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lordjedi

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Join date
8-Jun-2005
Last activity
9-Apr-2015
Posts
1,640

Post History

Post
#295152
Topic
UFOs and Aliens
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295152/action/topic#295152
Time
I find it odd that an intelligent race (let's face it, if they can travel through interstellar space, they're pretty intelligent) would come across the galaxy and then kidnap some hicks in order to find out how we work. I also find it odd that they'd be able to travel across space and wouldn't be able to navigate a storm (ie a lightning bolt downing one in Roswell).

If they're intelligent enough to travel thousands of lightyears in a short amount of time, they should be intelligent enough to make a real first contact.

The government does threaten people over national security issues though. The SR-71 Blackbird is the fastest plane in existence. It doesn't take a real stretch of the imagination to figure that that plane may have been one of the "UFOs" spotted in the past. If it was flying at night, all you'd see are two glowing objects side by side, moving across the sky at an incredible rate of speed. Remember, with full afterburners, it flew from LA to NY in, what, 1.5 hrs? Do the math and you'll find that it was exceeding, I think, Mach 7.

My take on UFOs is that it's just bleeding edge government technology being tested. The F-23 (JSF) and the SR-71 fall into that category.
Post
#294967
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294967/action/topic#294967
Time
Originally posted by: Sluggo
I didn't re-up my membership because I wasn't happy with where the whole fanclub was going. I am so sick of seeing pics of dorks in stormtrooper costumes marching around conventions. Star Wars fandom isn't about the films anymore but the fans themselves.


It's called free labor. They don't need to hire people to come to shows dressed in costume since they have fans that are willing to do it. For the record, I use to dress up for the movies and for the conventions. I may even do it again in the future. However, I'll never volunteer to work any of those shows again. Unless the show/event is specifically run by LFL, you're treated like dirt.

It's pretty obvious though that LFL considers those guys free labor. They know they're going to be at a show and pretty much coordinate everything with them. LFL does at least treat them well. It is a shame that that's all we really see in the insider anymore though. I too am getting quite sick of it.

Hell, I haven't participated in the Rebel Legion in years since, no matter how hard we worked or what we did, the 501st took all the "glory". I even saw a televised event recently where they made a Jedi a member of the 501st. What ever happened to the Rebel Legion?

You're right Sluggo. It's not about the films anymore. It's about using the fans to keep interest alive.
Post
#294713
Topic
test for lordjedi
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294713/action/topic#294713
Time
Originally posted by: Hustler
The really fucked up thing is that the republicans would rather a child suffer and die from a curable disease than have it be aborted beforehand. The republicans should be disbanded.


Yeah, that's why they give so much money to charitable organizations that help cure those children and get people back on their feet. They'd rather see a person work hard and become successful than live off the government.

The Democrats see success as how many people they can get on government welfare. The Republicans see success as how many people they can get off welfare and become self sufficient.
Post
#294712
Topic
test for lordjedi
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294712/action/topic#294712
Time
Originally posted by: Hustler
Originally posted by: lordjedi

1. Depends on what the "medical treatment" is. A doctor cannot refuse treatment (at least in California). You might get stuck with a giant bill, but you won't be refused treatment. I guess I would want to know how/why the parents have no medical insurance (ie what situations arose that they decided to have a child without having the ability to take care of the child). That's mostly because I just can't imagine bringing a child into this world without having the ability to take care of it.


Well what about a woman living in poverty that gets raped?

What does it mater that parents were to stupid to have the kid. Why punish the kid for the parents mistake?

Lordjedi you're a cold hearted jerk.


We have this thing called adoption. Lots of children need good homes. Just because some asshole rapes a woman, does not mean we should blame the resulting child.

On the other hand, if a couple is not financially stable, they should know better than to bring a child into this world. Children are expensive. The hospital copay alone is $100 with insurance. Do you have any idea how much it costs for a 3 day stay in a hospital to have a child? 3 days is the max you can stay for a C section and it's thousands of dollars. So unless you get raped, you shouldn't even be considering having children if you're not insured (unless you're a millionaire without insurance or something like that).

