what are you watching this weekend?

[alehel]

Enough talk about ripping, encoding, file formats, gadgets, etc. Lets talk about what truly matters.

So what films are people planning to watch this weekend, if any? I'm working this weekend (I work as a security guard). Weeked shifts are basicly graveyard shifts, Basicly I spend 12-hours sitting in the guards room not doing much, so I've loaded my Mac with the following films; The Italian Job (the new version), Something, Something, Darkside, Ice Age 3 and 500 days of summer. I could just have brought the DVD's, put seeing as I'm in the process of putting all my movies onto my Apple TV, the first thing I always do when purchasing a DVD is encode it and store it for future use. I seriously need to concider getting a bigger external HD. My 250gb one won't last long at this rate .

Also they've started showing Stargate Universe here in Norway now. I've been recording them on my cable box, but havn't got round to watching them yet, so I'll be doing that when I get home .

[mkelley]

Well, we're having friends over tonight and all six of us have not seen "Avatar", so that's what we're watching (ripped from the blu using High Preset it was around 12gb, so it should play just fine from my WD Live onto our 9' HD screen).

[alehel]

I thought the new version of BD+ encryption used on the Avatar blu-ray hadn't been cracked yet.

Avatar is being released in Norway on wednesday, so I'll be heading out to pick up my copy after work. According to the description on the internet, at least here in Norway, the Blu-Ray box also includes a DVD copy of the film which is great. I hate ripping Blu-Ray discs, so i'll be making my rip from the DVD version.

[mkelley]

I thought the new version of BD+ encryption used on the Avatar blu-ray hadn't been cracked yet.

Cracked the day after release by both AnyDVD HD (which I used) and DVFab (proving that all this "protection" nonsense only hurts the honest folks like myself who rip everything they buy to my hard drive for playback there).

My blu rips are always about 400% better than the DVD encode provided by the disc makers (most likely because they are about 400% bigger than any normal encode could fit on a regular DVD). Indeed, the 1080p rips are indistinguishable (by me and others) from the original disc even on my 9' HD screen, doing A/B tests (love me my Handbrake!), using the High Preset and passing through DTS or AC3 audio.

[alehel]

The TV is use with my Apple TV isn't really big enough to notice the difference between SD and HD content, so I always rip my DVD's if I have a DVD copy of my movies. Concidering I don't notice the difference there really isn't any point for me to spend the extra disk space on an HD rip. Even with SD content though the 160gb disk will be full soon, so I guess I'll have to look into getting a bigger disk. Might just stream for the time being and see if a new Apple TV shows up in the next year or so.

[mkelley]

The only problem with that is that it's a short term solution: i.e. it assumes you will never have a better television.

If you end up buying something better (and you will, someday) you'll have to rerip everything. But I suspect you're young and have more time than money (which is *always* better -- I'd give everything I had to have years back). So enjoy what you have and don't worry.

[alehel]

I do agree that this is a bit shortshighted, but the majority of stuff I have is on DVD anyway. I tend to prefear purchasing DVD due to their price. I got the Planet of the apes collection for the equivelent of $10 and a boxset containing first three x-men films for the equivelent of $5. Considering I work as a security guard saving for the future when I start studying, money matters quite a bit for me. I do enjoy a good blu-ray film, but even on my friends 40 inch screen, my DVD rips still look great. The main reason I bought an Apple TV was because of my work. I take a lot of weeked shifts due to the extra pay. A weeked shift lasts 12 hours straight, and we call them graveyard shifts because of the fact that there very rarely is anything to do, so I connect my Apple TV to the TV in the guards rom to watch films. My job involves recieving emergency calls from the north sea and help mobilize rescue teams in the case of an emergency, so we are allowed to watch films as long as we always answer all incoming calls within 5 seconds.

[mkelley]

You sound responsible (in a lot of ways) -- I wish *I* had saved for the future when I was young.

I'm sure you'll do just fine in life -- you already have a lot more media access than I did at your age (back then we didn't even have videotapes, and watching movies was limited to whatever was on television -- 4 channels -- at the time). Life has just gotten so much better in so many ways (I'm just glad I lived long enough to enjoy all these great toys :>)