When I got up, I could have sworn it was Wednesday, the hardest day of the week to spell.
It is going to be blazingly hot and humid, so I’ll be working on reviews for the blog. Fractale Episode 7 will most likely be finished today, while Citizen Kane is on hold until I watch the documentary on Disc 2. Then I’ll get on the half a year delayed TRON: Legacy review. At least I’ll be able to include screen captures now.
After being frustrated with my Ruger P94 being inaccurate, I’m going to tinker with it a bit. Hogue finger groove grips are on their way, but I suspect the sights are off since I’ve seen reports of the exact same problems I’m having. Currently, I have to place the front sight dot on top of the rear dots in a pyramid layout to hit anywhere near what I’m aiming for. While there are aftermarket adjustable sights for the pistol, the goal is the cheapest out to fix the problem.
The deer ticks are out in force this year. I’ve pulled at least twenty off of our white cat, Snooky. She is also shedding at a rate I’ve never seen a cat do before. Of course, I would have to be wearing an old black T-shirt today.
I’ve rejoined Netflix after two years of absence. With the current focus by the company being on streaming, to get DVD’s mailed added two dollars to the subscription. We only have a 1MB connection at the moment, so streaming looked like a poor option. But being adventurous, I tried the streaming on a variety of movies to gauge performance. The chief target is the low resolution of our old pre-digital television set.
First was an animated movie, Batman: Under the Red Hood. I watched it on my PC and Netflix defaults to 720P in its attempts to stream. Blocky to extremely blocky. Yep, time to check out the TV performance. It was entertaining, but nothing special and soon forgotten.
For a modern effects laden movie, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was selected. Slightly better than VHS levels of quality were obtained, but with blocking becoming readily apparent during the more complex scenes. Good movie, by the way – that surprised me.
Godzilla Raids Again, the second movie featuring the radioactive reptile, was chosen to represent older black and white films. Performance was good enough, even if the movie was awful. I assume this was the cut from the United States as it had all the monster scenes sped up to look like cat fights.
UHF was a test of a relatively normal movie (technically; it is insane otherwise). Performance was okay with occasional blocking. Still a lot of fun after all these years.
Finally, Brigham Young (1940). An old school classic Daryl Zanuck production, it did just fine. The movie itself was surprisingly good, if filled with historical inaccuracies and being very Hollywood. The sub focus on the United Order made it feel like a National Recovery Act film, but the acting was top notch and the script well done. I may review this in depth in the future.
Final analysis:
Streaming to the PC is terrible at 1MB.
Streaming to the TV is much better.
Modern effects extravaganza’s and anything with really complicated imagery is going to perform poorly.
B&W movies of yesteryear work great.
Netflix streaming has better potential, but Hulu’s is superior for a lower speed connection.
We’ll be primarily using the DVD through mail option.
While I’d love to have a faster connection, it isn’t financially viable at the time. I think 2MB would be adequate to the old TV set, but 3MB would be needed to the PC.
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