JsARCLIGHT

Saint Louis is lousy with Circuit City's... there are three within 20 miles of my house. I can possibly do some running if people need things.

I know a guy who has a whole wall done out with that "screen paint" and it even has a picture frame boarder around it. His projector is suspended from his ceiling above the seating area aiming forward/down. He has all inboard sound so you really see nothing in the room... except for the projector box which looks kind of hinkey... he did his best to "hide" it in plain sight but you can always tell what it is and your eye instantly goes to it in the room. Outside of that his setup is great. I think his screen is 100"+, it takes up a whole freaking wall and it's quite impressive. The overall "picture quality" is debatable but his is a case of size trumping clarity. He has told me the only down side to owning a projector based HD setup is that the thing blows bulbs like three times a year and each bulb is upwards of $400 to replace. Then again I know people with larger DLPs who have had those bulbs blow out on them quite regularly, meeting with similar bills. For me personally the only way to go is LCD or Plasma... sure it limits your overall picture size but it leaves you with the best possible picture you can get.

That's projector size there... which should not cost too much. What it WOULD mean however is that you lose a whole wall to your "screen".

SSDB.

I watched POTC 1 last night and damn... it looks wonderful. I had not seen the movie in it's entirety before, just bits and pieces of it here and there, so this was my first time actually sitting down and watching the whole thing from start to finish. It was kind of goofy but the picture and sound were outstanding. I posted this question in the Xbox thread but I'll post it here as well just in case someone looks here but not there and might know: Has anyone seen how the Xbox 360 "5 Free HD DVDs" deal is going to work? Has anyone seen a "form" online to print out for the offer or is it going to be some obnoxious "pack in form" sort of shenanigans? I aim to buy one on Wednesday when the price drop takes effect (and when the free promo starts) but I want to make sure I get a "legit" one that qualifies for the deal... there are only a handful of places around town here that have any in stock and I fear some sort of magic "new packaging with pack in free movie form" chicanery. Knowing my luck I'm liable to buy an older one that has been a shelf warmer only to find out it doesn't "qualify" for the deal.

Question to anyone who might have seen info on this, I'm planning to get a Xbox 360 HD DVD drive when the price drops to $179 this Wednesday... has anyone seen anything about how the "5 Free HD DVDs by mail" thing is going to work? Everywhere I look I only see mention of the deal, that it is part of Toshiba's already ongoing "Perfect Deal" promo, it will only be good on drives bought between August 1st and September 30th and that it will be a mail in. Outside of that... nothing. So my question is: will this mail in deal be some sort of "pack in" form or will the form be available online? My PS3's free movie deal was an online form that you simply printed, filled out and mailed in with your UPC and a copy of your receipt... I'm hoping this HD DVD thing is the same as I'd really hate to have to track down a "specially marked box" with a form inside it as our local retailers don't exactly stock a lot of these things. At current glance only two Best Buy stores in the area even have any in stock, so this may be a "push and shove" sort of thing come Wednesday and I just want to make sure all that pushing and shoving isn't going to be for naught if I wind up buying one that doesn't have the special magic mail in forms inside of it or the right UPC code.

Well, I finally had a chance to sit down yesterday and re-wire my system to eliminate the ground loop feedback with my new PS3... turns out it was connected "too close" to the connection from my satelite dish box, which... somehow... was creating a slight hum (ground loop feedback). I swapped the HDMI from my sat dish box to the opposite side of my switcher and it eliminated the hum. So last night I forced my wife to sit down and watch a Blu Ray, the choices being Casino Royale or Black Hawk Down she chose the obvious... Bond. On a 42" Plasma in 1080i (this TV was before 1080p was available, I plan to "rectify" that... now that my wife understands what "HD" really is it will make the argument to get a bigger, better 1080p plasma easier) and with full HDMI digial audio into my receiver I have to say that Casino Royale looked BETTER at home than I remember it in the theaters. For the first time I think ever my wife actually said "wow this is a pretty good picture". She, being one of the "there is nothing special about HD, it's just a gimmick to get people to buy new things", finally had to admit that all this money was finally showing good results. It's also quite true that the "broadcast" HD that you see over an over air antenna or over a cable or satellite source definitely IS inferior to direct source video. I don't know why but the Blu Ray playback is vastly superior to many of the pictures I've seen on HD sat channels. I also really like it how the PS3 has "pop up" tags on the top and bottom that show you the codec the movie is using, the audio output it is using, the audio bitrate and the video bitrate... as well as times, tracks and other common display elements. I don't know if this is unique to the PS3 or if all Blu Ray players have this option... I have not seen many players in action to know. Well, I'm off to go buy Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2 tonight to watch them later. POTC 1 is one of the highest rated Blu Ray discs and I'm actually kind of stoked to see what "one of the best" can produce compared to Casino Royale, which by all reviews I've read was "middle of the road".

