This may seem like a simple story, but believe me when I say that this is a collaboration made in heaven.
One Frame of Lowry Digital Images breathtaking restoration of “North by Northwest”.
As per Variety today:
Demos joins Lowry Digital Images
Exec named senior algorithm scientist
By DAVID S. COHEN
Gary Demos has joined Lowry Digital Images. Demos will be a senior algorithm scientist at Lowry, which is an industry leader in digital film restoration and image enhancement.
Demos received the Gordon E. Sawyer Oscar in 2006 and has received scientific & technical awards from the Academy in 1985, 1995 and 1996. Lowry was acquired in April by Indian-owned Reliance Big Entertainment.
Inventor Denny Klein described his invention of Hydrogen Technology as a ‘unique electrolysis process.’ Though this is pretty exciting stuff, it raises several questions:
1. Is the by-product truly just Oxygen, Hydrogen, or a weird combination of both?
2. Will there be a more deadly bi-product like Chloride or Fluoride floating in the air if we use water from our tap?
2. With the right filtration system, can we use anything that has water in it….. urine, 7-UP, beer? (Oh, wait a minute, we take back that last one).
Klein has been around for a few years, but the timing couldn’t be better for him to find himself an eternity of fame, let alone his 15 minutes. Here’s a link to his patent info on the invention and a couple older articles. Go Denny, go!
UPDATED EDITORIAL: There was a period of time when bottled water cost more than gas. Today the average liter of water at a 7-11 costs $1. So a gallon of ‘clean’ water costs $3.79 a gallon… the same price as a gallon of gas in Los Angeles today. Of course at 100 miles on 4 oz. of water, this new system is far more efficient, and if the byproduct is clean oxygen, is it not poetic that this new energy source might actually improve the air over the smog-machines we currently drive? I’d much rather fill up a ten gallon tank with water than with gas any day.
Also, if the 4 oz. per 100 miles figure is correct, than this car would get 3200 miles to one gallon. (Why fill up with more than on gallon?)
Fictional thought: All I can imagine now is how excited the powers would be if they found a nearby planet that had oceans of oil… Some way to get there and harvest that oil could be created…. well… what if another nearby race looked at the Earth’s water supply the same way.??? Or did this already happen in the miniseries ‘V’?
Simply put, this is the most amazing ‘toy’ ever created. Disneyland’s animatronics are not as extensive as this one! I can’t wait for my Kermit the Frog!
Here’s the whole promo:
Elmo Live will be available on October 14th for $59.95. Amazing! This is going to revolutionize the toy business!
Amazing. Just amazing. Just as we were waiting for the first 100 GB 1.8″ hard drive–the same size hard drive that Apple (currently) uses in the biggest iPods–Samsung doubled the current 80 GB drives by announcing a huge 1.8″ 160 GB drive.
Even though rumors are that Apple is switching to flash memory in all of their iPods, A nice 160 GB iPod would be a great last hurrah!
Paramount recently announced the most expensive single season of a show ever placed on home video. Star Trek: The Original Series: Season 1: Remastered, exclusively on HD-DVD for $218.
Joining Universal Pictures, Paramount and Dreamworks Animation have chosen a side in the High Definition disc war; HD-DVD. Privacy of sales figures have always been a major focus for all of the studios. This is one of the biggest reasons that the studios are high on the DVD format. Distribution is direct from the studio, and all records stay within the company.
While the Dreamworks SKG films are not exclusive to either format, it was reported today at Yahoo News that the studios have definitively chosen HD-DVD over Blu-ray.
Sony, the most major player in the Blu-ray camp; and receives royalty payments for every Blu-ray disc sold, in essence receives the sales statistics for all Blu-ray releases. This is incredibly powerful information when you want to negotiate a deal with another studio for anything from sequel rights, co-production deals, and could easily be used to sway talent by sharing ‘true’ figures as a lure to Sony.
Knowledge is power in Hollywood, and with accurate figures going to Sony, they are ideally poised to be ‘The Godfather’ of the industry, making offers that the other studios couldn’t refuse.