My upbringing dictates that people be responsible about sex. That means considering the consequences before even engaging in the act. It means that all actions have consequences. If you're not willing to deal with the consequences of your actions, then don't do those actions. Abortion is not dealing with the consequence of a pregnancy.

I understand that people fall on hard times. I also understand that a lot of people want a hand out or want to blame the government for their misfortune. I also understand that education doesn't stop once you graduate high school or even get a degree. Everyone has to prove themselves day in and day out.

As I said, if it's an emergency, of course the child should be treated. However, who gets to decide what an "emergency" is? Also, who's going to pay for it?

I am not cold hearted, I just expect people to take responsibility for their actions.

You say you're 29. So, what do you do for a living? Are you married/dating? What's your level of education? And I thought you were leaving? WTH?
Post
#294663
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294663/action/topic#294663
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
Additionally, as I pointed out, many retailers aren't stocking HD-DVD anymore. Target isn't, BJ's Wholesale Club isn't and Blockbuster won't carry them, which is huge. And as this happens, the HD-DVD sales figures will continue to plummet and more stores will stick with Blu Ray only. As for Walmart, they carry HD-DVD and had an HD-DVD display earlier this summer but they carry Blu Ray too, and actually it looked to me that they had more Blu Ray titles in stock, and certainly much more players available (fitting since there are so many different models, whereas HD-DVD only has what Toshiba makes--which is another huge strain on an already KO'd company).

Since when is Target not stocking HD-DVD? I saw 300 on HD-DVD there this past week. Additionally, while they plan to have an exclusive Blu-Ray endcap for Christmas, they'll still be selling the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on.

Despite being the best selling BD player, the PS3 is still way behind in the console wars, coming in at number 3 currently. Even with their huge sales spike a couple weeks ago, they're still way behind.

Originally posted by: zombie84
Don't be fooled, HD-DVD lost this format war a number of months ago. When the Blu-Ray exclusive Close Encounters delux edition comes out this christmas along with Blu Ray versions of the Matrix trilogy, Spiderman Trilogy and Blade Runner Final Cut, you will see these 70-30 figures spike up closer to 80-20.


Maybe, but only two of those will be exclusive to BD. Close Encounters and Spiderman. The other two are either already out on HD-DVD or will be as well as BD.

I've said before that I don't care who wins either way. I want either one format or one player that can play both. I'm betting we get a single player solution this season that causes a surge in both formats. Right now, most people are still leary of either format, despite whatever sales figures there are. The sooner that either one format wins (unlikely) or one player emerges that can do both (much more likely) at a reasonable price, the better.
Post
#294651
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294651/action/topic#294651
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: Fang Zei
DVD's have sorta been ruined for me ever since I found out about how NTSC transfers run a 24 frame per second movie at 23.976 frames per second. Yes, I know it's next to nothing, but now that I know it's there it'll bother me.


And regular 30 FPS is really just 29.97! And 60i is really 59.98! OMG!

Actually, Fang, those decimal numbers don't really mean anything. They are just pull-down issues from video fields. Its complicated but 23.98 is effectively 24 frames running by your eye per second.

As for HD-DVD, although there are many releases that have both formats, at the end of the day Blu-Ray has the support of seven out of eight of the big studios, and it's titles outsell HD-DVD by something like a 3-1 margin which is growing at an astronomical rate--that's 75% of the market and growing; so although the Matrix box set is available in both formats thats decieving--based on those stats, that would be a comparable 250,000 sales of the HD-DVD version of the film versus 750,000 sales of the Blu-Ray version of the film. To top it off a number of retailers, notably Blockbuster Video, the largest rental chain, have stopped carrying HD-DVD. The only thing HD-DVD really has going for it is that its players are cheap--but in fact its players are so cheap because Toshiba was so desperate that every time someone buys one they lose money--they are below cost! And because of this no third-party manufacturer can produce any. The only thing keeping HD-DVD afloat is that Microsoft, with its bottomless pit of money, keeps pumping funds into the format to cover the enormous losses it is taking. The goal was flood the market with players at a great fiscal loss in the hopes that it would reciprocate in software sales, but the software sales are doing terrible, and even the player sales are not very good. There's just so many factors that don't just indicate that Blu-Ray might win, but are actually showing that not only is it already winning but that the gap will continue to widen with the astounding speed that it has been since its release. Digitalbits posted a reall good editorial on the matter a month or two ago that really cuts to the heart of the issue but even this is a bit out of date now since Target and Blockbuster have stopped carrying HD-DVD and Blu Ray sales have increased even more.


