HIGHLA-L Digest - 2 Aug 2002 (#2002-112)
Automatic digest processor (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Fri, 2 Aug 2002 22:00:01 -0400
There are 14 messages totalling 499 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. DVD's (4)
2. The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview (6)
3. The Void (no spoilers)
4. 'The Void' on SABC (3)
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 16:19:11 -0400
From: SenseiRob@aol.com
Subject: Re: DVD's
Multiple quick takes:
a.j.mosby@btinternet.com writes:
> Best thing to do is see if you can find a friend's DVD player to try it on.
> If it works there, then logic says it's a fault with your player, if it
> doesn't you can send it back in all good faith expecting money back for an
> inferior item.
You can't always get your money back, though, with "exchange for the same title on opened software, DVD...", etc. policies at the majority of retailers nowadays. So if it works on your friend's player but not yours, your only choice may be to give it to your friend. ;)
Besides, I have two computers at home with different types of DVD ROM drives for a bit of in-house, independent verification - and so I can play with the extra goodies included on certain DVD products.
gerry@alanguilan.com writes:
> For a long time I've been returning what I thought were defective discs
> because my Sony player couldn't play them. What I finally realized that
> those discs were most likely fine, it was just my damned player. Discs that
> don't play at all or pixelate or freeze in my Sony play perfectly fine in
> my new Pioneer player. Later, I learned that a lot of people I know are
> having similar problems with their Sony players as well.
Gotcha. I have a top-rated Pioneer player myself, selected after extensive research into DVD players, ratings in Consumer Reports, etc. I've never had any other problems playing disks on it, except for one rental DVD that was scratched all to heck (and the replacement copy they gave me worked fine).
Highlandmg writes:
> I agree with Lynn on this. I have my Highlander dvd's and I love them no
> problems. One problem before you all go yelling at D/P is bring a disk to a
> store and try and play them there. You get what you pay for in buying a 99.00
> dvd player you get a 99.00 player.
::leans back in rocker:: I remember when $99 would buy a whole mountain of really high quality rocks! I never said I had an inexpensive, or no-name, DVD player, but thanks for assuming, I guess.
> Lynn did not say that
> the Dvd's only play in expensive players. And since someone said they were
> have problems with others Like Buffy I blame the player.
That'd be me, victim of defective Buffy disks. And since replacement disks did work - oh, dangit, just read my last post, it's clearly not the player...
SenseiRob@aol.com
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 16:28:27 -0400
From: Bizarro7@aol.com
Subject: Re: DVD's
Have to agree with Gerry, from personal experience. There are THREE (count 'em, 3) DVD's in our house, and all three of them are new and broken, each in a different way. I think they are just churning these things out with a quality standard well below the minimum required for reasonable operation.
Leah
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 16:38:23 -0400
From: "M. Vrzoc" <vrzoc@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
> From: "John Mosby (B)" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
> Er....not sure you needed to post the entire interview to make the point. I
> think a paragraph would have given context without getting anywhere near
> the copyright.
Thanks for the helpful suggestion, however I didn't wish to take away from
the tenor of the interview itself which I think actually reflects the
personality of Amanda Tapping.
And, er ... not sure you had to include the entire article in your post ...
Don't want to fill up mail-boxes with all that extraneous copy-righted
material after all.
Must post more often ... such a welcoming reception.
=====
M. Vrzoc
vrzoc@yahoo.com
______________________________________________________________________
Post your ad for free now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 22:16:04 +0100
From: "John Mosby (B)" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
Well, as a journalist, I can get a little miffed when people post complete
articles on-line without asking. It may seem pedantic, but people tend to
forget that it stops others needing to buy the original magazine with athe
rticles. Lack of sales means less articles or coverage of those subjects.
Having just bumped into Thomasina in Vancouver, I know she feels the same.
I'm sure anyone on this list who writes or illustrates for a living might
feel equally concerned if someone took their work without asking and sent it
to all their friends. To quote an article is fine. To reproduce it
completely isn't fair to the writer.
I'm fully aware no harm was intended.
John
(and yes, I should have edited it out for the reply)
----- Original Message -----
From: "M. Vrzoc" <vrzoc@YAHOO.COM>
To: <HIGHLA-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU>
Sent: Friday, August 02, 2002 9:38 PM
Subject: Re: [HL] The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
> > From: "John Mosby (B)" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
>
> > Er....not sure you needed to post the entire interview to make the
point. I
> > think a paragraph would have given context without getting anywhere near
> > the copyright.
