How Blu-Ray Succeeds : Watchmen

There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not Blu-Ray discs will ever be popular enough to supersede DVD as the king of physical movie media formats.  Most people agree that, though the quality is great, it’s not as noticeable as the jump from VHS to DVD was.  Add to that the fact that blu-ray discs are still pretty expensive compared to their DVD counterparts (not to mention the cost of a good BD player in the first place)  and the inspiration to upgrade is somewhat lacking.  Therefore, given the seemingly slow adoption of blu-ray many, people including myself have hypothesized that the next great step forward is in high-quality streaming content.  Though the picture quality might not be comparable to blu-ray, the convenience factor is a huge selling point.

I have a blu-ray player but I still buy and watch DVDs most of the time, mostly because of cost.  If I’m trying to decide between a $15 DVD or a $23 blu-ray and the movie isn’t one I’m a super-fan of, I’ll probably save some cash and go with the DVD.  On the other hand I just purchased the blu-ray version of a movie I enjoyed quite a bit, and that’s for a few reasons.

The reasons I had no qualms about purchasing Watchmen on blu-ray are numerous.  First off it’s a visually impressive movie, and I know I’ll get a better experience from the higher-quality blu-ray.  When I’m looking at a comedy or drama that doesn’t feature much action it’s hard to get excited about the movie’s blu-ray version, but in this case I know the movie won’t disappoint.  Second, it comes with a digital copy of the movie.  When choosing between a DVD with no digital copy and a blu-ray with one, I’ll generally go for the blu-ray.  It’s just nice to have a copy of the movie on my myriad of devices instead of just on my TV.

Lastly, the extra features are actually worth having blu-ray for.  There is a feature called “maximum movie mode” with which all of the people who purchased the director’s cut of Watchmen in blu-ray will be able to view the movie alongside the director, Zack Snyder.  I’m usually not one for special features unless it’s a movie I care a great deal about, but that’s just plain cool.

This is kind of a random and rambling post, but it was something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately.  I want blu-ray to succeed, I truly do, but in order to get there I think more movie studios have to include awesome purchase-worthy extras to get people excited.  Once the platform is being exploited to offer an experience that’s truly unique when compared to  its DVD counterpart, and when price drops on discs and players, I think it’ll start catching on.  There’s still time for blu-ray to make a run, but in the meantime free digital copies of the movies are a good start.

Upgrade: WordPress 2.8.2

As is usually the case, this probably won’t mean much to you guys since most of the updates are relegated to the admin section of the site.  To be honest, the most prominent reason for installing this update is just that I was growing tired of seeing “THERE’S A NEW VERSION OF WORDPRESS PLEASE UPDATE NOW!” on the dashboard every time I logged in to write a post.

I’ll also be experimenting with some different themes over the next week.  I can’t decide if I want to go uber-minimalist or stick with a more robust design.  We’ll see.

As always, feedback would be great.

Have 2 hours to kill? Want to know more about Google Wave?

If you answered yes to these two questions I have a video just for you!  The video below weighs in at an impressive 120 minutes, and is (from what I can tell after watching the first 5) a thorough demonstration of Google Wave and its API.

Does “Security Essentials” spell trouble for Microsoft?

Microsoft is doing a very smart thing.  One of the biggest complaints against the company’s flagship product, the Windows OS, is that it has become a victim to malicious software including viruses and trojans.  To help solve this problem Microsoft has turned in-house to create their own security tool/anti-virus program called “Microsoft Security Essentials” (previously codenamed “Morro”).  The free tool will help to keep PCs clean but could also put the likes of McAfee and Symantec out of business.  As a result a very quirky question has been raised: would the current anti-virus application developers have a solid case against Microsoft for holding a monopoly in the anti-virus market?

Sounds ludicrous, right?  Microsoft improves their product by increasing its security, a feature that users have been begging for, and in the end they could be sued for doing so.  Still, people have successfully taken down the Redmond-based corporation in similar disputes.  The EU still requires Microsoft to sell a version of Windows that doesn’t include IE because it’s considered anti-competitive.  Of course the question remains, without a bundled web browser how does your everyday user go about installing their browser of choice easily and conveniently, but I’m not going to argue for the EU’s case logically in this post.

