Brothers in Arms:  Road to Hill 30 by Gearbox Software.

With the 60th anniversary of Victory in Europe hearts and minds all over the world turn to a different time, the era of the so called “greatest generation”.  A fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by veterans of that era can be found in the loving details and hard work put forth in Brothers in Arms:  Road to Hill 30.

Brothers in Arms is a new squad based tactical game that recreates a historic mission of the 101st Airborne division of the US Army (the same one portrayed in the HBO series Band of Brothers).  I played the Xbox version but it’s also available for PS2 and PC.  This is no run of the mill first person shooter, it offers a unique game experience where the player controls a squad dropped behind German lines one day before the Normandy invasion.  The controls and overall game play are reminiscent of a Tom Clancy game (like Ghost Recon) as it focuses on realism and squad based tactics.  Storming in and trying to shoot everybody up won’t work as a tactic in this game.  What I found most interesting about this game was the intensive depth and realism of all the little details.  Every map in this game is based on real settings, visited by the developers, photographed and recreated digitally for us to play in.  You have to dig into the special features to really get a sense of the work that went into these details.  They’ll show you side by side pictures of a farm in France where a battle took place and the digital simulation of the farm in the game.  The game play itself is particularly immersive, the men will sometimes swear and panic in the heat of battle.  Through cut scenes you’ll get to know your squad and its individuals as they share conversation both lighthearted and heavy.  It seemed to make it all the more difficult to hear someone’s name called out by one your men because they went down in a blast of enemy machinegun fire, you’ll actually feel more than a little responsible to keep your platoon alive while accomplishing your objectives.  I have a problem using “realistic” to describe a war game.  No game can capture the feeling of being away from home for an indefinite period as a young man, perhaps never to return, or the feeling of sleeping outside without basic creature comforts for days on end and that’s before you see any action.  This game gives you a sense for all of these experiences and more, it gives you the exhilarating side of combat but also tragic elements through remarkably deep storytelling.

The tactics are based on infantry flanking maneuvers on a variety of terrain, you’ll try to outflank your enemy firing lines to render them easy targets.  Only they’re not just sitting around waiting for you to figure this out.  You’ll be required to make decisions based on the terrain and objectives as you to move teams of infantry around the battlefield so as to exploit their particular strengths, there are even missions where you get to control Sherman tank.  The video resolution was only 480P, typical for Xbox games.  Although it’s not a true high definition game the graphics look remarkable.  Especially good looking are the people, the way they move, the models are so realistic it’s a bit eerie.  Just walk up to a soldier and click on them, they’ll stand there looking at you, blinking intermittently.  Eventually they’ll have something sarcastic to say to you, as a good soldier should.  The sound of this game is outstanding too.  The surround channels are well used to recreate the environment, directional sounds are flawless as you twist your way through the woods trying to flank a machinegun nest the sound of its location remains audibly consistent.  Even the sounds of individual weapons seem realistic.  Too many times in games or movies are assault rifles made to sound like cannons.  In this game some of the standard issue rifles sound much like hunting rifles.  Turn up the sound and you’ll eventually start recognizing the kind of weapon being fired in battle.

The special features unlocked after each mission are where you’ll learn valuable bite sized tidbits of history from the period and a lot about how they developed the game.  On hand through much of the special features is Colonel John Antal, US Army retired who appears on the game’s credits as military historic director.  Brothers in Arms:  Road To Hill 30 makes a truly respectable tribute to a defining moment of the 20th century and capturing realism and historic detail was at the forefront of this games design.

Let me start by saying I do not condone piracy or any form of theft of intellectual property.  However: there is an undeniable paradigm shift in the entertainment industry which is being prompted by on line file sharing and in part piracy.

The future of the entertainment industry requires it works with piracy through a reorganization of their business model so as to make piracy less relevant by undermining its benefits.  An online subscription/distribution paradigm seems like an obvious way to go, although finding that solution is not my purpose here.

