I don't really understand the situation in the US with broadcast standards but in relation to the widescreen issue - there's a reason why a widescreen ratio is more pleasing to the eye than academy ratio, it more closely parallels the way we view the world. If you walk into any art gallery and look at a landscape it is likely to be in a "wide" format. Portraiture is one of the few categories to be consistently presented with greater vertical v horizontal format, but in film there is likely to be characters interacting - with the placement of bodies a vital component of the mise-en-scene.

Oh, and blue is better than red.

Widescreen is better suited for many things, but not necessarily TV programming. Think about it: sitcoms, gameshows, news programs, soap operas all use the close up extensively (sometimes it is even contractually required). When in widescreen, there is a great deal of wasted space. Many, many films avoid the 16:9 ratio because it just isn't necessary. In art school I was taught that we actually view the world in two ways, wide and focused, and that we spend most of our time in the focused. In fact, if you are reading this you are in the focused. Anything we watch our hands doing, reading, most television and even driving is focus-oriented viewing. The whole HD thing just doesn't make a great deal of sense. I produce a straight to DVD television show about the magic industry. For something on the order of 80% of what I do (and I have actually gone through and surveyed our projects) widescreen would result in about 60% of dead screen. Whether they are one on one interview segments, actually teaching segments or on location reports the material just doesn't lend itself to a widescreen format.

That being said, though, as a way to watch film it is brilliant. I have been on a martial arts jag lately (not surprising given the years I've spent training and the fact I used to own over 400 martial arts movies) and there is nothing like a large scale battle on the widescreen. I can't wait until later this week when Chinese Ghost Story I, II and III are on because I remember them being in what us projectionists used to call 'scope (widescreen).

As someone who has to run through the London tube system every day I'm always moaning to anyone who'll listen about the death of people's peripheral vision - anything that can be done to broaden out the way people view the world is good as far as I'm concerned!

Your show sounds interesting. My girlfriend used to put "magic" down on her xmas list to Santa when she was a kid.

I'm enjoying my Toshiba HD-A2 immensely. I only have a few horror titles: Wolf Creek, The Thing, Pulse ( ) and that's it horror is seriously lacking thus far (C'mon Universal crack open your vault of horror!) Anyway, the resolution and quality is great and I enjoy using it for my old DVD's as well. I have slowed down, but I haven't stopped buying mondo movies on standard DVD.

Do you have Voom! HD programming? I have it through Dish Network and it includes Monsters HD, which is nothing but horror and monster movies in HD. I actually watch it more than Kung Fu HD, a surprise to me as I used to own a gungfu school... Even though there is some awesome programming on Kung Fu HD, I often do not have the time to sit down and dedicate my full attention to what I am watching, so it eliminates subtitled films. My Chinese is still good enough to only have to use the subtitles as a crutch but most of what I would watch right now are the Japanese flicks they are showing. If you don't have it, check it out. I caught the Blind Dead series a week or so ago and have about 5 things in the DVR schedule already this week!

As an Xbox360 owner i'm tempted by the HD-DVD add-on, but the 360 is soooo noisy. I'm wondering if this will be a problem when watching movies on it.

I think so. I read something (can't remember where) when I was considering upgrading to a 360 elite with its HDMI input for movie watching stating that the unit was still noisy for watching HD. It's already a crappy DVD player-I've done some A/B testing with my dvd player and can attest to this. It's not surprising if its not a superb HD-DVD player. I think videophiles on a budget will just have to wait for price drops and/or a format winner to make the leap.

Cheers,
Ryan