The Wonders of Blu-Ray

My first choice for comparing DVD to Blu-Ray on my new toy was the James Bond film From Russia With Love. The reason I had chosen this particular film was because the DVD copy I have of this one looks like a digital scan of an old film print without any cleanup work at all. It even has film imperfections preserved in glorious digital detail. 

I selected a scene that I thought would show off the potential of the high definition versus the "how bad can it be?" of the DVD copy. So I watched the helicopter scene near the end of the film where Bond avoids a helicopter trying to take him out. Naturally, he wins in the end, and the helicopter comes down in a glorious crash and explosion. 

After I watched the DVD, I put on the Blu-Ray version that I'd gotten from Blockbuster. Holy cow! The difference was absolutely unbelievable. I had wondered if they'd done any cleanup or found a cleaner copy for the HD transfer, but the clarity is beyond description. The colors were brighter all around, and they managed to increase the definition to where everything was clear right down to being able to make out the texture of the seat belt in the helicopter.

We subsequently watched Twister and had the chance to compare it to an SD version from shots within the documentaries on the disc, and it was so much sharper than we'd seen before. 

So there is a difference so far. I still want to make a comparison between a modern DVD and the Blu-Ray version that would have been released on the same day, instead of there being years between the releases. Hence, my next target for a direct comparison is Casino Royale, though I do want to compare The Polar Express as well. The up-convert of the standard to HD of that movie was actually really incredible.

I guess I'll see how they go when I get ahold of them.

How Christmas Went

Christmas went very well on my end. I got all kinds of nice goodies that I don't mind sharing the wonders of, not to mention a little extra bonus to boot. On the evening of the 24th, we met with my family as we always do, and they got me the new Guitar Hero: World Tour game. I'd played this a few months ago, and I'd wisely decided that since I was going to have it at some point, I would not delete the saved game I'd built up when I'd rented it so I'd still have all the songs I'd unlocked. It was still there, so I can freely play pretty much anything on the game. It's still awesome. I've played some co-op with both the Engineer and Rock Girl since, and found it has its own tiers for co-op. That's interesting.

On Christmas morning, I found Santa had gone Star Wars on me, and brought me the Mace Windu lightsaber (which is the only lights and sound lightsaber I did not have... [notices the odd looks at the mention of the complete set of lights and sounds lightsabers] ...what?), but as luck would have it, this one was defective in that the spring action sprung once and never sprung again. Bummer. Also for me were three more action figures to add to my growing collection of them (not a complete one, but I did grab all of the Episode I and Episode III figures when they came out -- lately there are so many that it's unwieldly) as well as the Wii game Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Lightsaber Battles. The controls on this one are a bit different from The Force Unleashed but the play control is similar, and the one round I've played on it so far was fun. 

Oh, and this geek totally scored on the Queen's gifts. She squealed at every one of them as she'd gotten this year's holiday Barbie, the Tales of the Beadle and the Bard (a sort of spin-off book from the Harry Potter franchise), and from thinkgeek.com (I'm so proud), an executive Crayola crayon pen. My Queen can be a bit of a geek too.

For lunch, we went to the Queen's parents house for the family Christmas of her end. A few years ago, we'd started all gathering at one location so everyone could enjoy everyone else's company for Christmas as opposed to running all over town to see everyone for a few minutes and then running off to someone else's house. The princesses get worn out after such a day. So this year, it was her parents' turn to host and next year, they're talking about it being our turn again. We had a buffet style lunch, and everyone got their fill of the food before the attention turned to the gifts.

I got a blu-ray player from her parents which is something I'd been eyeing for awhile now, given my rather extreme movie interest. From her grandparents, I have two more Wii games: Force Unleashed and Lego Batman, both of which were at the top of my want list. With the cash from her other grandparent, we started our blu-ray disc collection with Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, which is the start of that series that we'd been wanting to get anyway. I decided that I'd rent movies I already have to compare them with the DVD versions.

The princesses, of course, took home motherloads of toys that they were all overjoyed with and have been playing the heck out of. From Polly Pockets and Littlest Pet Shop toys to a pair of Nintendo DS's and a Leapster, they've barely put any of them down long enough to pick up the next one. And it's not one toy over another either. They go through pretty much all of them and The Socialite and Sassy Pants freely fight over each other's toys as well. Oh, but not playing with each other's toys, but rather getting the other to play with her.

Our last little bonus was from The Engineer. At his church, they'd come across a dishwasher that someone brought in presumably after a remodle or replacement or something, and they were informed that it still worked. As it was a free deal, on Friday, the Engineer and I ventured over there to pick it up, bring it home, and then install it. It took more time than anticipated, but there aren't any horror stories to go along with it. Our new free dishwasher works like a charmand actually cleans dishes.

So it was a good Christmas all told. Everyone went home happy, and ready to face the new year with some new stuff that makes them all very happy.