The music industry’s major labels can also do itself a HUGE favor by simply promoting better music.  Of course this is exactly what the Indie labels do, they produce better quality music and so much variety that it’s proving collectively more popular than the so called “pop” music today if you account for all independent music sales and downloads internationally.  The majors are becoming less relevant and it’s not just because of piracy.  The majors (record labels and major film production companies) are hurting not just from piracy upon which they heap all the blame.  Operating off an ancient top heavy business model, they emphasizes control by a few decision makers which stifles creativity, promotes monotony and formulas in entertainment designed to do nothing but feed the bottom line.

We can actually thank piracy for helping to revampt this outdated business structure.  Between piracy and our current era of (pop) cultural multiplicity not only can there be no next Beatles but Britney Spears can’t even sell as many CDs as she used to.  Of course (the revolution) is already embraced by independent labels that are small enough to take advantage.  The majors need to either move, adapt or die.  I don’t feel the pain of Sony records in its current incarnation as necessarily a bad thing, in this respect, change is good.

The same exists but to a lesser degree for the film industry. Forward thinking independent production companies like 2099 Productions are actually conducting unorthodox distribution methods for their new movies that include releasing their films in theaters, TV and DVD all at the same time. 2099 has just signed some high powered directorial talent to their ranks. This is the freedom of choice I believe consumers demand and (perhaps even over 50% of) piracy is only a symptom of this demand.  There is evidence to support this theory, for instance the success of foreign (outside North America) websites that sell music on the cheap for download, 100% legally.  $15 for System of a Down’s new CD is just way too much money when you can buy the same CD in Bosnia for a fraction of that cost, and producers know this. By the way, on the web Bosnia is only a click away.  So how can I buy a CD in Sarajevo when I am here in North America?  Good question, by using the other entertainment format that the entertainment industry is loath to take advantage of or even admit represents a relevant business outlet; downloadable data.  We’ll soon see what decision makers of the G7 do with real globalization in coming years?

It is my contention home entertainment format wars like the current “HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray” war, is just smoke and mirrors to consumers. The REAL format war is between downloadable data and plastic discs.  And guess what; the silvery plastic discs are losing and consumer freedom of choice is winning.  On line piracy should not be dismissed as a crime perpetrated by bored teenagers stealing music.  It’s the next wave of consumer entertainment and kudos’ to the early birds in the entertainment industry that can cash in.

Steven Soderbergh has inked a multi-film deal with the uniquely digital-centric 2929 Productions.  2929 is already making a name for itself in low cost digital film and unorthodox distribution methods.  They plan to release the documentary “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” to simultaneous release to theaters and television.  It’s this kind of forward thinking that at least partially removes the impetus for piracy hopefully will show up in profit margins for 2929.

Steven Soderbergh is one of the top film directors of his generation, the first in 70 years to be nominated for two Best Picture awards at the same time (Erin Brockovich and Traffic) winning Best Picture in 2001 for Traffic.  As a long time booster of digital film his name sits along side George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez as two of the few big budget directors to shoot digital.  Soderbergh has experience behind HD digital cameras with his 2002 film film’s "Full Frontal" and the HBO series "K Street" and "Unscripted."

Soderbergh has always been enthusiastic of digital theaters he once said:

“That’s the future, I saw the latest TI [Texas Instruments] DLP. It was jaw dropping… I was, to put it mildly, really, really impressed with the DLP. It was really exciting and I saw it on a big screen. They were showing it on a split screen, and then they transferred a reel of one of my own films so I could see what it looked like. I just [thought] we’ve got to get this into as many theaters as possible as quickly as we can.”

Steven Soderbergh will get his chance at a more fully digital productions with 2929 as they begin shooting “The Bubble” a murder mystery which has already begun shooting in Ohio.  Reports say The Bubble will have a tiny budget of only $3 Million, using a non-professional cast with Soderbergh himself writing and directing.  When The Bubble is finally released is 2929’s approach to film distribution should be just as revolutionary as their previous films.  It’s revolutionary where they release their films to as many separate media as possible at the same time.  2929 plans to release their films to theaters, DVD, TV and anywhere else you might expect to view a new movie, allowing consumers unprecedented choices.  An industry giant like Soderbergh's embrace of digital medium is good for Home Theater everywhere.

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I admit I'm clueless when it comes to pop TV.  Despite being a Home Theater enthusiast, TV technician and gadget junkie it’s my curmudgeonly opinion that 99.9% of television programming is junk.  But every once in awhile you find decent quality shows and if they broadcast in HD, as Jack Bauer would say; “I’m on it!” 

