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  • Andrew 10:04 AM on April 12, 2006 Permalink
    Tags: DVD,   

    (Hopefully Not) The Future of Movies on DVD 

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    So last night I watched The Interpreter, a pretty passable thriller with a really, really bad ending. I can almost imagine some asshat movie executive saying, “Hmm… How to best wrap up a story about corruption and international politics? I know… With an out-of-nowhere love story!”

    As soon as the end credits started rolling I made my way back to the main DVD menu and quick as I could selected the alternate ending—which wasn’t exactly mind-blowingly different but was at least consistent with the rest of the film.

    Hollywood has an unfortunate history of bad tack-on endings for otherwise classic films—Taxi Driver and Blade Runner are two that spring immediately to mind—and after watching The Interpreter I’m left wondering if the future of DVD movie releases will see entirely different endings for different market segments, so that any flick could potentially be a romance, thriller, horror or comedy depending on what gets you off, so to speak.

    … Kind of takes that whole “customer is always right” thing a bit too far, dont’cha think?
    :roll:

     
    • Ed Miller 11:55 AM on April 12, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      AC:

      How about tacked on middles, like Guido shoots first?

      Amongst the short comedy video community (alas, poor Second Cine), there seems to be a raftload of movie trailers cut to change, for comedic purposes, the tone of a well-known movie into something it isn’t. I’ve seen Say Anything and Titanic turned into stalker flicks, The Shining a slapstick comedy, and Back to the Future into Brokeback to the Future in the last couple of weeks. Maybe this is where the trend will go next?

      Ed

  • Andrew 9:51 AM on December 1, 2005 Permalink
    Tags: DVD   

    DVD à la LG 

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    What a difference a year and half makes!

    Two Aprils ago I was singing the praises of my new region-free Philips DVD player. This week it’s been replaced by the LG LRA-536 pictured above. Like the Philips player it has an easy region-free hack that can be executed from the remote; unlike the Philips it’s DivX certified—oh, and it also records to DVD.

    Yeah, you heard me… With this DVD Recorder you can burn broadcast TV straight to disc. I’d been leery of this process even with my Rogers PVR, because recording a show in this way takes the signal from digital to analog to digital again. But truth told the quality is not all that bad, certainly better than (blech) VHS! Add the low cost of recording on 39¢ discs and the ability to make multiple identical copies on your ‘puter, and you start to see why these things are becoming so popular!

     
    • Greg 3:02 PM on May 15, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      I can’t get my LG LRA 750 to become region-free
      I’ve tried all the hacks for the other LRA series but none of them work. Pressing “0” 7 times does nothing.
      I’m gonna return mine.

    • Andrew Currie 5:43 PM on May 15, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Hi Greg,

      Sorry to hear that, but a search at VideoHelp.com confirms your findings:

      http://tinyurl.com/h6cob

      LG LRA-750 – 0 user hacks
      No region hack for this player.

    • Alex Ford 6:42 PM on October 1, 2006 Permalink | Reply

      Keep in mind that this recorder WILL NOT record everything on TV. It will not record pay-per-view movies or movies from premium channels like HBO or Starz!.

      This is due to the unit picking up copyright signals from these channels. Other (cheaper) DVD recorders don’t seem to care about this signal and will record anything.

  • Andrew 9:09 AM on September 28, 2005 Permalink
    Tags: DVD   

    AV Guy Strikes Again 

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    Okay, this is getting a bit ridiculous… Last night my financial advisor sponsored a screening of A Decent Factory, a film about working conditions at a Chinese Supplier to Nokia. The event was held at the NOW Magazine Lounge, which—who knew?—has a nice little screening room in the back, easily able to accommodate the twenty or so folks who showed up. Only problem was, the DVD was from Finland, and nobody could get it to play.

    Enter yours truly, who managed to get a video signal from a Windows laptop to the big screen, without sound. Thankfully, the laptop had loud enough speakers that the screening could go ahead as planned.

    Remember the dweeb in Grade 4 who would spend recess threading the film projector for Teacher? I’ve become that guy!

     
  • Andrew 1:04 PM on April 6, 2004 Permalink
    Tags: , DVD   

    Region-Free 

    philips_dvd727.jpg

    Don’t get me wrong — I think the DVD format is awesome. I just hate the stupid region encoding imposed by big media companies on their DVD releases. I mean, God forbid I should want to broaden my tastes with something produced on another continent!

    Fortunately a little research hipped me to this Philips DVD727, a cheap home player with very advanced features and the ability to hack the region hobbling on any DVD. How cheap is it, you ask? Well, I picked one up at Wal-Mart yesterday for seventy-nine bucks!

     
    • Jenn 2:54 PM on April 7, 2004 Permalink | Reply

      That sounds like a sweet deal. My PS2 has been giving me serious trouble lately and I might need to get a separate machine for DVDs. The region free ability would definitely make watching anime easier. Thanks for the heads up!

    • Andrew Currie 3:02 PM on April 7, 2004 Permalink | Reply

      Or you might want to check this out, courtesy of birthday boy Al Howell:

      http://tinyurl.com/3hbqo

    • Jenn 5:58 PM on April 7, 2004 Permalink | Reply

      Sounds cool. I’ve always been hesitant to mod my systems because the urge to pirate would be strong. Sadly, my PS2 seems to be dying a slow and painful death and it’ll be a while before I can get a new one; hence my glee at this cheaper stand-alone player ^_^

    • Chris 5:05 AM on April 11, 2004 Permalink | Reply

      You just helped me convince my girlfriend we should buy a DVD player on top of our PS2. That and the fact that both movies we just rented this weekend skipped several times (not that it made a difference in Matrix Revolutions). Also earlier we had rented Brotherhood of the Wolf and we where forced to take it to work to watch it. I mentioned this posting and we talked about it, I think it might be a future purchase.

      Thanks Andrew and everybody who posted.

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