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Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

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Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#101

Post by jabroni_salad »

bluedino wrote: post #19
artificial wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of smaller bookstores prior to the era of Borders and Barnes and Noble dominance. pours one out

How are they still in business, by the way? It seemed like they were just a Starbucks location with a ton of overhead, I thought we'd seen the last of them when pandemic shut everything down. I loved B&N by the way, more computer-related books than WaldenBooks, but not as many as Borders.

Around the time of the pandemic they implemented a strategic change to have local management arrange the store rather than auctioning shelf placement to publishers like most other retailers do. This has actually made B&N pretty nice to browse compared to a few years ago.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#102

Post by pessimizer »

reaperducer wrote: post #97
vlunkr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that when we revisit older movies, all the way up to the 90s, we're watching them at much much higher quality than we did originally. Special effects, costumes and sets are all much more believable when you're viewing them on a little grainy screen. I think some older movies are unfairly judged by how they look on hardware that couldn't have existed at the time.

Special effects, costumes and sets are all much more believable when you're viewing them on a little grainy screen Can confirm. I recently watched Ghostbusters on Blu-ray. Wow. The special effects are really obvious.

> The special effects are really obvious.

I've never understood this complaint. Almost all special effects are obvious, because they depict things that aren't real. I don't remember watching Ghostbusters in the theater and wondering if those were really ghosts.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#103

Post by pessimizer »

omoikane wrote: post #63
sokoloff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on how close you sit. If you’re 12+ feet away, you may not be able to resolve the difference between 1080p and 4K, but at 6-8 feet away, I bet you can.

For me it's not so much the difference in resolution, but the fact that due to low resolution being the norm, all the on-screen text tend to be huge. This is readily noticeable for the credit text in TV shows (not so much for movies, which seem to have barely legible credit text going way back).

People get trained on what's supposed to be nice. There are people who will insist that anything less that 2K resolution on their computer monitor physically hurts their eyes and brain.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#104

Post by reaperducer »

dasil003 wrote: post #48
vlunkr wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting that when we revisit older movies, all the way up to the 90s, we're watching them at much much higher quality than we did originally. Special effects, costumes and sets are all much more believable when you're viewing them on a little grainy screen. I think some older movies are unfairly judged by how they look on hardware that couldn't have existed at the time.

This is only strictly true if you're talking about television. The analog nature of film and its degradation along with the imperfection of human memory mean we can't really know for sure exactly how, for example, Lawrence of Arabia looked on the big screen in its contemporary transfers. But it was definitely better than anything seen on a television prior to at least 1080p if not 4k.

The analog nature of film and its degradation along with the imperfection of human memory mean we can't really know for sure exactly how, for example, Lawrence of Arabia looked on the big screen in its contemporary transfers.

It depends on the source material.

As luck would have it, I just recently got the 4K Blu-ray of Lawrence of Arabia, and it is very very grainy. Much more so than the 4K version of Rear Window, though that has a lot of noticeable grain.

Fortunately, some theaters still occasionally show classics like these, so when Lawrence comes around, we should find out. Hopefully. Assuming it comes in on big reels of film, and not over a digital link.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#105

Post by Johnny555 »

zw123456 wrote: post #87

I am old enough to remember when the wife would call me at work on a Friday and say hey, stop by the video store and get a movie for tonight and I'll stop and get wine and take out. What was special was the "Dave" at the video rental place (it wasn't blockbuster but whatever). I don't recall the guy's name, but he always remembered me and what we liked and had great suggestions and sometimes if you said, nah but how…

today's AI is pretty good

It's pretty good at suggesting exactly the same type of movies you've watched before, but not so good at those "but how about something completely different, but something that I'll still like" suggestions, that's where a real human movie buff can help.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#106

Post by pessimizer »

JackFr wrote: post #86
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent is referencing how Blockbuster put all the local video stores out of business, like Walmart and Main Street America. It happened with record stores, too, via Tower Records and other national chains I can’t remember now

Good record stores outlasted Tower Records. What failed were record stores which were basically Tower records, only watered down weaker versions.

Good bookstores didn't outlast Borders/Barnes & Noble/Books-a-Million etc. (or at least 90% of them didn't.) It was really annoying when people were mourning the destruction of 15 year old book warehouses by Amazon, when I was still mourning 100 year old bookstores.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#107

Post by js2 »

Dig1t wrote: post #6
kerblang wrote: post #3

It's sort of bizarre that an entrenched, widely despised corporate behemoth thoroughly deserving its own demise has turned into an anachronistic mom-and-pop shop that just gets by. But isn't this the worst of both worlds? It's dystopian nostalgia. Maybe I just have too much of a grudge against the 1980's...

I grew up in the 90's and have nothing but warm fuzzy memories of renting a movie on Friday night and watching in the living room with my family, eating popcorn and candy. I think there's probably a lot of people who have that from their childhood.

On the other side of the counter, my wife (girlfriend at the time) worked at BB in HS. Even by minimum wage, teen job, retail standards it was awful. She loathed it. I'll bet if I even just say the word "blockbuster" to her three decades later she'll give me a stink eye.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#108

Post by pessimizer »

causi wrote: post #72
TylerE wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one thing Amazon does well. Pause almost anything and it will show you the actors presently on screen (with headshots, which you can click on to get more info. They'll also name the song playing, if any.

Eh, that's not really anything you couldn't do with google almost as easily. I mean real multimedia. I want to pause Lord of the Rings, click on a sword, and get the passage where the sword is described in the book. I want to click on a character and get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the costume. I want it all.

That sounds like a bunch of work for very little return, not any new technology.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#109

Post by gpspake »

registeredcorn wrote: post #60
causi wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't purchase movies anymore but I could see myself going to a store to rent a 4K blu-ray to get the commentary tracks. Those are hard to come by online.

That's one of the things that kills me about present day distribution. There is such a massive hole in not getting to hear from the creators the way you could with DVDs. Shows like The Simpsons, etc. have offered a massive amount of information presented through commentary, that wouldn't otherwise be known.

I guess the other side of that coin is I feel like we have more access to creators than ever with youtube and podcasts. If I want to "meet my heroes" so to speak, I don't need DVD extras, I can just watch them in all sorts of formats online. Pre internet, you couldn't really watch Scorcese on hot ones.

Re: Plano man keeping Blockbuster alive

#110

Post by dylan604 »

jinto36 wrote: post #39
awacs wrote: post #26

Growing up in the 80s with VHS, Betamax, Laserdiscs (if anyone recalls), and being a dj in the late 90s when the thought of a "USB stick instead of traveling with all this vinyl was an impossibility", makes this whole nostalgia tour a fun one. I think we all forget though just how poor the quality was back then, and what we've become accustomed to, with VHS being 240 lines, DVD 480p, etc. It's like reminiscing about…

One of the most noticeable things about playing laserdiscs on modern displays is the poor black levels and noise in shadows, and of course the difficulty in scaling interlaced material. Even with what should be a decent (but not nearly top of the line) FPGA-based deinterlacer/scaler I still feel like it should look better than it does, given how much better laserdisc resolution can be than VHS. But it's also analog v…

i'm sure there's a device somewhere you can insert inline to convert the colorspace from 601 to 709 for SD->HD. or change the picture profile on your monitor to help compensate for the 7.5IRE SD black.
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