DVD Profiler by Invelos Software

Hello guys.

After trying a couple of options to organize my DVD/Blu-Ray collection, I just found what I believe is the best software out there for this!

Invelos Software DVD Profiler: Invelos



Notice that as all similar programs, you need an internet connection in order to download the newest databases. Now once these databases are downloaded adding DVDs is simple. You have a couple of options to enter DVDs:

1) By UPC Code

2) By Searching for the name in the DB

3) If you have a DVD-ROM drive, by inserting the DVD in the drive and letting the software recognize it automatically.

I started yesterday getting my movies into the software (I'm at 204 but I still have half a closet to enter into my collection! ;-)) and it's a snap. I can honestly say that this is better than the Movie Collector Software (by Collectorz) that I was using.

You can also:

- Keep track of loaned DVDs (as in Movie Collector)
- Upload and share your collection online (peruse mine HERE)
- Export your database
- Print reports
- And even customize the way these reports come out (or you can download some templates from the site made by users).

These are only some of the features that this program has!
If you have more than 30 DVDs, I urge you to get this software.
It's easy to use and it makes your life easier.

Hope you enjoyed this mini review.
Once I get more experience with it, I'll probably post another update.


Check.

Party Games

Yeah Yeah Yeah I know. I haven't posted anything in quite a while. It's just that I haven't had the time to do so.

I'm waiting for a couple of pics to use in this post so, wait a while ;-)

I'll just have to say that:

Smash Bros Brawl + Mario Kart Wii + Rock Band + Dance Dance Revolution + alcohol = FUN!


Talk to you guys later.

HD vs SD image comparisons...

Here are a couple of links to comparison images.
You'll see the differences in color, detail, richness, crispiness, etc. that HD brings to the table:

Link 1

Link 2

Enjoy!

30 Days of Night Review...

Sorry guys that I hadn't time to update this page.
I've been doing so much stuff... anyway, saw 30 Days of Night on Blu-Ray a couple of weeks ago and I have to give it at least 1 Thumb up! ;-)

30 Days of Night

Ok, so it goes like this.

PLOT: The movie takes place at a town in Alaska where people are packing up and getting ready to leave... why? Because the sun will come down and wont come back up again in 30 days (a really reeeeaaaallly good premise for a horror movie). Some people can't handle living in obscurity/darkness so they catch a ride to wherever and return a month later. The thing is that while people are saying goodbye to their lovers, daughters, husbands, etc. weird things are going on. First all of the cellphones are burnt, sled dogs are killed and you ask yourself, what the hell is going on? The answer, vampires.

So after darkness arrives things really start going on and vampires take over the town. Except for a select few of course, everybody becomes meat popsicles. These brave souls have to endure being 30 days of total darkness surrounded by vampires.
I wont go into subplots or details (watch it if you like a good take on vampires even though they don't really get into the story of these vamps in particular).

The acting is quite solid.



Josh Hartnett, I like him, he does a good job as the local Sheriff and all of the supporting cast does a great job driving their characters (even though they don't get properly developed). I have to say though that for the "bad guys" the make up is not quite up there. To me, the even look funny.

The movie was directed by David Slade. Mehhh... he could have done better I believe (he did not used the material to build proper tension! :-(). And I believe that a major flaw was that we didn't know anything about the setting (i.e. how big is the town, how far is the jail, etc.) This movie involves a lot of running around and since you don't even know if they are going far, you don't really get that involved in the action. Finally, the passage of time... the director didn't even bother to tell us how many days had passed, etc... So no tension = no horror.

Video: This is Blu-ray. This is also a dark movie. The transfer is 2:40 and although most is monochromatic, where there are colors involved (especially red! hehehe) they shine! The transfer is extremely good, the images are so freaking crisp (I didn't notice any halos, a lot of graininess, etc.). And yes, there is film grain but really minimal. So basically I would say that this is a good movie to show off your home theater! ;-)





Audio: There are a couple of tracks included on this release. We have a 24-bit TrueHD 5.1 English track that sounds really good. It delivers a lot of bass and although I'm not testing with a 5.1 system I'm sure that whoever has a good system will appreciate this track. Also on the disc it's a
French TrueHD 5.1 track and Dolby Digital 5.1 in Spanish, Portuguese and Thai.

