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[mrsl]

Thanks Lynn:

But you said "will play just fine in your Blu-Ray player". What about the other way around? Will Blu Ray play in the regular DVD player?

This is so irritating. I remember them laughing at my monstrous Wang disks, when IBM came out with their 3x3 disks. Then you had to get rid of the Hi-Fi set up you had and replace it with stereo, then that had to be replaced with audio cassettes, then to CD's, which are now obsolete due to iPods, which are now obsolete due to cell phones, which in itself is a whole other stream of insanity, along with computers and movies.

IT'S ALL NUTS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


When does it stop??????

Anne

[CoffeeDan]

I'm not holding my breath. Sony and the rest of the industry still have a big job on their hands -- selling the average Joe Moviebuyer on Blu-Ray, and I don't think it's going to take off.

The DVD market will probably settle down to the same state as the CD market. Two superior sound media, DVD-A and SACD, have been available for almost 10 years now, but only audiophiles have really picked up on them. The public seems to prefer standard CDs.

As long as the public keeps buying standard DVDs, I don't see HD of any kind making much of a dent in the market. The difference in quality between DVD and Blu-Ray isn't as dramatic as the difference between VHS and DVD, so there isn't going to be a seismic shift in buyer behavior. I see more videophiles and gamers switching over to Blu-Ray, and that's about it. High-def is still a niche market at this point in time.

[Moraldo Rubini]

In a publicity ploy to bring the new movie The Darjeeling Express into the press, MTV has named their top ten favorite cinematic train rides. They are:

10. Silver Streak
9. Von Ryan's Express
8. Back to the Future Part III
7. Some Like It Hot
6. Mission: Impossible
5. The Lady Vanishes
4. Murder on the Orient Express
3. From Russia With Love
2. North by Northwest
1. Hard Day's Night

In a follow-up to this train post from last fall, I recently discovered that Brief Encounter will be screened at the train station where it was shot. What a fun treat it would be to get a cup of tea from Carnforth Station's cafe. They also have an exhibit on the movie:

http://www.carnforthstation.co.uk/brief_encounter.html

[Moraldo Rubini]

Anyone looking for a new house? Cecil B. DeMille's is up for sale!

http://la.curbed.com/archives/2008/03/n ... rket_c.php

[moira finnie]

In light of the fact that we were trying to puzzle out how films archived on paper could be transferred to a viewable state today in this thread, I thought that others might be interested in this fascinating article in today's NY Times.

The April, 1860 recording of the human voice is of someone singing “Au Clair de la Lune” that scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA found in a French archive. Preserved on paper, this recording was made by a forgotten inventor, Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville, a Parisian typesetter and tinkerer. Previously it was believed that Thomas Edison's recording of Mary Had a Little Lamb, made 20 years after de Martinville's achievement, had been the first successful recording of a voice. It's not believed that Edison knew anything about the Frenchman's contraption when he developed the first practical recording equipment, but that it was one of those cases of simultaneous exploration of new technologies in the same century.

They have just found a way to hear for this the first time! It's very scratchy, but you can just discern what seems to be an unknown female voice singing in this 8 second clip
The first known recording of a human voice from April 9, 1860

For the sake of comparison, here's a 1931 recording of the same song:
Au Clair Du Lune, 1931 style

How incroyable to hear anything from a person who lived 148 years ago!!?

[klondike]

I much prefer the instrumental version by Rhoda Penmark.

John, are you spotlighting your role model again?