Disciples of Bork

AvP: Requiem

2007-08-26T12:36:12-05:00

Saw this today: http://www.avp-r.com/trailer.html

Man, did that just come out of the blue. I really had no idea they were working on a second one this early. And it hits theaters on Christmas. My first impression is that this new film is going to suck because it seems rushed. But then after I watched the trailer, I got to thinking…

The first AvP film was in 2004, so it has been a while. While it was alright, I was disappointed because they killed off the first 2 Predators so soon. Nothing really happened until much later. What I missed was more of what the title of the film implies, namely, “Aliens vs. Predator” action. There just wasn’t enough of it in the first film.

The trailer is surprisingly M-rated. Lots and lots gore. And from the looks of it, it might actually be good. I would really like to see, as I said before, more fights between the Aliens and the Predators. And now we got the Army involved too. More urban landscape, not just some dinky exhibition site in the middle of nowhere.

I still don’t like that they refuse, yet again, to place an AvP film in space a la the original Aliens films. How I would love to see a James Cameron directed AvP set in the future, in space, with Aliens, Predators, and Colonel Marines. Alas, this “Requiem” is still not that, but oh well. Because I am a long time fan of both the Aliens and Predator films, I will of course see it anyway, no matter what the critics say.

DVD Prices dropping like crazy?

2008-01-08T20:39:20-05:00

I’ve been seeing a pretty satisfying trend over in swedenland lately, I don’t know if it’s an effect to compete with pricay or the wake of the HD format war, but DVD movies seems to drop in price faster than I have time to adjust to it. First the standard retail price has dropped by almost 20%, but on top of that several major chains have had brand new movies for up to half the price less than a month after its release. It’s been even worse after christmas since we have a traditional winter sale then, but the trend seems to go on and even increase now after the sale is over.

Is it just me, us, or is this something that can be seen elsewhere too?

The worst drawback is that HD Media can be 2-3 times more than its DVD counterpart now since they see nothing of the kind.

Death of Music DRM

2007-10-18T07:03:36-05:00

Well iTunes+ was launched and at lower prices, and higher quality but someone else is in the ballgame…. Amazon.com.

Quick Comparison:

iTMS
256 Kbps AAC
iTMS interface
Can upgrade previous purchases at discount
$1 a song
$10-13 an album
Includes Album Art work and full ID3.x tags with composer info (Can give album artwork for non-purchases)

Amazon.com
256 kbps MP3 (VBR often, can be higher bit rate)
Web interface + add on helper App for Winders and OSX
$.01-$.99 a song
$.01-$10+ and album
Includes Album Art work (slightly lower rez) and full ID3.x tags with composer info

I tested out both stores. iTMS is an easier method to browse, listen and buy. I’ve made 46 purchases from iTMS over the years, but several were digital only albums or bonus tracks from CDs that I already owned from other versions. iTMS offers the upgrade at a small price, an album by Tonedeff + two songs were upgraded to 256kbps for about $2. Seemed fair so I upgraded.

So far the selection sucks on iTMS+, I searched for a selection indie and commercial artists with low success as opposed to the massive catalog on iTMS.

Amazon.com however has a lot more, I was able to find several obscure singles I downloaded off various file swapping apps I always wished I had better quality versions and found a few. Many artists have one or two older albums on it. Albums are also cheaper as a whole Amazon.com, Kanye West’s album is $8, As opposed to iTMS $10. Same went for Jeru the Damaja’s new album. Also songs often are a hair cheaper, I was able to download a Jeru the Damaja song for $.89 as opposed to $.99. However I bought an explicit song by a particular artist and received the edited version. #$@!

AAC sounds better at low bit rates no question but when you get at 192 kbps the quality edge seems to fizzle off and its a toss up at 256 kbps. One of the big space savers for AAC is that dedicates much less data for post 16 KHz subbands as you can’t really hear those frequencies generally well. However, they do affect the rest of the sound scape as it plays into phasing. AAC does allow subband frequency ranges to variable, which also helps it but at the same time becomes less necessary at higher bit rates. MP3 for better or worse would try and describe the post 16 Khz sounds. It takes more data to describe the short wave forms so it’d often garble the highs and sacrifice chunks of the data rate to do so. AAC as a whole is a better codec, as its also ISO complainant as MP3 will physically alter the length of an audio file. However, since the MP3 at higher bit rates benefits more from the increased data bit rate and has sufficient at data to describe the full 22 Khz sound range. At 320 kbps, I found with tests of the first Apple AAC encoder (its undergone a few tweaks) I deemed MP3 as sounding better in blind tests.

To cut down to the skinny, 256 kbps really is a toss. MP3 is way more accepted universally. However, I’m unsure of the consistency of Amazon.com’s quality as one track could have been the sound was a poor master or the encoder, however it does say encoded with LAME 3.97.. Also Amazon.com advertises 256 kbps but the purchases I downloaded were VBR 216, which does mean it can peak higher but also lower. Also they’re encoded with Joint Stereo… The quality may be to blame..I may buy a song for testing purposes at a later date out of curiosity for listening tests

So which is better?

iTMS slightly wins out for slightly higher quality and easier purchases, but it really shouldn’t be your only store.
Amazon.com considering an album purchase can run as low as $2 cheaper and a much larger selection (at least for now) is more than reason enough.

