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Now
You Don’t Have to Leave the House for Movies
 Back
in “Ye Old days” people had outhouses, the village
barber was also the local surgeon (yikes!), and the friendly
townsfolk used to go out on Friday nights and rent a video tape
at Blockbuster.
Well, it's
been a long climb up from the dark ages and along with wiping
out polio, society has also developed no less than a dozen ways
for you to watch movies without leaving your couch. Personally
I feel there is nothing like kicking back, grabbing a tasty
beverage in one hand, the remote control in the other and blocking
out reality for a few hours.
So while
I sink into the butt-groove in my couch, take a look at my picks
for best ways to see movies at home.
All the
best, Steven
R. Mitchell
Editor — Home
Electronics Journal
P.S. There
is a pretty cool freebie in the Amazon Unbox story below - $15
worth of downloads free – no catch other than having to
own a TiVo.
| The
Latest News on Home Video Tech |
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| Velocity
Micro CineMagix Grand Theater – just $2,195
 High-End
System without the High-End Price.
I love these guys!
The CineMagix Grand Theater Entertainment System, fits
into the high-end home theater PC market, with lots
of beefy features but priced lower than competing high-end
systems. The default features are all pretty powerful;
options include a Blu-ray player/burner, Intel Core
2 Quad or “Extreme” processors, and up to
2.25 terrabytes of disk space – an awful lot of
space for movie downloads or maybe a couple million
MP3s. Windows Vista Home Premium comes standard.
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| Amazon
Unbox on TiVo  The
Internet + TiVo=Unholy movie watching experience.
Skip the trip to the video store and don’t
wait for the mail. Now you can download the latest movies
straight to your TiVo box. With this new feature, you
can rent or buy movies online from Amazon Unbox, and
download them to your TiVo box over your home network.
TiVo subscribers who register with Amazon by April 30
get $15 worth of free movies and TV shows in the process.
TV shows are $1.99 per episode, and movies can be purchased
for $9.99 to $14.99. Movie rentals range from $1.99
to $3.99 – available the day they arrive on DVD
with no chance of being out-of-stock. The downside:
it's going to cost me like $30 bucks to catch up on Lost.
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| Rip
and Burn Your Old VHS Movies |
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Sony
DVDirect VRD-MC3 - $218.00
 Geez!
What kind of movies would someone insist on saving from
the VHS graveyard when all the feature films are available
in updated digital…oh, uh that kind…ok, sure.
So, give it up, throw your 4-head VCR in the same hole
with your Tony Robbins tapes. If you must cling to your
old videos then at least now you can easily transfer them
to DVD, edit them, etc. Sony makes this a snap. Sony’s
new DVDirect VRD-MC3 handles these conversion tasks quickly
and easily – without a PC:
•
Camcorder to DVD
• Hard drive camcorder to DVD
• Digital Video Recorder (DVR) to DVD
• VHS to DVD
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| From
the Rumor Mill |
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| Blockbuster
in Talks to Buy Movielink.
Have you noticed multiple locations of Blockbuster closing
in your neighborhood. Clearly, Netflix has been cleaning
their clock. Blockbuster is fighting back. They are
reportedly in talks to buy online movie download service
Movielink. This service allows you to rent movies, store
them on your hard disk for 30 days, then watch them
during any 24-hour period on your PC. I’m not
a huge fan of the “download it and then erase
it” thing. When I buy it, I want to keep it. Luckily
you can also purchase movies to watch on your PC for
as little as $1.99. With iTunes and Amazon/TiVo all
in the same range this is not a huge deal, but I suppose
more competition is a good thing.
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©2007
Home Electronics Journal, a Thomas, Townsend & Kent
publication. All rights reserved.
Thomas,
Townsend & Kent,
www.thomastownsendandkent.com
325 W. Huron Street, Chicago, IL 60610 |
