his bizarre perspective. Manhattan complies, touching her forehead in a Vulcan mild-meld.

Rather than understanding Manhattan's perspective on life and the universe, Laurie has an Opra moment of psychoanalytic breakthrough. She recovers a lost memory of her childhood in which it was revealed that the Comedian (a hero who once attempted to rape her mother) is her actual father. Mama got together with papa later to let him finish the job.

Now how in the fuck did this happen? How did Manhatten's attempt to communicate his perspective cause her to remember her repressed memory of childhood? How does A connect to B? Only through some series of logical fallacies promoted by the use of hallucinogenics, I am sure. Alan Moore was that kind of a guy. By all accounts, he believed mushrooms were a great aid to one's creative imagination.

But wait! There is still more! Laurie, an ordinary female without super powers, strikes a crystal wall of Dr. Manhattan's... er... apparatus... and the whole thing comes tumbling down. Boy! She's a lot stronger than she looks. Laurie says her entire life is a joke. This is emblematic of her father. Jon shocks the audience by 'realizing' that the improbable miracle of Laurie's chaotic origins proves that humanity is worth saving. Say what...? And he is not even mad that she smashed his... er... apparatus.

But wait! There is still more! The artificial 3d effects camera pulls back from this scene on Mars to show that the destruction of Dr. Manhatten's... er... apparatus has left a huge land-scar on the surface of Mars. This land scar is in the shape of the Comedian's happy face logo. Yep, I am sure that can occur naturally when a crystal apparatus get's smashed on Mars. I am sure Dr. Manhattan would want to do something like that also. Jesus that is a stupid idea! Who had that fucking idea? Oh yeah, it was mushroomhead Moore again.

This incredibly botched concept for a scene is both pivotal and emblematic of the problems with the rest of the movie. There are a whole lot of bad ideas found here. Many of them brought out belly laughs the second time around. [Especially the scene where Rorschach wards off a SWATT team with a can of Lysol and a matchbook.]

Then we have the obnoxiously bad ended. I already complained about this at some length. Hard to believe it is true, but Zach Snyder cleaned up (i.e. changed) an even worse ending found in the original graphic novel.

Bottom line folks: Watchmen is a steaming, stinking, stenching pile of wet and runny doggy poo-pooh. I regret the fact that Zach Snyder, a very good film maker, got involved with such a poor project as this. Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python fame, was wise to drop the project. It may be billed as the most celebrated graphic novel of all time, but that is 100% bullshit.

Paranormal Activity

Now we're talking! I am glad to say that Paranormal Activity lived up to its billing. It is a good and scary story. It is another one of the slew of camcorder movies which include Cloverfield and Quarantine. I liked these movies also. The story is very simple: A young woman, engaged to be engaged with the man she is cohabitation with is being haunted by a daemon. This daemon has been following her throughout her youth. Without much of any effects budget, cameras or actors, they bring off a very nice supernatural suspense thriller. This one raises tension very nicely.

Reports of this movie stated that women found it utterly terrifying, throwing their popcorn in the air and jumping out of their seats. I think these reports are believable. These women probably related closely to the chubby--but good looking--protagonist who seems to have found Mr. Right only to go to the edge of ruin because of something horridly evil chasing her. I know this movie would utterly kill my mother and my aunt. The second the Ouiji board appears on camera they would both duck and cover. They both have a fear of those things. Fortunately, the odds of getting them to watch this film are slim and none.

Inglorious Basterds

Well... it's a fun movie, and it is pretty well made. The leading villain, Christopher Waltz, makes this movie work. He is very interesting villain to watch in action. By now, I think it's safe to assume everybody knows that this movie re-wrote the end of WWII. You'll have to get over that. If you can, the movie is fun, but it is not more than that.

As is the case with a lot of Quentin Tarantino movies, I believe this movie is over-rated. Tarantino makes B-flick exploitation movies, and he knows it. I, generally, like this kind of thing, but I fail to see why he is celebrated so much when others are celebrated so little. Why is Tarantino good and John Carpenter bad? Critics cannot explain this to me.

In any case, this movie is worth watching.

The Godfather 1 on Blu-Ray

Yesterday, Fry's Electronics offered us our choice of 3 out of 5 members of the Paramount Sapphire collection at an insane discount price. I already owned Gladiator and Braveheart, so I took the other three: Godfather 1, Godfather 2, and Forrest Gump. My final, walk-out-door, price was just $43 for these three Gold-winners on Blu-Ray. I was fairly ecstatic our my purchase.

I decided to plug in Godfather 1 just to have a look at the quality of the restoration and transfer. I had no intention of watching the three hour epic in full last night. Well, I got sucked in. I watched the whole damn thing straight through in one sitting for the first time since around 1996. It's been 14 years since the last time, so my memory had faded on several points. As was the case with Logan's Run. It is interesting to come back to a piece after so many years, and see how you feel about it. So what are my thoughts?

1. I still don't believe that this is the best movie of all time. I still give that award to Dr. Strangelove.
2. I still don't believe that this is Francis Ford Coppola's best film of all time. I give that award to Apocalypse Now.
3. With that said it is a fantastic movie, and rightly won best picture of 1972. It was probably under-awarded as it obtained only three Oscar-wins. They probably should have won a few more than that.
4. I still believe that The Godfather is a highly romanticized rendition of La Cosa Nostra. This is the way Wise Guys would love to be portrayed, and this is the way they would like to think of themselves. However, it is sanitized, scaled-down, and soft-pitched on the violence and ugliness of organized crime.
5. For a more realistic portrayal of La Cosa Nostra, you still need to look towards Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas.

I am impressed about how clear the theme of this movie is after so many years. When I was younger, I did not detect a clear cut focal theme. I just thought it was an epic story about a key moment in Mob history. Yes, that is true, but there is a sharper focal point than that.

The Godfather takes place in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The Godfather is Vito Corleone, a first generation Sicilian immigrant to New York city who set up a large and powerful Mafia family that runs Gambling, Prostitution, and smuggling in the Eastern United States. His daughter Connie is about to be married. His son Michael, the white sheep of the family, has returned home from WWII.

Unbeknownst to all at the wedding party, the New York Mafia is headed for a full-scale war over the issue of Narcotics; China White Heroine from Turkey to be more specific. The Godfather is against this LOB, believing it is a dirty and dangerous trade that will cost him his political and judicial allies. Everybody else, including two of his sons, believes there is more earning potential in Narcotics than any other single line of work. The five families of New York want to deal, but they need the Godfather's political protection to open up this new business. He refuses. A war ensues.

