Lamentations of a Blu-ray Outcast

For a movie geek, I’m surprisingly slow at adapting to the latest, greatest movie-watching technology. I stuck with VHS longer than most of the folks I knew, finally giving in – or “upgrading,” and some non-Luddites say – when I got a Mac laptop with a DVD player. Or maybe it was because I’m such a movie lover that I held out, not wanting to re-buy that extensive collection on another format. Or perhaps I just don’t handle change well – after all, VHS was all I’d ever known for many years. (At least I dodged the laser disc bullet.)

Of course, as much as I disliked having to rebuild my movie collection, my greedy side craved all those extras, my snooty cineaste side needed the correct aspect ratio, and from a practical standpoint, a smaller package meant more shelf space for an even larger collect. OK, those reasons, and there’s obvious selling point of improved image quality, but that was never a priority. I watch a lot of older films and a lot of genre B-movies, and often they didn’t look that great to begin with. I love that warm, organic quality of celluloid, and some movies simply don’t benefit from clarity (case in point: the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is meant to be muddy-looking; it adds the documentary realism that makes it so damn frightening). I’m the type who would rather watch a scratchy film than a pristine digital projection. A film snob? Maybe.

So, Blu-ray doesn’t hold the same appeal as DVD did because the main selling point is the image quality – and you lose some of those DVD extras to precious disc space needed for all those bytes. Hmm… then again, the packages are even thinner, so additional shelf means an even larger collection! But, then again, because there’s been such a push-on for Blu-ray, DVDs have been dropping in price, and I’ve been buying up cheap movies. I could stop buying now and still have enough to watch for the better part of a year. Oh yeah, and if you’re gonna get a Blu-ray player, you gotta have a hi-def TV, which I can’t afford right now. And so on and so forth…

This is the discussion I’ve been having with myself about this whole leap to Blu-ray situation. Yet I suspect none of it will influence my decision as much as the Blu-ray Mafia. No, I’m not talking about consumer strong-arm tactics.

The Blu-ray Mafia is comprised of my movie-lovin’ friends who treat their Blu-ray players like memberships in an exclusive club and take much joy in my exclusion from the hi-def party. They don’t even call it “Blu-ray” but simply “the ray,” and without one, I’ve become a veritable pixel peasant. My cries of not wanting to re-buy my movies is met with derision and explanations about how Blu-ray “up-converts” regular – pfft – DVDs, so I still hang on to the silly antiques.

I hear all about how once I start watching on Blu-ray, I won’t even be able to watch regular old DVDs anymore, how I’ll just have a very large collection of drink coasters, makeshift Christmas tree ornaments and plastic mirrors that I can take with me hiking in case I get lost and have to signal a plane. And, the ultimate insult: the bastards refer to my DVDs as “Brown-rays.” Brown-rays! So harsh.

The Blu-ray Mafia is leaning hard on me, but for now I’m holding out. One day soon, I may even join the analogue Amish and start trolling the flea markets for Beta-Max.

[above image from here]

 

-Dave Alexander