Rocky Balboa or Stallone fan?

[LP2K12]

My wife just found a great deal on Amazon for this blu-ray...

Rocky: The Undisputed Collection (Rocky / Rocky II / Rocky III / Rocky IV / Rocky V / Rocky Balboa) [Blu-ray]



List Price: $69.99
Price: $19.99
You Save: $50.00 (71%)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002M9WW30/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=coudivque-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B002M9WW30

Thought I'd share this for any fans around DU. Didn't see another appropriate forum, please excuse me if it's in the wrong area.

[OriginalGeek]

1. Heck, that's a good deal

even if just for 1, 2 and 3. I think 4 was the last one I saw.

[MiddleFingerMom]

2. My favorite Stallone film is Paradise Alley, written, directed, and starring Stallone...

.
.
... Armand Assante, Anne Archer, Frank McRae and Tom Waits.
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1978. Fantastic film!!!
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.
.

[LP2K12]

3. I'm gonna go watch it...

Thanks. I've never seen it.

[Honeycombe8]

4. I don't do blu-ray. A fool's game. I also don't pay for HD...another racket.

When you live frugally, the world is simpler.

Do I pay $20 for a used DVD, or $8 for the same used DVD? Hmmmmmm....I go with the $8 one, not the blu-ray one.

Do I pay $80 a month for satellite mid-range package, or I do I pay extra for the few stations that have HD? Hmmmmm. I go with the cheaper way. Still looks great!

I don't have money to throw away! But hey, if a few extra pixels mean that much to someone, have at it.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

5. I bought the Avengers set that had the movie on both DVD and Blu Ray and the difference is amazing.

Ditto for my copies of The Watchmen.
I do suppose it's possible the studios are downgrading newer DVDs a bit to make the Blu Rays look better but then I'm always looking for a good conspiracy.

[Honeycombe8]

6. I suppose money matters more to me than exra pixels. I like OLD movies....

black and white or color. Slightly cloudy lens. Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, even Gone with the Wind. None in HD. All of them perfect as is. They would be different movies in HD.

So I suppose I'm not drawn to the type of movie (sports like action) where extra pixels are a benefit. Extra pixels can take away from some movies. And the HD costs more, to boot.

I saw the Avengers, for example. Didn't notice it was in HD at the theatre, and didn't care. I see no difference between movies like that now, and movies like that 10 years ago. In fact, the old Batman movies were very intersting with the shadows and such, and they weren't in HD, I think.

The people I know who like HD like sports and action movies. I'm not sure why that is.

Even if it were free, I'd want to be able to turn it off. But the day will come, like toll tags, where we will all be forced to have HD, and we will all be forced to pay extra for it. You can't stop big corporations, once they decide the public is going to have something....and like it. They pretty much end up liking what they're told to like, don't you think?

[harmonicon]

8. Does the quality of the picture make up for those being terrible films?

I watched The Avengers on a laptop, and it was terrible. I mean, it was really bad - I found it hard to even keep paying attention. I felt like The Watchmen, when I saw it in the theatre, was visually nice, had good characters, but the story arch was ultimately lacking.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

9. The only point to my post was to offer an apples to apples comparison of the video formats.

I don't think either movie is the kind I'd like to get into a heavy discussion about.

[Honeycombe8]

11. The films are classics and have been watched by millions for 40 to 100 yrs.

Testament to a quality film.

I don't watch movies on a laptop, so I wouldn't know about that. I have a tv to watch movies on.

Like I said, HD is great to some people. I've noticed that a lot of those people (that I know) like sports and action type movies, like the Avengers. If Casablanca is one of your favorite films, though, HD would mean nothing to you. It's black and white, and shot not in HD, and a big part of the cinematography and aura and mood of the film comes from the somewhat soft look of the image, as well as shadows. Not something you'd want HD on. It would be a totally different movie if it had been shot in HD. I don't want to see a freckle on Humphrey Bogart's nose.

I've never heard of The Watchmen, and it's not listed in imdb.com. So I don't know about that one.

HD is fine. And eventually we'll all be forced to have it (like tolltags)....once the corporate community decides we will have that, then that's what will happen eventually. Which is a shame, because it costs more, and poor people will have trouble affording the increased cost of even basic cable (which will be required to be in HD).