The absolute focal point of this movie is Michael Corleone, the man destined to be the next Godfather. As we begin this movie, he is a squeaky-clean Ivy League graduate, Marine Corp Infantry Captain, decorated for valor in battle during WWII. Michael knows everything about the family. He is ashamed of his family, and his family business, even though he loves them. He stays at a distance. Unknown to him, Michael has his father's blessing. Pop hopes Michael will become the first Governor or Senator from his family. He is very proud of Michael. He never wanted Michael to be in the family business.

The absolute pivotal point of the movie is the transformation of Michael Corleone's character. The war changes him completely. The moment his father is shot, and forces inside the police conspire to assassinate him, all kinds of things begin simmering up inside Michael's soul. In a matter of a few short days, the highly intelligent Ivy Leaguer, and the decorated Marine Infantry Captain begins using all his talents to help his family win the war.

Michael has a number of bitter moments on the way to victory in this mob war. The attempted murder on his father is the first. The murder of his brother, with his brother-in-law's complicity, is the second. The final burn is the murder of his Sicilian bride, Apolonia, in a car-bombing.

As his brother Sonny dies, it becomes clear that Michael is the only one smart enough to inherit his father's throne and run the family business. But is he tough enough? Is he ruthless enough? Is he a strategist? Can he trap his enemies? Can he be a wartime boss?

Shortly before the movie ends Michael answers all these questions. He accurately ferrets out all of his enemies. He lays out a brilliant plan for murdering them all. He executes the plan without a hitch. Everybody who opposed the Godfather during the Narcotics war is dead at the end of the movie. He settled all of the Family's accounts in a single day. He consolidates all power in his hands, making his family the most powerful underworld force once again.

It turns out that the decorated Marine Corp Captain was more that strategic enough, more than ruthless enough, and more than violent enough to kill all of his opponents. He is a far more terrifying figure by the end of this movie than the sentimental Vito, or the hot-headed Sonny ever were. He's cool. He's calculating as hell. He is ruthless as hell. He stops at nothing. He convinces us that he will do anything necessary to win.

The cold chill you get at the end of the movie is palpable. Michael is almost a type of frog prince. You had no idea that this squeaky-clean Harvard kid had it in him. The moment he is kissed by Mafia war, he suddenly and abruptly transforms into a much more ruthless warchief than his father. The reason cold chills happen is that it is so believable.

Why did I believe it? I picked up on things watching this Blu-Ray, things that I had never noticed before. I noticed the Marine Corp emblem on Michael's uniform. I don't think there was a single word of dialog which stated that he was a Marine. You had to see the logo. I noticed the crossed rifle emblem on his uniform. This signifies 0700 Infantry. I don't think there is a single line of dialog in the movie which stated that Michael was an Infantry Captain. You had to see the logo. Being a Marine Infantry captain in WWII means being on the beach and in the jungle. The year is 1946, signifying the end of WWII. The implication is strong that Michael fought the Japanese. The life of the Marine Infantry fighting the Japanese in WWII was absolutely brutal. If Michael was a decorated war hero, you can be assured that he saw murderous combat.

Noticing these things, it becomes obvious why Michael would make a much better and tougher wartime Don than his brother Sonny. He is the one who has seen the real shit. He is the only family member to wage real war. He has seen and done things most Mafia thugs can't imagine. The intellectual power needed to graduate from Harvard doesn't hurt Michael any either. This unassuming, humble, and squeaky clean guy is a facade. He makes his other brothers look weak and stupid in comparison. Once his family survival instincts are flipped on, Michael becomes a terrifying force to reckon with.

It is great to see this movie restored on Blu-Ray. You should see this. My one and only bitter complaint about this disc is that they were unable to come up with a state-of-the-art 5.1 surround mix for the movie. The Godfather was recorded in 100% pure mono. There are no source tracks left for remixing. They were able to digitally sample the sound track at 24/96 and put that on 6 channels, but what you are hearing is always mono sound.

Logan's Run and the Blu-Ray effect

Logan's Run is a SciFi movie released in 1976 starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter. I was 9 going on 10 when it came out. I remember it well. I was a big-time Trek fan, so my folks usually sent me off to see most of the new SciFi movies. I can't tell you I was totally thrilled by the movie, as it had some obvious narrative potholes which even a 10 year old could figure out. Still, the movie developed a big following and got turned into a rather dreadful TV series which did not last long. That one died like the Planet of Apes series did.

Last night, Logan's Run arrived at my mailbox on Blu-Ray. It was sent to me my Netflix of course. I stashed it my queue only because I wanted to see how well the re-master would turn out. It turns out that they did a very nice job with the conversion. My biggest gripe about the disk is that they did not do a full DTS-HD Master Audio sound track for the movie. This makes a huge difference for anyone with even modest audio hardware.

Strangely enough, it turns out that I liked the movie better than I thought I would at this age. Issues of mortality and renewal are not that well appreciated by a 9 year old. The movie still has those dreadful narrative potholes I mentioned before. They are definitely still evident.

In short, the movie gets off to a flying start introducing you to their rendition of the 23rd century. It is a Utopia with fly in the ointment. Mankind lives only for pleasure in this society, but you only get to live 30 years. In your 30th year, you must go on Carousel which is a thrilling zero gravity ride that ends when your body explodes, as everyone in the audience cheers for you to Renew. That is, reincarnate in a new body.

It is obvious how the economics of this Utopia work. By maintaining an exclusively young population, you avoid all the medical costs associated with aging, costs that I myself and just becoming familiar with at 43 (after two knee surgeries). Geriatric care is a massive drain our on collectively resources. If you could avoid that, you would make an abundance of resources available for other purposes. I myself would not have needed any surgeries if I had died 13 years ago on Carousel.

It is a little interesting for a former 9 year old kid to watch this same movie at the age of 43 and realize that he would now be 13 years older than anyone in this civilization. It boggles the mind to think that you would be the most experienced, the most veteran, the most elder member of such a society if you showed up on their doorstep. It is hard to believe that it has been 34 years already.

The dreaded narrative potholes begin when Logan 5 receives special mission order 033-03 from the mainframe computer. He is ordered to penetrate the city seals, seek and destroy Sanctuary, and account for the 1056 unaccounted for runners who seemed to have escaped the system. Logan's life-clock is "retrogrammed" to indicate that he is approaching Last Day, when he should have 4 years left. Logan 5 makes a series of unwarranted saltations, big illogical leaping inferences, based on zero information from the computer. Now he is only 26 years old, so you can expect him to be a bit unreasonable. Still, those jumps are quite unwarranted, and they are critical to the entire course of action he chooses for the rest of this movie.

