JsARCLIGHT

It's been so long since I did a "mail away" freebie bonus that I have no concept of how long it takes for "modern" mail in premiums to show up. The last "mail away" freebie I did was in like 1996 or 1997, that Froot Loops mail away Han Solo storm trooper figure... God I had to eat that nasty cereal to get that thing and it took like three months for it to finally show up. I'm expecting this free Blu ray movies mail in thing to take months to arrive, hence I feel the need to run out and get some movies now.

Most current HD format "shovelware" masters are simply a quick film stock to digital dump (if they don't already have a digital master which was made for DVD) with usually a few filters thrown on in a Nitris to launder their quality a tad before being sent to encoding to be crammed onto a disc with a sub-par codec. A lot of the "grain" that you see in the footage (usually noticeable in the black) is, for lack of a better word, "conversion artifacting". They could reduce of eliminate all that by hand restoring the footage... but they won't. The "you can't improve old movies" saying is untrue. You CAN greatly improve anything shot on film to a near perfect HD transfer... the problem is that studios don't want to invest the time and money in the restoration and remastering for those films because they simply won't sell very well. Why bother spending millions restoring Santa Claus the Movie when only like two people will buy it. Anything shot on decent film from any period can be cleaned, remastered and given an outstanding transfer... a perfect example of this is Casablanca on HD DVD. It is touted as the quintessential example of a perfect restoration and remastering to HD. The problem is that that remastering took a lot of time and money... two things a studio will usually never agree to. It's not that they "can't" but rather that they "won't". With their new movies being shot with HD cams, digitally mastered in "lossless" formats from the get-go and using the most up to date encoding and codecs it's pennies on the dollar to roll a movie like Casino Royale onto next gen HD media... but an old classic like Citizen Cane or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea will require extensive cleanup and remastering to ensure a quality HD "print" source to output to HD media. But if the studio doesn't care it's hastened through and you end up with a murky, dull and worst of all fuzzy product. Edit: I guess to get this topic back on topic I should say that I got my PS3 this morning from Amazon. This thing is a freaking brick... I can't believe how heavy the box is. Has anyone else bought one with the "5 free movies" deal? How long is it taking for them to process the free movies? I'm going to run by Best Buy on the way home and buy some Blu Ray movies for this thing... it came with Memento but ugh... Memento. That thing is going to eBay for sure.

That is really only true of the second tier titles and the "shovelware" movies. If you are buying a next gen player for the first tier five star titles like Pirates of the Caribbean, then you will not be disappointed... because those big bux titles get top flight treatment with the best picture and sound mastering for 1080p, the best codecs and a slew of bonus materials and extras. But if you are buying a next gen player for the second tier titles or older "drop and go" movies then you will most likely be very disappointed. Just as an example, some of the ratings from HighDefDigest for Blu Ray movies are: Pirates of the Caribbean 1 - four and a half stars, the second highest rated Blu Ray available Casino Royale - three and a half stars, middle of the road average Blu Ray National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - a generous two stars, absolute crap. But what are you doing buying a movie like Christmas Vacaiton on Blu Ray for? Or at least that is the thought most movie houses think so they don' spend the time in remastering the footage for this new media. They throw all their money into their glitzy, glamorous box office babies that they want to look spectacular in HD... but then they shovel the second tier stuff out with sub par quality. I don't think it's a matter of them "not knowing how to handle the media" as much as it is just them not caring right now. Their bread and butter is still DVD as their bread and butter is still their big name first tier titles. That is were their time and money are spent... I just feel that people may feel "ripped off" by purchasing some of the lesser titles for Blu Ray and finding the video and audio quality is not much better than their old upscaled DVD. Being an "early adopter" is not as bad as it sounds, you just have to be careful about what you buy. At the same time I think the studios have learned this lesson and that is why many of the "wanted" titles are taking so long to appear on Blu Ray, the studios are re-mastering and cleaning up their movies... taking the time to give people their monies' worth so the new format doesn't get written off as just a "more expensive DVD".

