Well, folks, "The Simpson's 20th Anniversary Special! In 3D! On Ice!", hosted by Mr. Morgan Spurlock, has just aired. What did I think? Well, I gotta be honest here, as interesting as much of it was I really wanted more. And I don't necessarily mean "more" as in quality or substance, I mean literally "MORE!"
Really, fellas, just one hour? You boast about it being the most successful television show ever and you thought one hour would suffice? Give me more interviews with actors,creators, or fans. Anything!
I want a Simpson celebration to get at least the same treatment that The Beatles got for their anthology in '95 on ABC. They got a six hour documentary, and they're not even that funny.
Also, if you are (or were, in light of the shows quality in these last few years) a Simpson's fan this special didn't really give you any information that you probably didn't already know. Nothing new under the Simpson sun, really.
The only novel contribution, at least for me, this special had to offer was a brief glimpse into the Simpson's fanbase in other parts of the world. I especially liked the citizens of Scotland feuding over Groundskeeper Willie's city of origin. It was also funny to see how many people, apparently, in Brazil couldn't take a joke.
So, overall, the special was decent, I'm always fascinated to hear fans/creators/actors talk about this phenomenon we call "The Simpsons", but its scope was too broad. Not enough details. Perhaps in another few decades a true and proper Simpson's retrospective will be made.
If I'm still alive I 'll definitely be checking it out, and hopefully, still, be quoting lines from the show everyday.

I'm interested to see what everyone thinks about all the self proclaimed HD Floating around out there. The title HD is basically worthless now. Consumer electronics as well as user based video sites have seemingly blurred, no pun intended, the distinction between what is actually High-Definition and what only pretends to be.

Years ago the standards for HD were set by the ATSC. They were 1280x720 and 1920x1080, 720p and 1080p respectively(this also includes 1080i). Everything that was to be considered HD had to be at least 1280x720 Simple enough, right? Not exactly. A few years a friend of mine purchased a TV that was purported to be HD 720p yet its resolution was only 1024x768, which is actually XGA.
See Graph below.


When we researched this we found that it was common for 42 inch 720p plasma televisions to be this resolution. Which really surprised me because I was aware of the ATSC standard. And yes, I'm aware that the image quality difference between 1280 and 1024 at that screen size is negligible, but it's the principle, 1024 fails to meet the standard.
This marked the beginning of an interesting trend. Since, I imagine, the average person is not aware of the vertical resolution specs, the horizontal pixel count is touted more often. Which leads manufacturers to cut corners, for some odd reason, by lowering the pixel count. It doesn't sense to me that lowering the pixel count a little bit would decrease production cost in any way. Or take for instance the Hitachi Ultravision, it boast a 1080 resolution but its actually resolution is closer to 720. It measures in at 1280x1080. Which means it's 720 with extra horizontal resolution. I imagine this was done simply to put that 1080 tag on the case. Little do prospective buyers know that it's actually 640 pixels short of 1080p.
But this is all water under the bridge now, because 1080p is quickly becoming the standard. My gripe is all the pseudo HD floating around the net. Especially YouTube and Vimeo, as well as many others. It's seems customary on these sites to have a button that turns the HD quality video on. However this button is a lie. Anyone who is familiar with HD content knows that when you watch a video on YouTube or Vimeo it's decidedly not HD. Why? Because every video site transcodes and compresses video, so even if you upload 1280x720 what you watch on the site will not be HD. To be clear, I'm not complaining about the video quality on these sites. For streaming video it's excellent. What I'm more concerned about is the mislabeling of HD content, because it could lead to lower standards for picture quality. If the public consciousness becomes conditioned to think that HD video is equal to what we watch on YouTube or stream on Netflix then the incentive to up the ante for HD pq on broadcasts and Bluray could possibly drop. that's it that's my gripe, now on to health care!