This site http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom080507/index.php would disagree with you. Since inception, the market has been at a steady 60:40 Blu-Ray to HD-DVD. Some weeks the numbers go up, others they go down, so it's been pretty balanced. 40% may not sound like much, but even if only 100,000 players have been sold between the two, that gives HD-DVD 40,000 players. The market is far from decided.

What other retailers, besides Blockbuster, have stopped selling HD-DVD? Blockbuster is the only one I know of. Target is scheduled to have an endcap of Blu-Ray players for the Christmas season, but Walmart is going to have an exclusive HD-DVD display.

Both Microsoft and Sony essentially dumped cheap players, at a loss, on the market. Or do you really think that a PS3 only cost $600 to produce when every other BD player at the time was pushing $1000? Everyone with a PS3 and everyone with an XBox 360 with the HD-DVD add on is watching movies on their respective formats.

Until I found that site, which was linked from blu-ray.com, I thought HD-DVD was surely dead. Now, I'm not so sure. Depending on what happens this Christmas, they both might be around for a long time to come.
Post
#294548
Topic
The Pixar Short Films Collection
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294548/action/topic#294548
Time
So Disney is going to release the short films that Pixar has done on a Blu-Ray exclusive disc. Does anyone know what movies these short films were attached to? I know most of them came on the DVD with other movies, but I don't know if they were all released. Since I don't own a Blu-Ray player and I have no plans to get one, I'm thinking about just taking all the shorts off the other DVDs and putting them all onto one DVD.
Post
#294431
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294431/action/topic#294431
Time
Originally posted by: totsugeki
"To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too."

Every fixed-pixel* display "upconverts". How else would they be able to fit 720x480** standard definition to their 1366x768*** native resolution?


By stretching the picture? Which is why a DVD looks like garbage on a 50"+ TV. I don't notice it on mine because my TV is across the room. My cousin notices it on his 65" HDTV because he's much closer to his TV than I am to mine.

So no, it's not being "upconverting" if it's just stretching the picture. It's upconverting it if it's resizing it and then sampling all the pixels to make the image look smoother. Real upconverting players and TVs look halfway decent. The ones that simply stretch the picture look bad.

Post
#294430
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294430/action/topic#294430
Time
Originally posted by: Mielr
Originally posted by: lordjedi Betamax videos had far better quality than VHS tapes.
LINK


From that article:

"But rather than demanding better pictures for today's TV sets, consumers have shown more interest in LP (Long Play) modes that reduce the picture quality to provide longer recording times."

So in essence, nobody cared that Betamax looked better (and lasted longer if I'm not mistaken). They wanted the longer recording times (just like I mentioned previously) at the expense of quality. And who could blame them. Most people didn't have huge televisions or hi-def (didn't exist at the time in the home market). VHS looked "good enough" so there was no reason to go Betamax. That and a lot of people would record over and over again. As long as they could see most of the picture, nobody cared if it had any visible distortions. Hell, I remember making copies and not knowing why the screen went dim and bright and I didn't care about that either (years later I found out it was Macrovision protection).

I remember trying to rent a movie during the "war". Yeah, the video stores had plenty of Betamax movies, but all the VHS rentals were sold out. Hmm, I wonder if that's because everyone else, at the time, had VHS or if they had Betamax. Something tells me they all had VHS.

While parts of that article are a little more accurate, he doesn't actually refute any "myths". Yep, Betamax was shorter and never caught up with VHS. Yep, they tried to license it, but pretty much failed. And of course the players were cheaper after they lost the war. Everyone had players that were useless so they were trying to get rid of them. That's simple economics (supply and demand) and has nothing to do with actual hardware costs.
Post
#294398
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294398/action/topic#294398
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
Originally posted by: lordjedi
Originally posted by: Tiptup
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.


Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more. Other than that, they both use the same video/audio encoding and everything else. And since it looks like (at least some) the players are backward compatible with existing DVD titles, I guess it doesn't much matter which format "wins". Still, there's a reason why neither format has really "taken off" the way they should and that's because of the competing formats. My gut tells me that until HD-DVD makes an announcement that they've really lost, your average consumer will continue to hold off. I personally have been telling people to hold off and wait for the format war to end. I can't, in good conscience, tell someone "oh just go get one of these" on the off chance that whatever one they decide to buy ends up being nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

The sooner an official announcement comes, the better.


See, I don't agree with this. Companies won't conceed defeat until the latest possible time because even though they have effectively lost the war, if they downsize and concentrate just on software they can probably sell disks for quite a while because by 2008 there will still be a decent base of HD-DVD player owners that want their investment to pay off and will still buy the small trickle of releases. Take a look at Beta--like HD-DVD it came out before VHS and initially held 100% of the format war. As soon as VHS came out VHS became more popular, and after a year or two of landslide victories had claimed roughly 75% of the market, much like Blu-Ray has done. As the mid-80's approached, the Beta market was only five or six percent. Beta was pretty much dead by 1984 but the plug was not pulled until the end of the decade really. But it would be stupid not to recommend to people by the early to mid-80's to go with VHS because it was the clear victor, and consumers were becoming more aware of it; Beta was unpopular. And thats the way its going now. Consumers are aware of whats going on--I mean they are the ones responsible for the landslide Blu-Ray sales! And while this is on early-adopters, the dissappearance of HD-DVD from stores pretty much would seal the deal to anyone looking into the matter--when you see Blu-Ray everywhere, and HD-DVD only in a few stores with this little tiny pathetic section its not like thats going to make you question your decision. Word on the street is basically "so this Blu-Ray is the new thing now, huh?"

Looking at the stats, there's really no way that HD-DVD can bounce back. One theory states that the format war was actually instigated by Microsoft for the very reason of creating confusion. It's not that they want Blu-Ray to die or HD-DVD to win, they are more interested in crippling the market so that people will resist HD disk content and move directly to digital downloads. A lot of industry insiders believed that the whole format war was a sort of investment scheme engineered by Microsoft in order to strengthen their own target marketplace. Their statements and flagrantly illogical business practices certainly suggest so.


The problem is that there are several high profile movies coming to both (all 3?) formats. 300 just came out on DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray. As CO said, The Matrix Trilogy just came out on HD-DVD and is coming to Blu-Ray in another month or so. And Blade Runner is also coming to all three formats.

Those three movies aside, there are several reasons why Beta didn't catch on. First and foremost, Beta was a proprietary Sony format. Nobody but Sony made the tapes or the players. VHS was fully open. Anyone could make the tapes and anyone could make the players and all they had to do was pay a license fee. This essentially caused a flood of players/recorders and tape manufacturers to hit the market. The second reason is that Betamax tapes were too short (initially). VHS tapes were longer and by the time Betamax extended the length, VHS had already taken hold. The only thing Betamax had on VHS was quality. Betamax videos had far better quality than VHS tapes.

With all that known nobody wants to touch either hi-def format until there's a clear winner. If you choose the wrong side, you end up owning a useless piece of equipment. Everyone's comparing this to the VHS and Betamax format war because it's the best comparison there is.

The deal with Divx and DVD was only slightly similar. Since Divx players were just "enhanced" DVD players, there was really no fear of getting a DVD that wouldn't work in your player (though I understand that a few titles didn't quite work). What killed Divx though is that it was essentially a pay-per-view system and even if you made a disc "Gold", it was only "Gold" on your player. You couldn't take it to a friends house and expect it to work. Other than that, DVD and Divx were mostly compatible (same size, same laser, same everything else as far as I know), they really just had a different implementation.

