I've seen most of the GitS material incl. the comics & anime. I actually found the Hollywood adaptation watchable.... because I placed it in its own little isolated corner and the lowest of expectations -- Hollywood, blockbuster, skin-deep sci-fi... and I came out much relieved it wasn't as bad as the critics said. At least I had a nostalgia blast from the visuals. My blockbuster movies watching has evolved into a state of "don't care to be angry/don't pay to watch at the theatre/ just wait them out to be on Netflix/clearance DVD BluRay)

Seriously... how can anyone expect anything of above average depth from a Hollywood blockbuster anymore? Don't be silly and set yourself up for disappointment.

I can totally understand their reasons for risk-aversion. From their perspective, they got burned too many times financially (not saying it's not their own doing) to make films that demand thoughtfulness from the audience. I just don't believe in Hollywood will give us anything deep anymore for these big budget films...

Southern germany. Hightech cinemas all around

There is an "old" cinema about 50 km away, but ... it's only a movie, not some life-saving hospital. I wait for the bluray.

They better sell a bluray of this, 'cause I want it engraved into physical form

When you raise people up to be gods, they must become infallible. Hence autotune. Look at retouching for big stars in bluray or 4k rez to ensure every minute imperfection is covered up... The audience demands infallibility. You do a full dance routine, you're likely to be huffing and puffing by the end of it. I doubt even the fittest of "pop stars" could manage that. It's understandable that even long term stars who have real talent have gotten lazy.

Then there are just manufactured twats who can't sing worth shit but look the part. Nothing new there, can't believe people fall for it...

Live music is where it's at, give me a cover band belting out Wildflower by the Cult in a pub any day, or the recording of Faith No More at Brixton. They are real performances, they have stuff ups (Patton bungling one of the last verses of War Pigs for example) and that doesn't matter a lick because you're getting The Real Thing (/grin).

He forgot the most important blow to the betamax: JVC licensed VHS, SONY refused to do it and wanted to take the whole video market as a monopoly. So VHS was available, in cheaper prices from multiple manufacturers and with ever increasing options while SONY and BetaMax had couple of models.. Not the first time SONY has lost something over greed, BluRay almost went with the same route (allthou there were several companies developing it from the start).

BetaMax cassette was 1h with the short play (and better quality), 2h with long play (later over 3h). Even on that machine he demonstrated.. The real reason for video cassette wars going for JVC was licensing and price dropped obviously with competition. But BetaMax was around almost for the entirety of video cassette history, collectors often wanted theirs in BetaMax for better sound and slightly better picture quality. Sound difference was noticeable, picture,, naah, not so much (i was there when this war happened...)

Sony was offered to join JVC before either had come out...

For me the lack of an included camera was the biggest reason to go with the PS4.

At the start of the last console generation I didn't want to pay an extra $200 for a bluray player I didn't want. This time I don't want to pay an extra $100 for a camera I don't want.

That was a cute demo though. I can see how that would be fun at parties for a few minutes, sort of like the Wii was.

Piracy is certainly a service problem.
I'd love to give HBO my money but if they make me wait one freaking year to do that, they'll loose. I'm still going to buy their BluRays but certainly not at full price. I can wait, I've already seen their shows.
I would actually pay for a subscription to HBO, if it was available here. It isn't.

That's why Game of Thrones tops the piracy charts. Because they make it harder to give them your money. I bought Hannibal on iTunes. Saw each episode 1 day after air date, what an awesome show.

*promote the new BluRay print-Haven't seen it but it looks incredible, can't wait to see it in a proper theater.
http://videosift.com/video/How-Jaws-was-Restored-on-Blu-Ray

The X1 allows you to transfer the license once (borrow or sell the title) to a friend that's on your friends list for 30 days.

Select partners (Gamestop obviously) will be able to resell used games, I'm sure they have some huge massive contract with MS for this.