I have to agree that the GT series computer opponents are extremely cheap. In past iterations of the game I've noticed that the computer routinely "kneecaps" one or two of the racers and makes them extra stupid... they don't actually spin out or crash, they just race slow. Then there are the one or two "invincibles" who hold a near perfect race line and you yourself have to race extremely "clean" in order to beat them... or just overpower them with a stronger car. Actually the thing that pisses me off the most about the computer cars is that they don't seem to suffer from the sharp turns as much as your vehicle does... either that or I just can't DRIFTZ properly in the game. Then again I have a hard time controlling video game cars... there is this complete detachment for me, the lack of inertia and the true "feel" of the car makes me misjudge a lot of stuff in the game (and all car racing games to a good degree). I have no sense of how "fast" I'm going and taking a second to glance down at the spedo is just enough time for me to goof something up and crash... to that degree I always over power my turn entries and wind up doing the hard accel/hard brake/hard accel/hard break driving which results in the computer cars constantly passing me, me overtaking them on the straights then them overtaking me again in the turns.

Well, the region codes are still in effect... they just moved a few things around. Japan and the US are now in the same region with Blu Ray. Blu Ray Region Codes From what I have read HD DVD does not have region coding... but from what I understand reading some trade mags they are going to implement some sort of basic region coding, mostly to lock out China. Right now you can buy international HD DVDs like the Harry Potter HD DVD currently only available in the UK and it will play perfectly fine in your American HD DVD player... which means not only is there no current region coding but there is no NTSC/PAL conversion issue either.

As it stands right now the PS3 is STILL the best deal in Blu Ray. $499, the price of the cheapest standalone player, plus it plays games. And you get 5 free movies by mail through September. Also with the big hubbub about the Blu Ray 1.1 upgrade and other future upgrades of the media I'd think that a PS3 with it's internet capabilities and "patching" capabilities would be the supreme player for "future proofing" your Blu Ray.

The chances of this movie NOT kicking ass are as low as I've ever seen. No cop outs on the cast, no cop outs on the directing or writing and from what I can tell so far no cop outs on the timeline or "lore".

Some of the Blu Ray and HD DVD players I've seen offer DVD playback with upconversion. I won't say that ALL of them do though as I have not looked at many of them.

I was originally looking at those combo players but finally decided they weren't worth their price tags. With the cheapest one being something like a grand you could buy a PS3 and one of those cheap Toshiba HD DVD players for much less and in the end have more options. Those combo options will only become viable when they get their prices down. Now, $500 for a combo player would have had me at hello... but as it stands I'm quite happy with my PS3 purchase. It promises more than a simple player deck, and once I get my HD DVD player for my Xbox I'll have all my bases covered. When one format "wins" I'll just convert over to using just that player entirely.

I keep hearing rumors that damage will either be in game or as a later downloadable upgrade. I also keep hearing that Ferrari will finally be present in GT5 which has always been a glaring omission IMHO. I've also heard rumors that GT5 may include motorcycles as well but I'm filing that one under bullshit until I actually see it myself. But that would be freaking awesome to see supercars get their tailpipes handed to them by superbikes.

Well, really every form of optical media is susceptible to scratches to a large degree. I'd assume that basic common sense and proper handling of your discs will prevent any scratch issues no matter which media you choose. I'm also pretty much on board with buying an Xbox 360 HD DVD drive next week when the price drops and the 5 free HD DVDs offer starts up. I mean, I really can't go wrong with this one. $180 for the player and then the selection of movies doesn't suck like the Blu Ray offer. I'm hoping to get Casablanca, Apollo 13, Sky Captain, U2:R&H and We Were Soldiers. This will then allow me to get all the Universal movies I want like King Kong, Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and others... plus from what I've seen the HD DVD version of "300" is superior to the Blu Ray version due to the inclusion of a bunch of extra HD DVD exclusive features.

Those sales numbers directly show the impact of the PS3 on the fight. The "war" suddenly changed course between November and January 2006 when the PS3 was introduced. It might be interesting to see how the "war" fares with the new announcement by Microsoft of a cheaper Xbox 360 HD DVD player with 5 free movies... then again Sony has it's cheaper PS3 with 5 free movies deal going on at the same time. As it stands right now it would appear to the untrained eye that Blu Ray is pulling away but it will really take this coming holiday season to really see a true "winner" or "loser" in this match up. As it stands now we have both formats sharing several big releases and each side having it's handful of exclusives... with a good number of very important releases still sitting on the sidelines. It makes it hard for someone to "pick a side" in this fight as many movies that people might want are available for both formats but even more have yet to be announced on either format. I think the true tipping point will occur when big studios like Disney/Pixar start putting out their movies (which is supposed to start with CARS in November) as well as other large scale releases from Fox and Paramount. Everyone has that "must have" title that will make them buy one format or the other and I think many of those will be arriving late this year or early next year... and from the sound of things many of them will be format exclusives. I'm fairly confident Blu Ray has this thing in the bag, but you never know... the large peak of BD's success seems to be the PS3, and that kind of puts of crutch onto the format. If the PS3 doesn't fare very well in the coming console war that may reduce Blu Ray just as quickly as it raised it.

