Cast Away in HD, & Megan Fox

Rewatching Cast Away

I own this movie on DVD and in fact recently watched then blogged about it. Well I’m not here to do that again, so don’t worry. But this time was a little different. Again Netflix was involved, even though I own it, because I had them ship me the Blu-Ray version.

I of course wanted to test the difference between the HD version and the SD version. I have an up-converting DVD player as well (because it’s attached to my TV tuner), so it was easy, I just popped both in and switched between inputs on the TV to judge. The verdict was good, but different than I expected, too.

Up-converting DVD players are supposed to do a decent job of faking the HD thing. And I can tell you that yeah, up-converted DVD’s do look pretty sharp even compared to an actual HD source. The first thing I noticed that surprised me – though it makes sense once you think about it – was that the scenes that the extra detail was the most dramatic wasn’t the up-close, clear shots, but the less-focal shots and the backgrounds; they’re so much deeper in HD and actually there instead of just colored splotches.

The other thing that got me was the colors. I fully expected better clarity, but the difference in colors was dramatic. The DVD version was so far & away muted compared to the HD version that I for a moment thought something was wrong with the setup. It's so much so that after viewing a scene in HD, the DVD version seemed like it didn’t even contain the color red. Yeah really, it's that dramatic.

So HD wins, for sure. And this was a decade-old film mind you, I imagine that a newer title that was shot with newer, better lenses (and HD in mind) would show off even better. so if you have an HD TV, even just a 720p set (which I currently have), it does make a difference. You can probably get by with an up-converted DVD player… but why? You already got the HDTV, get the full experience, man!



I had no idea
You heard of Megan Fox? Apparently she’s the new ‘foxiest’ lady in Hollywood (I am in no way sorry for that pun). I checked out the pics, she is pretty hot. Well OK, where am I going with this, right? Remember Beverly Hills, 90210? Well you might remember Brain Austin Green, that “kid” who was always trying to hard to be cool. He lived the part, we all thought. At least we thought.

Apparently, this new ‘foxy’ lady is his fiancé. What’s he got going on that we don’t know about?

Eh, perhaps We don’t want to know. You know? You know.

Peace.