Sleepy Hollow is another one of those movies that I may end up buying... but not right away. From all the reviews that I've been reading it seems there are two distinct camps of Blu Ray release on the market: The top tier, good codec HD mastered five star titles... and the crap "shovelware" ones that movie houses just seem to be pooping out just to get something on HD. A glaring example of that is the Fifth Element original Blu Ray release and the brand new re-release. The original Blu Ray of the Fifth Element is abysmal... terrible mastering and an old codec equal a really shitty picture not worthy of Blu Ray. Add to that a complete lack of any real extras or decent sound options and pretty much the DVD barfed onto a Blu Ray disc with no real concern over it being "HD" enough or even worth the upgrade. What should have been a system demo disc was a coaster... Fans everywhere complained so loud you'd think it was a freight train coming. They finally got around to re-mastering and re-releasing it with an upgraded picture, upgraded sound, decent transfer and a decent codec... but still no extra features. All they did was "fix" their original "mistake" and poop the disc back out onto the market. That alone kind of makes me fearful to buy very many of the "early release" or "non bigtime" Blu Ray titles. If you dig through the reviews at HighDefDigest you'll see that many of the first releases and second tier shovel titles use the old MPEG2 codec, have sub par sound encoding and options and are generally not worth their inflated price tags. Movie companies just don't seem to want to put the effort into properly mastering and encoding their HD DVD and Blu Ray releases. Really only the brand new, just out of the theaters movies or the uber fanboi super digital hyper collector's editions of older movies seem to be getting worthwhile treatment in the HD media. Don't get me wrong though the overall quality IS improving, it's just that you still have to "read up" on the next gen titles you want to buy to make sure you are not purchasing a glorified upscaled DVD. Now I just need to track down Universal Studios and punch them in the groin... it pains me to see movies like Streets of Fire, Hot Fuzz, Shawn of the Dead and others in HD... only on HD DVD. I have never in all my years wished for the death of a format so much.

I actually ordered my PS3 from Amazon last week, it should be here sometime this week. I saw that blurb about Cars on High Def Digest this morning. I have also read recent rumors about the Aliens series, Blade Runner and Dawn of the Dead (78) coming to Blu Ray by Christmas.

By all accounts it will have online multiplayer deathmatch and other "Versus" style games.

Isn't that a Ring Raiders thing? Wasn't Ring Raiders a busted toy/show that was only available on VHS? I seem to recall something about the "show" being a mail in VHS that you could get once you bought enough of the toys.

Or Grand Theft Auto 4...

I've also seen people do it... but it is always with a "hack" and not a "right out of the box DVD player" sort of affair. The upconvert only through HDMI is an industry "rule", no "out of the box" player should break that rule without "help" (a hack). It's all done in an effort to prevent people from upconverting a DVD, recording that upconversion and either keeping it or distributing it. It's all about the money, they want you to purchase the movie again in a next gen HD format and not just "upconvert" your old ones and burn them. It's definitely a crock, but not in the price department. HDMI is a secure digital connection which allows the forms of modern copy protection to be in effect. It's a "blind" in that it allows you to get the best possible picture clarity and resolution but at the same time it is enabling the thing you are watching to engage all it's copy protection and security safeguards. While I am not the kind of person who routinely copies DVDs or movies it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth knowing this "new generation" (Blu Ray and HD DVD) is all built around new copy protection and security and that it has this goofy set of "rules" in place regulating how you can hook up your own equipment. Any piece of technology that kneecaps itself in order to force you to hook it up "right" (the way they want you to) is kind of annoying.