Honestly, I think Microsoft has learned from their prior exploits.  I don’t expect Security Essentials to be bundled with Windows 7.  Instead it will more than likely be acquired in a similar fashion as their Live suite of services.  The user might be prompted to download some of the Windows Live applications (Writer, Live Mail, Photo Gallery, and of course Security Essentials) but the chances of it being installed with the OS is kind of low, at least in my opinion.  That’s not to say I’m against the idea – I think it would be a great help to users to have a built-in anti-virus application that has a fairly small footprint which is integrated into the OS much like Windows Firewall is today.  However, I have a feeling there are some lawyers representing anti-virus competitors who would disagree with me.

Sometimes I feel as though Microsoft simply can’t win.  If you look at all of the cool products they’ve produced since 2005 you’d think consumers would cut them some slack, but everyone loves to hate on them.  It must be residual feelings left over from their glory days when Microsoft was, for all intents and purposes, the only player in the PC marketplace, but it seems impossible for the company to shed its “big brother” persona.  Me personally?  I feel that if you have to speculate about a company holding too much power in the tech industry it’s Google by far.  That doesn’t seem to be a commonly shared sentiment, though.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Night Vision Goggles!

Man, I thought the legendary Halo 3 “cat helmet” was bad. If you haven’t seen it, Infinity Ward has really gone to great lengths to cash in on the Prestige Edition of their hotly anticipated Modern Warfare 2 game. For a whopping $150 (roughly equivalent to two full-priced 360/PS3 games and a DS game) you can get your copy of Modern Warfare 2 with a working pair of night vision goggles. What??

Sure, you get a lot of stuff for that cash aside from the goggles. Included in the package are:

• Steel book with metallic finish (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Artbook (included in the $80 Hardened Edition)
• Token to download the origninal Call of Duty (included in the $80 hardened edition)
• Night Vision Goggles that is capable of seeing up to 50 feet
• Collector’s stand to hold your goggles that is individually numbered.

How to improve Xbox Live messaging

It’s generally accepted that Xbox Live’s core user experience is better than that found on the PlayStation Network.  Having one set standard across all games makes communicating with your friends much less of a hassle (most noticeably when grouping up for particular games).  However, I still think there’s plenty of room for improvement.  The following is just a quick list of simple features that I wish Xbox Live had.

1. Message Previews – More often than not, when I receive a text-based message from a friend while playing a game it’s usually a short 1-3 word phrase.  But in order to actually see what the message is saying I have to open up the dashboard, go to the messages tab and that’s where I see the actual preview from the full message.  Why not just include the preview in the new message notification?  Rather than the notification saying “so and so just sent you a message” it could say “‘Invite Please’ – Friend’s Name.”
2. Simpler Voice Messages – Voice messaging is the sort of feature that you use a few times because it’s a cool idea and then realize it’s too much work so you go back to normal text messages.  If you’re playing a game it’s hard to justify opening the dashboard, going to messages, selecting create new message, recording audio, then sending it to your friend.  It just takes too long.  Not only that, but most of my friends hate getting voice messages if they’re in a game because not only do they have to navigate to the messages tab (see #1), but they also have to take the time to listen to whatever the sender is saying.  It sounds trivial but if they could add a sort of hotkey with the xbox jewel for quickly recording messages, and also add a prompt similar to “hit the ‘A’ button to play” for incoming voice message notifications, it might be a much more attractive feature.
3. Access to Sent Messages – This is a quick one.  There’s nothing worse than logging into Xbox Live and seeing a new message from a buddy that simply says ‘okay’ or ‘haha’ or ‘cool.’  What are they talking about?  I have no idea, but if I could see my sent messages I could find out.
4. Seamless Community Integration – It’s kind of annoying that for every game my group of friends decides to adopt we have to first go through that game’s particular clan or team features to become associated.  Why not just work this into Xbox Live itself?  Steam does this quite well.  In Steam you can setup your own groups and invite users to the group without having to mess with individual games.  Steam also provides a handy homepage for each community group to see their latest activity.  Imagine being able to login to Xbox Live and browse a list of clans/guilds, see what games each is playing, and also sign up right from the guide?  Sounds like a good feature to me.

AudioBoo – Battlefield 1943 and Monkey Island

This one’s split into two parts because the first part exceeded 5 minutes.

AudioBoo: Spill Disasters

This is just another quick AudioBoo recording in which I describe my beverage spilling woes.  Very exciting.

Boo!

I heard about AudioBoo on Macbreak Weekly and decided to give it a try. Basically it’s a service that lets you record quick audio clips and turn them into a semi-podcast. I might do these more often since they’re quick and easy to do, so check back for more.

The coolest thing is how good the quality is – this was recorded with my iPhone, no special mic or anything, and it sounds really good.