It's been a couple of months now, but funny man Jay Leno is back doing what he does best: Late night comedy. Well, not so late now, I guess. He's on at 10pm instead of his original 11:30pm slot, now taken over by Conan O'Brien.
So you can sit back for an hour, have a few chuckles hopefully, watch your local crappy news, and then prepare yourself for two more hours of late night comedy with Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon. Wow!
Really NBC? 3 hours of this stuff? Let's hope it goes well.
The show itself is basically the same stuff you saw Leno do on the Tonight Show, just a few bits rearranged, and with a new set. Jay hasn't changed, and his brand of not so over the top comedy hasn't changed either, and that's fine with me. I always liked him on the Tonight Show.
You want quirky, watch Conan.
A bit of a surprise, though, came when Jay got a little serious when talking with Kanye "the accoster" West about his VMA incident. I felt like I was watching a shrink talk with his patient.
But overall, solid show. It's very chuckle worthy. And what more could you ask for on free tv entertainment?

HD, 1080p, 240hz, what's next? 3D? Well, actually, yes. Sony announced Wednesday plans to blanket the globe with 3D televisions by the end of 2010 rendering millions of HD television, including yours, boring and flat. Don't think you need a 3d TV? Consider this, Sony is moving aggressively to establish 3D multimedia across many different platforms, including but not limited to their Vaio series, the PS3 game console and of course Blu ray movies which means that something you'll want will be offered in 3D. Of course the situation is messy right now and there aren't any standards as of yet which is very reminiscent of the early days of HD, but if Sony has their way it'll only be a year or so before you start to feel ashamed of your boring 2D television.

From Ft.com
Mr Stringer (Sony's Chief Executive) is expected to tell the audience: “Today, 3D is clearly on its way to the mass market through technology, distribution and content.

“As with high definition a few years back, there are a variety of issues yet to be addressed. But the 3D train is on the track, and we at Sony are ready to drive it home.”
Dig deep because it aint gonna be cheap.

I'm sure this is old news to most of you, since I've heard the same news repeated ad nauseum over the last few days. But I'm sure you won't mind me parroting it again here. Hey, that's what I do. Recently CBS recently acquired ad space in Entertainment Weekly to showcase its fall lineup. which isn't all that newsworthy unless you consider that the space will be filled with small display screens featuring video and sound.

From Cnet:

The screen, which is 2.7 millimeters thick, has a 320x240 resolution. The battery lasts for about 65 to 70 minutes, and can be recharged, believe it or not, with a mini USB cord--there's a jack on the back of it. The screen, which uses thin film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) technology, is enforced by protective polycarbonate. It's a product that has been in development at Americhip for about two years, spokesman Tim Clegg told CNET News via e-mail.

There's a good article floating around on theplaylist.com which summarizes a recent article written by Steven Soderbergh which essentially smacks the cable companies in the face in an effort to demand satisfaction. His gripe is basically over the cropping of super-widescreen movies. Confusion follows...

This is a 2.40:1 movie (Superwide):



And this is the same image cropped to fit a 1.85:1 ratio (widescreen TV ratio):


With the "less" rectangular shape of the 1.85 image size there is less of a horizontal scope. This is achieved by cropping the original image or by opening the matte up, which is essentially taking the black bars off the top and bottom of a super wide film. Open matte can only be achieved through when the director chooses to film this way. The director chooses to shoot in a less wide aspect ratio because it's easy to both crop the image to make it wider for theaters and show the less wide footage on cable networks to fill up a widescreen TV with no black bars.
Most networks especially, cable networks crop the 2.40 to fit the 1.85 so the viewer sees no black bars and is comforted. But some crop it down to 1.33:1 (a square) which is really baffiling.
Phew, it's a confusing issue, and I know I didn't make it any clearer, but this might help. I'm interested to see if Soderbergh addressed the open matte issue.

Some of you might not know this, but FOX's tv show The Simpsons has been on the air and watched by millions for almost 20 years now. More specifically, the first episode was aired on Dec. 17th 1989. Wow! FOX is celebrating this anniversary with a new tv special to be aired next year. I'm not sure about any of the particulars on what this documentary will cover, maybe the shows history, or its cultural impact, or both. Whatever it is I'm sure I'll be fascinated.
The director of said special will be Mr. Morgan Spurlock, director and star of the hit documentary Supersize Me. Lets hope he's a fan of the series so he can make sure to do an exceptionally good job. You can check out The Simpsons 2oth Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice, on January 14th 2010.
I'm excited!

