Movie Collection part 4: High Definition

Many of you may remember the high definition format war that occured between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It was a confusing time that I would equate to Betamax and VHS (although my family had plenty of both) back in the eighties but not something that I had to deal with directly; I was a child, after all. The high definition wars had me at my prime: I had money, I had knowledge, and I had a love for movies. So which one do I go with? It came down to dollars, initially. Since I had an Xbox 360 it was cheapest for me to get the HD-DVD add on, and with it, I bought a slew of movies. Many of them were upgrades of DVDs, so I was able to continue to get rid of the original DVD collection. One of the first movies I recall playing was TRAINING DAY. The scene I remember as a standout of high definition was an interior shot of a car driving in the rain; the rain drops collected on the window, while the actors…

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Movie Collection part 3: The Great DVD Purge

In 2005, everything changed. I finished school: four years of university and an additional year of college. I quickly moved back to my home town and was living in my friend’s basement trying to find a job. Four long months went by with nothing. To say that times were tough is an understatement, but I had supportive parents who kept me afloat. Unfortunately it meant a complete stoppage of luxury items, which included DVDs. The collecting had come to a crashing halt, to which it has never recovered. When I did get a job, I went out looking for a movie to buy, but couldn’t pull the trigger on anything. THE AVIATOR had just come out – a movie I thoroughly enjoyed – but I couldn’t justify the cost. Bills were in the way, including car payments, rent and groceries. Digital convergence was upon us, but not many people knew what was coming. I modded my (original) Xbox and installed XBMC, which allowed me to stream video and music across the network. It didn’t take long to find a solid…

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Movie Collection part 2: Collecting

After the family got the DVD player in 1997, DVDs were purchased on a fairly regular basis. I was always on the lookout, as it wasn’t easy. As you could imagine, the selection was poor, at best. Warner Bros did the best job of releasing a good variety of movies, and as such my collection reflected many Warner titles. Nearly every birthday and Christmas, DVDs were given and received as gifts, and we built up a decent collection. I would borrow DVDs from a friend, and rental stores began offering them. The VHS collection was neglected, and gradually discarded over time. The last tapes to be given away were a collection of Disney movies, in their “collectible” oversize white plastic tombs. THE MATRIX stood out as a pivotal DVD upon initial release. The movie was all the rage, especially in my circle (who wasn’t in love with it?) and it seemed to be the perfect fit for the digital format. My guess is that it was the first movie for many people to go out and purchase. At the time,…

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Movie Collection part 1: The Beginning

I walked out of HMV carrying two VHS movies: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, and Reservoir Dogs. I didn’t fully realize at the time that these would be the last two movies I bought on the aged format, but there was that inkling. DVD was just around the corner, after all. My VHS collection was modest, but I can’t help but think that if I was a bit older and more importantly, had money, that I would have had a much larger collection. Just as I was entering high school more films were being released on VHS in their “as the director originally intended” widescreen format. Fox released an entire series of special editions (of which my friend had many) and I picked up a couple, as well as a few other editions. Notably, I was most proud of my copy of The Rock, and reveled in its widescreen glory. I would often order PPV movies when they were widescreen, and record them onto my own tapes. Then, DVD came out and rendered all these tapes obsolete overnight. I knew…

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