>
> Thanks for the helpful suggestion, however I didn't wish to take away from
> the tenor of the interview itself which I think actually reflects the
> personality of Amanda Tapping.
>
> And, er ... not sure you had to include the entire article in your post
...
> Don't want to fill up mail-boxes with all that extraneous copy-righted
> material after all.
>
> Must post more often ... such a welcoming reception.
>
> =====
> M. Vrzoc
> vrzoc@yahoo.com
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Post your ad for free now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 18:40:58 -0400
From: KLZ <kzimmerman3@cox.net>
Subject: Re: DVD's
I'm not sure where to jump in...
Didn't you know? Sony has never forgiven the industry for using
VHS instead of Beta format tapes. Harrrrumph. These new DVD
players can't hold a candle to my old Betamax or my '57 Dodge.
Why, in *MY* day, we didn't have all these new-fangled recording
devices. We had to climb a rock and throw hills to get any TV at
all! On a 5" screen! With vacuum tubes! And we were proud to be
Americans, we were, snowy screens and all! (Uphill! Both ways!).
In any case, I don't have any HL DVD's yet, but Dr. Jackson and His
Divine Geezerness, Col. Jack O'Neill, show up just fine on my $110
APEX DVD player. I figured I'd do what I did when VCR's and CD's
came out: buy a fairly cheap one, wait till they get the bugs out,
and then buy a good one after the cheapie eventually eats a disk or
2. Oh, what the heck, I did the same danged thing when cassette
tapes came out. :::: thumping cane for emphasis :::: I just got
rid of my 16 year old Toshiba VHS machine a few months ago.
ZK (before that, we chisled grooves in rocks to make records)(You
know - records - those things you see in antique stores)(Along with
typewriters and wind-up watches)(reminds me - gotta go home and
figure out what my cat did to the connection to my DVD player)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 18:42:35 -0400
From: KLZ <kzimmerman3@cox.net>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
>
> Thanks for the helpful suggestion, however I didn't wish to take away from
> the tenor of the interview itself which I think actually reflects the
> personality of Amanda Tapping.
>
::::: popping up with bright helpful eyes :::::
Was it on a web site? You could have sent the URL.
ZK (nice to see everyone taking up where we left off! <eg>)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 18:49:09 -0400
From: KLZ <kzimmerman3@cox.net>
Subject: Re: The Void (no spoilers)
>
> An actor named Adrial Paul
ROFL!!!
Can anyone finish this one? I can't remember it all:
"There once was an Immie named Kristin,
Who wore clothes with her breasts all squished in..."
Kathy Morey (sp? Was it her?) on AOL once tried to write a
limerick for every ep. A valiant and wildly funny effort.
ZK
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 18:46:20 -0400
From: SenseiRob@aol.com
Subject: Re: DVD's
kamil@slashcity.com writes:
> Let me see if I get this right -- it's just fine and dandy for electronics
> companies to manufacture DVD Players with the cheapest parts and labor they can
> possibly get away with, using the oldest, least expensive technology out there,
> and that's considered a good in your opinion.
Ah, you didn't get it right. I didn't say that. I won't defend anyone making a shoddy product, whether it be a player or a DVD. You made a huge error in leaping to the conclusion that I'm focused on DVD players. It's disks. DVDs. See the Subject: line?
> But the makers of the DVDs that play in the
> not-to-be-criticized-under-any-condition-players are to be hung from the highest
> trees available, simply because they make a high quality product and sometimes
> that higher quality product is just a wee bit more than the shoddily made
> players can handle?
::giggle:: Still wrong. What makes you think that the DVDs in question are of a *higher* quality, anyway?
I'll take this up with Lynn (well, nah, I'll do it here) - there's some misdirection involved, leading to another erroneous assumption on the part of people who've responded to this thread. Dual layer DVDs, which Lynn points out are common in season sets, merely describes the CAPACITY of the disks. Two layers, twice the amount of data. More episodes per DVD. Quality of the picture is not inherently involved. As you can imagine, the added level of complexity in adding a second layer of substrate, and information thereon, can lead to a higher incidence of defects.
