HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray, Who the F@ck Cares?

Earlier this week Warner Bros, the top studio in terms of home video sales, announced that they were dropping HD-DVD in favor of entirely Blu-Ray and many industry expect this is the end of HD-DVD. My question, who really cares?

The majority of TVs in the United States are still SDTV so most people therefore don’t have any use of any of the HD formats. Especially since the you can’t get a Blu-Ray player for less than $400 or a HD-DVD player for less than $200? And who really wants to pay $30 for a movie in HD when the DVD version is $10. It’s pretty obvious that neither is really taking off when both formats offer you 5 or more movies just for buying the player.

Myself, I’m happy with my $30 HD Upconverting DVD player on my 32″ flat screen waiting until one of these damn formats is the clear winner and the players cost less than $50.

Stupid RIAA, I’ve got Your Problem Right Here

The RIAA has started up it’s latest round of lawsuits this time going after people who rip music that they legally purchased to their iPod. It’s obvious that the RIAA and it’s members aren’t doing to hot. The best selling album of 2007 was a Christmas album by Josh Groban with 3.6 million copies sold. A Christmas album! Gone are the days when pop princesses and boy bands had 3 or 4 diamond records(10 million+ sold) a year. Some say it’s illegal downloading and websites like iTunes are the cause and they are partially correct, but they were are created because of one reason: the ridiculous cost of CDs.

I realized this the other day when I was shopping. We’ve all noticed that the older the movie release, the cheaper it is. You can go to Target and get major-studio movies on DVD release in the past 3 years for as little as $5. But when was the last time you saw a CD on sale for $5? You don’t. Britney Spears’ first CD …Baby One More Time released in early 1999 still costs $12.99! I got the collector’s edition complete with special metal case of The Departed, last year’s Oscar winner of best picture for $7.99! Granted, movies can be very profitable before being released on DVD and the DVD sales are just icing on the cake, but what about the movies that are released direct-to-DVD? They are just as cheap as the theater-released movies and they must be profitable because they keep doing it. And I’m pretty damn sure that they made their money back and more on …Baby One More Time.

Another advantage movies have over CDs, is when you buy a movie, it’s because you like the movie, when you buy a CD, if your lucky you like half the songs on it. That’s why iTunes is so damn popular, you only have to buy the songs you like. When you can do that, why the hell would you buy the CD?

But why are CDs so expensive to began with? Easy, the music industry is a bloated monster weighted down by clinging to an outdated business model. It’s getting to the point where a band almost doesn’t need a record label. Technology has made it easy for bands to get their music out there on their own, but the record labels still insist on things like they did when they solely controlled the spread of music 20+ years ago.

Stupid RIAA.

It is finished

Took my useless DVD player back to Wal-Mart this morning at 8:30. I got up to Customer Service and explain my frustration about being sold a DVD player that was clearly returned once before and how it was just taped back up and thrown back on the shelf with no regard with if it actually worked. Without even looking at me, she says, “OK,” basically telling me that she didn’t give a shit. I go back to the electronics sections and I notice that the original DVD player I returned was taped back up and sitting on the top of the stack. I know it was mine because it was missing the top layer of cardboard in one corner. Unbelievable.

And this morning I hear on the radio the story of a guy buying a MP3 player for his daughter and when she turned it on, she discovered videos of the adult variety. So it would appear that this “Who gives a shit why they returned it, just tape it up and throw it back on the shelf” mentality runs through the whole company.

From this ordeal I was learned that sometimes it worth paying a little more just not to deal with some people, no matter what the item is.

Thank you Wal-Mart…

…For never ceasing to amaze me how much you suck. Today I returned the DVD player I bought yesterday because the thing was seriously the flimsiest piece of technology I have ever encountered. You breathe on the thing and it almost breaks. Lucky, they had the model that I originally wanted back in stock and it was $25 cheaper and had more feature. Cool, I thought.

As soon as I opened the box I knew something wasn’t right. There was not a piece of packing foam to be found in the box, just the dvd player sitting there; all the bags appeared to have been opened; the batteries were already in the remote. I look closer at the box and realized there was TWO layers of packing tape on it. Those bastards sold me an open box item and tried to pass it off as a new item! Not only that, the damn video jack didn’t work!

Pissed off and with a slight cold I drive back to Wal-Mart, I enter the door and one of those annoying greeters stops me and says, “We don’t take returns or exchanges after 10.” I check my cell for the time: 10:02.

I hate you Wal-Mart.

I fell for It

Remember how Circuit City had DVD-Rs on sale? Well I went and got some, but that’s not all I got. I fell for the oldest trick in  the retailing book: Bring them in with the cheap stuff and they’re bound to buy something esle. Because who wants to go to Circuit City and just buy 50 DVD-Rs for 6 bucks, especially when you have fresh Christmas cash in your pocket and it took you a good 15 minutes or so to get to the store? Not me. Of course I’m the same idiot that stood in line at 6 am on Black Friday last year at Best Buy to get a 100-pack of DVD-Rs for $8 and when they didn’t have any more of those left grabbed a 25-pack of LightScribe DVD-Rs solely because they would be nice to have for when I purchase a LightScribe DVD Burner in the future and then after standing in the checkout line for a good 20 minutes decided that I really didn’t need them. Looking back, I probably should have bought those LightScribe DVDs because last night I almost purchased a LightScribe Burner but didn’t because they were out of LightScribe DVD-Rs. So I bought a new audio-system for my computer instead.