Widescreen At Last!

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of months. Aside from simply having too much to do (Kolchak: The Night STalker Files, Gravedigger, Femme Noir, Captain Midnight, etc.), my wife & I also finally purchased a HD television set.

Although I've been enjoying our Blu-Ray player for a couple years (thanks to a generous Christmas gift from my mother-in-law), I haven't actually been getting the full benefits of the technology since I was still viewing the discs on a standard-definition monitor. But about two weeks ago, that 15 year-old TV finally gasped its last breath. It lived a full and meaningful life, but after years of heavy use, it just couldn't go on any longer.

Fortunately, the timing was pretty good for a change. Some automotive repairs we'd been saving for for a while turned out to be much less expensive than we expected (how often does that happen?), and we found a remarkably good deal on a high-end 55" Phillips LED set. (It's even Netflix Instant-ready.)

Needless to say, I've been spending a lot of time (too much, actually) over the last month or so, looking at my Blu-Rays and DVDs on the big screen. I've watched tons of Star Trek - both classic episodes and the features - crime and action stuff like Crank 2, Faster, The A-Team movie (which I'm ashamed to admit I thought was pretty good, actually), Machete, and television shows like The Walking Dead and Space: 1999 in HD. I've also been checking out many of my standard-def DVDs to see which ones still look good, blown-up on the big screen. Some look better (Prime Cut) than others (Out Of Sight), obviously, depending on the age of the disc and the bitrate, but overall, I'm thrilled with my new TV set.

Now, all I need is a new surround sound set-up, and the Alien Blu-Ray box sets....