"America isn't ready for the real me."
Before I begin, I thought I'd share something.
I am a bit of a packrat (NO WAY!). One of the things I seem to still have sitting around the house is a pile of old A/V magazines: Stereophile and its spinoff, UltimateAV (formally Stereophile Guide to Home Theater). I've been skimming through them a bit lately; here are a few tidbits that caught my attention.
From an issue in 2000:
Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab had just gone out of business. Their major retail distributor had just gone kaput and couldn't pay their debts. This dragged the otherwise healthy MoFi down with it (sounds somewhat like our current financial situation). MoFi is back in business; the resurrected company already has out-of-print releases.
There was much talk about the impact that DVD Jon's breaking of DVD encryption would have on the impending launch of the DVD-Audio format. Jon's work is everywhere now and DVD-Audio is dead and buried.
The RCA brand was relaunched by Thompson . Their notable products: Satellite TV receivers (now made only by the satellite providers) and a "promising" new mp3 player. No one had yet heard of this thing called the iPod.
Quite a lot of article and reader letter space was devoted to how audio dealers will deal with this thing called E-Commerce. Those that didn't are probably long gone.
UltimateAV from 2003:
The big DVD news: the Indiana Jones films are coming to DVD (remember that DVD has been around since 1997). This year marked a re-release of the films on DVD and with a few exceptions, the big sought-after movie titles are out on ye olde DVD.
Disney launched, with much fanfare in the A/V press, Moviebeam, a pay-per-view service that used a proprietary box that downloaded movies over the air. Disney dumped it a couple of years ago and it's since been shuttered.
One of the big equipment reviews in the magazine was of a Sony 34 inch HDTV (ca. $3,000) using a CRT. Yes, a 3k tube TV. Sure, CRTs can deliver very good pictures (I still use them), but that size and that amount of money; it seems quaint.
It's all old stuff now, but it wasn't that long ago. Blu-Ray wasn't even on the horizon, let alone the format war that's been fought and won.
Okay, back to the present...and this week's list of new DVDs/Blu-Rays.
Affair in Trinidad (1952)
The Anderson Tapes (1971) DVD Savant reviews this one here.
Cashmere Mafia: The Complete Series
Desception (2008) Also on Blu-Ray.
The Garment Jungle (1957) DVD Savant takes a look at this one here.
The Godfather - The Coppola Restoration Giftset This is one of those re-dos that's probably worthwhile. The films (yes, all three) have been restored with the help of restoration heavyweight Robert Harris. By all accounts, the films look fabulous. The Blu-Ray versions apparently nail the look these films had in their original release. DVD Savant has a good review of them here. I'll be buying this, no doubt (even if I never watch Part III).
L.A. Confidential This was an early release on the DVD format and was one of the first movies I bought when I got my first player. It's a great movie and now there's an improved special edition of it. I'm sure I'll be getting the Blu-Ray version at some point.
Leatherheads (2007) Also on Blu-Ray.
Run, Fat Boy, Run (2008) Also on Blu-Ray.
Sex and the City: The Movie Also on Blu-Ray.