Friday Follow-Ups: HDMI and HD DVD

Gizmodo’s published the final writeup in the premium-vs-economy HDMI cable series that I alerted you to back in mid-June. Although (as I previously noted) the study is statistically unsupportable, it’s still a good read. My favourite bits are two of the wrap-up statements (bolded text is the original author’s emphasis, not mine, although I inserted a link for clarity):

Monster has a point about future-proofing. I have no doubt, given our testing, that Monster cables can outperform other cables in video formats that are not yet in use. What does this mean for a consumer? Does it make sense to spend $300 now on a 50-foot cable, assuming you will spend thousands to upgrade all of your video equipment around it in the next few years? Logic dictates that the answer is no.

The only people who should buy Monster cable are people who light cigars with Benjamins. Fortunately for Monster, there are plenty of those people. They’re not even suckers, they are just rich as hell, and want the best. This testing did not prove that Monster is not the best. It just proved that the best is, for the most part, unnecessary.

My Blockbuster Online-queued HD DVD versions of the Planet Earth series that I mentioned at the beginning of June have arrived (the discs are also available, from Blockbuster and elsewhere, in Blu-ray and conventional DVD formats). As I suspected beforehand, the picture quality is incredibly detailed and supremely sublime, hands-down blowing away 480-line resolution red laser DVD. I don’t buy many optical discs, but I may have to make an exception in this case. One pleasant surprise is that, at least on disc 1 (of four total), Sir David Attenborough is handling the commentary. As I previously wrote, he did the narration for the original BBC series, with Sigourney Weaver taking over (to the dismay of many) for the U.S. rebroadcast on the Discovery Channel.

Happy weekend, folks!

Followup: Videography Magazine’s March issue includes a great article on the making of the Planet Earth series.