Still, I did find myself enjoying this movie more than I did when I was a kid. However, I have to give the major credit to Blu-Ray & HDTV. As per usual, Blu-Ray is so much more immersive and cinematic that it makes even weaker movies seem stronger. Dave's law says that Blu-Ray adds 10 points to the score of any movie, regardless of how weak or how strong. If you have a movie that scores 80/100 in the theater, it will be 90/100 at home on Blu-Ray. This is the Blu-Ray effect.

One little illustration for you: Just a week or two ago, my brother & my cousin Nick came over for a showing Inglorious Basterds. The first words out Nick's mouth were the following "It looks so much better than it did in the theater! When are the theaters going to get HD?" I had to chuckle on that one. They need 4K (at least) for the kind of screens sizes they employ, and they are working hard on it.

About 40 minutes into the movie, my brother declared that he was enjoying the film a hell of a lot more than he did in the theater. He saw it in Denmark, during the summer, when his band was on tour in Europe. The Danish used Danish captions, which made it tough for him to follow the French & German parts. He also mentioned that he thought it looked and sounded a lot better at home.

So the moral of the story is as follows: Check out a few movies you remember as marginal, just as soon as they become available on Blu-Ray. You might be impressed to see how much better they are.

If you are a Netflix subscriber, you know Blu-Ray is hot... unfortunately

Well, I just looked at my Netflix queue a few moments ago to see if they sent me any of the latest releases. Drat! Fucked again! They sent me some second tier stuff. I did not get Surrogates, or Gamer. I am a long-term Blu-Ray renter too! Since the very beginning!

Now whenever I scan down the list of most desirable Blu-Ray releases I see nothing but "Long Wait" and "Very Long Wait". It used to be that I score all the new releases within days of the release. Now you won't see one for a month or longer. This really sucks. What happened?

It's pretty clear that Netflix is suffering a resource allocation issue. They are not buying enough copies of the Blu-Ray to supply their renters. Presuming that this is a smart company, and I think they are, why do you think they've fucked up the resource procurement end? Probably because there are a ton of new subscribers applying pressure to the system. The N00Bs are probably screaming for Blu-Rays as well.

Blu-Rays are still very pricey to buy, and you can understand why everybody purchasing a new HDTV & Blu-Ray player falls in love with the media immediately. Everything else pales in comparison. Netflix is one of the few places you can go where you can (theoretically) rent absolutely anything that has been released on Blu-Ray.

All of this tells me we are drawing nearer ever nearer to the mythical crossover-point where Blu-Ray becomes the user standard, and DVD becomes the obsolete object of scorn. Most folks I know, hate to even plug in a DVD. Netflix needs to recognize this and start supplying the house accordingly.

So Blu-Ray sales just took off, aye?

So the Yahoo! Tech section is reporting the Blu-Ray sales shot through the frickin' roof this Black-Friday. We are talking about both players and media. I am not surprised. What is behind this sudden spike in Blu-Ray? I think collective knowledge has grown. This is at least as important as the recent drops in Blu-Ray player and media prices.

1. Adoption of HDTV is hitting critical mass. Believe it or not, we are just now reaching a cross over point where most households have at least one HDTV. We should have hit this point by the end of 2007, but on-rushing economic turmoil delayed the moment. This cross-over point is critical to Blu-Ray adoption because you cannot enjoy Blu-Ray without an HDTV.
2. The market seems to realize now that DVD is low def (720 X 480 pixels) and that Blu-Ray is high-def (1920 X 1080 pixels). Right up until a few months ago, I have been consistently horrified by how many people were totally ignorant of the basic facts of resolution.
3. The market seems to be learning that streaming media is lower in quality than DVD, not higher in quality than DVD. Streaming media cannot carry the weight of Blu-Ray's jockstrap in terms of quality. Ergo, streaming media is no solution for the HDTV owner, who wants his prize possession to look its absolute best.
4. The market seems to be realizing that On-Demand is not particularly convenient, not cheap in absolute or relative terms, and the quality does not rival Blu-Ray.

Once all of these factors are understood by the market place, you have a large pool of pent-up demand that is ready to snap at a sizable price drop, just like the ones we saw on Black-Friday 2009.

To all you guys who just joined the club: Welcome! You are going to like things here. It is much better than the old world. Martin Scorsese and hundred other film makers have been totally thrilled by how well Blu-Ray presents their work. I think you will be too!

Blade 1: One of the most slipshod Blu-Rays I have ever seen

So, I just cracked open my copy of Blade 1. I bought it. I am a big fan of the movie. I saw it on the occasion of my 32nd Birthday at the theater. I was dragged out by friends. Man was I surprised! I loved it. I was shocked to find myself thinking that Bruce Lee finally had a successor, and he was Wesley Snipes. This was the first financially sucessful comic book conversion from Marvel House. Everything before it had failed, both artistically and financially.

So you can imagine my dismay when I found a slipshod Blu-Ray in my package:

1. 25GB single layer
2. No Extras. No behind the scenes. No interviews. No nothing.
3. No English subtitles. Some of us are hard of hearing.
4. 17 MBits of video bandwidth. 30mbits to 35 is more common these days.
5. We do have a rather nice DTS which is uncompressed at 1.5 Mbits. They should have offered us 24/96 DTS-HD Master Audio
6. Only English and French. No Spanish. Some of us have Spanish-speaking relatives.

Well... look on the bright side. It is 1080p. We do have an uncompressed English sound track, at a minimum quality level. We do have fairly decent picture. This squashes any of the shitty DVD releases they did of the movie.

Still, Blade was the first successful Marvel property. It is a fine piece of work. It deserves better treatment than this.

The latest poll on Blu-Ray

http://blogs.zdnet.com/home-theater/?p=1075

So, this blog indicates that the so-called extinct format of HD-DVD is still outselling Blu-Ray.

The way this piece is written is troublesome. You should never exclude PS3 from the coverage of Blu-Ray player sales. I have no clue in the world why any rational empirical investigator would ever do such a thing, except out of pure study bias. You want to show poor uptake for Blu-Ray, so you exclude the top selling player. The primary function of the PS3 is Blu-Ray playback. Truth be told, it is a distant 3rd place as a game console. People like me seldom play games on our PS3s. We use them because they are the most advanced media consoles on the market. Nothing beats PS3 as a media player.

Nevertheless, this blog does eventually put a grip on the real issue. The poll at the bottom indicates that 41% of the people surveyed believe Blu-Ray movies are too expensive. I would qualify that in with the following tag: to buy and to rent. The cheapest Blu-Ray disks are about $9.99 on the shelf at Frys. These are Universal/NBC/SciFi channel made for Cable TV movies. That is, this is not sort of material videophiles desire in the first place. The more normative price, even when sharply discounted, is around $25. With tax or shipping (hopefully not both) it's $27.