Whenever its reported that Blu-ray is leading the HD disc competition, I return back to the blackmail aspects of the battle. Remember, this is the beginning of a next stage in movie sales; with looming strikes over disc royalties, information such as these verifiable figures could easily set a negative precedent.
While most figures are generic, and would be reported as ‘Paramount pressed 5000 discs today’ and not by title, the fact that Blu-ray plants are being carefully monitored by Sony at the moment due to the many problems they have been having with their first generation discs, it’s clear that this title monitoring could easily, and are likely occurring.
While I personally feel that Blu-ray has the better technical format, I expect HD-DVD to win in the long run for political reasons. Stay tuned for further updates…
Have the Blockbuster Online guys hacked Netflix???
Last night I went to log in to Netflix to watch a streaming episode of Masters of Horror only to find their website down with a promise of restoration by 8PM. I came back at 8, and it said 11PM, I came back at 11, it said 2AM. This morning I returned to the site, at 8AM, and it wait ‘be back up at 9AM… 9 AM said 11AM, and now it simply reads “temporarily unavailable.
It’s reported that Netflix shares are now at an all time low, and that the company recently reduced the price of all of their plans by roughly $1. What they didn’t expect was the site to go down.
The Boston Herald reports that Netflix claims that they will be back online by 4PM but doesn’t state the reason for the outtage.
You can be sure that some hacker at Blockbuster is getting a huge bonus today. Amazing when you consider the power of a intelligent nerd in a closet… Hail nerds!
It’s the end of the war! BluRay wins! Hands down! Uhh… That’s what I’ve been reading. I don’t agree. If Walmart said they will no longer carry HD-DVD… well, that would be the nail in the coffin, but Blockbuster just made a poor business decision, and people declare the end of the war. This simply is a business decision.
Why did Blockbuster go BluRay? More than any other reason, I’d have to go with Disney’s films. Blockbuster stores have many sections, and right next to new releases would be family when it comes to most rentals. When you consider the studios exclusive to BluRay, Disney, Sony, Fox, etc. While HD-DVD has Universal exclusively, you have to go where the content is.
While Warner is working on a dual disc format that features both versions on one disc, they have been unsuccessful in convincing me that I need to purchase their dual HD/standard DVD discs. I always felt that the secret to winning this battle would be to release dual discs so while someone is buying a new movie, they are receiving a HD-DVD and DVD version at the same time so that by the time they have a player, they already own the movies. Warner Bros. has jumped onto this concept, and released dual version discs, but for $10 more making their HD-DVD releases COST MORE than their BluRay version. What is the use in this?! Now it’s cheaper for HD-DVD buyers to buy the standard DVD of a film instead of the HD-DVD version. This is not acceptable, and is hurting the HD-DVD market. Blockbuster also knows this, and would never want to invest in a disc that is dual format for additional money when they can get the lessor expensive BluRay discs. Thank you Warner for your dedication to the market, yet poor business decision to raise prices above market acceptability.
As for the studios, Fox is willing to do what it takes to move their products. They discount their discs, and continue with unusually high quality releases. When you consider that the successful movies of the summer, Spider-man 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 will be coming to BluRay exclusively you can again understand Blockbuster’s choice.
Am I happy about the choice? No, but given the fact that there is a war going on at the moment, we have to hold steady until the market decides. At least Xbox 360 owners who have purchased the HD-DVD player attachment know that they didn’t have to make the huge investment into one side or another, and if BluRay does win out, you can bet the Microsoft will quickly release a BluRay attachment for the 360 as well. With the Playstation 3, you have no other choices but BluRay, and Blockbuster knows that as well. Every PS3 game renter is a potential BluRay disc renter, whereas they don’t know for sure who has HD-DVD.
After comparing both formats, my enjoyment in presentation says firmly with HD-DVD while my appreciation of which technology is superior falls on BluRay.
The saddest part of this whole war is that to most people, standard DVD is crisp and clean enough, and they really don’t need a HD disc format at all.
Before DVD, low quality, fuzzy, and full-screen VHS ruled the world. People are just not ready to repurchase their collections over again in HD.
BluRay 1, HD-DVD 0 this round. Let’s see what’s in store next. Cheers!
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