Three Stooges or Rad Dudes?

Three-Totally-Rad-Dudes, originally uploaded by TNVWBOY.

If you don't know about The Totally Rad Show, you need to head over to (http://www.revision3.com/trs) and watch some episodes. They talk about all stuff rad but most often; movies, video games, TV, Comics, etc.

In the forums there have been numerous Photoshop projects. Above is my first such image. I think it turned out really well. You can join the Flickr group and see more at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/totallyradshow/

Daily Soap Box - HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray

First off I'm not an early adopter type. Second I've never actually witnessed either format.

Those things said, who cares?! More HDTVs are being sold but a also know a lot of people older than 40 who don't care about HD. Sure there are some who do but many who don't. Even those of us with HD don't care. I'm one. I have an HDTV.

Here is the bottom line that no one supporting either of these formats is stating... Most people do not and will not for years have the home entertainment systems to take advantage of these high-def movies! My TV doesn't support 1080p, and it's really too small (42in) to make a HD movie worth while. If I had a 60+ inch TV that'd be a different story, but those are STILL very expensive and well out of the range of a vast majority of consumers.

Another factor that is putting a lot of people off is the fact that many movie lovers have huge DVD collections and now if they want HD they have to upgrade. UGH! Sorry, I'm not rebuying all my movies again. Perhaps if there was a GOOD trade-in program. Say you get 60-75% off if you can trade-in the old DVD version, otherwise why bother?

I can hear the marketing people already talking about all the interactive extras on the HD format. Umm...sorry but I don't care again. Sometimes I'll watch the making of or director commentary but more often than not I ignore it. That's not a selling point for me.

So what is the solution? Easy, an up-converting DVD player. I just got a Samsung up-converting DVD player for my birthday. It's great. It blows away my old DVD player in terms of picture quality. Now why, given my entertainment setup would I want to go to HD? Where is the benefit to me? Why should I waste my money on either format when I have an existing format that works just fine? I mean how much more 'definition' and audio channels can they give us before it's just absurd?

Unless you have money to burn and/or an early adopter, stay out of this format war. It's not worth your time or money.