In sharp contrast, the full spectrum of HD-DVDs {which is a very short spotty list indeed} can be had for less than $10. Most can be had for $7.99. This includes some damn good stuff. The whole first season of Battlestar Galactica can be had for $10.00. I can get The Sting for $7.99. I can have the Bourne movies for the same price.

There is a serious lesson here for Hollywood. Drop your prices and they will buy it. For some unseemly reason, Hollywood seems hopelessly fixated on the $30 price point. I understand their logic and it is utterly defeated by the realities of the market. Studios believe you should be willing to pay $30 per Blu-Ray. More than 3 people will watch it, in all likelihood. You can see it as often as you like. It kills both DVD and the theater experience. Since tickets cost about $10 per seat, why wouldn't you buy the movie at $30?

1. Perhaps we are not willing to buy until we know we like the film
2. That means we saw it at the theater at a high cost.
3. Maybe we make far less money than Hollywood thinks.
4. Maybe Hollywood produces cash at such a vastly different level of scale that they have lost all touch with typical Midwestern average people.

In any case, accept what the market is telling you, oh Hollywood studios. Make $11.99 the top price for any Blu-Ray. Sell many more at $8.99. Watch the system take off and fly.

One thing I want to insist on: If you can't tell the difference between a Blu-Ray and a DVD, you are vision impaired. Seek Lasik vision correction now. You have some real problems. If you say there isn't much quality difference between a DVD and Blu-Ray, you are just plain damn wrong. You can be mathematically discredited very quickly. Further, I can run a controlled experiment that will embarrass you. Of course, we know these kinds of statements, challanging Blu-Ray's undisputable quality, amount to thinly veiled sour grapes.

Of course there is the possibility that you connected a PS3 to a plain old fashioned NTSC CRT. If you did this, you are just a plain old flaming fucktard, and there is nothing I can do to help you.

Quick checkup on the Top-10 Blu-Rays I am looking forward too

Some 90 days ago I, I posted a blog regarding the Top 10 movies I was looking forward to buying on Blu-Ray. For the record, those movies were:

1. The Incredibles
2. The Exorcist
3. The Minority Report
4. Dr. Strangelove
5. Braveheart
6. Aliens
7. True Lies
8. Star Wars
9. South Park
10. Escape from New York

So how has the past Quarter treated me?

1. The Incredibles (No word on a release Date)
2. The Exorcist (No word on a release Date)
3. The Minority Report (No word on a release Date)
4. Dr. Strangelove (Just released yesterday)
5. Braveheart (No word on a release Date)
6. Aliens (No word on a release Date)
7. True Lies (No word on a release Date)
8. Star Wars (No word on a release Date)
9. South Park (No word on a release Date)
10. Escape from New York (There is such a thing in Australia)

So, some of the most entertaining movies of all time continue to languish on the shelf whilst abosolute shit like Anaconda, Dark Blue, Fletch, Baby on Board, Norbit, Rockers, and Friday the 13th get a Blu-Ray release this very month of June 2009.

Sometimes you just gotta wonder. Just what the hell is the prioritization system like in Hollywood. How the hell do you make up your mind about what to release? Is it just the crap that the studios own? Are we lacking The Minority Report and The Incredibles because the respective authors of the works have too many points of residual income?

I think that is how it works. Absolute stink-o, stenchy, wet, running, fly-swarmed doggy caca like the 4th sequel to The Planet of the Apes can already be found on Blu-Ray on the shelf at Frys. The reason is that Fox owns all the points on that product. Every last penny is pure profit for the corp. Big or small, they get it all. I just want you corporate suits to know this: You suck. I hate you, and not because your beautiful.

Just why is George Lucas lollygaging about an HD release anyhow? His stuff has been in HD release on the cable channels for more than 2 years now. I have seen the high-def implementation of The Minority Report on TNT and it looks terrific. Just pop in on a Blu-Ray, why won't you? I would have traded Star Trek 1 and Star Trek 5 for Braveheart and True Lies, wouldn't you?

Dr. Strangelove arrives

With some joy and some trepedation, I read that Dr. Strangelove was released just yesterday. Don't ask me how they managed to ambush me with this one. I must have been busy. I am glad to see this movie released. The early reviews are mixed. Some love the transfer and audio quality. Some don't. The original had a mono soundtrack, just like Dirty Harry. Now the Blu-Ray has been give a lush 5.1 surround mix. Some love it. Others are acting as if the tribal gods have been offended.

One reviewer praised the graininess of the black and white transfer. He said it is very film-like. Others express disapointment that the studio did not do a better job cleaning the 4K transfer. The good news is that there was a 4K transfer. I promised to deal with 4K, and I haven't forgotten that promise.

A blanced reading of these reviews would suggest the following:

• This is the best release of Dr. Strangelove ever
• It completely avoids the ghastly & dastardly errors of past DVD and VHS editions.
• There are deep-nasty visual blems in the old print. Those have not been entirely scrubbed out by our fully-modern visual effects firms. Expect blems.
• The audio is good. Better than ever. It is not what Kubrick intended, but he would not be offended.

Anyhow, Hollywood needs to go to work. Spare us some of the recently released rubbish. Spare us the Woodstock rubbish. Spare us some of those dastardly 4th and 5th rancid sequels. Release some of the great stuff from the past.

You HDTV is just a TV without Blu-Ray

It's funny... I went to Fry's this morning to buy a portable hard disk. My pal Joe bought my iMac, so I need to off-load some stuff. I don't have any disks formatted in Fat32. Networking Windows 7 and Mac OS 10.5 is a bitch.

So I went to Fry's. There at the front-entrance is a big booth and sales campaign stating "Your HDTV is just a TV without Blu-Ray". That's a good campaign! I like it. I totally agree with that statement, and it is very well said.

It bothers me to no end when I go into one of these restaurants that have just invested in a nice new shinny HDTV and see a distorted squashed SD signal on that screen. This just happened last night at Poquito Mas. There we were, watching Cleveland and Orlando play basketball on a brand new 1080p 55inch Vizio. The players were squashed and picture was pixelated. What a shame!

Most of you folks don't seem to know or understand that you don't get the goods out of an HDTV unless you change your signal. You don't seem to understand that DVD contains only 216,000 pixels per frame in 16x9 letterbox mode. You don't seem to understand that Blu-Ray contains 2,073,600 pixels in that same 16x9 mode. That is a 960% increase in resolution. You don't seem to understand that there is a difference between a 622% to 960% increase in resolution 100% of the time. Conversely, the DVD contains only 10.4% of the resolution of a Blu-Ray. This is a massive differential. If you can't tell the difference, you are vision impaired. Go get lasik.

