…this was over a month in editing, since 12/9/2007…sorry about that…
I’m mostly recovered from BNAT 2007. This year was particularly brutal but I loved it of course. My continuing thanks to Harry Knowles for letting us celebrate his birthday in such grand style, and Tim League for hosting at the Ritz. The first 8 hours were a wonderful film experience. The second 8 hours were what I would consider appropriately educational for any film buff. The last 8 hours were unquestionable torture with one good film to wash the taste of bile from our mouths before we left. I loved it.
The evening opened with the biggest surprise of all. Every attendee received a Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player thanks (I assume) to the HD-DVD consortium. Admittedly I was mostly a Blu-Ray man previous to this night since the picture I’ve seen on my PS3 was superior to the HD-DVD picture from my XBOX-360, but I have always (and will continue to) maintained that the format war is all hype — there is enough expendable consumer cash to support 2 or 3 game consoles manufacturers so surely they can support 2 hi def movie players since the user base of the latter is considerably larger and buys more content. Already there are gaming consumers (like myself) with a PS3 Blu-ray and an XBOX 360 HD-DVD. Home theater buffs bought the expensive combo units that — after the price drops — will be purchased by set-top-box-minimalists. Once either units are available for ~$100 (and HD-DVD has already hit that price point at times, in places) many people will end up buying one of each flavor. The whole hub-bub is a non-issue.
Anyway, here’s a rundown of the evening: Read more!