From what I know it is "illegal" for any HD DVD/Blu Ray player to upscale standard def DVDs through anything but HDMI, DVI or VGA. The "illegal" is not in "breaking the law" illegal but it goes against the "rules" that the industry has laid down for upconversion of standard definition media. According to many sources you are not supposed to be able to have a player upcponvert to anything above 480p through component cables due to the "risk" of piracy. Don't ask me to explain it, that is the only way I have heard it described. That is why I asked about the PS3, because the XBox 360 HD DVD player WILL NOT upconvert standard definition DVDs past 480p because it is traveling over component cables. I hear people claim that if you have the Elite (which has HDMI) or if you hook your regular Xbox up with the VGA cables that it will upconvert but outside of internet fanboy claims I have seen nothing positive on that front. WDC: I know someone who has done the HDMI to DVI thing. He said it worked. He, like me, runs his audio separate to a receiver anyway. He has an early CRT HDTV that only has DVI in and he was able to get his Toshiba upconvert DVD player HDMI to go into that DVI input with a speical cable he bought at a Radio Shack. The cable is HDMI on one end and DVI out on the other end.

That kind of jives with some of the info I've been seeing (the update thing). First I kept seeing reviews and people say it didn't, then there were people who said it did, of course with the usual flocks of people calling bullshit followed by people swearing up and down it does with some retard jumping in to say XBOXZ RULEZ JOO! By my understanding it will NOT upscale past 480p through anything but HDMI due to the industry "rules" about upscaling through "unprotected" connections. Plus the Xbox HD DVD thing does NOT upscale normal DVDs (due to the non HDMI connection I belive) hence why I wanted to make sure the PS3 did indeed upscale. Looks like I'll have to go shopping on my way home tonight. Ps3 + Casino Royale + BHD.

OK, I've managed to talk myself into getting one on the way home from work tonight... IF... Does anyone know if the PS3 will upscale standard DVDs to HD resolutions through the HDMI? I keep searching online and finding conflicting answers. If it DOES upscale through the HDMI then I might as well get it as nothing I have right now upscales to HD res, only 480p. But if it doesn't then I might as well wait.

Well, last night I cleared a spot on my entertainment center console, plugged in one of my extra HDMI cables and plugged and routed an extra optical cable from my receiver. I'm all set for my PS3 Blu Ray player and it should be a simply "plug and play" situation now. So what is still holding me back? I dunno. I'm usually the kind of guy who runs out and buys all the latest electronics just to gleen a slight advancement in picture and sound technology but for some reason I'm extra hesitant about the PS3. I think all the propaganda and fighting between the Blu Ray people and the HD DVD people as well as all the fighting between the Xbox and PS people combined with a complete lack of games I want for the PS3 and a near lack of movies I want in Blu Ray right now just leave me cold. I want to capitalize on the price point and the free movies but it's still a carrot... and I hate carrots. I just wish Pixar would hurry up and poop out their movies on Blu Ray already... it would make this decision soooooooo much easier for me. Also seeing something like Blade Runner or Aliens or Indiana Jones on Blu Ray would also seal the deal. So many promises but so little delivery. About all I see that I would buy right now would be Casino Royale, BHD and the new re-release of Fifth Element when it shows up. After that comes Surfs Up (October) and then whatever Pixar finally releases combined with whatever Fox finally releases... Seems like such a waste to spend so much for so little in the present... This is also the first ever game console I've ever bought in which there were absolutely ZERO games for it that I wanted... seriously... there is nothing for it now or what I see coming in the future that looks interesting. Everything I want to play is going to be Xbox, which I already own. This is my dilemma...

