Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler So what are you watching tonight?

I finished season three of Breaking Bad last night. Chris, I certainly wanted it to keep going and resolve some stuff, but I'm okay with waiting. I was still engaged through the season as a whole. Now I'm onto Mad Men.

I just watched the BD version of FOTR. My overall impression was that it looked pretty good and noticeably better than the DVD version in some scenes. In the scenes I’ve demoed a lot I could tell that the audio was remixed so the voices weren’t drowned out by the music however, there were still several scenes where that still happened. There were only a couple scenes that looked abnormally blue mainly in the snow and in a few dark scenes. But otherwise it wasn’t distracting even though I was looking for it. OTOH the image sharpness seemed very inconsistent. Some scenes look crystal clear while the next one might look a little soft or hazy. IMO this was far more noticeable than any blue tinting. I felt it was downright distracting at times.

Afterwards I popped the DVD version in my other Oppo and chaptered through doing an A/B comparison. For picture quality there is no comparison, the BD strikingly superior in every way both on my 134” screen and 46” HDTV, more noticeable on the screen of course. OTOH I didn’t notice nearly the same improvement in the audio quality. LFE and surround sound seemed the same. As I already noted there were some scenes where the music was toned down a bit on the BD version so that it didn’t overpower everything else but there were still a few places where it did.

So based on what I saw and heard I would certainly upgrade for the picture quality alone but don’t do it if you’re looking only for a better audio experience.

Now on to The Two Towers

I've only watched select scenes from Fellowship so far, but they were enough to remind me how much the movies annoy me. I think I'm regretting my purchase. Ha ha.

I finished season 4 of Mad Men. There sure are some compelling TV series these days. It's getting harder and harder to sit through movies when it feels so much more rewarding to watch shows that have the opportunity to develop the characters that much more.

I can't remember what show I was going to work on next. Hmm....

I got my friend to start watching Friday Night Lights and Curb Your Enthusiasm with me, so it will be nice to revisit those. It's nice to be able to alternate between Larry David being a dork and the amped up drama of Friday Night Lights.

I watched "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" last night. I was very impressed with the quality of this movie. The reviews had said that this movie had the best quality ever seen in both video and audio. I was a little reluctant to buy it because others had said that the story sucked, but I disagree. The story wasn't bad at all. I got this movie yesterday for $9.66 after store discount and using $10 worth of BB rewards coupons.

I made a gmail spreadsheet of all of my movies.

I liked this movie a lot as well. It's way underrated in my opinion.

I've watched both and like them both. The Girl Who Leapt through Time is funny at the beginning but a little bit sad in the end while Summer Wars is about family and love. Neither of them is for children. Highly recommended if you like Japanese anime.

Talking about animes, I used to love them when I was younger but then haven't watched any in like 10 years. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to look on the net for a few recommendations. I ended up buying Evangelion 1.11 and Afro Samurai. I watched both this weekend. I really liked Afro Samurai. I's a 5 episodes movie that lasts about 2 hours. The story is very good with the development of both the main character and the plot so are the video and audio. As for Evangelion, I was expecting more. While the Video and Audio are top notch (a little more LFE wouldn't hurt), I found the story a bit confusing and not that rich. Given that I am not familiar with the older show, I might not understand everything and it seems that the whole story will be developed throughout 5 movies. I will most definitely buy Afro Samurai Resurrection and will probably download Evangelion 2.22 before buying it. Another that I just bought on Ebay is Paprika, supposedly a good scifi anime, I'll let you know.

If you have any LSD make sure to take some before watching Paprika.

Today I will be watching the US Women's Soccer Team play France in the World Cup semi-finals. It just so happens to coincide with my lunch hour. Go USA!