In 1999, I spent just over $100 to buy a DVD drive for my computer. It was one of the most exciting pieces of computer equipment that I had ever bought. Before coming home with it, I went to the video store and rented one of them new-fangled “dee-vee-dees”. I chose Pixar’s A Bug’s Life, the first movie to ever have been completely digitally transfered to the home video medium. At the time, my computer monitor was 4:3 CRT measuring just 15″ diagonally. Gosh darn it though, when that Disney logo came up, I thought I had the coolest thing ever. Though it was only a resolution of 720 x 480, I was in awe of those CGI bugs on the screen. The picture seems so sharp and so flawless. It was then I decided I could never go back to VHS.
Fast forward to almost ten years from then, last Friday actually. I brought home a Blu-ray drive for my computer. Also with me was a copy of Pixar’s Wall-E on Blu-ray disc. It took a bit of tweaking but I finally installed the BD drive. This time around my monitor is a widescreen LCD at 24″, with a resolution of 1920 x 1200. When I saw little Wall-E compacting that trash on my monitor, I was again in awe. It takes a ton of processing horsepower but it’s all worth it for that glorious 1080p picture. HD movies are simply stunning. Mind you, the source material for Wall-E is also digital, so the picture is especially conducive to looking pretty. I could see every little scratch and dent on Wall-E and every reflection coming off Eve. Sure there’s a lot of hype around HD but when it works, it’s simply amazing. I’m just watching it on a piddly 24″ monitor, I can just imagine what it looks like on a 42″ LCD TV.
Much like Jerry Seinfeld and first class, I can’t go back to DVD! I won’t!