I think the point of contention "so powerful one man can destroy worlds" IMHO is more an issue of device driven storytelling that it's ability to "actually happen" in the story world. You don't see that kind of power in the movies because it would be boring... what "conflict" and "tension" would there be knowing that Luke, Vader or Obi Wan could simply "win" by wiping out the entire enemy fleet in one sweep of their hand? Where would the adventure, action and drama be if the rebellion vanished in a blink of the Palpatine's eye? or the entire Death Star, or even the entire empire, vanishing if Luke simply "wills" it to be gone? It has always been my assumption that crazy "unseen" super force powers are usually not used because of the story problems they create, not because they "can't exist". Yoda lifting an X-Wing is a story element just as much as it is a "force power", its main "point" was to show Yoda possessed a ton of power in his small, old body... and what better way to do that than to have him lift a fighter a hundred times his size? The problem with using that as a story element is in some people's eyes it becomes a Pandora's box... once one character does something it's assumed everyone else of the same "skill level" can and will have the ability to do the same thing at will. Just like with Palpatine and the lightning... you see one Sith throw a few lightning bolts and all of a sudden every Sith is supposed to be able to do it. Heck, "back in the day" before the prequels I always thought that Yoda would not even need to "fight" people. I always assumed he was "so powerful" that he wouldn't even need a lightsaber... that his "power" in his prime was so vast that he could win one on one "physical fights" without even fighting, which when you think about it would be the pure function of the light side of the force: to achieve peaceful ends without fighting. I always saw lightsabers as a "knight" weapon, a physical device to aid those who were not yet "masters" of the force... used because their skill was not yet good enough to fight without it's help. Creating a sort of "pecking order" of Star Wars weaponry just like real life... for trained killers the list goes Rifle, pistol, knife and finally bare hands. For force users it went blaster, lightsaber then finally pure force. For Yoda, being the only "master" other than the Emperor that we see in the original movies, is it not much of an assumption at that time to think that they transcended the use of mere weapons in their "fights"? But then the prequels come out and pretty much mess up all that... they show us that Jedi, even master Jedi, are nothing more than glorified mystical fliptacular ninjas with cellular irregularities that grant them their magical powers. I blame the new movies for taking all the "mysticism" out of the force and replacing it with a bunch of chop-socky ju-jitsu, special effects lightning and gravity flipping parlor tricks which breed the feeling that the use of the force is so limited to only martial engagements and the occasional claravoiance or telekinesis. Then when you have someone show a force ability so vast and incredible people just say "nope... impossible". To that degree I believe it's not "impossible" as much as it is a "story based limitation"... if someone found a way to rectify crazy building moving, planet killing, universe warping force powers into a storyline that was not shallow and goofy or that ended the second the main character "won" by simply thinking about it then good on them.

Fox, Disney, Paramount and a few others are hard core Blu Ray at the moment, Universal is hard core HD DVD, and everyone else seems to be releasing dual format. It's not so much a bad thing when you can get -most- movies on either format but the "set piece" "I really want them" movies like the Pixar movies only being on Blu Ray and then others like Hot Fuzz and Shawn of the Dead only being on HD DVD drives me up a wall. I'm kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place... I really only want ONE format but when movies I like are being divided between formats with their holders being staunch supporters of only that format it really pisses me off. Someone's going to win and someone's going to lose... eventually. In the meantime if I want all the movies I want in HD I have to buy both formats and both players... knowing full well that one of them is going to go tits up before this is all said and done. At least my logic in getting the PS3 is that it's a fall-back game console... so if Blu Ray gets blown away at least I still have the game console... the same goes for the HD DVD add on for the Xbox, if HD DVD goes bye bye I still have the Xbox console. What I've been planning on doing was buying the HD DVD add on for my Xbox, getting the movies I want for it now as they come out and waiting to see what movies come out on Blu Ray in the mid to distant future (Cars, Ratatouille, Surfs Up, etc.) before buying the PS3... the problem is this current "price drop deal" has turned out to be a carrot and not a true "price drop", meaning I "have" to buy the PS3 sooner rather than later if I want the "deal" (the carrot). As a consumer I really dislike being given the carrot and the stick treatment... at the same time I know full well that later on down the line I'd be spending another 100 bucks and get no free movies. It's fish or cut bait... you want to do both but you can't. As for the HDMI thing I already have two extra HDMI cables and a few extra optical cables in my entertainment center parts drawer, so from the sound of things it would be pretty much "out of the box" for me... it's all coming down to do I really want to 'commit' myself to a PS3 right now with this current 'deal' rather than waiting until the movies I want are out? Perhaps Disney will jump the fence and release HD DVDs of the Pixar movies? If that happens then the only exclusive Blu Ray would have would be Surfs Up and I can live without that... on the other hand if HD DVD goes down in flames I'd be buying my PS3 late and most likely getting no free movies and no extra 100 bucks off... GGGGGRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH. <- (Frustrated AV Dork Noise)

