Movie and TV Showing Devices: Part 1

The next few posts will be a re-hash, getting more depth of DVD and movie collection, of the post “Searching, Collecting, and Maintaining DVDs!”

All rights reserved.

Formats

VHS Vs. Betamax

I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of the rivalry between VHS and Betamax. Who really cares if Beta was better than VHS?  We can complain about the outcome, but that won’t change a thing.  What I do care about is the end result, and that the VHS was the product that changed the film industry.   Evidently, VHS took the lead and did not look back with the help of the porn industry (according to the geeky  character in Tropic Thunder played by the actor who caught pink eye from his cat (some episode of TMZ)).

Laserdisc

The Laserdisk had to be the black sheep of the family.  For every step forward there was a step backward having issues with compatibility between companies, being expensive, and quality was a blah (maybe, depending).

Transparent Recording
Disc – March 4th, 1969

The laserdisc has a history spanning from 1967 until 2002/2009.  Improvements did happen and the technology did get better, but the cost was insane, and the cheaper and more compact DVD ended up taking over the market.   There is a whole lot of technology jargon, and I will not get into that (headachetastic).  The one important “historical” outcome is the “extra feature.”   This is a kin to the USFL introducing the “red flags” and instant replay.

Two Points about Special Features and the Laserdisc.

1. In college, I started to purchase DVDs by the dozen (ok, maybe not that much) and Street Fighter was one those movies that subtly made its journey to my DVD player.  One time the commentary by Steven E. de Souza, the director, had mention that other special features (mainly sketches) were developed for laserdisc.
2. Apparently, a Lazerdisc copy of Return of the Jedi was sold on Ebay for 699 dollars.  The reason because there is 30 minutes of  extra footage that has not been seen since the creation of Laserdisc.

DVD, Blu-Ray, and HD

HD did not survive the market, but Blu-Rays did, enough said.  The DVD beat out VHS and Laserdisc, and is evolving into the Blu-Ray.  This does not matter since a customer can play a regular DVD on a Blu-Ray player.

• 1997 – The DVD arrived in the U.S.
• 2002/2003 – Retails started to pull VHS.
• 2003 – DVDs outsold VHS for the first time.
• 2005- Bo Andersen, president of the Video Software Dealers Association says 2006 will be the last time VHS will have major releases.
• Earlier 2000s to 2008 – HD DVD by Toshiba and Blu-Ray by Sony were developed to the public.
• 2008 – Blu-Ray wins.  Regular DVDs still around.

All rights reserved.

Boooo to Digital.  Maybe, not a hearty boo such as  when fanatics take a look at the opposing team’s quarterback.  Digital has been a trend lately, and will always be around.  I am not against digital or streaming.  I have an account with Netflix, Amazon Prime (before the digital streaming trend), and Full Moon Streaming.  I have only purchased one movie in the digital format, The Nutcracker, for my son.  The concern with digital is the ownership of the product.  When a consumer purchases a physical copy that customer owns that copy.  He or she can lend out that DVD to friends and family or sell it to a third party.  With the digital format, I pay for the right to watch the movie within the particular cloud that I am using or stored in my computer.  I do not pay for the full ownership of the product.  What if Amazon goes or that music cloud website goes bankrupt?  If the item is not stored on your computer, you no longer have that product.  I will be waiting until the copyright  laws are revamped for the digital times giving the consumer some rights.

The End

Know your devices and your formats.  I say this from experience.  Not all movies are on DVDs (Here is a Laserdisc niche website), and retailers such as Amazon sell multiple formats.  The main reason why we own The Nutcracker (1986, conceived by, Maurice Sendak) is the fact that this particular version is not sold on DVD, but digital and VHS.  Of course, we do not own a VHS player anymore.  Even though there is a part of me that does want to buy each device.

Notes

• In this segment I have referenced one television program, four movies, and four individuals in the cinema profession with the help of IMDB.
• The patent image was obtained from Google Patent Search.
• The Red Flag image was manipulated from public domain from Openclipart by the user ky1en1te.
• Two of the images were of my design and creation and I reserve the rights to my intellectual property.
• Part 2 will be by Region.

(A younger) Lt. Commander Michael Eddington + Star Wars + Conan the Barbarian =

There are times where I ask my friends on Facebook questions pertaining to entertainment.

In this case, I asked (A younger) Lt. Commander Michael Eddington + Star Wars + Conan the Barbarian =?

How does one answer this question?  I will say that if you were a science fiction/fantasy geek whom you might have an easier time and even answer the question right away.

First, if I was the user, I would ask myself  what is this geek trying to get at.  There is a TV character (that might not be known at the time) and two movies with an equal sign.   My intention is that the user will think this would equal  to another movie or TV Show in the fantasy/science fiction genre.  So, now we know what we are looking for.

Second, if I was the user, I would break down the formula into three concepts.

1. (A younger) Lt. Commander Michael Eddington
2. Star Wars
3. Conan the Barbarian

I would start searching.

The user might search for the concept of “Star Wars,” then they will find information on “Star Wars” and the same goes with “Conan the Barbarian.”

Let us experiment with the key concepts here.  We will need to use the Boolean Method of search.

The Basics

1. Three Operators: And, Or, Not
2. ” ” = Exact P

There is more to the Boolean, but these are the basics.  Users mainly search by using Boolean without knowing.

AND  says a user wants to search for all the words.  The AND is not required if the user writes Star Wars that would be equivalent to writing Stars AND Wars.

OR says that a user wants to search for either or of the words, but not something that has both items.  If the user is just searching the two words Star Wars, and places a OR in the middle making the phrase Star OR Wars.

What section of the Venn diagram do you get when searching Star OR Wars?

The user should obtain all the information in the Blue and Badge color area, but not the shadowed area during the middle.

NOT says that a user wants everything with concept X but not the concept Y.  In this case the user would write Star but not Wars, so the user would only get information in the Blue area of the Venn diagram.

By placing quotations over words the user is asking to search that concept as exactly written.  For example, “Star Wars.”  Every source should have those exact words  together and in that order.

What will be the results if the user does a search result such as “Star Wars” and “Conan the Barbarian?”

The results…

The user does not get too much as seen on the first five results of Google, nor the other results.

Maybe, we walked through the wrong door when searching.  The third concept,  (A younger) Lt. Commander Michael Eddington.  I would also break this apart too.

1. (A Younger)
2. Lt. Commander
3. Michael Eddington

If I were the user, I would drop A younger and Lt. Commander, and do not search for them.  I would add Lt. Commander later if I need to, and also I would use LT Commander to indicate that I am right in my searching results.  When I wrote Younger, I was trying to convey to the user to the past.

Notice the Google’s advice from other people searching Michael Eddington.  Deep Space 9 and Star Trek appears.  I would guess as a user that I am not looking for him on LinkedIn or as an illustration, and design person.  The safe bet is picking one of the links pertaining to him as a Star Trek character.  Notice the link that I have already looked at that has Lt. Commander.  I would go to The Internet Movie Database.

The next question the user would ask.  Is the person asking the question alluding for the character Michael Eddington or the actor who plays Michael Eddington?

The Internet Movie Database has that information about the actor, Ken Marshal, who played Michael Eddington on Star Trek.

IMDB lists around twenty-four different acting appearances.  There are a few ways to limit the choices.  I would subtract any TV Show or movie cameo performances.  Hopefully, the user picks up on the fact that the movie or TV Show needs him to be the lead.  Second, one can subtract anything that is not in the genres of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Third, the movie or TV show would have to be older than Star Trek: Deep Space 9, because of the key word “younger.”

At this point, one should figure out the answer.

Krull