AAMOF, one could make the argument that dual-layer disks are of LOWER quality because of its information-cramming design, but I won't go there, nor will I mention burn-through decreasing DVD lifespan or... <vbeg>
> Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you. Because at this point, your logic does
> not resemble our earth logic. At all.
Ooh, an insult. Hey, I'm sure there's a lot more than my just my logic that doesn't resemble conditions on your earth. (::cough:: slashcity.com ::cough::).
Get this: TV series DVD creators *could* release a product that would work in all DVD players (say, with nice, straightforward single-layer disks, commonly done), but they choose not to - and you plainly say that they should not be criticized for this. I say that they should be.
> I too had a very bad experience when I replaced my last VCR. I went through
> three different Sonys, all bought on the cheap at the local Wal-Mart, simply
> because a Sony is a Sony, right? Not quite. I even drove half-way across town to
> pick up the third one, reasoning that maybe the one Wal-Mart had a bad shipment.
> Sadly, that had diddly to do with it. In my case, and I suspect in the case of
> many of these "defective" DVDs, it's the cheaper than dirt player one is trying
> to force them to function in, all the while disregarding the old axiom that you
> get whatcha pay for. As I soon learned.
If you'd done some research into DVD players... you might have saved yourself some grief. =(
> Each cheap VCR ate the very first tape offered to it -- one of which happened to
> be a pro tape...so under your reasoning, I guess it was the production houses
> fault for not making kill-proof tapes? Sony and Wal-Mart had nothing to do with
> it, even though it was their player that was unable to play tapes that I'd
> played with no problems before? How does that blame thing work again?
You obviously didn't follow the discussion. An analogous situation would be that someone put out a different type of high-capacity VIDEOTAPE that wasn't fully compatible with pre-existing video cassette players. And only certain players could compensate for, and interpret, this strange format. To complete the analogy, the producer of these tapes just slipped their product into the market, without distinguishing them from "regular" tapes. *That* is what we're talking about here.
Ever wonder why commercial VHS tapes are almost always produced at SP (standard play) rather than EP (extended play) or SLP (super long play, or whatever)? Maybe they're looking to make a quality, compatible product for all VCRs; highest compatibility, least number of defects. See how this relates?
Again, with your example above, you're oriented on the player, when the topic concerns the manufacture (of the DVDs). (Qualified because of your videotape anecdotes).
> Not surprisingly, when I went to an electronics store and got a real Sony (with
> the expected extra hundred dollars or so tacked onto the price) all my tapes
> played like a dream, including part two of the pro tape eaten by the cheapo
> player.
Not that it matters, but you keep changing your story between DVD player and VCR - and you still missed the point. It's not about the merits of the machines, but the DVDs themselves.
> I know it's late .. well, early actually, but I'm quite flabbergasted that
> you're finding yourself in such a righteous snit over the manufactures of the
> end product, but seem to think that the producers of the devices that play that
> product have a free pass, no matter what they produce, even if it's total crap.
I'm not defending "total crap" players, and I'm amazed that some people are jumping to the absolutely erroneous conclusion that I have a sub-standard DVD player. I'm simply maligning manufacturers that produce a product that could and should work on all players, like the rest of the DVDs out there, but won't. They want to squeeze 22ish episodes, plus (interactive)menus and extras, into as little space as possible. I'm sure it's cheaper/more economical to produce that way. And when it doesn't work... what do they care? They already have your money, because BigStore won't give you a refund (because anyone trying to return an opened product is all but accused of pirating a copy, or adding a virus to the disk, or worse! - if you haven't done so lately, read return policies at various stores. You'll be shocked).
> Please tell me I misunderstood -- although since you went on at great length
> about it, I'm thinking not.
You did misunderstand, even though I did go to great lengths to clearly express my concerns about atypical DVD production.
My point is this: I think it's unfair that manufacturers will arbitrarily (I know, it's economics in their eyes) make potentially incompatible disks, disguised (by omission in labeling) as regular DVDs. And I'm surprised that people like you are not offended by this, but instead choose to blame DVD player manufacturers, and people who (have to, in some cases) buy "budget" players, for incompatibilities created by this particular process.
The faults of DVD production lie squarely on the DVD producer, nowhere else.
SenseiRob@aol.com
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 19:53:11 -0400
From: Sandy Fields <diamonique@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
At 01:36 PM 08/02/02, M. Vrzoc wrote:
>Just so people get a sense of the context in which AT made this statement,
>I'm including the ENTIRE interview from Cult Times. Sorry for the
>copyright violation ...
