02.08.08
Posted in Tech, Video at 6:46 pm by Cavorter
I’ve been running into a huge number of people who don’t understand what’s going on with HDTV lately, so I figured I needed to put something out for the couple of people who do read my blog.
- The HD broadcast switch is a funded federal mandate. (see item #3)
- You do not have to get rid of your existing TV unless you really want to. (see item#3)
- Every household in the US is entitled to two (2) coupons good for free HD to SD content converters. You can get your coupon from https://www.dtv2009.gov/. These are set top boxes that go from a standard pair of rabbit ears or whatever you’re using as an antenna to your TV and let you watch HD content on your regular old non-HD TV.
- You are getting something (two things!) from the government for FREE here people.
- If you plan to continue using a VCR or other SD equipment (Tivo series 1 and 2, Windows MCE, MythTV, etc) to record programming make sure that you get a converter box that can change channels on a schedule or can be controlled by your recording equipment. If your recording equipment has built in schedules of some kind they may not match the new HD lineup and schedule.
- Shop for a new TV carefully. Just because you buy a new “HD capable” TV does not mean you can just hook up an antenna and start getting HD content. Many “HD Capable” TVs sold do not include an HD tuner (though it’s better than it used to be) since for the most part the manufacturer’s figure that you will have either a cable box or satellite receiver that will do the tuning instead. A TV with an HD tuner will likely cost $100-$200 more than an otherwise identical model.
- Not all HD capable TVs are widescreen. Many manufacturers make several “normal” (4:3 aspect ratio) sets that are just as “HD capable” as their widescreen versions.
- Not all HD capable TVs are light and thin. I personally own a ~125lb 30in widescreen CRT that I really quite like except when I decide to move it up or down stairs. CRTs still for the most part look better than other competing technologies. The problem is that, as evidenced by my 125lb wonder of modern technology, the technology does not scale well to really big screens.
- “Plasma” TVs use much more power than a similarly sized CRT. Really big plasma TVs use proportionally more power. My brother heats his living room with his (Not a joke).
- LCD TVs use much less power than a similarly sized CRT. Really big LCD TVs use proportionally more power which may actually be more than your current 27in non-HD TV uses. Do not take the word of the salesman at the store on this one, get a Kill-A-Watt and find out for yourself.
- The biggest downside to many of the non-CRT technologies is that they can be very difficult to see anything when you are not directly in front of them (though it is much better than it was a few years ago). Some sets are much better than others. If the comfy chair is off in a corner you may not be able to watch anything on that big new thing heating the living room. Before you go to the store, figure out where you might end up trying to watch it from in your room and figure out what that distance and angle are and try and replicate it in the store to see what it will look like.
- A 30in widescreen TV has a picture that is about the same size vertically as a 27in “normal” (4:3) TV. Remember that the measurement is diagonal.
- You do not have to have cable or satellite to get local broadcast HD channels. Most satellite receivers get their local HD content from an antenna you hook up to the back of them. Some cable systems don’t display all of the local HD channels.
- Most cable systems highly compress their content so it is very possible that NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS/CW/etc might look better from an antenna in your area.
- Not all content from HD sources is really HD. There’s quite a bit of programming (especially children’s and daytime programming) that is still displayed in SD. Re-runs of Cheers and Friends will always be in SD. The HD source might make it look a bit better than the old SD signal though.
- Not all stations that are broadcasting in HD are broadcasting HD content at all. Up until Fall of 2007 my local CW affiliate in particular was broadcasting everything in 480P which meant the widescreen dramas (Like Smallville) get shrunk to fit the lower resolution and looked really bad on my widescreen set with black bars on all sides. (Thanks to Aaron for pointing out they had changed over) Still, it is something to watch for in your area, especially on stations that are not affiliated with the big four networks.
That’s all that I can think of right now but if anyone has any questions feel free to ask them. If I don’t know the answer I’m more than willing to look them up.
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11.28.07
Posted in Video at 3:03 pm by Cavorter
Looking around for new podcast content this morning I ended up in the Zune Marketplace and found Minnesota Stories which is cool but sadly recently on hiatus, but they had a link in their sidebar to The Midwest Teen Sex Show which is really incredibly good sex education videos. Oh, and they’re really funny.
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08.15.07
Posted in Video at 9:02 am by Cavorter
So I am just about done with Star Trek: Next Generation Season 4 through Netflix, and my understanding is that there is some overlap between that Star Trek: Deep Space 9. So my question is: Is there a particular combination that I should watch them in so that they make the most sense in the shared continuity, or does it not matter?