It should be noted that Blu-Ray has been custom tailored to perfectly match your 1080p HDTV. Displaying 216,000 pixels on a screen designed to display 2,073,600 pixels sucks. Ergo DVD on a HDTV sucks, period. What about upscaling? I have the best upscaling DVD player in the world. It is the Playstation-3. This is par for the course. They best upscaling DVD players are always Blu-Ray players. As the proud owner of the best upscaling DVD player in the entire world, I can tell you I would rather see the Blu-Ray every single time. DVD is a last resort.

HD-DVD players can do this trick also, but they have been surpassed of late. They ceased advancement more than a year ago.

It should be noted that the audio difference Blu-Ray and DVD is quantum. DVD does audio on the basis of 16 bit integer sampling. That's pretty good. It is CD quality. Blu-Ray can do 24 bit integer sampling. How big is that difference? It is the difference between 65,535 and 16,777,216. If you make $65,535 bucks a year, you're doing okay. If you make $16,777,216 per year, you are one rich bastard. A lot of studios, particularly LionsGate, do 24 bit almost exclusively these days. DTS-HD Master Audio is awesome.

So what the hell is the objection? Why the hell would anyone dis this concept? Why would you reject a vastly superior product?

I find that there are two answers. One comes from the lower class. The other comes from the upper middle class.

The lower class rejects this technology claiming they can't see or hear the difference, but this is nothing but sour grapes. The reality is that they cannot afford a $300 device. Most still haven't bought an HDTV in the first place. Getting a 5.1 surround with HDMI is out of the question. DVD's just became affordable two years ago when they hit the $99 point. Some members of the lower class had to pay that off in three monthly installments. I don't intend to insult you if you make a total household income of $40,000 and have 3 kids to raise. That is a tough budget assignment. You have my sympathy. However, you should be honest. You know Blu-Ray destroys DVD... if you have ever seen it.

Some members of the upper middle class reject Blu-Ray claiming this is a crass attempt by Hollywood to re-sell you all of the same movies you have already purchased before. I understand this complaint. I too feel that there is a bit of truth to this complaint. I did buy some of my favorite movies on DVD. I have replaced some of them (Road Warrior, Bladerunner, Dark City, The Thing, Being There, etc.) with nice new shiny Blu-Rays. I am passing along the DVDs to friends and family as I replace them. Still there is no question that the Blu-Ray utterly crushes the life out of the DVD. Dark City never enjoyed a good release before Blu-Ray. Bladerunner also had some moderate to poor releases. This new Blu-Ray is astounding. I am not bitter or upset about getting vastly better copies of my favorite movie. On the contrary, I am delighted. It is irrational to be otherwise.

However, one key point should be noted: I never went hog wild for DVD. It took me a long time to sign on with DVD. DVD did nothing to replace the TV recording function of the VHS. This was a huge missing feature. I did not feel that rentals warranted a $500 initial investment. PS2 eventually got me into the clan, but not for several years. Also, I fully understood that DVD was just a transitional format. DVD is not HD and never has been. We were already talking about an HD revolution in 2001. I knew there would be something better soon.

It astounds me to see how many upper-middle class gentlemen with good graduate degrees, great jobs ($200K plus) and a good investment portfolio absolutely missed these key points. They went hog wild for DVD and bought as many as 2,000 movies in this format. I don't understand that investment at all. Why did you do that? Did you not know that HD was coming? Did you not know that DVD was just plain-old NTSC standard definition? Did you not know that a much larger container and more powerful device would be necessary to push 2 million pixels and quantum audio improvements? Why did you run after DVD like that?

Naturally, if you bought 2,000 DVD movies at around $12 per pop (average over time) you spent about $24,000 USD. You won't appreciate the fact that this investment is now obsolete and vastly better copies can be had. It makes you feel stupid. It makes you feel like you have been had.

I don't know what to tell you. You fucked up. Blu-Ray is still the best there is. Everybody aught to have one.

One of my best old bosses recently sent me an eMail asking the following question: "So have you heard about the coming Super HD revolution? What are you going to do with all those Blu-Rays when the Super HD Blu appears on the market?"

He was trying to get me to see it his way. He bought 3,000+ DVDs. His catalog is posted online. He likes to boast about it.

Yes indeed, there is something on the wind right now. Super HD is indeed on the way, but I don't want to get my hopes up just yet. I would love to see 8 megapixel screens. I would love to shoot 8 megapixel videos. I would love to buy a Super HD Blu. I can't wait. Unfortunately, I think Hollywood may disappoint me.

So it seems that the press is turning around on the subject of Blu-Ray

Well, well, well, it's about time.  I was just reading the New York Times, and it seems that Eric Taub is getting enthusiastic about Blu-Ray.  He found the nuts to go against the prevailing gainsayers in the media.  This is the biggest news blog yet to come out in support of Blu-Ray.

At the same time, media pundits have noted that Blu-Ray movie sales have doubled from a year ago.  Also, the industry claims it will ship 12 million new Blu-Ray players in 2009.  Somebody even noticed that Blu-Ray acceptance is well ahead of where DVD was at the same point in both of their life-cycles, despite the massive bite of the Great Recession.  Some estimates claim that sales rates will triple current numbers 2010.  Ergo 2010 should be the cross-over point where DVD becomes legacy material, like VHS, and Blu-Ray becomes the standard.

I am pleased.  This is part of a larger trend.  More and more experts and consumers are questioning what they have been told by so-called experts in regard to Blu-Ray.  They are having a hard time squaring their experiance with the twisted tales of a mis-begotten technological misfit, favorited by a small cult of fans, doomed to an early death.  Many are making noises that sound something like this:  "Jesus!  What the fuck were you bastards smoking when you reached that preposterous conclusion?"

For about 4 years now, predicting the failure of Blu-Ray has been an ultra-fashionable thing among would-be experts.  It has been functionally good, as it has placed great pressure on Sony and Samsung to cut the cost of ownership.  One might even argue that predicting the failure of Blu-Ray has been an underhanded way to insist upon price cuts.

Still, there have been persistent blithering idiots who have popped up on the net saying foolish things like "I can't tell the difference between a DVD and Blu-Ray" or worse "There is not much difference between a DVD and Blu-Ray".  In the first case, you could be vision impaired, so your statement might be accurate.  In the second case, you are absolutely and completely wrong, and it is easy to mathematically prove.  If you think there isn't much difference, you have neither seen a Blu-Ray, nor studied it.  Ah-hem...  Let me try this another way.  If you weren't suffering from sour grapes, you would be honest and say "It's great, but I just can't afford it."