Extras: Not too hefty compliments but the material included is golden. We have:

30 Images of Night --> Shot comparison (images from film vs illustrations)
Audio Commentary --> With producer Rob Tapert actors, Melissa George and Josh Hartnett.
Eight Featurettes --> Totalling around an hour and delving into production aspects, casting, etc.
A couple of trailers.

All in all, good movie to show your stuff and an enjoyable movie to boot. Still, just 1 Thumb up (or 3 Stars ;-)) as I believe this could have been better.

Update on the Panasonic SC-PTX7

Well, after testing the hell out of the unit, I haven't experienced freezes or lock-ups as other people seem to have suffer. But I noticed that some games, trailers and movies played through the optical (i.e. coming from the PS3) were not giving me any sound output. So what did I do?

Removed the optical from the PS3.
Configured the PS3 to output the sound through HDMI to the TV.
Connected the Optical Out from the TV to the Panny unit.

That's it.
Worked like a charm and it still sounds great.
Just watched Shoot Em Up on Blu-Ray yesterday.
Will post a review this week or over the weekend probably (alongside 30 Days of Night review! ;-)).

See ya.

2.1 / 3.1 Home Theater System -- At last I chose...

Hello again everyone.

I have been fighting with myself trying to decide whether I should buy a 5.1 Surround Sound System with "wireless" rear speakers or a more compact 2.1 or 3.1 system for quite a few months. I had looked into a couple of them but really didn't got into any of them probably because I didn't know what "next-gen" disc format I was going to settle with. Well, now that I have a PS3 and Blu-Ray, I decided to once again visit this question.

Now, why wouldn't I buy a 5.1 system?

1) My Living Room is small.
2) I don't want cables everywhere on the room.
3) Speaker placement.

Why wouldn't I buy a 2.1 system?
1) No Real Surround options out there
2) Underpowered systems
3) Lacking input/output options

So I basically weighted all the pros and cons and still decided with a compact system. These were the options (click the names to go to product web page):

1. Sony DAV-X10:

An elegant 2.1 BRAVIA system that supports Dolby EX, Pro Logic, Pro Logic II, DTS, and most important of all it has inputs to support my other systems (i.e. DISH box, or PS3, etc.) You can check the specs on the page posted, and as you can see, it is a good option. In fact, this was the one that was winning the ballots ;-) BUT there wasn't any in P.R. and I had to order it.

Also, the price (in Amazon.com) was in the range of $650.00 and that doesn't include extended warranties NOR shipping.

So next stop was:

2. Phillips Soundbar HTS8100

This one just screams... STYLE.
It looks good, and Phillips is known for their good "Ambisound" algorithm which simulates Surround Sound quite well... BUT it got eliminated quite quickly because it lacks Optical inputs and it was expensive as well (SEARS has it at $800.00!)

Next in line:

3. Samsung HT-X200

This option was up there with the Sony model in terms of input/outputs, sound quality and best of all, this one was quite cheaper than the Sony one. So of course it caught my attention. Went to SEARS and they had an old model on Clearance BUT they just had the floor model. I could had order it online but still I would have paid more than $400 with no extended plan :-(

So, I was again back to square one. Undecided, no system at home until ... I went to a local SAM's Club and saw:



4. (WINNER)Panasonic SC-PTX7

I had already read about this online and thought: "Maaaan... I don't want a "MP3 Jukebox" on my home!" But after listening to it and looking at the back of the receiver I noticed that it included everything I wanted. And best of all, the price with a 2 year extended warranty was just $350 (including taxes). The difference of this one, this is actually a 3.1 system (the front speakers also integrate the center module). And it does well with movies too, not just as a music jukebox, so I went with it.



I bought it without hesitation and took it home... then I forgot I didn't have an optical cable to connect my Playstation 3, so I went to my local Walmart, took a Phillips Cable, and went back home again. Opened the box, everything was in order (sorry I didn't took more pictures when I was opening the box) and started organizing everything in my Living Room.



I already had speaker stands that I used with my old cheapie HTIB that died so I set the new Pannies alongside the TV. Connected the PS3 to the Box and started to Rock out. First I put up a normal music CD on the drive. It sounded awesome right out of the box. I didn't even have to fiddle with the Bass settings, as it sounded A-OK. It does gives you options to equalize, add Bass Boost, even a pseudo surround sound effect but I didn't activate any of this.