I seriously doubt MS had anything to do with this format war. No, this is a case of Sony and Toshiba not wanting to work together to make a unified standard (though they did try at one point). MS picked HD-DVD for the simple reason that it was cheaper to manufacturer in the beginning. All the existing production lines just had to be modified slightly in order to go HD-DVD. Blu-Ray was completely new, so it required completely new production lines.

Blu-Ray will probably win out for one simple reason: PS3. Sony basically horded all the blue laser diodes for the release of the PS3 and then hit the market with the cheapest (at a huge loss) Blu-Ray player available. Funny thing is, they're struggling now in the console market. It seems XBox 360 and Wii have come out in front while Sony is in third place. They may have the best selling Blu-Ray player, but apparently people aren't buying the games, they're just playing Blu-Ray movies on them.

To answer see you auntie's question, typically the DVD player does the upconverting, though I understand there are TVs that do it too.
Post
#294351
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294351/action/topic#294351
Time
Originally posted by: Tiptup
I hope that's true. Neither format truly excites me, but if I'm going to be stuck with one, Blu-ray is technically better and I'd rather have that dominate. It may come with more copy-protection crap, but that will still be bypassed quickly (I'm sure) and homemade content will be nicer on Blu-ray.


Meh. The only thing technically better about Blu-Ray is that it can hold more. Other than that, they both use the same video/audio encoding and everything else. And since it looks like (at least some) the players are backward compatible with existing DVD titles, I guess it doesn't much matter which format "wins". Still, there's a reason why neither format has really "taken off" the way they should and that's because of the competing formats. My gut tells me that until HD-DVD makes an announcement that they've really lost, your average consumer will continue to hold off. I personally have been telling people to hold off and wait for the format war to end. I can't, in good conscience, tell someone "oh just go get one of these" on the off chance that whatever one they decide to buy ends up being nothing more than an expensive paperweight.

The sooner an official announcement comes, the better.

Post
#294252
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294252/action/topic#294252
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
Fox went Blu-Ray but since Fox is the distributer of Star Wars that means Star Wars is Blu Ray. But the way things have gone there won't be an HD format war by this time next year anyway so its ultimately irrelevant.


No, that doesn't mean anything. It means that if Blu-Ray does ultimately win out, Star Wars is Blu-Ray. According to McCallum, Star Wars is nothing until the format war ends.

I hope the war ends this Christmas as well. This will most likely be the Christmas that decides who will win. And if there is no clear winner, be ready for lots and lots of multi-format players to start coming out next year.
Post
#294057
Topic
FanEdit.org Gone
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294057/action/topic#294057
Time
Originally posted by: sean wookie
Who gives shit daveytod is a asshole and he deserves it.


Where did that come from and who are you to call him an asshole? I bet he's contributed more to this community than you have.

As others have said, daveytod should be proud that he got a C&D from LFL. They probably did watch it and realized how professional it looked. I haven't had a chance to watch the whole thing yet, but it looks damn good to me.
Post
#293643
Topic
ReBoot's coming back
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/293643/action/topic#293643
Time
Sometimes the fans are the most creative people, and therefore the best ones, for the job. Just because they're fan films made on the cheap, doesn't mean they'll be bad.

Sky Captain was originally started by just a couple of guys that were going to spend 10 years making a movie until someone with contacts and money saw their work and decided to fund a movie. I understand it didn't do so well at the box office, but I still think it was an awesome movie.
Post
#293571
Topic
2007 Star Wars DVD Collection Release
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/293571/action/topic#293571
Time
Originally posted by: zombie84
I'm sure the people that run the home video department of Lucasfilm are very much aware of everything thats going on and would love to have another release to sell to us but I just don't think its something that Lucas has really even considered. His ego is just too big. Thats why he wore a Han shot first T-shirt--he thinks he's being funny. So far removed from the reality of the travesty he has undertaken he actually thinks that being ironic about it is funny. I think that shows just where his head is--somewhere lost in space.


Or he just grabbed a random shirt and threw it on that day.

Oh, I forgot. This is OT.com. Everything Lucas does is a slight against the fans here.