So will I buy digital Albums over CDs (I’ve resisted digital)? Sometimes. It’ll probably cause now buy pirated songs more often as I’ll be getting a quality increase. Both Amazon.com and iTMS+ do sound noticeable better than the 128 AAC and with the shit encoders people use on file swapping networks, its bound to be better than their rips. Really digital albums if they were priced out generally at $7, would cause me to buy material I wouldn’t normally.

I didn’t bother to use the helper app but I will at a later date and add thoughts.The Amazon.com downloads however land in my downloads folder instead of my MP3 HD which is annoying, I imagine it’ll change. I’ll also clean up any typos later

Eureka! (just the TV show)

2007-08-28T04:32:00-05:00

Not sure if anyone has seen the series, but I’ve watching been Eureka lately. I started watching it last summer but didn’t ever finish season 1 as I forgot about it.

Eureka is a summer time series on Sci-Fi but its more comedy than science fiction or drama. It takes place in a town lost in the Pacific Northwest, never completely establishing where it is, although signs point to Oregon. The show starts out when a police officer transporting his daughter get lost and accidently find Eureka. On the surface it appears like a simple friendly town, until they’re quick to discover its a town filled with super geniuses sporting almost other worldly technology. After a mishap to the previous sheriff, main character, Carter is offer the position and he choses to stay in the quirky town.

Pretty much every episode features a few events, generally there’s the catastrophe that’s often comic in nature where some crazy experiment goes wrong. It also smartly sports a deeper plot filled with mystery. To say anything is to be revealing but its still unclear at present what it really is.

Its the best summer show I can think of and one of the few comedies worth watching. Its quirky, strange, fun and likable but the pilot isn’t nearly as upbeat as the rest of the season.

Salli Richardson is oh-so-very-hot. As we all know mega-genius chicks can only be matched by their sexiness.

For those who liked Session 9

2007-10-03T08:52:07-05:00

Ok, I’ll admit, it’s been awhile since I’ve been scared by a movie. I am about as jaded of a horror movie fan as they come and I have pretty much seen it all. To be honest I never really expected to be truly unnerved by a movie again. I was wrong. Oh so very wrong.

Nacho Cerda’s “The Abandoned” is a truly terrifying experience, filled with claustrophobic dread and the kind of nightmarish surreal atmosphere that stays with you long into the darkness of sleep. If follows you around every corner tugging at your brain until you finally succumb to it’s will. It makes you dizzy with fear.

Superbly acted and vividly realized with some of the most effective photography and sound design I have seen and heard in years, if there is going to be one complaint it will invariably be with the plot. Yes there are holes. And yes there are going to be points where you wonder what the hell is going on. But the film is handled with such care and precise direction that these faults become assets, aiding the already surreal nature of the movie, reminding you of the disjointed nature of nightmares and how they seem so non-linear and real at the same time.

If you allow it “The Abandoned” will take you on the rarest of rides. One of true terror. One you will not soon forget. “The Abandoned” joins the ranks of a select few. Films that have achieved a rare status with me, a film I can admit I will never watch alone. Ever.

Pixar: Better than Jesus

2007-06-26T04:26:26-05:00

“To watch Ratatouille is to recognize we’re living in another golden age of American animation.”

“Brad Bird wrote and directed Ratatouille and tops his previous work. Since his work includes The Iron Giant and The Incredibles, this puts him somewhere between Chuck Jones and Michelangelo.”

“If rival studios ever adopted Pixar’s story process for their films, there would be no need for critics due to the exceptional quality of the movies being made.”

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ratatouille/

I mean HOLY FUCK. Seriously, I thought the movie looked like Pixar’s first slip up. Now I’m looking to go watch it opening day with that kind of reviews. Pixar can do no wrong it seems. I read after Finding Nemo a lot of argument that we were experiencing a renaissance of animation comparable to the golden age and argument that the stories were better. I had to agree, Snow white can go fuck itself. Toy Story 2 was better.

Then the trailer for Wall-E is like, “Holy shit… they came up with all those movies like that?” You have to think that Pixar shits better movies than the best other studios produces.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/walle/

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/ratatouille/trailerQTlarge.html

Dead Like Me

2007-04-26T23:59:18-05:00

No one posts here so trying to start up a little discussion….

I never really heard much about Dead Like Me other than it was good and it was on pay-per-view. Anyhow I downloaded on a whim both Seasons. Bad of me I know…

No spoilers as it happens 15 minutes into the first epside…. its about a girl who’s 18 killed by a Toilet seat that fell from the space station mir in a freak accident, the obvious catalyst for the show. Not everyone becomes a reaper, and its hardly a blessing. Its more or less the way things are. Rather than Georgia, (portrayed by the strangely-attractive-but-by-no-convential-means-beautiful Ellen Muth) moving to the after life, she’s joined by a cast of other misfit reapers. Death is issued on yellow post its, and rain or shine the reapers must reap souls often making for awkward social situations.