Looks like Microsoft is countering the Blu Ray 5 free offer by reducing the price on their HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 by $20 and including it in the Toshiba 5 free HD DVD movies deal. Starting August 1st you can get the new HD DVD drive for $179 and then if purchase between Aug 1st and Sept 31st you can mail in for 5 free HD DVDs... just like the PS3 5 free Blu Rays offer. HD DVD Add on to $179 plus 5 free HD DVD movies Well... looks like I'm going to be buying that HD DVD add on for my Xbox as well!

I'm definitely buying the Blu Ray set, but it sure won't fit onto one disc. If anything they'll keep them to five discs just to get a good wad of cash out of people... plus to keep the packaging as similar as possible. In all seriousness this is like going from famine to feast. I wonder how expensive these sets are going to be? Particularly the Blu Ray set... I'd imagine if the regular DVD set is like $80 then the BD set will be double. What also makes me sad is that all we have had for this wonderful movie for the last like ten years has been this one single shitty legitimate DVD release that I have... with it's crappy clamshell cardboard case and it's wicked double sidedness. Its cheapness sickitates me. Where is that barf smiley? Admittedly I have like four other DVD versions, all bootlegs purchased off of eBay with the different cuts of the movie, but they are all home brew stuff with shoddy quality. Just to be able to see that cityscape over the Vangellis score on my huge ass HDTV in 7.1 surround sound would make me forgive the past sins against this great movie.

I can let you know as soon as I watch it. I was chasing a ground loop feedback through my PS3 hookup last night and didn't get a chance to watch or do much of anything on it. I hope to have it solved tonight though and I plan to watch BHD. All the reviews of the BD I have read rate it very high on picture and sound quality.

In order to keep the PS3 thread "pure" we should move all discussion of next gen HD media movies and music to this thread. This thread should be for any and all discussion of Blu Ray Disc movies, HD DVD movies, SACD, you name it... if it's next gen HD then let's have it here. To start the thread we should list our personal players and collections to start things off. I myself have a PS3 for Blu Ray and only own Casino Royale and Black Hawk Down at the moment. I'm seriously considering the HD DVD add on for my Xbox so I can get Universal movies in HD. Edit: Seeing as HD DVD is going down in flames and this thread serves more than just HD disc media, the title has been changed.

You know, we should move all this to a new Blu Ray / HD DVD thread just because we're hijacking this one. MW Blu Ray / HD DVD thread

I knew the Blade Runner box set was going to be 5 discs but DAMN... tiny briefcase, mini spinner, origami unicorn... where do I sign to start making payments? Seriously that Blade Runner boxed set is going to be like $150.

As long as the physical film holds together as it runs through the machine to be digitized they can clean anything. The initial digitization into an HD master gives it it's starting point. The worse off the film is it just means the more hand labor is needed to manually restore the digitized footage, sometimes frame by frame... which is an insanely expensive and long term job. But it CAN be done, and it almost always results in a beautiful final HD print remaster. I myself don't own the disc but I've seen the HD DVD of Casablanca... it looks like a moving black and white photograph... it had an immaculate cleanup and restoration job. But it's Casablanca... and not RobotJox the movie. A studio will spend millions to restore a "classic" but a low tier shovelware title will just get dumped into digital, compressed and released. Back on the PS3 news I got my PS3 home last night and hooked it up and started downloading GTHD when I noticed something... when my PS3 is hooked up to my system via HDMI cable it creates a noticeable ground loop feedback. I spent half the night trying to find the cause and never got to finish downloading GTHD or even play a Blu Ray movie. I may have to end up getting a second surge suppressor to plug it into. I've never had a ground loop issue with this setup until now.

That is the kind of hokey-ness I was talking about. I know MG has always been pretty darn hokey but as the series progresses it just seems to be getting more and more hokey. I generally enjoy the idea of "stealth assault" game play but it just seems to me the newer MG games are putting more and more emphasis on magical camouflage and ridiculous game play routines ("holdups", distraction items like magazines, magic spotting scopes, etc.) and less and less on the actual tactics of stealth. I know it's "just a video game" but at times the MG bad guys just seem so retarded and the "tactics" employed by snake seem so outlandish that it really takes you out of the game. (And I know I'm going to catch hell from the MG fans for this but) You also know Kojima is going to wax philosophical from his high horse as usual and really "spin a yarn" in this game. Sure the game play looks neat now but how many blocks of verbose, stilted and overly preachy FMV sequences will you have to wait through before you can play those neat sections? IMHO that is what killed the newer MG games for me... I wanted to play an action game, not watch a poorly paced, badly written action movie.

I saw it... I thought it looked good, but hokey. MG lost me as a fan a long time ago and this really won't bring me back. Now, Gran Turismo 5 may be the first PS3 game I buy... it looks kick ass and I can't wait to play GTHD when I get this PS3 home.