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It's What You've Been Waiting For: BSG, the Complete Series
I have to be honest — I've felt like a piece of me has been missing since the finale of Battlestar Galactica. I know, I know, I gotta move on. But thankfully, the epic space opera can live on in my heart, and soon it can live on a loop in my DVD player!
How to Fold a Piece of Paper Into a Makeshift CD Case
Need to give someone a CD or DVD you've burned, or have long lost the case for? Don't buy a new case — just follow this tutorial by DIY Maven for how to make a CD case with a simple piece of white paper.
All you need is a sheet of standard 8.5-by-11-inch paper, and to follow these super simple folding steps.
Are You Hanging on to Old Media Formats?
Now that I have my Blu-ray player in my PS3, I feel like I can start buying movies again, in that format. I stopped buying DVDs because it's time to move forward, and it sounds like I'm not alone: DVD sales have flatlined recently; whether that has to do with people waiting to see if they should commit to Blu-ray or movie downloads remains to be seen.
Luckily, my big DVD library doesn't qualify me as a hoarder since my player is backwards compatible, but I still remember my boyfriend insisting that I get rid of my haggard old VHS tapes (I wasn't watching them).
The DVD That Refuses to Be Ignored
Look, I am totally mature. But I still teeheeheed at this CD and case, although what it actually is is no laughing matter.
The breast-inspired design is for a great cause; the DVD promotes breast cancer awareness.
Geek Tip: Use Window Cleaner to Fix Unplayable Discs
This tip actually comes courtesy of Netflix, after they were beginning to kill me by sending unplayable disc after unplayable disc. The first offender, (a How I Met Your Mother DVD, if you must know), refused to play in my DVD player, so I pulled out all my tricks to clean it (except for the ol' toothpaste trick, which I was tempted to try, but since I didn't own the disc, I had reservations), to no avail, so I reported it unplayable, and Netflix sent another copy of the DVD.
Would you believe it, the next HIMYM disc they sent would also not play!
Where Do You Keep Your DVDs?
All Blu-ray issues aside I spend a lot of time concerned with my DVDs. Not by how good or bad the quality is, not by which titles I need to buy or rent, but where they go in my house. Personally, I'm attempting a library situation (that's a shot of my setup below) and pretending that they're as attractive as books, and OK enough to be put on display, but I worry I'm kidding myself.
Geek Tip: Don't Write on CDs With Sharpies!
If you're burning CDs and DVDs, you probably label them right afterward, and do what I (used to) do, which is reach for a Sharpie. But I caution you, as your friend and gagdet guru: Put down the Sharpie.
The chemicals in Sharpies (and most conventional markers) can eventually damage the data on your discs.
Wal-Mart: Out With HD DVD and in With Blu-ray
As the Blu-ray/HD DVD war continues with Netflix and Best Buy recently making the switch to Blu-ray, things are certainly looking gloomy for the future of HD DVD products. The hardest hit came today, with Wal-Mart announcing that it would be pulling the plug on on HD DVD and moving exclusively toward Blu-ray format movies and players.
By June, 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores will offer only Blu-ray movies and hardware machines, as well as standard definition movies and DVD players.
Where Do You Get Your Movies?
This weekend my best friend turned me on to CinemaNow, which serves up on-demand and download and burn movies and video content. While I'm a Netflix girl, who occasionally rents DVDs from my local rental spot, the idea of legal downloads is really alluring.
CinemaNow has more than 4,000 feature-length films, television programs and music concerts and offers five different ways to get and pay for your movies: Free, Subscription, Rent, Buy, and Burn to DVD.
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Will Free Digital Copies Make You Excited About Buying DVDs Again?
Fox's release of Family Guy's Star Wars parody Blue Harvest on DVD is exciting because of its inclusion of a free digital copy, so you can own both the DVD and iTunes copy — no long ripping process required, no legal bones about it.
The intrepid testers over at Gizmodo unboxed the DVD to find an extra digital copy disc and a slip with a code inside. Each can only be used once, which made testers question the complexity of something relatively easy to do — why not just give the code to enter online?
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