For example, should I setup my queue so that I get ST:TNG S5 D1 at the same time that I get ST:DS9 S1 D1, or should I watch all of ST:TNG S5 and then watch all of ST:DS9 S1, or the other way around.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.
Oh, and while I’m on the topic: I find it very interesting finally getting to a season where I have seen absolutely none of the episodes. Since I have seen some of the later episodes, finding answers to things like “Who is the little Klingon hanging around Worf?” and “Cardassians? Who are they?” is really a pretty big relief. While I understood that Alexander was Worf’s son, I never really knew how that had happened and, in fact, had never seen the episode where Worf got together with the mother until I finally saw that in June or July.
Though honestly I find it a bit hard to take that there had been a major bloddy war going on with the Cardassians during the entire first two years of the show and they never quite bothered to mention it. I smell RetCon!
Update: I did check around a bit more and I think I’m going to watch DS9 S1 after I finish TNG S6.
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01.23.07
Posted in Tech, Video at 7:25 pm by Cavorter
For those who have not been keeping up with the news, Netflix has recently started the rollout of their long anticipated electronic service, called “Watch Now” to complement their existing DVD-by-Mail service. The rollout is being staged to their various million subscribers and I am lucky enough to be one of the relatively early accounts to have the feature activated. As has been covered elsewhere pretty thoroughly, the selection is not huge yet but there is definately stuff worth watching and I am most interested to see if I can get it working through any part of Windows Media Center Edition. I haven’t seen anything that says it’s not possible since it does seem to be using some variation of streaming WMV, so hopefully when I have time to really take a look tomorrow I’ll be able to find out for certain.
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09.21.06
Posted in Video at 10:42 am by Cavorter
I finished watching Lost Season 2 on DVD (out from Netflix) last night, or all of the episodes anyway. (I didn’t realize disc 7 was just extras until I watched the last episode on disc 6 last night which was very obviously a cliffhanger.)
I had talked with a friend about it just as the first disc was arriving and she had mentioned that she wasn’t interested in seeing Season 2 because she was apparantly tired of the neverending slow reveal of mysteries paired with just a bit too much posing. I just wanted to know what was in the hatch.
Honestly, I almost agreed with her when I had finished the first of six discs of episodes. Specifically episodes 1-3 where, I think, possibly the most grotesquely painful replaying of the same 10 minutes of footage that I have ever seen on television. Yes, the hatch opening was a big deal for the series but you don’t spend three entire episodes without moving on to something, ANYTHING, else.
The good news? As soon as they got over themselves and got on with the rest of the season things took off very nicely and I really think there was enough balance of interesting new mysteries along with answers for the old mysteries even if not complete, and usually leading to new mysteries. The last episode of Season 2 alone was a great payoff for answering quite a few issues and I was reasonably happy with most, thought not all, of the answers.
Was there still maybe a whole lot of posing? Hell yes, but I think there may have been slightly less than in Season 1. I also had some small issues with the overly melodramatic continuing epic saga of the stunning and dramatic love triangle supreme of all time, space, and eternity that is Sawyer, Kate, and Jack’s story of love, unrequited and not, spurned and returned, and flowing through the, well, you get the idea. It runs on even worse than that last sentence. Possibly the most irritating thing about it though is that I think I might know people just like that.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for neverending plot lines, my 85% complete run of the Avengers comic from Marvel not being another indication, but I thought it was fun and it succeeded just as well as Season 1 at making me nervous to be alone in the dark after the TV had been turned off.
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09.19.06
Posted in Video at 7:38 am by Cavorter
Just an update about how Intelliflix is doing. I decided back in July that it wasn’t worth the hassle of trying to cancel my prepaid 1 year membership, so I’m just keeping track of how it’s performing at this point.
A couple of interesting tidbits:
- The inventory of Xbox 360 titles displayed on their site has not changed since I joined on April 8, 2006, even though 24 titles have been released since then.
- I have received exactly 2 game discs from Intelliflix, both of them Xbox games. (I joined because they advertised that they rented Xbox 360 games.)
- I have received a total of 25 discs from Intelliflix in the time that I have received 69 discs from Netflix.
- It takes an average of 6 days for a movie to report as “shipped” before I see it in my mailbox. (Fastest: 3 days. Longest: 10)
- It takes an average of 4 days for a movie to be reported as “returned” after I ship it back. (Fastest: 3 days. Longest: 5 days)
- Longest time between shipments in a queue: 52 days. (At the suggestion of their customer support department, I have my account split into 3 queues. The “game” queue has shipped 2 discs to me in the time that it has existed, I have received one of those. The queue was created on July 5, 2006.)
