Fred Manteghian Blog

Saturday morning and the cable modem craps out. I hook up the Blackberry to my laptop and pull over into the truck lane of the Information Highway.

Shane and David are taking shrapnel over on Shane's blog regarding BD replication "rumors" (which are what Blu-ray fanboys calls factual, documented and critically contradictory statements from Sony's DADC division regarding BD disc yields over the span of a year) so I thought I'd run a flank attack and see if we can't create enough of a diversion to get those two to safety.

"<i>Our chief weapon is greater capacity...greater capacity and more manufacturer support
… more manufacturer support and greater capacity. Our *three* weapons are more manufacturers and greater capacity…and higher content availability…and an almost fanatical devotion to the Blu-ray consortium…. Our *four* …no… *Amongst* our weapons…. *Amongst* our weaponry…are such elements as more manufacturers, greater capacity….I'll come in again.</i>"

A few weeks ago, DirecTv sent me something that wasn't wrapping paper around my bill - notification that they would be "launching more than 75 HD channels … by year end." I've already talked about the DirecTv 10 and 11 satellites (see <a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/030406Sputnik/" target="new">"Er, no, actually, you're watching them . . . ."</a>) back in March 2006. I've had most of the big local stations in hidef now over the satellite since March 2007 (NBC, CW, CBS, and FOX, MY, but not ABC or PBS!). Add one HBO channel, TNT, HDNet Movies, Universal HD and a couple of sports stations and the existing line up of HD stations on DirecTv still adds up to one big tease.

Target, a store known for its own line of overpriced Choxie chocolates (promoted with admittedly cool ads), has "struck a deal" with Sony to feature Blu-ray players on end-caps this coming holiday season. And I don't mean Labor Day. The deal is significant as much for what it doesn't say as for what it does.

They say a camel is a horse built by committee. That's how I see the whole format war debacle. The winner will be a camel, which, by any other name, still spits like a camel. When you break things down to a component level, each format has the ingredients for a winning recipe. But it's all in the cooking.

Shortly after "Austin Powers" was released on DVD, I bought a Dwin CRT projector. I won't confirm or deny if the two events are related. In order to mount the projector, I had the low bidders cut holes in my "cottage cheese" ceiling for snaking video cable and power to that most unnatural of spots, the middle of my ceiling. I've been living with the patched up results for years. Only through a decade of burning toast in the adjoining kitchen has the ceiling in the home theater begun to uniformly discolor enough to diminish the starkness of the patch job. Now that I want to mount my new JVC projector, the prospect of letting the Butchers of Sheetrock back into my house is unappealing.