In my quest to find quality HD programming my PVR has kissed a lot of frogs.  Last night at (Wed) at 8pm emanating from ABC my PVR picked up a show called “Lost”, the episode was called “The Journey” I’m still not sure what I think about it.  The video quality on my 720P monitor was magnificent.  A lot of shows that broadcast in HD don’t do such a good job for whatever reason, you get grainy muted colors.  Thankfully this isn’t the case with Lost. 

The premise of Lost is a commercial jet has crashed down on a tropical island leaving 48 survivors.  The island on which the survivors find themselves isn’t the deserted tropical paradise as it first appears.  Instead the island holds mystery and is a sort of character unto itself.  It’s a great premise, I love a good mystery.  Brilliant video, bright tropical skies, deep blue ocean and mysterious shadowy rain forest looked great in HD, this is enough to hold my interest long enough to give this one a chance.  But it’s the characters that really make or break any show.  Too many TV shows populate their characters with supermodels, I’m not against looking at pretty women, but one perfectly sculpted puffy lipped blonde after another only holds superficial interest and reminds me this is a product of some Hollywood fantasy.  My opinion of the show was tipping steadily toward “superficial Hollywood fair” when it seemed a characters chances for surviving the first few minutes of this episode was directly proportionate to their rating on some adolescent babe-o-meter.  Dashing would-be leading men and model looking blondes drew my cynical ire as the mature and overweight where quickly decimated.  But as the show progressed I noticed Merry from Lord of the Rings (Dominic Monaghan) and this big unshaven fat guy named Hurley (Jorge Garcia).  Any script that employs out of work Hobbits and lets someone like Hurley survive can’t be all bad.  So I kept watching.

Rule #1:  The beautiful people survive. 

It must be said that the episode I watched was a sort of “catch up” for new viewers (I think).  I believe since the second season is upon us this was just a brush up of season one compressed into a single episode.  I sure hope so.  I thought it was some modern hyper-directorial style.  The whole show played out like a music video trying to tell a story.  It was annoying to catch disjointed sentences, timelines out of place as the story seemed to press forward in a forced march.  But it was strangely addictive so I kept watching.  I believe the idea is that next week the season begins in earnest so hopefully it allows for a little more character development.  I might be tempted to PVR it again.  But it’s got one BIG strike against it; it’s a TV show!  My membership to curmudgeonly old man club requires I don’t accept TV as a valid form of entertainment so it’ll have to be awfully good to hold my interest.  As the episodes unfold do they bother to develop the characters?  Do we care whether any of them survive?  There are a couple of interesting points about this show that could potentially hold some interest.  One of the “hot chicks” turned out to be pregnant and had her baby already.  One of the heroic guys turns out to be an Iraqi and former soldier in Saddam’s elite guard.  The Iraqi character Naveen is an interesting twist considering current America politics.  And Merry the Hobbit (the Dominic Monaghan character) is a rock musician another potentially interesting character.  There was one scene where a text tattoo on Merry’s arm was exposed and it read:  “Living is easy with eyes closed”.  This is a lyric from a Beatles song that finishes “Misunderstanding’s all you see.”  Could this be a subtle message articulating plot points?  Now that’s interesting!

Special thanks to Lost-TV.com for being a well designed site that got me straight on the 411.