This is a blog after all. It's been a slow news week. No celebrities passed so there's no reason for huge retrospectives or top ten lists. So, what to do? You guessed it, more random thoughts from yours truly.

The Promise of the Internet.
I remember watching a quirky not-very-funny PBS special about HDTV. It was called Digital TV: A Cringley Crash Course and it was released late last century (1998). It was a awkward little documentary with a host who bounced around the screen touting the amazing possibilities of digital TV. While digital television is indeed amazing, it never quite reached the realization that Cringley, among others, predicted. For example, during the show he visits every one's favorite chef Julia Childs (she couldn't possibly care less about HDTV mind you) to discuss the interactive possibilities of DTV as well as prepare a delicious salad. The idea is that while your watching a cooking show, there would be an option to click a button and an onscreen menu would display the recipe; A baseball game, stats. etc.
But this never really happened. I'm sure there's some technical reason this feature never developed. But the fact that I've never seen or heard of anything remotely like this ever being implemented is pretty amazing. Were we just day dreaming? Anyway, I've emailed Cringley to see if he could shed a light on the subject.
Speaking of stealing bandwidth (and T.V.s for that matter.) The issue of DTV multi channel bandwidth image degradation was just brought to my attention. Previously over the air broadcast were the best way to get high quality broadcast because of the minimal amount of compression. Now, because of the DTV transition, many networks have split there broadcasts into two or three channels which basically stretches the bandwidth reducing overall picture quality. Satellite might be the best option in this situation

Bravia with Netflix Sony finally landed Netflix, though not on their prized media box game console. Instead new Bravia's will be able to stream flicks
directly from Netflix. It would work similar to the Xbox service, that is, you would queue it on your computer and watch it on your TV. I've watched Netflix from my computer on my TV before and my only complaint is the picture quality. It's at best sub DVD and at worst choppy VCD. Though, it's really dependent on your connection. It's really to bad that the PS3 didn't get any love. But net incorporation is a smart move on Sony's part. Here's to the future.

Sub 100 Blu-ray Player: Finally, the news last week was that Wal-Mart planned on "rolling back" the price of their cheapest BRD player to 98$. Which could possibly increase adoption. But I'm curious to see how this affects Sony's "hold your ground" price point. These race to the bottom just officially started. But with average consumers as well as enthusiasts still baffled over profile types, I don't think sales will soar immediately.


And finally, I've played about 200 rounds of SF4 this week and as a monument to that absurdity I thought i post a video of some character swaps from the PC version. Enjoy.

I recently downloaded and used the Hulu Desktop Beta. And right off the bat I want to mention how sleek the interface is. Cable companies take notice. It's easy to cycle through movies and television shows, but the bast part is the full screen capabilities and its functionality with the mac remote. I watched a bit of Field of Dreams, which didn't hold up that well, and a bit of a newer HD episode of the Simpsons which was very comparable to DVD quality. Say what you will about Hulu's selection, but it is nice to be able to catch recent episodes from the couch. Internet TV's on its way in.

I just finished watching the first new Tonight Show with, it's brand spanking new, but also seasoned, host Conan O'Brien. I was very excited, in my own subdued way, to hear that he would be taking charge when Leno left, and, after viewing this first episode, can safely say I was not disappointed. Conan's as good as he ever was. Great skits, and great interviews. I especially enjoyed Will Ferrell's rendition of the popular Jackson 5 ballad "Never Can Say Goodbye". Very funny stuff. And Pearl Jam gave a decent performance as well. It's amazing that those guys are still together. If Monday's show is any indicator of the quality I can expect on every show, every night, it looks like I'll be watching the Tonight Show more often than usual. Sorry, Letterman.