May | 2007 | Procrastinating in the Heat

The hi-def transition

I stopped buying DVDs about a year ago since it felt pointless to invest in something that will be obsolete like VHS in a few years.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to have everyone get HDTVs. Now we have to contend with HDTV movies. After getting an Xbox 360 which gave me a taste of hi definition gaming. I knew I had to get a TV. So I got a 32 inch Samsung LCD to connect my 360 and all my other consoles.

But the switch to HDTV clearly showed the defects of my DVD collection and this called for an entirely different system.

The frustrating part of being a film graduate is that there is a certain collection that you must keep. It’s like one of the signs of being literate is owning the complete works of William Shakespeare. Well in my case I have a vast collection of Woody Allen films and Anime. Some science fiction but mostly foreign films and such. And now with the advent of hi-definition entertainment whether it’s blu-ray or hd-dvd, we all now have to build our collection from scratch. Since all those DVDs you bought two years ago wont live longer than you. But this one will. Yeah right.

Okay so I’m a sucker and bought the HD-DVD add on of the Xbox 360 which is the cheapest player in market. I am watching King Kong at the moment. Skipping through the boring parts and the quality is indeed impressive. Once you go to HD you wont go back. The stunning clarity and it was truly made for the LCD TV I got.

There are a bunch of movies that I’m planning to get. I’m building my anime collection once again but it seems that anime has chosen blu-ray. I’ve placed a pre-order for an anime movie which I last owned in VHS and would be absolutely happy to own it in HD. The great part about it is that it’s arriving on my birthday. Which is very nice indeed.

Now with HD-DVD in my room at last. Time to start saving up for that PS3 I will eventually buy.

2007: 05/31
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: home theatre
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Dashboard killed my movies

It’s been a long time since I last posted on my blog and I think I should start updating it a bit.

Now on to the topic. This spring, after one year of Xbox 360 bliss, I traded in my Xbox 360 for a newer version since there were some problems that were starting to pop up like the disc wont eject 3RL and so on and since it was still under warranty I decided to trade it in. Anyway I came back home and updated the 360 to the much awaited dashboard update.

I eagerly log in and start playing. Browsing through the dashboard is much easier now but there was one thing I didn’t notice at first. Almost all my HD movie trailers and some of the stuff they offered for free before had their license revoked. Meaning I can’t play the thing. What!!!

Not only that, I can’t download the new HD trailer for the Matrix HD series since it’s not available in my region. It’s just surprising that I can’t download promotions for things they want us to buy. This is ridiculous, I know M$ wants to make the Xbox their media center, but why restrict users from what they can download by region?

This is the reason why piracy thrives in places outside the US. The restrictions and the delays in releasing these media in places where they do not share the same region code for the US drive people to get it elsewhere. Adding restrictions may boost corporate confidence in them but sadly it doesn’t boost consumer confidence other than their fancy menus.