[harmonicon]

13. I'm not so sure that HD is the future.

I highly doubt that blue ray has much of a future at all. Everything will be either download or streaming soon, and I wouldn't be surprised if little of it is HD. Look what happened to music distribution. People choose convenience over quality time and again.

Example? I tried to watch The Avengers streaming on my laptop, because I could for free, but I wouldn't pay to see it in a theatre. There are SO many films I grew up on that I first saw on normal ol' crappy tv, and they still held up, just as there are lots of shows and movies I've first seen streaming on my laptop.

Also, sorry, it's Watchmen, not The Watchmen:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0409459/

[Honeycombe8]

14. Why do people keep talking about The Avengers, like it's some great movie?

I saw it. It was mediocre. Not the sort of movie you'd want to base a tv purchase on.

But one way to know about the future of HD: ALMOST ALL TVs BEING MADE NOW ARE HD. I can't find one that's not. HDTVs actually have a poorer quality image for standard definition signal than the old tube tvs. But the public has no choice but to buy an HDTV for their standard def. signal.

Time Warner Cable now requires all of its customers to receive the HD signal. You have to pay for the HD box for you to SEE it, but you will receive the signal nonetheless, without the box.

ALL TVs BEING MADE NOW ARE WIDESCREEN. This started a decade or so ago. The public didn't want widescreen. But no matter. The Hollywood crowd and the tv manufacturers decided that HD would be widescreen, so that's the way it is. I can't find a tv that's not widescreen.

Note that most signals are standard definition, and most stations broadcast in the full/square image size, not widescreen. But no matter. The powers that be have decided that you will be going to HD and widescreen, so those are the only tvs they are making.

Mark my words. You heard it here first.

Also...any movie you stream is in HD, isn't it? Unless it wasn't shot in HD, like an old movie. But all new movies are shot in HD, so that's what you get by default when you stream it. Now, you can't SEE the HD, if you view it on a non-HD viewer. Like if I viewed it on my old tube tv. But if I viewed it on my laptop, it would be in HD.

[harmonicon]

15. There's actually still a big difference between how tv and movies are shot.

I was discussing The Avengers only because it was a movie someone else brought up.

One of the complaints I've read about The Hobbit in this new super-fast frame-rate is that it "looks too much like tv."

The stream is only HD if they convert it to HD to stream it. It has to be converted one way or another, and if cable has a hard-on for HD, that's how you'll get it, but it's still a conversion.

All of this stuff about cable and tv's I think is largely beside the point though. Cable service? I don't see the point. With the internet connection going through the same cable, why waste the bandwidth for that? There are already numerous services to just get the shows and movies you want. Since most people with access to a physical cable network, who watches broadcast tv? For how much longer will tv manufacturers even include tuners in them? At that point, are they still tvs, or are they just monitors?

[Honeycombe8]

16. I have satellite. I don't use bandwidth. I can't get TCM any other way than through a provider.

I also want to turn the tv on and have various things on automatically, so I can pick one and leave it there. I also watch MSNBC and numerous political shows....which are not on the internet in full format (w/o searching various sites to locate that day's show, if you can find it).

I tried to find Morning Joe on the net...I can find only snippets, chunks of the show. Not the whole show. I went to a "tv" site, and I think I found older whole shows there, but not that day's show.

So there's no way at this time, that I know of, to duplicate the tv experience. I wish it were so...it's so expensive!

[harmonicon]

17. There's no way right now, but that's not my point.

I haven't had any sort of TV for years. I just watch whatever is on free streaming sites. I've been at my parents' house for a few weeks now, and they have normal ol' tv. I watch Letterman on it, because I miss that, but that's all. Before that, I was staying at my brother's house for a few months. He just has a Roku box hooked up to his tv with Netflix, Hulu plus, and a few other "channels." That was way better than tv, and not through cable, but DSL. I stayed at a friend's house a few weeks ago who also just had Roku, but in a more elaborate setup with a hard drive also pulling things off of usenet. So, it's my observation that that's where things are going. Broadcast tv, cable, and satellite are already archaic, but they're still holding on. I just don't know for how long.

