Nail in the coffin: nextgen DVD player format decided

Retailers (i.e. like Best Buy and Netflix) left and right are dropping support for HD-DVD, and are staking claim on Blu-Ray.

A Wal-Mart buyer's blog states that by June, the store will only be carrying BluRay discs and related paraphernalia.

If you've been waiting for a decisive moment to make a decision, this is it.

News about it abounds, and already the internets is returning more results for an image query on 'hd-dvd dead'.

My new Netflix

So you might be aware of my frustration with Netflix. They have a policy that involves throttling your movie allowance based on how often you rent movies. If you rent a lot, then new releases you have in your queue take longer to be sent. Most of the movies I wanted were new releases, so I cancelled my membership. I was considering BLockbuster, but then I found a kiosk in several Safeway locations. It's a service called dvdplay. The kiosk has a touch screen, and you follow the simple prompts to find the movies that you want.

Granted they mostly carry new releases, so it's somewhat limited if you're trying to find First Blood or Dreamscape, which you should check out because it stars David Patrick Kelly, whom I saw in Shakespeare's, The Tempest, in which he played Ariel...can you imagine..."Prospero...come out and pla-eee-yaaay!"

Needless to say, the dvdplay option is awesome. $1.49 a title per day, then $.99 each additional day. If you watch them that night, you take them back and go through a simple process of inserting them into a "return" slot. There's no big hassle of setting up an account, because once you initially rent, and enter an email address, the system automatically sets one up for you, and emails you your rental receipt. There's no paper involved.

Recent movie rentals for me? Cooky Mel's "Apocalypto", "The Good Shepherd" (an awesome story about the birth of the C.I.A. and its toll on the man who founded counterintelligence), "Pan's Labyrinth" (an astounding adult fairy tale set in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls backdrop), "Stranger Than Fiction" (Will Ferrell's first serious role, and a commentary on the fragile nature of life and love), "Blood Diamond", and "The Fountain" (Daron Aronsky's take on immortality).

I heart dvdplay.

Finally we'll know in which state Springfield is located

Snoozer? Loser? This year's tentpole films are going to do their best to get all that juicy disposable income in your pockets.

Which ones look good? Hard to say. "300" looks interesting. Another Frank Miller graphic novel adaptation...hmmm.

Richard Matheson's post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure novel, I Am Legend, is being turned into a movie starring Will Smith. I'm betting that it will showcase his range as an actor and capitalize on his nonchalant I-might-be-a-closet-Scientologist schtick (I'm thinking "Independence Day, "Men in Black" 1 and 2, "I, Robot", "Enemy of the State", etc). Let's face it, the only movie that really let him be creative was "Six Degrees of Separation".

The 9 year old in me is expectantly waiting for "Transformers" like it's Christmas Eve.

From what I know of Neil Gaiman, I'm looking forward to hearing more about "Stardust", based on his best-selling graphic novel co-written with Charles Vess.

Or maybe I'll just wait for them to come out on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD and I'll rip them.

Why is Valentine's Day special?

Because it's the day after the first news was published on the internets on how to break Blu-Ray and HD-DVD copy protection.

Shattered. It now lies in pieces on the floor. Thank Arnezami for the crack.

This means if you have a computer, and a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive, and the crack, you can rip your own copies. There doesn't appear to be a fully stable UI for the crack yet, but undoubtedly, the coming days will see its arrival.

Of course, with the cost of the blank media still being relatively high, it's not that attractive, but the implications of the hack happening so fast is mind-boggling.

If you want to learn more, then head over to the infamous Doom9.org forum site to get you your answers. I'm not posting links there as specific information about how to break the encryption is published, and I know big brother sniffs long and hard throughout the ether.

SlySoft (maker of AnyDVD) has also put out a beta version of their HD-DVD decrypting software. You can download it directly from their environment.