movie

A new perspective for 3D films at home

Everyone is raving about the "unblinkingly real" quality of watching the animated "Coraline" in 3D. That could turn to disappointment when it's time for the animated film to make its DVD and Blu-ray debut. But Dolby Labaratories, which made its name taking high-quality theater audio and compressing it for home use, thinks it has a solution.

Right now, when 3D films like "Journey to the Center of the Earth" come to disc a pair of anaglyphic paper glasses--the kind with blue/red or green/red lenses--is included with the case, which doesn't offer anything close to the experience of watching a film in 3D in the theater. It could explain why some 3D films, like "U2 3D" have yet to make it to disc at all.

As more 3D films start popping up in theaters, the quality of their appearance once you buy them on disc for home viewing is going to be an increasingly important question.

The barriers to re-creating a similar theater-quality experience are both technical and practical: some content makers believe there will have to be a whole new format to make 3D films feel the same way on the couch as they do in the theater. That would involve all new equipment, which means ditching your brand new Blu-ray player and buying yet another disc format. After all the marketing messages consumers have heard about Blu-ray in the last few years, the last thing they want to hear is that Blu-ray is suddenly obsolete. … Read more

WonderCon 2009: 'Up' flies away

Pixar showed the first 45 minutes of its next animated feature "Up" at WonderCon here in San Francisco this weekend. I did not see all of those minutes, due to there being some limited-to-first-250-people-to-come BS I didn't have the patience to deal with.

I did get to see about 17 minutes of the film, however, via five scenes Pixar debuted. My impressions after viewing the clips is that the movie looks very good--visually, conceptually, and just for pure entertainment.

"Up" deals with a curmudgeonly old man tying a bunch of balloons to his house and … Read more

WonderCon 2009: 'Wonder Woman' movie kicks editor in teeth, makes him cry uncle

To think I almost decided to skip the "Wonder Woman" movie. I'm a huge comic book geek. I love me some Batman and Wolverine for sure. Wonder Woman, however, never really did it for me. Never enough to buy a single issue of her comic, at least.

That was until Friday. After watching the "Wonder Woman" animated movie, I actually bought a Wonder Woman comic for the first time.

My decision to do this, as you might surmise, has everything to do with the movie blowing me the "eff" away. It stomped on … Read more

The 404 287: Where our mouths are agape with a mixture of pleasure, longing, and duck meat

Jeff, Justin, and Wilson start the show off right today with a SNL Christopher Walken reference. Always a great way to start the day. Getting into actual stories, we chat about ways to actually sleep. Tip No. 1: Sleep when you are tired. iTunes launches an indie music store. Gore Verbinski decides to make a video game based on "Clue." And yes, people stalk their exes online.

EPISODE 287 Download today's podcast… Read more

Price Watch: PC Blu-ray drive, $79.99 shipped

Remember the $89.99 Blu-ray Disc drive from last week? Hope you waited, because here's an even better deal: Newegg has the Sony Optiarc internal Blu-ray drive for $79.99 shipped. Plus, unlike the previous drive, this is new, not a refurb.

Same caveats as before: It's a serial drive, meaning that you'll need a system with a SATA interface. You'll also need a video card and monitor that support HDCP; otherwise, Blu-ray's copy protection will prevent movies from playing.

Alas, Sony bundles no software for viewing said movies, so you'll need to earmark … Read more

Add a Blu-ray drive to your PC for $89.99

Regular Cheapskate readers know that I'm a big fan of media-center PCs, which is why I frequently spotlight TV tuners.

Now let's round out the movie side of the equation: Buy.com has the Sony BDU-X10S internal Blu-ray drive for $89.99 shipped.

This is a refurbished drive, meaning it has just a 90-day warranty. If you'd rather go new and can scrape up a few extra bucks, Newegg has the Lite-On DH-401S-58 Blu-ray drive for $99.99 (plus shipping).

Either way, you're looking at a serial drive, meaning you'll need a system with a … Read more

Top 5 coolest movie robots

This latest top 5 involves a subjective determination of the coolest robots ever to appear in a movie, including androids. Exhaustive research, including a lifetime of watching robots in movies, led to this culminating point in my career. The response on Twitter and Facebook when I asked for suggestions was overwhelming.

In fact, it will probably spin off into two more episodes. There are enough TV robots out there to do a separate top 5 just on cool robots of the small screen. And we might even squeeze out a top 5 real robots. They're actually getting cool enough to do it.

In the meantime, I promised I would post the full list of robot suggestions I got on the Web, so here you go. Watch the video for the top 5, and the full list of suggestions comes after the jump. It's a pretty long list. Just goes to show, nothing beats the hive mind.

MySpace anti-product placement in popular flick

Chances are, many of you will be going next weekend to see He's Just Not That Into You.

Some will see this, already America's No.1 movie, willingly, even enthusiastically. Others will perhaps grimace and bear it in the commitment to a higher cause.

However, while you are enjoying "I'm a Mac" icon Justin Long channeling his inner Vince Vaughn with the aim of keeping women at torso's length, you might also notice that MySpace plays a role in the movie. One that might best be described as the sleazy character that no one … Read more

One million Xbox 360 users tap Netflix

Corrected at 12:53 p.m. PST Friday, February 6, 2009, to indicate that Sony is available again via streaming and Netflix does not currently rent games.

While I'm both an Xbox 360 gamer and a Netflix user, I still haven't signed up for Netflix on my Xbox.

That's the unpopular stand, it seems, as Microsoft and the video rental site on Thursday announced that more than 1 million Xbox users have downloaded and activated the movie service since it was introduced on the game console in November of last year. That translates to more than 13,… Read more

Why $100 is the perfect Blu-ray player price

Lite-On might be releasing a $150 Blu-ray player at some point in 2009, recent rumors suggest. There's not much more information available now, but I don't think it seems out of the question to expect Lite-On or another firm like Memorex to release a player for that price sometime during the year.

But is $150 the sweet spot for Blu-ray players? For those who want Blu-ray anyway they can have it, that might be perfect. But for others, $150 is still a steep price tag for a device that would conceivably offer less quality than other, more expensive Blu-ray players on the market.

And as I consider a $150 Blu-ray player, I find myself in the latter grouping. It's not that a $150 Blu-ray player doesn't appeal to me. But for that price, I'm not getting enough that would make me want to spend the money.

For me, the perfect price tag for a Blu-ray player at this juncture, given the economy and the format's shortcomings, is $100.… Read more