Next, I tried ripping music from the CD in order to store some in the Jukebox. Ripping times are not quite as fast as in a PC but it was ok. Played the songs after ripping and they sounded good.

After this, I tried inserting a DVD full of MP3s and WMA files. The unit did found all of the MP3s I had and I could play them without problem. Still, I have to figure out how to "copy" from the DVD to the unit's HDD. But I guess I'll do this at a later time.





Finally, I turned on my PS3, put the Panny unit to "DIN" (Digital IN) and... nothing.
Not a sound!
WTF?!?!?!

Oooppsss I had forgotten to set the PS3 to output through the Digital port. Once I did this, aaaahhhh pure Bliss ;-).
Games sounded quite good.
Now I'm going to be hooked playing more Call of Duty 4 with more ooomph thanks to the richness of the Bass output from the subwoofer and the good sounding front/center speakers.

After testing COD and Ratchet and Clank, I put on the Black Sheep DVD (you can look at the review below) and enjoyed the movie with a 3.1 Sound Experience.



In conclusion, if you are looking for a cheap 2.1/3.1 system I definitely recommend this Panny unit or the Samsung HT-X200.


P.S. DO NOT look into the BOSE 3.2.1 or Cinemate systems. They are completely outdated (No optical input nor outputs, no HDMI, no upconverting to 1080p, etc.) They probably sound good but for the price, they are not really worth it (unless you are a rich guy that wipes his arse with $100 bills! ;-)).

Hope you enjoyed this.
Bye.

Black Sheep Review

Since the preview copy of 30 Days of Night is not working :-( (thanks anyway Ben, hopefully you'll send me another pre-release copy of another movie in the future! But I'll buy this one in a couple of weeks. :-p) I took the time to review a little movie from New Zealand called:

Black Sheep

They say that every time people go to New Zealand for vacation they take pictures of sheep and the hometown people just say: "don't worry about taking pictures now, you'll see a lot more of them!" hehehe Well, it seems that in fact there are A LOT of sheep in NZ and good for us on this movie, they are BBBBBBBAAAAAAADDDDDDDD... lol sorry, I couldn't resist! :-p

"Plot:" A family (The Oldfields) have a farm land that have been theirs for generations. The dad dies in a farming accident leaving his two sons "in charge." The younger one, Henry, moves away with a stress induced phobia of sheep (due to a prank his older brother played AND because of his father's death) leaving older, brother Angus in charge of the farm. The bad thing... Angus doesn't like the traditional concepts of farming and starts doing genetic experiments on the sheep... that's when things start going wrong... An animal activist steals a zombie lamb fetus and drops it by accident. As in every "zombie" movie, the thing just starts to spread...




As you can see, the plot is just as simple as it can be as it just wants to be the vehicle to get where it wants to get and that is... SHOW US A LOT OF GORE! ;-) This movie is made in the tradition of Peter Jackson movies like Bad Taste and one of my faves, Dead Alive. It successfully mixes Comedy and Horror with a lot of gore. So even if you don't care about the plot, you'll be in for a treat. The WETA Worshop did a good shop with the practical effects and in fact, I think I will not look at sheep the same way! hahaha

The cool thing about this B-movie, it mixes the zombie culture WITH the werewolves culture. So ... you should know what happens if you get bitten!

And I know this is a "schlocky", B-Movie but bottom line... is it enjoyable?
If you like movies like Dead Alive, Slither, Return of the Living Dead, etc. then the answer is a resounding YES! You'll have fun and you'll be amazed at what the WETA guys did without CGI! ;-)

Video: As far as the DVD goes, the transfer was done quite well in it's natural Widescreen format. No obvious inconsistencies were noted.

Audio: They only gave us 2 audio tracks. The main one is a 5.1 Dolby Soundtrack and the commentary track. As I don't have a full 5.1 system at home I wont comment much on the sound. I have to say though that on my 3.1 system the reproduction was quite alright and I could listen to the separation of the action from left and right.

Extras: A couple of Deleted Scenes (with optional commentary), a "Making of" feature (like half an hour worth of entertaining material), an extra "clip" especially for the DVD release, a 2 minute Blooper Reel that it's NOT really entertaining and the Theatrical Trailer.



All in all, I give the movie and DVD package a solid 3.5 Stars out of 5.

Recommended to B-movie and horror fans.