For the first time, it would appear that mainstream media is beginning to test Blu-Ray seriously. Gone are the foolish claims that DVD can compete with Blu-Ray.  Those claims have finally been thrown out of court.   Now the NYT has investigated the claims of Video On Demand (VOD) firms also.  Guess whay they found?

1. VOD firms don't offer much HD
2. When they do, it is 720p
3. The encoding of said 720p pretty well sucks.  Maybe its better than SD, but...
4. We don't have enough bandwidth to get constant 720p without jerks.
5. Or maybe they don't have enough bandwidth to serve-up constant 720p without jerks
6. I don't like running an Ethernet cable to my TV.
7. I don't like having a computer in my entertainment system.
8. Blu-Ray seems to crush VOD in terms of quality.

In a nutshell, this what they are starting to say now.  It's about time they figured this out.  

I learned most of these things 2 years ago.  Nothing has been able to change my mind since.  I tried the most recent incarnation of the Apple TV recently.  While better than all VOD solutions before it, it still sucks.  Blu-Ray absolutely destroys Apple TV.  I am talking about a total-annihilation demolition.  It is the defeat the dimensions of which Apple has never experienced:  A route from which no honor can be salvaged.  I returned the unit to Fry's electronics.  It wasn't worth owning.

Allow me to make a positive case for Blu-Ray.  My family members, friends and I have come to the conclusion that a Blu-Ray image, when displayed on a high quality large screen, is so compelling we find it difficult to summon the motivation to go to the theater anymore.  The images we see on the big silver screen seem dark, drab, lifeless, colorless, undetailed and soft (meaning unfocused) in comparison to the razor sharp, detailed, colorful pictures we see at home.  The movie always looks better at home.  The movie never looks better at the theater.  There is a wide gulf too.  This is not a small or marginal victory.  We are talking about a 38-10 route.

When watching incredible Blu-Rays like Wall-e, or No Country for Old Men, or Sin City, I have frequently asked myself the following questions:

1. How thrilled were the authors of this movie when they first saw it on Blu-Ray?  They must have been ecstatic.  To see your creation preserved and presented in such an astounding format must be extremely gratifying.
   
2. How long is going to be before the movie theaters realize they are being completely outclassed by home theaters?
   
3. How long is going to take before studios realizes that they should not optimize for the movie theater, but rather for the home theater?  Movies should not be shot in 24fps or on film anymore.  They should be shot at 60p on digital.  You are only in the movie theater for 3-6 weeks.  You will be on Blu-Ray [or something better] forever.  Optimize for your true distribution channel.  Forget the glamor vector.
   

There are plethora of other benefits to watching the movie on Blu-Ray.  You can talk about the movie if you want to.  You can eat your favorite popcorn, and you can have it your way, cheap.  You can drink any damn thing you want, and it is cheaper than the theater.  You can hit pause and go to the bathroom.  You don't have to miss parts of the film.  You can start whenever you want to start.  You can watch with the subtitles on if you are hearing impaired.  None of these things have anything to do with fundamental image and sound, but they are very nice bonuses.

The Samsung UN-55B7000

Guess what? I sold my old Samsung HL-S6187W this week. It was tough saying goodbye to that good old friend. I was very sad as I drove it to its new home in my Toyota Tundra. This all took place on Wednesday April 15 around 8:30 PST. Nevertheless, I followed through and completed the deal.

Naturally, this begat a frantic search for its successor. In 72 hours there were many twists and turns, frustrations and angers, and a couple of shocking discoveries. I will give you the serious low down on my technological discoveries in the next blog. I have a few sharp point to pass on to you in this short blog:

1. LED LCD has now surpassed classical DLP in terms of image quality. This could never be said before. Right now, both the internet and the major HDTV vendors are ablaze with excitement over the new Samsung B7000 series LED LCD HDTVs. They should be. This unit now offers the finest picture quality of anything on the market... at least until the B8000 hits the streets in about 1 month. That is no joke. The B8000 is scheduled to arrive inside one month.

2. The bizzare co-inky-dink is that the worlds thinnest 55inch LCD also happens to be the television with the highest image quality on the market today. This has never been true before this moment. Thin HDTVs uniformly sacrificed image quality for skinny looks, until now. Somehow, Samsung cut the Gordian Knot. They somehow packed the best picture into the thinnest form factor. It should be noted that CNET already has ranked The Samsung B7000 series as the #2 most desirable HDTV behind the Pioneer Elite Kuro, which is now defunct and discontinued. I guess that makes my HDTV the defacto #1.

3. To set the whole deal on fire, the UN-55B7000, which is the 55 inch implementation, can be had for a mere $3200 at Fry's electronics this weekend. That is $600 below retail price. How about no shipping or installation charges? Just drive 1 mile and get it now? I'll play the sales tax this time.

4. Not impressive enough? How about the fact that they will toss in a $300 Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-Ray player for free? Basically, this means you can have the world's finest 55inch thin flat for approximately $2,900.00. Shocking! This size in this form factor couldn't be touched for less than $5000 just 6 months ago. The price has fallen $2100, seemingly overnight, and the quality has gotten much better. Thanx Gordon Moore! You're doing one hell of job!

Naturally this was all too much for me to resist. I made the deal today, April 18, 2008 at about 3:00pm. The deal was cinched at Fry's electronics in Woodland Hills, just 1 mile from my apartment. It is already setup and tuned up. I have been tuning it all evening with the help of my favorite channel: The NFL network. I have just about all the team jersies, I know all the team colors intimately. Ergo this is the best place to go for color, brightness, contrast and noise calibration.

LCD is a shock to the system. The character and quality of the picture is entirely different from what most people are accustomed too. Most of us grew up watching movies on Cathode Ray Tubes and on theater projectors. DLP has all of these qualities and improves upon them. This is why high-end theaters such as the Archlight use DLP projectors. This is why many of us have found DLP to be the most pleasing movie experiance over the past several years.

As a people and a generation, we not accustomed to the look of LCD. Liquid Crystal has a totally different character from the CRTs and projection systems we grew up with in the theater and at home. It looks quite different from my old and trusted friend, the DLP. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I didn't quite like it at first. It is like the difference between eatting off a clay plate and an aluminum plate. Either way you eat, but you are conditioned to expect clay. Aluminum is better and more durable, but we have been conditioned to expect clay.

