HD-DVD for the win!!

Well something you'll soon learn about me is that I love movies.  Always have, always will.  I recently jumped head first into the High Def Format wars.  My weapon of choice... HD-DVD!

I vowed I wouldn't buy either of them until there was a clear cut winner.  I didn't wanna be like one of those schmucks who shelled out big bucks for a BetaMax Player back in the 80's only to have VHS reign supreme.  Then one fateful day I was on amazon.com when I came across this great deal.  10 Free HD-DVD titles and a price less than $200?  No way!  Needless to say I jumped all over it.

I did do my research though, I wasn't just gonna go with HD-DVD because the price was too good to pass up.  So I ordered the bastard and it was in my hands within a few weeks.  Seeing as how I'm Canadian and stupid Amazon wont ship items over a certain price over the boarder I had to get my friend Crystal and Jos to help me get it up here. (Thanks guys!)  But before I knew it here it was my brand spankin' new portal to the wonderful world of High Definition movie watching.

I was seriously blown away at how great the picture looked.  I knew it  

was gonna be like night and day compared to traditional DVD but it still kicked my ass when I first saw it.  The first thing I popped in was the BBC show "Planet Earth".  HOLY SHIT!  Watching thi

s disc is the closest you can get to the real thing.  The image was so clear and sharp I swear I was looking through a window at the beautiful landscapes.  I suggest you pick up this set, whether it be in High Def or not,  if you are into nature in anyway shape or form this show will kick your ass.  

So far I've watched the John Wayne classic "The Searchers" and "The Bourne Identity".  Both of em looked incredible.  "The Searchers" was shot in VistaVision, which is an incredible way of filming movies back in the 50's.  One of the first 2.35/1 aspect ratios available and John Ford used the hell out of it to create some breathtaking landscape shots.  I was also impressed at how vibrant the colours where.  There's just something about those old first colour movies that looks so cool, especially in High Def.  

"The Bourne Identity" looked prety freaking sweet too.  The detail on peoples faces in close ups is insane, this could be a good thing or a bad thing.  Seeing Matt Damon's ugly mug in High Def isn't always prety.  The cool thing on this disc is what's called "The Treadstone Files".  They use the capability of the higher capacity discs to really show off with the special features.  When you turn this option on, periodically the frame will shrink a tad bit and go off to the side, then some super fancy spy computer type stuff comes up, as if you are some sort of Covert Operative Hacker type trying to track down the main character.  It shows the GPS location, speed of travel and all kinds of shit that just looks cool.  Go here to see what I mean.  It's just a frill that doesn't really enhance the movie in anyway, but it is cool to see the technology at work.  It should be interesting to see how other titles will use this sort of thing to enhance the movie experience.

I've been perusing some of the special features on the other discs I've got.  "300" has a prety bad ass feature where you can do a picture in picture and see the un-edited blue screen footage in the bottom left corner as the movie plays.  Director Zack Snieder has a separate audio commentary that goes along with it talking about how he filmed the scenes and how they added stuff in after.  

Well needless to say I'm prety happy with my purchase.  I'm thinking HD-DVD is gonna be victorious in the format war.   Maybe I'll get into that more in my next post,  but for now I'm off to go watch something.  

Keep On Truckin'