Well that helps the decision process a bit. Looks like the 5 free movies deal lasts until October... the question is will the 60gig systems last until then? It's not like I'm strapped for cash or anything, I just really want to see more Blu Ray movies that I want to buy show up before I commit to this thing. At the moment if I ran out and bought a PS3 on my way home from the office tonight I'd have to buy some movies to watch... and as it stands now there are not many movies that I want on Blu Ray. But movies that I will want will be coming out on Blu Ray soon (Cars, Ratatouille, Surfs Up)... I think... damn is this a hard choice to make. I already own a Xbox 360 and it's HD DVD add on is $200 and there are currently HD DVDs that I want out right now... with more coming out soon that I want (Hot Fuzz, Shawn of the Dead)... but those are all Universal movies, the last holdout of HD DVD. I hate format wars.

That game trailer just doesn't "feel" like Star Wars to me... when watching the trailer the first thing I thought was "Use the Matrix, Luke!"

I'm kind of of the same mind as Ghadrack, I really want a Blu Ray player and the PS3 seems to be the best "deal" on one (buy a Blu Ray player and get a "free" video game system attached!) but I'm still kind of on the fence with it... The $100 savings and 5 free movies are kind of tempting... but the movies all look like crap movies... but they're free. I think my biggest question still is what is it going to take to get this thing "up and running"? Does this 60gig system come with the HDMI cable? I know I have two of them just sitting around in my equipment stash but will it take a normal HDMI cable? After all I'm basically buying this thing as a Blu Ray player and not as a video game console... so my prime concern is gleening the best picture and sound quality out of it. Does it have optical audio out? I've never actually seen one of these things in person to know what it does and doesn't have as output options.

I DL'ed this last night and played it. I found the game's graphical and sound presentation to be great... but it's overall "hud" to be confusing. It took me a few minutes to figure out what the two arrows were (one points to your "target" while the other points to your "wingman"). I found the whole "target acquisition" process to be kind of awkward... for a non-jet groupie like me I understood the basics of the hud and I know what all the little marks and indicators are, but the general process of "find target, lock target, shoot" seemed kind of awkward to me. I guess I was expecting more blips and bloops on the screen telling me what to do... eventually I started getting the hang of it as the game progressed and found myself more comfortable using the guns and aiming with the piter than I was with the "fire and forget" missiles. Only after I had used up all my missiles did I start seeing how the missile aiming worked, which was kind of disappointing. Also the whole "incoming missile" thing was confusing... I didn't know what to do. The game does not seem to have any countermeasures and I didn't know how to properly "evade" so I just wound up speeding up and turning constantly which worked... I guess... because I never got hit. And is it just me or is the "map" kind of poor? I seem to recall other games in this series or in other similar series having the map zoom in and out based on your range from hostile targets... while playing the game I had a few instances where I guess I flew too far away from the bad guy groups chasing one bad guy only to find myself flying around with no red blips on my map. I had to guess at where they were and go in that direction until red blips came into view on the map. I also seemed to stall quite often... I thought I was flying straight and even at full speed and yet I kept getting stall indicators? Also is it just me or was the "radio chatter" annoying? It felt a little "out of character" for what real military pilots would be saying over an open frequency... and how can you hear the bad guy's radio chatter? but I guess you have to make the game "epic" and engrossing somehow. All in all I'll probably buy this game when it comes out... lord knows I've bought just about every one since the original Air Combat. I just wonder if they plan to "mix things up" more this time around. Every game in this series I've played so far has always felt like the same game just with updated graphics... this one kind of has the promise to be different right off the bat what with the massive air battle demo... I don't recall anything like that in the older games.

