Today I was out and I got to reminiscing, almost 9 years ago (it was the first week of January 2000) I purchased my first DVD. I'd accumulated a pretty decent VHS collection for a teenager and did not as of yet own a DVD player. But about half of my friends on my dorm hall had DVD players and I knew I'd get one eventually. So while shopping at Target I picked up "Detroit Rock City" a movie I'd been wanting to see and made the decision to purchase it. (One of my friends had worked at Target and still had his discount card so I wasn't paying full price)

Now lets be honest no one wants to admit their first DVD purchase was "Detroit Rock City" you want it to be something awesome like "The Matrix" but alas it wasn't to be. It was one of the few times I've ever bought a movie without seeing it and it helped instill the notion that I probably shouldn't purchase a movie unless I'd seen it.

But that DVD started a habit I've yet to break and which leaves me with well over 200 movies and countless TV series on DVD. (OK I could count them, but I'm not going to) But why am I telling you all this?

Well to answer that we must go back to May of this year. At that time I purchased a HDTV as a graduation present to myself (Thanks President Bush!!). Since then I've been thinking about switching over to Blu-Ray. Several of my friends have it, and it looks amazing. Besides more and more I'm getting e-mails letting me know of movies coming out on Blu-Ray that I might be able to review if I had a Blu-Ray player.

A few months back I decided not to buy DVDs anymore. First off I'm unemployed and couldn't afford it, but occasionally I'd be tempted to pick something up even though I shouldn't. But I stopped myself because I didn't want to buy a movie on DVD if I was going to switch over to Blu-Ray in the near future. Last month my wife and I decided since I would be working soon but not until after Christmas, we would wait to get each other Christmas and Birthday gifts. But we decided that my wife would go to Las Vegas with her friends and I would get a Blu-Ray player.

All this to tell you I bought my first Blu-Ray disc today. And if you know what movies came out this week, you probably know what it was. The Dark Knight. I know some of you are saying how can you buy a Blu-Ray disc if A) you don't have any income and B) you don't have a Blu-Ray player?


A) I was given a free DVD as a gift and I returned it and traded it in for The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray for a total of $5.41; and
B)It comes with a free digital copy, which means I can still watch it by hooking the lappy up to the HDTV. I can wait to see the special features, and I'd rather wait to see it in a better quality. Also I couldn't resist that the Blu-Ray switches Aspect Ratios between the 1.78:1 IMAX Sequences and the 2.4:1 of the rest of the movie.

So as a new era begins in The CineManiac household, what do you think of Blu-Ray and The Dark Knight. Does the Aspect Ration matter to you, would you wait to see it so much better or just keep buying DVD until you got a new player? Apparently some are saying The Dark Knight might be the savior of the Blu-Ray format, it could be as it sold over 700k units on Tuesday alone.

Labels: Blu-Ray, The Dark Knight