cinema

Blu-ray beats HD DVD... Now get ready for the next format war

I have to hand it to fellow analyst Rob Enderle. Way back in August of 2005, he called the high-def format war in a piece titled "Blu-ray Wins or Nothing Does."

Then again, he also said in that article that "the more likely outcome is that the market will bypass both products and move to something else," so perhaps he wasn't perfectly prescient.

And come to think of it, a year later (in December 2006) he changed his mind entirely in columns titled "Optical HD Battle May Be Over: HD DVD Wins," "… Read more

LaCie's LaCinema Premier: The DVD ripper's friend?

As good as the Apple TV 2.0 is, it's still pretty limited on what sort of videos it can stream from a networked computer--if it hasn't been imported into iTunes, you're pretty much out of luck. If you're looking for something with more file format flexibility--and the simplicity of drag-and-drop operation--the LaCie LaCinema Premier may be just the ticket. … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 659: Microsoft: No means yes

EPISODE 659

Where Randall promises he won't walk out this episode

EPISODE 34

Today, we rant about how J.R.R Tolkien's estate took home a whopping $62,000 from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. $62,000--that's like your dad's salary for a movie trilogy that grossed over $8 billion worldwide. Plus, we talk Fight Club reborn on Broadway, and Thriller's 25th anniversary netting some awful bonus tracks.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

National Geographic to release 'U2 3D'

A few months ago I wrote that one of the hottest tickets at this year's Cannes Film Festival was U2 3D, a 3D concert film about the popular band made using the technology of two companies helping to make 3D films a regular part of the movie going experience: 3ality and Real D.

Now, U2 3D is set to be accessible even to those of us who couldn't make it to the Riveria to hobnob with Leo and Bobby and the rest of the gang.

According to a release I got this morning from National Geographic Cinema Ventures, … Read more

Dolby does digital TV

CHIBA, Japan--Dolby, the sound company, is getting into TVs.

The company is at Ceatec, the large Japanese trade show taking place here this week, to promote Dolby Contrast and Dolby Vision, two technologies (one currently real, one on the drawing board) to extend its reach into digital TV and cinema.

Both Dolby Contrast and Dolby Vision are essentially ways to apply the dimmer switch concept to light emitting diodes. LEDs are being increasingly used as the backlight in flat panel LCD TVs. Dolby Contrast allows the TV to dynamically adjust. One LED could go completely black while its neighbor could … Read more

YouTube, HP team up on filmmaking competition

This post has been updated to include a statement from YouTube on why the Project Direct contest is only open to Web users in seven countries.

"I demand an explanation for these shenanigans. What do you have to say?" If you're a regular YouTube junkie, you might be hearing that phrase a lot more in the near future.

The massive, Google-owned video-sharing site announced on Monday a new initiative called Project Direct, a contest sponsored by Hewlett-Packard in which aspiring filmmakers are encouraged to submit films between two and seven minutes in length. A total of 20 … Read more

Sunfire CRM-2 Cinema Ribbon: The biggest sounding tiny speaker you can buy

Nowadays it seems like everybody wants tiny speakers. Catch is, most small speakers sound small--they squash dynamic range, can't play at all loud, and produce a lot more distortion than large speakers. I've always been frustrated by the sound of really tiny speakers--until I reviewed Sunfire's CRM-2 satellite ($800 each) in the May, 2007 issue of Home Theater magazine .

With its grille removed you notice something unusual: the CRM-2's front baffle is almost completely covered by a 6-inch "ribbon" tweeter (essentially a lightweight aluminum foil, suspended between neodymium magnets). The ribbon's ultra-low moving … Read more

After HDTV, what's next?

One of the last things I did at Siggraph this year was to spend about 20 minutes enraptured by the best video I've ever seen. It's called "4K" (after the number of pixels on each horizontal line), and you'll be seeing it in theaters within the next few years.

The Siggraph Computer Animation Festival included one session of video driven by a Sony SXRD SRX-R105 projector displaying 4,096 by 2,160 pixels at 24 frames per second with progressive scan (or 2160p24 for short).

That's four times the number of pixels you'll see on a home HDTV set-- or in… Read more

What is wrong with this system?

In a recent story picked up by the Associated Press, a young girl of 19 was brought up on charges for recording twenty seconds of the popular Transformers movie. The reason: she wanted to show her little brother something. And while she admitted to recording the brief twenty second clip, she did assert that she had no intention of reselling the material.

So, for recording a brief twenty second clip, what can the poor girl expect in punishment? Up to one year in the slammer and a $2,500 fine! Oh, and in case you're wondering, there are people … Read more