It looks like spring is finally up on us, warm air, sunshine and migratory bids returning from their winter hiatus.  It’s this time of year that people start thinking of getting outdoors, perhaps the home audio gear will get a little less of a workout this season that is until the sweltering summer afternoons hit.  So get out there and fire up the barbeque, the audio gear will do fine in your absence.  It’s this time of year that electronics shops start peddling outdoor speakers like pharmaceutical companies trying to sell fulfillment to overworked yuppies.  I challenge you to resist this temptation.  Yes, I know it seems strange for a website devoted to the hobby of Home Theater and hi-fi to recommend you NOT buy more speakers and listen to music outdoors.  It’s true there’s nothing like a well honed surround system in a controlled environment, the effects are mind blowing.  But that’s just it; your rec room is a controlled environment.  Outdoor speakers are a growing phenomena we can all do without.  Sound doesn’t observe property lines, by setting up speakers outdoors you open a floodgate in your neighborhood.  Lets say you just got done mowing your lawn on a Saturday afternoon, when the neighbors are finally finished mowing their lawns, hammering nails into their perpetually half finished decks and the whole block is ready to sit down in the their backyards for that first beer of the day, the last thing you need is a front row seat at the concert the guy across the way went to back in 1982.  Forget music, forget movie soundtracks for awhile.  There are many specialty speakers for outdoors by almost all the brands that make indoor speaker sound so nice.  The outdoor speakers are weatherproof, some even have clever disguises like rocks or lawn ornaments, you can probably get some mounted inside a plastic pink flamingo if you wanted.  Dedicated outdoor speakers opens up a whole different mindset than simply plugging in a ghetto blaster for an outdoor party.  Once you buy “nice” speakers for outside you’re going to want to use them, probably even test them, make them really sing.  I know that’s what I would do, and my neighborhood would be worse for it.

Outdoor sound is not controlled; the sound quality will always be second rate.  By adding speakers outdoors you’ve not only invited your whole neighborhood to your musical interlude but you’re robbing yourself of some quality time to let your ears wander the natural sounscapes of your home.  Appreciating good sound doesn’t stop at sound reproduction, it means valuing sound, all sound.  Having ears that might notice things others might miss, the directional ability of your ears to hear the variety of bird calls, noticing a dog or children playing in the distance.  The natural sounds of the world are exactly what studios spend millions trying to reproduce, and you have it for free just outside your doors.  Now why would you want to throw away that boon for your senses just so you can hear the same old Eagles Greatest Hits CD on your back porch?

The next generation in hi definition is upon us 1080P, the newest and highest resolution of the hi-def video formats.  Today’s conventional HDTV is 720P or 1080i, which are similar in the number of active scanlines.  1080P doubles this by offering true 1920 x 1080 resolution to your TV set.  Texas Instruments released its newest DLP processor capable of 1920x1080 (or 1080P) hi definition at last year’s Cedia.  The chips are already released in a variety of TV sets including Samsung’s 56inch pedestal model and will also include models by LG and Mitsubishi.  Other manufactures have released their high end 1080P set including Sony’s high end QUALIA line and Toshiba’s 57HLX82 1080P Rear Projector featuring LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) technology.

For those who’ve already invested in 720P or on the bubble about whether or not to spring the extra cheese for 1080P technology, don’t hold your breath.  If you own an HDTV and a cable subscription using a digital HD terminal you already know that full implementation of current HD technologies are still a long way off.  An overwhelming majority of what you watch on an HDTV is not HD, and much of what is in HD is simply not nearly as good as the HD-preview demo that made you fall in love with the technology in the first place.  1080P isn’t going to make your DVDs look any better, nor will it do a thing for any HD programming available today.  In fact 1080P is really just theoretical, a prediction that video technologies are going to take the step in that direction.  But be warned, the ones honking the loudest about 1080P are the ones who have developed the, no doubt, marvelous display technology.  Until you begin to see cable providers, networks and movie studios enthusiastic about the new format don’t get too excited.

There are several technological hurdles 1080P will have to overcome before it’s considered viable.  The bandwidth required to transmit video at 1080i or 720P in a digital camera’s output is around 1.5 Gigabits per second, the requirements of 1080P are roughly double.  Cable and satellite TV providers use a single video compression format, Mpeg2 to transmit video across the continent which is limited to 19.4Megabits per second.  Mpeg2 worked fine for the DVD technology that originally popularized the compression format.  But 720P and 1080i already suffer at the hands of the 19.4Mbps ceiling of Mpeg2.  Macroblocking is the name given to the degradation of video suffered by movies seen in HDTV, it’s a common problem on HD movie networks and pay-per-view stations.  Macroblocking is a sort of pixilation that happens to video when images are moving quickly and you see tiny squares blotting out details.

The only possibility of 1080P taking off will be the advancement of more advanced codecs.  Mpeg-4 and Window’s Media Player 9 show promise in keeping up with hi def video’s demanding resolution and frame rates.