Reaping doesn’t pay well, or anything at all so reapers end up stealing, particularly from the dead and getting day jobs. The show is mostly a dry comedy, sarcastic and biting as Georgia tears apart the great life questions in flash backs to her rather mundane childhood. Its too easy to relate to her negativity.

While if it were just punchlines about death, that’d hardly make the show so memorable, so there’s a bit of a grander plot going on as the show focuses in on her little sister whom she never paid much interest to. They slowly hint and tease you, knowing some inevitable events will occur but its only beginning to be realized at the end of season 2 in the final episode that the anticipated event happens and bam… over. You’re like “OH snap, that was fucking cool..” then the let down knowing it ended too soon.

Seriously it has Mandy Patinkin, Motherfuckin’ Inigo Montoya. How the fuck can you cancel Inigo? Mandy Patinkin should make it uncancelable.

It doesn’t have the internet cult following as its not a sci-fi show but I’d put it behind firefly as the best show canceled too soon but it had to be a relatively expensive show to film. She travels around Seattle, shot on tons of locations (In vancouver mostly as its the 3rd biggest film city in North America) involving over-the-top death circumstances warranting stuntmen, special effects and even CG characters.

Seriously, rent it, download it, buy it whatever. Its a pretty good show, probably would have been remembered even better had they just had one more season.

March Madness baby!

2007-03-16T18:37:54-05:00

Whoa, you can watch all the NCAA B-ball tourney games on demand (Live and full game afterwards, and highlights) at http://www.ncaasports.com/mmod

Registration takes seconds. You can’t watch games that are being broadcast if they’re being shown locally so right now I’m watching UO on my cable but I Can’t watch it on the internet. However I can watch other gmaes that won’t be broadcast here and games that were broadcast live after they’re done and of course the highlights. Its fucking tight.

So of course I’m rooting University of Oregon. They raped in the Pac-10 tournament winning the tournament with the closest game being 18 points. Ha. UOwnage.

Also of interest Tennesse beat Long Beach State 121 to 86, highest scoring game since 1990. Been watching that on the laptop while watching the UO game.

First Blu-ray+HD-DVD player announced…

2007-01-05T12:45:55-05:00

It was only a matter of time….
http://news.com.com/A+shotgun+marriage+for+Blu-ray+and+HD+DVD/2100-1041_3-6147442.html?tag=nefd.lede

Honestly this whole format war has made for some horrid technology decisions. Besides neither format really is very future minded. 30/50gigs for a 1080p movie is acceptable but only just that. For a 2 hour movie assuming it used the entire 50 gigs for the movie which it won’t, would be 6.94 megs a second. Uncompressed 1080p takes up a sec 119 megs at 29.97 FPS (8-bit of course, not counting 10 bit). That’s roughly 5% of the original size, and that’s the theorical max for the video, no audio.

Now DVD has theorically 9734 kbps bit rate for video, almost a meg a sec. Its roughly 20 megs a sec, its almost the same compression ratio, 5% of the original. Now the benefit of course is HD will sport the huge rez, downside is you’ll see that artifacting even more.

Of course I’m over simplfying some of the codec mashing and various other factors but the data rate ratio should increase to really make for more quality gains.]

Here’s my prediction: HD DVD will take a lead because its cheaper. It literally costs less to produce two HD DVDs to one BluRay disc. We’ll see special feature HD-DVDs sperate from the movie.

In search of a new TV Show…

2006-04-08T22:19:08-05:00

Okay, my life has been in a rather uninteresting spell as I move towards graduation with most of my friends having already graduated, moved away, turning into losers and such and only end up hanging out with people like 2 times a week which leaves 5 nights of boredom.

I’ve been on a long standing TV show watching binge which is at an all time high… way back when I started by downloading Scrubs and Friends on Gnutella but it really didn’t go into effect until two years ago when Benny introduced me to bit torrent. Anyhow I’ve watched: 24 (S1-S2), Boondocks, Dave Chapelle (S1-S2), Battlestar Galactica (S1-S2) Family Guy (S1-S4), Firefly (S1), Friends, Lost@@#!@! (S1-S2), Rome, (S1), Startrek:TNG (S1-S7), Stargate SG-1 (S1-S8), Stargate Atlantis (S1-S2), Sopranos (S1-S5) Scrubs (S1-S4).

My favorite show without a question is Lost. Battlestar Galactica is up there, I really liked Firefly and the early seasons of Scrubs are genius. I’m not big on animated stuff as everyone knows my inner child was killed by a bus of happy japanese people on their way to Disney land. Stargate SG-1 isn’t very good and I just kept watching hoping it’d get better as I started with Atlantis.

Anyhow recommend me some shit! I really honestly don’t know what’s on TV as I do all this through bit torrent. A few of my friends really like Veronica Mars, I watched a single episode. It wasn’t bad actually but the HS drama thing, I dunno….