If there is a problem with this television it is found in hyper-accuracy. An old friend of mine, Ryan the Sheepdog, used to listen to his music through studio reference quality Tannoy monitors. These are the sort of studio monitors Quincy Jones would be happy to use when producing an album by Stevie Wonder. The sound was astounding. He paid a small fortune for them ($8000). Ryan used to say that the problem with these speakers is that they would sound off every flaw and every blemish in the audio signal. They were hyper-accurate. They were almost too accurate.

Well folks, the Samsung UN-55B7000 is a lot like that. If you have a flawed video signal, it will look like shit on the UN-55B7000. The DLP was much more forgiving. If you have a sensational picture, it is going to look mesmerizing and astounding on the UN-55B7000. It looks much better than on the DLP. This became crystal clear in the first hour of watching the HDTV.

Let me tell you about my experiance.

The NFL network was showing a documentary called The Top 10 Power Backs when I powered-up my new HDTV for the first time. Like all such historicals, this documentary was a hoge-podge of very old and decrepid footage, as well as very recent and high quality images. The decrepit stuff looks like utter shit on the UN-55B7000. I found this very disconcerting, and I was on the verge of a serious disappointment.

Then I discovered TBN was showing the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy back-to-back in true high definition. They were on the final leg of Return of the King when I first tuned in. Frodo was about to enter the Crack of Doom. It was pretty damn amazing. This was the first moment when the disappointment began to abate, and I started to get happy.

It just so happens that the NFL network was also re-broadcasting Super Bowl XLIII at the same time. This was our most recent Super Bowl, the Steelers vs. Cardinals. Of course, no expense was spared in broadcasting and recording this even. The signal is as good as an it gets in today's world. I flipped channels back and forth and kept calibrating. It looked pretty great right away, but there were problem. I did need to adjust the 120Hz motion smoothing. The factory settings did a lot of weird things to the slow motion instant replays. I finally decided on a custom setting of 7 for blur control and 7 for jitter control. None of the factory presets worked well for me. The jitters were very disturbing at first, but they are now under control. I recommend these settings to my fellow football fans.

Finally, it came time for a Blu-ray, arguably my favorite toy. Most friends and family members would have expected me to do this first, but I really wanted to calibrate with the NFL network before moving on to the Blu-ray. What I saw was pretty shocking. This was the moment when the UN-55N7000 convinced me that it was actually better (not just more fashionable) than my old HL-S6187W. This was the moment when two-reps of the Moore's Law became blindingly apparent. When they talk about dark inky blacks, they are understating the case. When they speak of butter-smooth imagery, they are understating the case. When they speak of razor sharp super-detailed images, they are utterly falling short of reality. The sharpness and detail is beyond belief. When they speak of dazing color, they are pretty much on track.

I have been an advocate of Blu-Ray for about two years now. I used to tell people that the difference between Blu-ray and HD Satellite is equivalent to the difference between DVD and Cable. Cable looks good. DVD looks better. Likewise (I used to say) HD Satellite looks good, Blu-ray looks better. Well folks, I am going to have reformulate that statement. That just doesn't give Blu-ray enough credit. It falls short by a long shot. The difference between HD Satellite and Blu-Ray is pretty sick. It is much, much greater than the difference between Cable and DVD. Blu-Ray makes DirectTV's HD package look poor by comparison. That is no joke. Give it a try on this HDTV and see for yourself.

If you are planning to get the UN-55B7000, you better get it this weekend at Fry's. They will toss in the Blu-Ray player for free. If you have not yet been exposed to Blu-Ray, you are going to have an absolute freak-out experience. You will know why the movie lovers, particularly profession movie critics, just love Blu-ray to death. If you already bought this TV and don't have a Blu-ray, you are missing out on the finest thing your investment has to offer you.

Top 10 Blu-Ray releases I am looking forward too

So I thought I would take time out from commenting on our sorry economic state and write a blog entry on one of my favorite subjects: Blu-Ray. For those of you who don't know yet, Blu-ray is everything it is cracked up to be and some. Some ardent DVD collectors are not pleased that there collections are outdated, and some pirates are not pleased that it is difficult to rip and trade these disks, but if you rent them or buy them (and I do both) you will love them. A 622% increase in resolution, extension of the color space, and quantum improvements in the audio stream make the Blu-Ray experience better than going to the theater... If you have a nice large screen... preferably a DLP.

So, as the format is just a little more than 2 years old, many many great titles are as yet unavailable. Since I have faint hopes somebody in the big-5 studios may pass by this page, I thought I would publish my wishlist.

1. The Incredibles: With all due respect to Wall-e, which is a masterpiece, I still think the Incredibles is the greatest movie Pixar has ever made. It is my favorite movie of all time, and it is a damnable shame that this movie is not yet out on Blu-ray. Disney needs to get this out on the double-quick time.
2. The Exorcist: With all due respect to John Carpenter's Halloween, many will tell you that the Exorcist is the greatest horror film of all time. I am in this camp. The Exorcist DVD stinks. Warners did not do a good job on the digital master. This movie has never enjoyed a good release for the home viewer. A major restoration project should be undertaken here, and a reference quality master should be created.
3. The Minority Report: Not a big fan of Steven Spielberg, I hate Tom Cruise and everything he stands for, and I believe Colin Ferrel only gets parts because he is a dirty bisexual bastard who sleeps with anything. With that said, I love this movie. Along with Schindler's List, it is Spielberg's finest work. It is another Philip K. Dick masterpiece perfectly communicated on the screen. I just noted that TBS presented a true HD version of this film this weekend, which means the Blu-ray cannot be far away. Incidentally, the HD master TBS showed looked fantastic. The movie could have been vastly improved by replacing Tom Cruise with Mel Gibson and Colin Ferrel with Liam Neeson.
   
4. Dr. Strangelove: I regard Dr. Strangelove as the greatest film of all time. No equivocations. Sorry Copola, sorry Orson Wells, sorry Hitchcock. Stanley Kuprick is the greatest director of all time, and this was his greatest masterpiece. Can't say enough good things about it. It is also the finest work in Peter Sellar's stellar career. Like so many older films, a major restoration project will have to be undertaken to restore this film and make a perfect reference master. Still, this must be done, and the sooner the better.
   
5. Braveheart: We've been waiting entirely too long for this one. I don't know what is holding up the show. When I left the theater after seeing this one in 1995, I was convinced I had seen the great film ever made. No film ever more justly won the Best Picture award. Time and historical inaccuracy have softened my opinion of this film, but it is still one hell of movie classic. It should be out on Blu-Ray by now.
6. Aliens: Probably James Cameron's absolute best movie. No, the Titanic was not his best. Very chicky and deathy, but not his best. This absolutely should be out on Blu-ray. I cannot believe that such a crowd pleaser was not in the first wave of movies release on High-def. I am stunned that it did not come out on HD-DVD immediately, and I am stunned that it still has not arrived on Blu-Ray.
   