Thanks Maria! I just saw The Void a couple of weeks ago (and I *love*
SG1), and I appreciated reading this article.
-- Sandy
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 20:03:18 -0400
From: Sandy Fields <diamonique@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: 'The Void' on SABC
At 04:29 AM 08/02/02, Nina wrote:
>Amanda Tapping lost huge points w/ me by stating in interviews her
>blushing relief that AP had the expertise in love scenes to avoid their
>touching intimate "bits" ... what a freak.
Huh? Why?
-- Sandy
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Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 17:18:54 -0700
From: viv nichols <vivnichols@liripipe.com>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
At 12:21 PM 8/2/2002, you wrote:
>Oh God.
>
>Predictable.
>
>The shame of it.
>
>:)
Nah! as John Crichton sez: "I prefer to think of it as reliable."
viv
---------------------------------------------------------
Time and patience. Zhaan
Time and passion. Duncan
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 01:27:47 +0100
From: "John Mosby (B)" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
Ah, but he's a rugged adventuring hero, often surrounded by muppets and who
has the hots for a sexy, self-reliant assertive woman who he enjoys going
toe-to-toe with.
On the other hand, I am merely......er.......no....wait. I can see your
point
:>P
----- Original Message -----
From: "viv nichols" <vivnichols@liripipe.com>
To: <HIGHLA-L@LISTS.PSU.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 1:18 AM
Subject: Re: [HL] The Void ... Amanda Tapping interview
> At 12:21 PM 8/2/2002, you wrote:
> >Oh God.
> >
> >Predictable.
> >
> >The shame of it.
> >
> >:)
>
> Nah! as John Crichton sez: "I prefer to think of it as reliable."
>
> viv
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> Time and patience. Zhaan
> Time and passion. Duncan
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 15:06:51 -1000
From: MacWestie <mac.westie@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: 'The Void' on SABC
me before--
> >Amanda Tapping lost huge points w/ me by stating in interviews her
> >blushing relief that AP had the expertise in love scenes to avoid their
> >touching intimate "bits" ... what a freak.
Sandy--
> Huh? Why?
Because the article (which I did read in full way back when but had the
ethical sense NOT to reproduce in full here) made AT sound ridiculously coy
& inane, for a grown woman in a chosen profession where intimate connection
w/ virtual strangers is pretty much required. She just sounded so very
silly. Now, maybe it was the article or a bad day or whatever, as I really
know little about AT (& care even less, since seeing Stargate lately on Sci
Fi Channel & being hugely bored w/ it--& amazed it has lasted 6 seasons).
As for AT (per the article) being rather shell-shocked that people would
_think_ the breasts & derriere in The Void are hers--forget it, as the body
double's shots are SO badly edited in. [Note to Lynn--I make no assertions
as to WHO did the editing there, & I grant you the possibility that the
Lion's Gate equivalent of Bill Panzer was drinking heavily in the editing
booth & did the deed while the sainted professional editors were off on a
potty break.]
>>>Just so people get a sense of the context in which AT made this
statement,
I'm including the ENTIRE interview from Cult Times. Sorry for the copyright
violation ...>>> AND
>>>Thanks for the helpful suggestion, however I didn't wish to take away
from
the tenor of the interview itself which I think actually reflects the
personality of Amanda Tapping.>>>
_What_ personality?
And, saying--basically--that you just wanted to do it is NO justification
for doing something you obviously _knew_ was wrong. Unless you are in
kindergarten or prison. But, that's another discussion & one that is not
currently scheduled. Still--hi, Marina!
Nina
mac.westie@verizon.net
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Date: Sat, 3 Aug 2002 02:21:22 +0100
From: "John Mosby (B)" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: 'The Void' on SABC
Actually, having met Amanda Tapping while I was up there in Vancouver, I
have to say I quite like her. She - like many of the SG1 cast - doesn't take
herself too seriously and she has a great self-depricating sense of humour.
I think she was just joking about the love scene moments with Adrian -
telling how naive SHE felt, rather than anything else. Still, if AP guested
in SG1 and she had to kiss him again, he'd be dead before the end of the
second act. :)
John
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End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 2 Aug 2002 (#2002-112)
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