Hey, the Human League rocks... so does their spinoff group Heaven 17. Never be "ashamed" to like '80s synthpop and new wave, it's an important sound in the history of music... despite what some folks like to say.

I'm debating getting one after the price drop just for the Blu Ray player. With the price drop to $500 it would still be one of the cheapest Blu Ray players on the market and you get a game system to boot.

New forum ghosts!

Did you post it in this thread?

Not sure if anyone has posted this, but... daaaaaaaaaaaaamn. X-Box Repairs cost MS 1 BILLION? Xbox 360 repairs will cost Microsoft $1B By JESSICA MINTZ, AP Business Writer 13 minutes ago SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it expects to spend more than $1 billion to repair widespread hardware problems in its Xbox 360 video game console after a large number of them broke down. Microsoft said it would extend the warranty on the Xbox 360 to three years after too many of the consoles succumbed to "general hardware failure," but the company provided few other details about the extent of the problems. "We don't think we've been getting the job done," said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, which also makes the Zune digital music player. "In the past few months, we have been having to make Xbox 360 console repairs at a rate too high for our liking." Bach said the company made some manufacturing and production changes that he expects will reduce Xbox 360 hardware lockups, but he declined to identify the problems or say which others might remain. Microsoft said it will record a charge of up to $1.15 billion for the fourth quarter to cover the additional costs associated with the warranty extension. Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, estimates that Microsoft's entertainment and devices division has lost more than $6 billion since 2002. Microsoft has written down larger amounts in the past — more than $10 billion in the late 1990s related to investments in telecommunications companies, and more than $5 billion related to antitrust issues — but a $1 billion write-down for one division in one quarter is significant. "It suggests the problem is pretty widespread," Rosoff said. Microsoft will pay for shipping and repairs for three years, worldwide, for consoles that experience hardware failure, which is usually indicated by three flashing red lights on the front of the console, something gamers sometimes refer to as "the red ring of death." Previously, the warranty expired after 1 year for U.S. customers and 2 years for Europeans. Microsoft also will reimburse the "small number" of Xbox 360 owners who have paid for shipping and repairs on out-of-warranty consoles, Bach said. In June, bloggers speculated that the Xbox 360 return problem was getting so severe that the company was running out of "coffins," or special return-shipping boxes Microsoft provides to gamers with dead consoles. "We'll make sure we have plenty of boxes to go back and forth," Bach said in an interview. Microsoft's entertainment and devices division reported an operating loss of $315 million on $929 million in sales for the three-month period that ended in March.

Which is TRUE if that resultant constructive action has merit and functions to solve the problem in which you complain about. Your little pie incident solved none of the points of contention, all it "solved" was you getting your aggression out on a man who only wanted to entertain you. You find it humorous that people will not "take action" on their complaints and I find it humorous that you feel justified in embarrassing someone who technically did you no harm outside of not entertaining you sufficiently. Which, as others have pointed out, in the eyes of the law is assault. You have also made a video of the incident and appear to be using it in a defamatory light. You do realize that if he was so inclined Tommy Yune could actually have grounds to sue you for all your antics, right? As Hurin pointed out, are you willing to go to court for "Robotech"? I also notice you chose not to answer my main question: as an "artist" yourself do you feel public humiliation to be an acceptable form of "constructive criticism" of a person's creative efforts? How would you feel if someone hated your work so much that they felt the need to embarrass you in public? Would that incident change your way of doing things?... or would it make you feel that one lone kook was just that, a lone kook who's opinion is tainted by their apparent lack of self control? If history has taught us nothing it's that lone, singular acts of aggression by individuals inevitably backfire on them and their intended outcome generally becomes the opposite of that which they wanted.