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Big air equals big thrills in this new extreme water sport.
Kiteboarding or kitesurfing, if you don't already know, is like snowboarding on water. This, behind a boat, is called wakeboarding. OK, now forget the boat and add a giant kite for the power source. The kite is controlled or steered using a...
Football 101 - A Girl's Guide to Football - What's In It For You
Can I tell you how tired I am of single women complaining about how hard it is to meet a decent man? The problem is not a dearth of quality men. In fact, I know quite a few single gems. The problem exists where the ladies are looking. You aren't...
J.T. Snow agreement on a $2 million contract with Boston Red Sox
The 37-year-old first baseman J.T. Snow must definitely pass a
physical before the agreement on a $2 million one-year contract
gets signed. The MLB player J.T. Snow who spent nine seasons
with San Francisco the 268 hitter and known for his good...
To Supplement or Not to Supplement; That is the Question
Some fitness adherents are supplement crazy and spend money like a Vegas drunk with a big roll trying to impress girls he barely knows. I know lots of folks who admit to spending hundreds of bucks each month on the newest, latest dietary or...
Watch The Ball!
This phrase is often repeated in nearly every sport – keep your eye on the ball. It applies to golf too! If you do not watch the ball, then the chance that you will hit it is very slim!
Keep your eyes focused on one part of the ball. Don’t watch...
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Angelina Jolie on your Cellphone Anyone?
The titanic developments in new technology have radically changed the way we watch TV and movies at home. Gone are the days when the TV set was a box in the corner with a 20in screen and a tinny speaker. Now most of us prefer to watch movies and sports casts on a widescreen that’s at least 28in from corner to corner. If you are a fan of home theater then that screen will almost certainly be bigger and be accompanied by a surround sound speaker system to maximise the aural effect and immerse you in the action. As technology improves and equipment becomes cheaper, more and more people will have high definition TVs and home theater set-ups.
However, if Sony has its way, we’ll all be enjoying a completely different movie-watching experience, on a 2inch mobile phone screen. Sony wants to see an iTunes-style download service for movies so we can download them and watch them on the move. Would you watch a film on a cellphone? I wouldn’t.
Imagine it. Out would go the immersive, involving experience of the movie theater that we’ve tried so hard to create at home, and in its place would be a screen so small that it would be difficult to make out what was going on. That in itself would create a dilemma for film-makers. If a sizeable number of people who pay to see a movie do so by downloading it on their mobile, will directors have to take this into account when making it? Will studios reject cuts because they contain too many subtle facial expressions or movements that can’t be detected on a tiny
screen? Will the muted colors of a Saving Private Ryan have to replaced with more lurid and brightly colored scenes to make them more easily visible on a cellphone?
And what of the audio? Is their any point in spending time and money developing a detailed and textured surround-sound experience if a significant portion of your audience will be listening on earbuds while travelling on a train?
These examples may be extreme, but they do highlight the differences between the way a music download service works and the way a movie download service would. Music, by its nature, is immensely portable. OK, the sound quality from an iPod over a pair of earbuds may be nothing compared to that from a decent hi-fi set-up, but for most people most of the time, it’s a close enough approximation. That won’t be the case with movies. Why did those tiny, battery powered, pocket TVs never really take-off? For the same reason.
Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, who knows a thing or two about the movie industry through his stewardship of Pixar, has often said that he’s not interested in producing a video iPod because no-one wants to watch movies on a small screen. Jobs is right about most things, and I think he’s right about that. Sony disagrees. It will be interesting to see who’s right.
About The Author
Robert Armstrong is a contributor to http://www.the-hdtv-tuner.com - - a guide to the kit, the technology and the programming on HDTV.
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