Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on April 23rd, 2007
Apologies to all last week for the postponement of last week’s column. As one who has a personal interest in the activities surrounding Virginia Tech, I had a lot more on my plate to digest. Anyway, onward and upward in the next generation news and opinion.
Several big things have happened over the course of the last couple of weeks, the first being Samsung’s announcement of their own hybrid player. Like the current LG player, it will play both formats, unlike the LG player, it will support HDi, which is go...d news for HD-DVD owners. The BD-UP5000 is scheduled to come out sometime in the fourth quarter, and let’s all hope it supports everything and the friggin’ kitchen sink. The BD-P1200 quietly started appearing on store shelves this week at a $799 MSRP, I guess so much for that player. On the HD side of things, the Chinese are saying that they’ll have 2 million $300 HD players in American store shelves. How (or which platform) they’ll be able to do that on remains to be seen, but I’d guess that Walmart will roll out both platforms in their stores for mass consumption rather than alientate one side or another. The story is far from substantiated, but it does raise some interesting questions. Last, but not least, the latest Panasonic firmware upgrade finally allows for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio formats, so for those of you who’ve got them, go download this already!
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on April 20th, 2007
The horror film’s energy seems to move in cyclical patterns from country to country. At different points of the genre’s history, the best work tends to cluster geographically. I admit that my evidence for this is rather anecdotal, but let’s look at the patterns.
France is where it all begins, with Georges Méliès creating the first horror movies in 1896. The genre is, admittedly, in very embryonic form at this stage, but in the early years of the 20th Century, this is where the action is. The American film i...dustry, in its infancy, produces its fair share of early horrors (most notably the Thomas Edison-produced Frankenstein in 1910), but its day in the sun had not yet come. The real nexus of creativity for the first feature-length horror films would be Germany, beginning in 1913 with The Student of Prague, and hitting full steam with the Expressionist movement and the likes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem, Nosferatu and so on.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 18th, 2007
More Space for your PS3, Putting your XBLA, & OutRun Til You Drop - Welcome to the column that promises to bring you 11,796 more bytes known as Dare to Play the Game.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on April 16th, 2007
Sorry guys, in between starting a new job today and the news ongoing at Virginia Tech, I'm busy trying to find out what's going on at a school I'm very familiar with. Back with more news and updates next week.
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on April 13th, 2007
Before anything else, some housecleaning. In my piece on BluRay and HD-DVD some time ago, I quoted Video Watchdog as saying the BluRay machines would not be backwards compatible. This has turned out, of course, to be inaccurate. Video Watchdog printed its correction, and I now follow suit.
Right, then. So, after a disappointing opening at the box office, the first reports about how Grindhouse will appear on DVD have surfaced, and that’s all the excuse I need to talk about the film again... now with the advantage of having seen it.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 11th, 2007
Confessions (of a WoW addict) part 2, Xbox Spring Dashboard update and Jam! - Welcome to the column that lays bricks like nobody’s business known as Dare to Play the Game.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on April 9th, 2007
Happy Easter, with eggs, and bunnies, and Jesus, and all that.
OK, so your friendly neighborhood format neutral buyer decided to pick up a title he already had on HD-DVD just to do some comparisons, but also to cover my bases in the event that one format suddenly tanks. So when I got Superman Returns, aside from not having a lossless track, the picture seems a little bit on the blandish side. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven’t seen the HD version in awhile, but seriously, I hope that there...are some better dinners to the table, you know?
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on April 5th, 2007
So Grindhouse is upon us, and fans of exploitation cinema everywhere are no doubt bathing in the warm glow of nostalgia for bygone sleaze and spooky cinemas many of us were too young to enter, but that nevertheless were surrounded by an aura of forbidden fascination. Here in Winnipeg, I remember, in my formative years as a film fan, being simultaneously frightened and attracted by the ad campaigns for movies playing at the likes of the Downtown and the Eve. The era has passed, of course, never to return, but t...e movies live on, often in DVD releases that present prints far more pristine than anything theatregoers would have experienced during the original releases. At any rate, in the name of nostalgia and history, here are a few books to completely immerse you in the grindhouse spirit.
A little digression first, however. Some time ago, I listed some worthwhile magazines in the field, and that Shock Cinema, in particular, is dedicated to keeping the spirit of Times Square and 42nd Street alive. Its website (www.shockcinemamagazine.com) opens up all sorts of further gloriously dubious avenues to explorer. Okay, end digression.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on April 4th, 2007
PSP Price Drop (Sales were over), Interviewing a WOW addict (his life is over), and Guitar Hero 2(my life is over) - Welcome to the little addiction that meetings won’t cure known as Dare to Play the Game.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on April 2nd, 2007
And another week remains quiet on the western next-gen front.
Well, HD-DVD seems to be firing back when it comes to their lack of releases in the first quarter of the year. The problem seems to be though that not many releases are new, and the equipment price cuts that have been previously reported elsewhere were rehashed here. So on the impressive scale, it’s a light rock in the ocean. But still, it’s nice to see them doing SOMETHING. European buyers will be seeing a version of the Sony BDP coming out this...summer. Notable for it having HDMI 1.3, it’s another case of a device that you’ll have to wait and get a good receiver for down the road. Blu-ray has drown the proverbial line in the sand too, with the BDA expecting Java support by the end of October. It’s kind of funny how this announcement comes hot on the heels of the Matrix releases, but at least it gives a kick in the pants to Blu-Ray, so that Batman Begins and V for Vendetta can’t be HD exclusives. But hey, Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg says it’s a niche market anyway, so screw it, right?