- The most notable feature added to their website is that now they tell you which of the items in your queue they apparently do not have in their inventory.
As you can see I’m still not particularly happy with the service, but I think it would be far more trouble to cancel my 1 year prepaid membership than to continue to track how well they are doing and maybe satisfy my curiosity about whether they actually have any Xbox 360 games at all or not.
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09.02.06
Posted in Video at 7:35 pm by Cavorter
The Veronica Mars season two episode “One Angry Veronica” has a credit for a “Ned Flanders Type”. I hope nobody has ever said pop culture isn’t self-referential.
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08.15.06
Posted in Comics, Video at 12:55 pm by Cavorter
Just in case there was any lingering doubt over the likely absence of anything “good” in the announced Marvel Avengers movie, Bags and Boards says that the person responsible for writing this oncoming travesty will be Zack Penn who has a decidedly checkered record.
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08.11.06
Posted in Comics, Video at 7:55 am by Cavorter
I just don’t know if I can even begin to be properly pessimistic about the chance that the newly announced series of Avengers movies is going to be even watchable. Have you seen the travesty that is The Ultimate Avengers Movie? It’s not even like the recent Marvel movies have been really very good. The decline in quality is obvious, and by the time they get around to this long list it will be Captain America all over again.
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06.12.06
Posted in Video at 11:22 am by Cavorter
I saw Pixar’s new movie, Cars last night. Short version: Amazingly beautiful and hilariously funny, but more shallow and less original than I normally expect from this source.
Every time that Pixar puts out a new movie, it is more beautiful than the one that ran before it. Comparing Toy Story to Toy Story 2 is an education in itself in the way that computer animation has grown by leaps and bounds in the few years between those productions. Cars is another leap, though the focus this time is not so much on realistic objects (Toy Story), organic movement (A Bug’s Life), almost touchable textures (Monsters, Inc.), or dynamic fluids (Finding Nemo). This time the focus is on depth of detail, and it has it in scads. From the opening scenes at the stadium with the hundreds of thousands of vehicles rendered to be individuals in a teeming world, to the inescapable dust of the desert, to the debris back on the track, every image in this movie is about cramming as much detail as possible into every frame to narrow the gap between animation and real video. Not to say that the visual style does not have it’s fair share of improbably smooth surfaces (cactus plants) and slightly oddly proportioned objects (The cars themselves), those are part of what people expect to see in a Pixar animation. There is a fingerprint of style there that is as consistent throughout the studio’s animations as Disney’s ever was. It gives the products of the studio a cohesive identity. But looking beyond that to the world around the characters, the scope of how much they can really show to you has expanded immensely and is shown off in amazingly detailed and subtle ways, like the ubiquitous road surfaces.
Past the visuals though, the movie is both very satisfying in being a really very funny romp and yet lacks the emotional depth seen in their other films. I think that the opening scene from Finding Nemo might possibly be the most effective way to set a tone for an environment ever filmed. It filled the rest of the movie with a tension about the very real dangers of the story’s environment that made the emotional connection to the characters as they experienced it’s beauty and horror that much more visceral. Cars goes about trying to connect you with the characters by showing you how pretty, and happy, and friendly the world they inhabit is and it’s kind of a let down. Even when the catastrophic happens a recovery is only a new quarter panel and coat of paint away. The main character is only ever slightly humiliated because of his own actions and never has to face up to a world that has an ultimately capricious nature that can take seemingly everything. There is no drama in Cars, it is purely an American comedy.
Despite that lack of depth, the humor is rich and well composed. From excellent sight gags, small and somehow appropriate potty humor, all the way through classically funny characterization and witty, zingy dialog, I found it hard not to laugh most of the way through the movie. I’ll never look at a combine harvester quite the same way. The story is a good version of an over-used classic with enough small twists to keep it interesting and a couple of fun elements that ensure the serial numbers aren’t quite what you’ve seen before, though you would have to be brain dead or driving on bald tires to miss most of the corners.
Overall, Cars is definitely worth seeing and, possibly because of it’s lack of drama, more appropriate for very young audiences than anything that Pixar has ever produced though it’s length will certainly be a problem for the more active of that group. If you have ever been accused of being a car nut or have any love of car culture or Route 66-style Americana, you would be crazy to give this a miss on the big screen.
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