DVDs this week include the academy award nominated Hotel Rwanda.

Hotel Rwanda is not a movie about the genocidal massacres in Rwanda in 1994, it's about the heroism of an ordinary man in a time of crisis.  This is a film that reminds us that heroes are people who believe they're really just hotel managers, fathers or cooks and their heroism is only invented by necessity at the just the right moment.  Hotel Rwanda is often compared to Schindler's List, but it's a very different film.  Schindler's List took time to remind of some of the inhumanities through gross out scenes, Hotel Rwanda never indulges and instead the inhumanities serve as the backdrop as mood of the city deteriorates in the summer 1994.   Don Cheatle is perhaps one of the finest working actors today, I believe he deserved Academy recognition for his performance in this movie. He plays Paul Rusesabagina, the assistant manager of the Mille Collines a four star Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. Rusesabagina saved 1200 refugees in the hotel by keeping the employees working and retaining the illusion that the Hotel is an oasis of dignity even as the world around the Hotel descending into madness.  Hotel Rwanda isn’t always an easy movie to watch but it’s a very important movie, one that should be given a chance especially if you’re leery of an overly violent and terribly depressing film.  Director Terry George finds just the right tone to tell an heroic story in a violent and depressing time.  Nick Nolte and Sophie Okonedo play dynamic supporting roles, especially Okonedo as Tatiana Rusesabina, wife of Paul.  She brings the required drama to the role of a woman trying to protect her children but also a certain playfulness as the screenplay required.  Nick Nolte plays a character based on the Canadian officer to the UN Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire.  Dallaire himself is another heroic character who sadly can only do too little with too few resources.  The film was released soon after his own book about his experiences in Shake hands with the Devil - The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.

The DVD commits no great contribution to the art of video transfers but is no less than adequate for the task.  From the opening credits there were visible compression artifacts.  Fortunately the movie is so absorbing that I couldn’t even tell you if such imperfections existed through the rest of the film.  The audio is rich and does a great job at making you feel part of the film.  The distinctly African songs sung by a chorus of children seemed to make the 5.1 system come alive with a cultural texture.  Cheatles haunting “breakdown” sequence where Paul Rusesabagina becomes overwhelmed in a room by himself but struggles to keep his composure before anyone sees was made truly eerie by the dreamy soundtrack that seemed to steal into the room with you from the surrounds.  I can’t emphasize enough the importance of a clear and articulate center channel.  Some secondary voices or dialogue that seems to fade into the background has some interesting while not critical messages about the state of things in Rwanda. You hear chatter at the bar, a radio in the background or a passing statement by minor character all serve to add seemingly realistic little details to the period and events.

Special features.  There is plenty of footage of the real Paul Rusesabagina recounting events and revisiting the sites in Rwanda in the "A Message for Peace: Making Hotel Rwanda" documentary.  His accent is a bit difficult to discern at times but it’s nice to see the real man placed up front and staring in his own feature.  I also listened to some of the commentary and if you’re interested in current events, history or sociology it’s all intensely interesting.

This question has been asked in many different ways by people just entering the Home Theater hobby.  The basic idea is the same; why do DVD soundtracks (encoded in Dolby Digital or DTS) sound so much better than music CDs on the same 5.1 system?  When asked on popular Home Theater and Hi-Fi message boards, the question invariably results in technical specifications being bandied about, like sampling and bit rate comparisons between a DVD’s Dolby Digital soundtrack and CD’s PCM.  Right about then you can count on some smarty-pants to step in and tell everyone that DVDs don’t sound better, in fact they sound worse than CDs because Dolby Digital uses a lossy compression algorithm.

So what does it all mean?  And what does it mean when a movie soundtrack from your favorite DVDs simply sounds better than your CDs?   

Here’s a quick breakdown of the numbers:

Dolby Digital, DTS and CDs digitize analogue sound by sampling it.  CD samples 16bit words at 44.1KHz.  Dolby Digital and DTS both sample at 48KHz/24bits.  These seem like bigger numbers until you take into account that they compress them just like zipping your Word documents to send in an email.  What you’re listening to (and watch) on your DVD has to be uncompressed on the fly as you watch the movie which isn't good for high fidelity sound.