7. True Lies: Arnold Schwarzenegger's finest movie. Also one of James Cameron's best movies, and that is saying a hell of a lot. Can anyone offer any explanation as to why this movie is not out on Blu-ray? I don't think any rational explanation exists.
   
8. Star Wars: I am talking about the original, not all the other stuff. Need I make any case for this?
   
9. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. I personally regard this as the funniest movie of all time. Hysterical, pure comedy. Animation of the type Trey Parker and Matt Stone do scales extremely well. so the DVD still looks good when popped into the PS3. Nevertheless, this movie deserves a Blu-Ray.
10. Escape from New York: When I was a young man, there were three science fiction flicks that I liked better than all the others. They were The Road Warrior, and Bladerunner, and Escape from New York. The Road Warrior and Bladerunner have long been on Blu-ray. They look terrific. Escape from New York has not yet appeared. Escape from New York is a grindhouse masterpiece from the greatest grandmaster of the grindhouse: John Carpenter. He's made a lot of my favorite films, but this is close to the top. I would say that only The Thing is better.
    

From whence comes this rubbish about Blu-ray failing?

One of the most persistently irritating aspects of CNET.com is their twice a week habit of publishing prophesies of doom upon Blu-ray. From whence comes all this rubbish?

Does it come from sour grapes? Is Blu-Ray just too expensive for these pee-ons to afford?

Does it come from a long-standing alliance with Microsoft? Let's remember that Microsoft backed the looser in the highdef war: HD-DVD.

Does it come from mis-predicting the outcome of the war? Let's remember CNET told us HD-DVD would win because of price advantages. This multi-component false prophecy yielded multiple black eyes. The entire basis was false. HD-DVD was never really cheaper than Blu-Ray... At least not during the war.

Does it come from the vast amount of traffic they get every time they publish one of these rants? It seems that each time one of these hit-pieces gets published, the item rises to the top of news.google.com. Remember this means page views and click-throughs. That adds up to dollars and cents.

Is it because John C. Dvorak no longer yields this sort of controversy and traffic with anti-Mac hit-pieces, and the revenues he once generated have to be replaced? Let's remember John C Dvorak now uses a Mac. {According to rumor he was offered a Dell or a Mac at his new place of work. The company John hates more than Apple is Dell, so he took the Mac.}

Could it be that they own stock in download firms?

Could it be that it is difficult to rip Blu-Rays and trade them on the Internet (although this is done on Bittorrent).

So just what is the substance of their argument and does it have any merit?

1. A year after HD-DVD died Blu-ray still isn't doing more volume than DVD.
2. Blu-ray players are not selling. (At least the ones that aren't PS3s aren't selling)
3. Blu-ray players are more expensive than upscaling DVD players.
4. Blu-Ray discs are more expensive than DVD disks.
5. Downloads will replace DVD. Blu-Ray will not replace DVD.
6. Apple isn't supporting Blu-Ray as they once said they would.
7. I can't rip my Blu-rays, and watch them on 2.5 inch portable LCD screen, as I can with DVD.

This, in short, is the full case they make against Blu-ray. Each time they post these 7 points, and they do so about twice a week, posters knock each other over to make the usual ripostes.

1. Two years into the format's life span Blu-Ray is way ahead of where DVD was in terms of acceptance.
2. PS3 constitutes 70% to 75% of the total installed base of all Blu-Ray players because it is the finest value in the land. It is the best damn media player in the world... for all types of media. Critics are foolish to expect inferior media players (which are often more expensive) to sell in the face of such tough competition. You cannot simply disregard the PS3 because it is not “A true Blu-Ray player” such an argument is utterly false, fallacious and preposterous.
3. Since Blu-Ray players offer 622% better resolution and quantum improvement in audio, we would expect them to be more expensive than upscaling DVD players. Surely you do not believe that much quality comes for free? Do you really expect a 0.0% difference in marginal price and profits?
4. Diddo for the disk. The disks are too expensive on average, but they are remarkably better.
5. Now we reach the absolute balderdash, poppycock and rubbish. How are we to disinfect the ignorant of their ignorance? It is clear to anyone who understands binary bandwidth issues that HDTV and broadband are a mismatch made in hell. The typical broadband connection carries approximately 2.5Mbits to your computer. The typical video image stream on Blu-Ray is approximately 24-35 Mbits. Let's call it 10x higher. That's just the video. Then you have the audio stream. For uncompressed PCM, that is another 4.6Mbits. For compressed, but lossless, DTS-HD MA, we're talking about 1.5 to 2.5Mbits. Remember, we're talking about 7.1 surround sound sample at 24 bits and 96Khz in a best case scenario. A typical Blu-ray movie occupies something like 17GB of space. You try downloading 17GB of anything and just see how long it takes. Now you can compress the hell out of the stream, but then you decimate the quality. You can reduce the resolution, but then you aren't offering HDTV. Some people protest that they are downloading their movies right now. I do solemnly assure you that if you are downloading it now, it certainly is not HD. Even the crap Apple is downloading to you is just 720p. What you see on Netflix is standard def 480p. No crap-hounds, I am sorry to inform you that the Blu-Ray spec was designed from scratch to be almost untouchable. Until the mode, mean and median bandwidth in this country hits a brick solid 40Mbits, you are not going to be able to offer a service that streams Blu-Ray quality video through the net. The consumer market just can't handle it. The business model is not workable. Some fools may try, but they will lose lots and lots of money. Certainly FIOS has the potential to yield Blu-Ray bandwidth. How soon will FIOS become ubiquitous? With the current recession, project 10 years. That is a nice, long happy life span for Blu-Ray to prosper and become the institutionalized standard. If media tech writers understood anything about binary bandwidth, they would not embarrass themselves by stating that downloads will supersede Blu-Ray.
6. So Apple is not supporting Blu-Ray as they said they would...? And...? Let us remember that Apple is a very little company after all. A lot of their Macs are being used to run Windows. That's how much market influence they have. Apple wants to sell you 720p movies through Apple TV, a product which is the biggest market failure they have offered in quite some time. Everybody who owns Apple stock knows that AppleTV is not doing well at all on the open market.
7. Point 7 utterly defies logic. Do you really think you can display 1920x1080 pixels on a 320x240 screen? What made you think that HDTV was made for 2.5inch LCD? Truly, some people do not understand the entire concept of HDTV.