David Hingtgen

Re: restoring movies. Interesting---is there a minimum quality to start with for a movie to be restored to a HD-flawless image? PS---for me, the thing that bugs me the most about "quick transfers" are usually basic framing issues. Even with widescreen everything, there's still often some issues. I hate to use it as an example, but Star Trek: Generations is probably the worst offender of this I can think of. Very early in the movie, there's a shot showing the Enterprise (just its hull number), revealing "NCC-1701-B" ---with the B on the right side of the screen. And it's a big thing, revealing that "B" showing that it's the new Enterprise *B*. But the most recent release---you can't see the B at all. The "reveal" only shows "NCC-1701-" Yay. The whole scene is wasted. It's like the whole movie suffers from severe overscan. You're missing out on a good chunk of the edge of the image. You'd think they'd know how to go from 35mm to 1.85 by now...

Don't forget the Wii safety video:

Replayed the demo a few more times, seeing what there is to see. 1. Couldn't find Kfirs again. Did I just imagine them? I did find some new stuff--C-17's. 2. The demo is set to "super duper easy". 1 Sidewinder will take down anything, even a B-52. About 3 bullets is enough as well. I just let the plane sit and have enemies attack---they fired 10 missiles. I only tried to dodge 2, while 7 others just flat-out missed from point-blank 6-o-clock, only 1 managed to hit me and did 20% damage. 3. Flaming battle damage! The missile that did manage to hit me caused smoke and fire to pour out from a hole in the wing. After a while the fire died down, then eventually the smoke went away. Visual damage has no effect on flying (at least in the demo). Tried getting hit several times, only ever saw the same damage effect, sometimes mirrored on the other wing. Enemy super weapon only did 10% damage, though I presume it'll be instant death in the real game. I got up to 91%, plane still flew fine. (Again, could be different in the real game--but AC has never had damage affect your plane before) Demo plane is an F-16C, big-mouth GE powered. That narrows it down to a late Block 30, or Block 40 or 50. Need to try to see the landing gear to tell. (They're easy to tell apart in normal configuration, or from the HUD---but stripped down for air-to-air, and with a "game HUD"---it's very difficult) It had LAU-129 rails on the wingtips, which only block 40 and 50 came with, but many block 30's were retrofitted--even ANG squadrons got them pretty quickly.

Also, studios don't want to release every "most wanted" movie at once. They'll need to string you along for a few years, steadily depriving you of cash. (Plus, nobody could afford to re-buy every movie in Blu-Ray all at once) Personally, there are very few movies I would actually re-buy on Blu-Ray that I have on DVD. I actually plan to buy only "must have" DVD's until I have a next-gen player (likely a PS3) then just buy the Blu-Ray version of all the movies I skipped buying the DVD of. Also, a lot of movies just aren't worth seeing in HD anyways--if it's a B-movie from 1970, S-VHS is probably higher than the masters can deliver. You really can't re-master a gorgeous 1080p image from old technicolor. It has to be a fairly recent, big-budget movie to have the image quality to start with. There's plenty of DVD's which are only marginally better than the VHS, if at all. Sure, 300 will look awesome in 1080, but a lot of films even as recent as the mid-90's just won't be worth re-mastering to try to eek out 1% more detail. Just keep them as DVD, it's as good as they're going to get. Just IMHO.

Which is how Kawamori has designed the gear of most every valk, and many real planes do it to save space. It's just that the YF-21 is about the only design where it's critical that a *toy* do it too---you can get away with non-rotating gear on a toy -19 and -1 because the legs are deep enough (and hollow) to accomodate a non-rotating wheel. But the YF-21 retracts its gear into the wing roots, and needs the rotating wheels to do so. The original Yamato YF-21 has paper-thin wing roots, and no fuselage sides---merely the exposed arms. Which is why the gear couldn't be done right at all----that part of the plane mode basically didn't exist.

This triggered a memory from another forum, and googling around it seems it's the same problem they had back when:---Comcast is blocking MW's IP. We're on their blacklist. http://forum.securitycadets.com/index.php?showtopic=2734 Recent discussion of similar problem--they just "got off" Comcast's blacklist so registration emails are now going through. Anyways---it's Comcast blocking MW's emails at a high level--you'll never see it in your spam folder because it never even gets to Comcast to start with. You know how a lot of places used to list "AOL users click here" or "AOL users do this" because AOL email was incompatible with everything else? Well now you often see "AOL and Comcast" directions, because Comcast blocks so much stuff.

