Alien

If the last thing I wrote about was Tiger Woods '08 golf, then we have a lot to catch up on in the video game world. Since then I've purchased and been thoroughly playing PGR4, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero III, not to mention a PS3 thrown into the mix. But you can hear about that later. Last night, I watched Alien, and it was great experience.

The first time I saw Alien was most likely the only time. It had to be at least ten years ago. When the special collector's editions of the movies arrived on DVD I quickly nabbed Alien and Aliens, recognizing that they are great films. Of course, Aliens received a lot more spins, and honestly, I don't think I ever put the DVD of Alien in once. Last night was the first.

I was nervous because it is a standard-def DVD and I have since moved on to high definition. I have a modest collection of HD movies now and have been letting the DVDs collect dust, or have been selling them off. But the good films, and nice special editions I have kept. With nothing in the HD world of interest, it was time to check out the PS3's ability to upconvert and play a DVD on my hi-def TV.

And I was impressed. I haven't really watched a movie upconverted (aside from those odd HD movie channel showings) so I wasn't expecting much. But I was really impressed with the film-like nature of the presentation; while the level of detail was somewhat lacking, there was no artifacting or other visual distractions that often plague DVDs when blown up to fifty inches.

The biggest thing I notice while watching high definition movies is the "film-like" smoothness of the image; I don't get the same feeling when watching a DVD on a standard def television, so it was suprising that I was getting the feeling while watching Alien that I do other HD movies.

In any event, I really believe that the quality of the film was also due in majority to the transfer and the effort that went into the DVD. These movies have always looked good on DVD, so it shouldn't be a big surprise that they would continue to look good. I guess my expections for DVD have just been lowered too much, and my eyes spoiled by HD. I look forward to spinning a few more movies on DVD, and who knows, maybe I'll just start renting DVDs again for the movies that are not available in HD yet.