Requiem for a Screen
My DVD player is roughly four or five years old, I accept that as a matter of course, I may as well say that there's a crank on the outside and I need to manually spin the disc like its a 21st century Mutoscope. But overall it's been good, if not an odd thing. See, it also has built-in TiVo Series 2 hardware; this came in handy back in NY when I had cable and a smaller paycheck, because the device basically ran a watered-down, free version of the service. But it also means that whenever I turn it on, I have to wait for it to boot up TiVo (regardless of its state when I turn it off) and then wait more for the circuitry to switch over to "I Just Want To Fucking Watch Freddy vs. Jason, OK?" mode.
Recently, it's been acting weird. When I got home from Thanksgiving it refused to turn on; I yanked the power cable, plugged it in again, and it seemed to be okay. Friday night it did the same thing again, and it made me wonder if it's just time to toss it in the closet and buy a new player.
There's a nice $60 Sony that should be in stock down at the Sony Store and Radio Shack. It Just Plays DVDs. I briefly considered one of those fancy upscaling players, but it seems that the quality of the scaler is defined by the manufacturer AND model number, and that's just too much effort for a format that was never designed with true HD in mind anyway. I'd rather wait a year and get a 3rd generation HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player; by then they should be at prices that aren't breathtakingly stupid and the industry's direction should be a bit more clear
Recently, it's been acting weird. When I got home from Thanksgiving it refused to turn on; I yanked the power cable, plugged it in again, and it seemed to be okay. Friday night it did the same thing again, and it made me wonder if it's just time to toss it in the closet and buy a new player.
There's a nice $60 Sony that should be in stock down at the Sony Store and Radio Shack. It Just Plays DVDs. I briefly considered one of those fancy upscaling players, but it seems that the quality of the scaler is defined by the manufacturer AND model number, and that's just too much effort for a format that was never designed with true HD in mind anyway. I'd rather wait a year and get a 3rd generation HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player; by then they should be at prices that aren't breathtakingly stupid and the industry's direction should be a bit more clear