Wednesday, April 25, 2007

It's like DVD all over again...

Remember the first time you saw a DVD player? It looked SOOO much better than a VHS tape or broadcast TV. Now, though, DVD is sooo 1990s. After years of increasing resolution in digital cameras and video recorders, the imperfections in DVD have become very obvious to even regular viewers.

Tonight, we had that same WOW! moment as when I first saw a DVD back in the 90s when we hooked up our HD-DVD player for our XBox 360 and watched the first episode of Planet Earth. Absolutely stunning!

Each new technology needs an example of how cool it can be, and while I haven't tried any of the unique HD-DVD features like watching a scene from multiple angles simultaneously, I can tell you that Planet Earth is so much more amazing in this format than on regular television. They have numerous time-lapse video shots of seasons changing, flowers blooming (and while panning, no less) and each of these are amazing to watch on this disk. We've only seen one episode so far, but the shots of thousands of migrating caribou are so clear you can see detail in the animals' legs even though it was shot from the air, and there is a shark vs. seal scene that will keep you out of the ocean for good once you've watched it on HD-DVD.

I was skeptical of yet another new disk format but after watching this, I'm a fan. If you have an XBox 360, you should definitely grab one of these players and hook it up. In minutes, you too can hear the crystal clear sound of your jaw hitting the floor.

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