The big kicker is the online requirement, the system will check authentication once every 24 hours or once per hour if you're on your account but not on your machine. If you fail the check (internet goes down etc) you're unable to play any games, although the Bluray and media center functions remain unchanged.

Overall Microsofts policy and lackluster handling of the situation and info has been terrible overall. For the first time in years (since ps1 gen 1) I'll be getting a Sony system to pair up with my PC for games/entertainment.

It's all gone a bit shit hasn't it?

I don't have a television so meh to all that stuff.

To be honest I've never been into used games that much so whatever DRM they're cooking up is not an issue for me personally. But of course the principle is the issue here.
The requirement to tie games into your account is egregious. What if they did this with Blurays? Would that fly with the general populace?

Well, it IS just a preview, but I kinda see your point. But movies are fantasy. Big budget movies require big audiences, and one way to bring them (and me) in is to make movies like this. I, for one, enjoyed the hell out of the previous movie (think I'll watch it on BluRay right now), and I have no doubt I'll love this one.

Is character development really needed for characters we've known for over 45 years? Granted, new actors will portray them a little differently, and the reboot takes place earlier than TOS. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't find myself wanting for more character exposition after the last movie. Hell, I thought they did an awesome job of introducing each character and laying out their individual personalities and quirks.

My least favorite of all the Star Trek series was TNG. I dug it, but it would be at the bottom if I had to rank them. I dunno, too idealist and preachy, maybe. JFC, I think Picard referred to the Prime Directive at least once an episode. Some episodes just bored me to death. I wanted every episode to be Enterprise vs. the Borg. I much prefer Kirk kicking a Gorn's ass, or fighting alongside Abe Lincoln, or in pursuit of the Praetor's finest flagship, or battling Apollo or "General Trelane, Retired". TOS was often campy, but always fun, and that's how I prefer my Star Trek.


Edit: Noted that you were speaking more generally about movies nowadays, and I'm speaking specifically about Star Trek.

I was underwhelmed to say the least during the presentation... Media Molecule got the biggest applause of the night. Got excited for a moment when Blizzard came out, then was let down by the Diablo 3 announcement, was hoping for something more exciting, but even if they release Titan on anything but PC they won't announce it at all until Blizzcon so not sure what I was expecting there... and yeah, the guy coming out to say we'll announce the next Final Fantasy at E3 was a cheap shot. And nothing really new from Destiny. I think the whole event was best summed up by XBox's Major Nelson who said something along the lines of "Have an event announcing your new console and not show it, that's one way of doing it."

I use my PS3 mostly for Bluray (it was by far the cheapest way into Bluray at the time) and Netflix (as my 360 sucks on Netflix on my network for some reason) and rarely games, that's what my PC is for and 360... It was nice to see it is indeed using x86 as rumored, and I was a little lost on why they didn't at least mention that it does have a Bluray drive during the event... something they mentioned in a followup press release as if they forgot...

The question now is, does Microsoft show early or wait for E3 for the whole show? They could do an pre-E3 show and show how it should be done... This was just badly handled. I mean 2 hours for what could have taken 30 minutes tops... and I still would have at least showed the system.

This sift has me thinking about this movie again.

It should have been awful. There are so many things wrong with it. The nonsensical plot. The cliches (Leeloo happens to fall into the one cab piloted by ex super commando Korben? The fifth element is love?). Trickys acting (I've seen forests that were less wooden). The card carrying villains. Casting the directors model girlfriend in the title role.
I could go on.

Yet it takes all these things that should make it terrible and somehow makes it work for it by virtue of sheer fucking awesome.

I saw this when it came out in the cinema, and had it on VHS (that was when we magnetically encoded images and sound on tape kids!) for years.

And you know, I haven't seen it in a decade. Tomorrow, I'm going to buy some nice beer, find it on bluray or itunes or whatever and watch it again.

And honestly...

I can't fucking wait

The games may look like shit here, but I assure you on @dag 's Sony Trinitron television it was like a quad-bluray resolution OLED 7.1 THX festival for the senses.

If I had a bluray player I would buy this.