[Honeycombe8]

18. I think more and more people are doing that. Even I looked into it.

But I think satellite & cable are here to stay....they'll just have to come up with something to compete. Already they've cut out offering a basic level.

Roku sounds promising, but you can't walk in, turn it on, and varioius programming start playing. You have to download, stream, or whatever....one program at a time. It takes time & is work and is not spontaneous. The surprise and happenstance of tv is important. Would I think of looking for and downloading, say, a documentary on books that were banned from the Bible? Never. But I ran across that on tv and watched it. Hugely interesting. (there was a book of Mary and a book of Joseph...both not included in the Bible)

Or run across a really old series of movies all starring Joan Crawford or Barbara Stanwyck. No, I wouldn't have the time or even think of it. But that would come on tv and be a delightful surprise.

Same thing with downloading tunes. I don't do that. The radio is better. The surprise of little known songs is very important. Nothing I'd think to download. The radio - neverending surprise as I slip among about 10 stations. I still hear songs I've never heard before, or haven't heard in 20 years.

[harmonicon]

19. I actually found it to be sort of the opposite of what you describe.

That is, using Hulu and Netflix, I wound up watching things I wouldn't have otherwise known about. It gives you recommendations based on other things you watch, so I found out about lots of great things that wouldn't regularly be played in rotation on any channel. For news, presidential debates, etc. there was Al Jazeera streaming - just go to that channel and it's on - nothing to download, and it's live.

[Honeycombe8]

20. Well, I have more checking to do, I see.

It sounds complicated. How to get the computer to show on the tv (I have a gizmo that does that but have never tried it).

I have searched Netflix & Hulu before for things I wanted to see, but didn't find them. It was also difficult to find things. For instance, to search for say Letterman...it's there, but the episodes are spotty and not in any particular order, and not the whole show.

A friend of mine who does that - he cancelled his cable - doesn't watch tv much, so for him it's fine.

[harmonicon]

21. There's no computer involved.

The Roku (or equivalent) box is just one more device hooked up to your internet router, and the signal goes from that to your tv. It's operated with a remote, just like a cable box would be, to navigate between different shows or channels. It does suck that lots of shows aren't available (Letterman, for instance), but I do like that shows are available to stream without having to program a DVR or anything.

Maybe it's not for you. It's not really for me either, but tv in general isn't my thing.

[LP2K12]

7. I don't own...

A blu-ray player by itself, because I didn't see the point. However, I am a gamer and my wife purchased me a Playstation 3 last year which includes blu-ray. I only buy blu-ray movies at highly discounted prices, such as the one in this posting.

I do own a HD package with our television provider, FiOS. However, the standard lines in our area are so degraded that you can honestly see the difference. Think bunny ears on a large screen flat panel television.

The nice part about that is I get an 18% discount on the entire service because of my employer which almost knocks out the price of the HD package.

[Ter]

10. You sound cheap

Just kidding, but did you hold onto VHS until you were forced to go with DVD? The extra money makes a huge difference, to me at least.

[Honeycombe8]

12. Yes, to both. I am cheap AND I held onto VHS until DVD was firmly established and prices came down.

Next question you should ask: How much do you have saved for your retirement, Honeycombe? Answer: A lot. It consists of the money that I didn't spend on: laptops, iPhones, contracts for cell phones, expensive clothes (I buy quality clothes, but almost always on sale or at discount or resale places), iPods, iTunes, eating out every night, concerts, vacations, HD, almost anything that has a monthly fee, etc.

Seriously, I am frugal to a fault, except occasionally I spring for something expensive or have an impulse buy. But electronics and things like that are non-necessities, so I carefully watch how much I spend on those things. I DO love tv, though, and still pay for satellite. A friend of mine dropped his cable, like so many are doing; he's going 100% streaming and internet. But I can't get TCM that way, so I'm not prepared to do that at this time.

My tube tv in the den just went on the blink, so now I have to buy a new den tv. Yikes! I'm going with plasma.

P.S....I still have my VHS tapes. I've duped some of them onto DVDs. I have a VHS/DVD recorder that dupes VHS to DVD.

Oddly enuf, I have quite a few DVDs. Some I recorded off tv, but most I bought, and most from the bargain bin at stores. So I do spring for those.