This is a follow up to Mr. Sproul's post on April 20 and 23,
Fry's Electronics has the entire Planet Earth series for sale in a box set for $ 70. It is 4 blu-ray disc. It appears the package contains the "un-edited" British version with Attenborough as the narrator. Additional links: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Planet_earth_Lechuguilla.png I guess they used 25 gig blu-ray disc. So maybe in a few years they will re-release it as a 2 disc set using 50 gig blu-rays'. I assume it will be few years before most cavers have a chance to watch this at home on their own tv's. Has anybody watched it at home yet? For best results, You are going to want a 70 inch high-definition picture which still cost over $ 5,000. And then the cost of a blu-ray player and all the cables is nearly a $ 1,000. I assume you can you watch it on a $ 600 Playstation 3. I think the cheapest HD tv's are still the DLP's and the smallest are around $ 1,200 at Costco. http://images.amazon.com/images/G/01/richmedia/images/cover.gif And on an off-topic but related note, The tv market is changing so fast that it is hard to say what is going to be the mainstream trend in 5 years For example, are you going to want a built-in blu-ray player in your next tv? Or are you going to want to build a home-theater room in your house using an overhead projector? Or are you going to wan't a gigantic wall-mounted plasma screen? [ I plan to keep my rabbit-ears and old TV tube for the time being. ] In my opinion, many of the bigger HDTV's have less quality features than some of the 42 inch versions. Things like contrast ratio, or pixels or sound or rear connections are sometimes compromised in order to sell you a bigger set. Panasonic recently dropped the price of their 103" plasma tv from $ 80,000 to $ 50,000. So maybe, a few of us will live long enough to see one of those. http://www.i4u.com/images/2006/103-inch-panasonic-plasma-gets-price.jpg On the subject of tv watching, I would like to someday have a TV jukebox. It would be a simple box and "come with 10,000 shows pre-programmed on it. You could easily delete shows you don't want stored. And you could easily transfer hundreds of DVD's to it with simple video cables. Of course, you could do this yourself with current technology, but it is very time-consuming. "DVD ripping" is above the capabilites of the average TV watcher. For example, do you know anybody that has the entire Star Trek collection on their tv's hard-drive player? http://magicdvdripper.com/dvd-ripper.htm For kid's who own an XBox 360 and subscribe to Xbox Live, they can buy movies, but it is expensive and the selection is limited to current popular programs. Aren't you holding your breath to watch all the old "Petticoat Junction" re-runs on a new 60" HD tv? http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z89NTG3JL._SS500_.jpg [ Can you imagine an American family sitting around "together" all enjoying a show like that on a 20 inch black-n-white tv without stereo sound? And we didn't even have air-conditioning. It was a different time - those were the good ole days, right? Who would have believed a family needed 2 tv's? I bet you knew people back then who did not have a tv or at least not a color one. Would you go back to 1968 ( or whatever your favorite year was ) and stay there if you could? ] Another news item, The move "The Cave," is available for watching on a Portable Playstation ( PPS ). David Locklear --------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit our website: http://texascavers.com To unsubscribe, e-mail: texascavers-unsubscr...@texascavers.com For additional commands, e-mail: texascavers-h...@texascavers.com