Line art vs CAD comparison:

Ah, the Wii Fit parody----it's hilarious (IMHO)

I never knew of that book, but after looking it up, now I want it. There's one question which will decide if it's worth the money (that's a lot of money, even for a large art book IMHO): How are the B-Wing references? B-wing stuff is almost non-existant. There's a few pics at Starship modeler, and one decent pic in my "Technical Journal of the Rebel Forces"--but that's about it. I want pages of B-wing stuff. Every detail, every angle. If there's a well-known ship in SW that's undocumented, it's the B-Wing.

Graham said Yamato has like NO chance/desire/intention to release a VF-4, and has repeated that for years. Plus the whole M7 license issue means no M&M -22's.

Due to my Fei-Yen collection, I believe I have more pink mecha than any other color. I actually plan to skip Ivanov and only buy Nora's. PS--excluding Transformers, they don't count.

Hey wait--is the Sv-51 even out yet?!?! There has to be some sort of "wallet recovery time" between releases...

The current trend is for airlines to spend millions on new, ugly, bland paint schemes. If nothing else, it's different. QANTAS has however decided to spend money and repaint the fleet, re-logo everything from napkins to uniforms to ticket-holders, and generally waste money, for a subtle change--I present to you, the NEW logo and name for QANTAS: Definitely one of the bigger wastes of money I've ever seen.

I don't see any putty---does it go together that well? I know they have separate parts covering many of the seam lines, but that really looks like an exceptionally "seamless" kit.

The Decepticon hologram was played by one of the MH-53 pilots---so when he's in Blackout--that's actually a MH-53 pilot! Bay just happened to spot him while filming the SOCCENT base scenes, and liked his "evil stare"--so he hired him for a few non-speaking scenes playing the hologram. The S7 guy is just coincidentally similar-looking. Must be the 'stache. There's a lot of pics here of filming here: http://www.mh-53pavelow.com/linpha/viewer....tage=2&pn=1 "The hologram guy"-- http://www.mh-53pavelow.com/linpha/viewer....&imgid=6992 Trivia for the MH-53's used in the film: http://www.mh-53pavelow.com/pages/History/...mer_trivia.html

Just making sure everyone knows there's both a demo, *and* a trailer to download. And the trailer rocks.

It'd be easy, provided you have the decals and an F-14D kit.

The "Top" and "Report" buttons don't match the rest. (Personally, I like the Top and Report colors better)

I think they were going for the standard F-14 low-vis 3-tone scheme. With the incredible amounts of dirt/patching/weathering they go through, it's often impossible to tell if they're painted right or not. The studio certainly got the dirt and patches right.

And that's the scheme I want, too. I've had enough of the M+ scheme, the VFX-2 scheme is almost as famous and looks better.

Good news. I still need YF-19 decals and some 1/60 VF-1 decals. And hopefully Sv-51 decals in the future!

Ah, the poor De Lorean. Looks so cool, but performance is sh*t. (Especially with all the cosmetic movie stuff on top) Quote from the article: "Zero to 60 mph: 14.1 sec" "Zero to 88 mph: not enough road"

Fine Molds Y-Wing already!?!? Man you work fast. And an AT-AT. I'll presume ERTL/AMT?

Hasegawa took their previous "old mold" F-14A kit and gave it a new decal sheet. It's not Shin's plane at all. They didn't even use their current standard mold! How cheap of them. If you want a model of Shin's plane, buy an F-14D and get Shin's decal sheet. (Since every F-14D kit ever included all the parts needed for a B, just use the B's cockpit parts). Alternatively, buy a B, and find a D's chinpod.

The reason I haven't bought any DOA Ayane stuff is because they seem incapable of doing a half-way decent face on her. Which is kinda ironic, since she has a pretty darn generic "anime girl" face. They can do Kasumi well, but not Ayane for some reason. I have bought the Ninja Gaiden Ayane statue though, and I still consider it my best statue/figure purchase ever. Ironically, she's top heavy and leans over time, and I often have to prop her up at an angle to lean her way back into a vertical position. If her legs were solid instead of hollow (or at least from knees down) she wouldn't have this problem. I considered treating her like a vinyl kit and filling the lower section with plaster, but due to the way she's assembled, I figure she'd be destroyed in the process. So she just alternates between being on display, and being "reset into position". PS--I would never have my gamertag have my name in it. I use my name online for most everything, but for XBL--no way. Too many weirdos out there who may stalk you if you ever beat them in a game or something. PPS---you can't say anything, XBL says you were playing DOA Xtreme 2 just a few days ago. I don't even own it.