Am I Blu?

I’m happy to say… YES I AM!

As noted earlier, this Blog has been dormant for all the usual reasons. Professional responsibilities, personal responsibilities, and, sometimes, just the need for more sleep!

But, there’s been one additional reason for my Blog-lessness…

For my birthday in January, my wonderful wife, Esther, gave me the gift of HD TV and Blu-ray DVD!

Just in time to enjoy the NY Jets THREE (yes, that’s “three”) playoff games! And so, we watched the Jets defeat Chad Ochocinco and the Cincinnati Bengals (They “86’ed” 85!) and Philip Rivers and the San Diego (“not so super”) Chargers – before the inevitable fall to the great Peyton Manning and the stampeding Indianapolis Colts – all in wide-screen, breathtaking high-definition!

A 37 inch set properly fit the space we have for the TV, and yes we’ve seen the wonders of going wider still – and some would make the classic argument that “size does matter” – but, from our previous perspective, 37 inches gets the job done!

Football was made to be seen this way, and we can’t wait for the upcoming baseball season. My favorite prime time series LOST, HEROES, and FRINGE are amazing as well! And I must admit that, when Esther watches THE BIGGEST LOSER, Hi-Def adds a frightening new dimension to what is already an abomination of a show!

Less than four weeks into this, I wonder how we ever did without it!

The Blu-ray DVD player is amazing in its own right. It “upconverts” Standard Definition DVDs to a greater level of visual clarity. An approximation of HD, if you will. Given my six years of accumulated SD DVDs, this was a very important selling point for me!

As of now, my only Blu-ray purchase has been THE SIMPSONS: THE COMPLETE TWENTIETH SEASON… and, as Simpsons fans know, only HALF of that season was produced in HD. But, that which IS produced for Blu-ray looks like “no Simpsons I’ve ever seen before!” It almost had ME sighing and drooling like Homer! (An aside: The HD episodes are heralded by the “New Opening” that shows EVERY CHARACTER in the extensive cast – if even as a blur. I’ll have more on that in future posts.)

It’s a beautiful thing when your expectations are exceeded, and the Blu-ray DVD player (when combined with the HD TV) did exactly that! All the older shows that I enjoy have also never looked better. Oddly, the quality starts out great, and increases by era.

Black and white era series like PERRY MASON, ZORRO, TWILIGHT ZONE, and THE OUTER LIMITS are clearer and crisper than ever.

Early color shows such as VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, LOST IN SPACE, ORIGINAL STAR TREK, and TIME TUNNEL reveal details and color saturations and variations never before seen. New wrinkles on Richard Basehart’s face, new details on STAR TREK’S “Gorn”, and beads of sweat on the brows of various characters that were unseen over dozens and dozens of previous viewings are now there for us to enjoy. …To the extent you CAN “enjoy” wrinkles and beads of sweat, that is!

Pushing ever forward, STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION becomes almost movie-like in its scope.

And even Standard Definition DVD versions of LOST blow me away! How much better must it be on Blu-ray, I wonder?

And so, I remain enraptured by my birthday gift – and by the wonderful woman who (…as Captain Picard would put it) “made it so”!