I always forget that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is such a great movie.

The fiance got me the HD-DVD add-on for the XBox 360 as my Christmas gift.  It was a breeze to set up — plug in the ac-adapter to an outlet, the usb cord with the XBox, and power up.  A few software updates later, and the drive was working flawlessly. 

I haven’t really had the chance to view HD content on the drive.  I briefly watched the included King Kong movie, and it did look great.  I just haven’t had the chance to really purchase some HD content that I wanted.

But what I have noticed is that standard DVD looks far better when played on the drive.  The upconverting really improves the quality, and while watching season two of Grey’s Anatomy last night, I thought I was watching it in high definition. 

It appears, brick-and-mortar wise, that Blu-ray content is more readily available.  Bestbuy and Target both carry more of a selection for Blu-ray than HD-DVD.  However, their HD-DVD racks were always empty compared to the Blu-ray racks.  We’ll see how this race plays out, but I think we have a year or two until something happens. 

I’m anticipating that Santa is bringing me the HD-DVD player add-on for my 360.  While I could be completely wrong that I’ll be receiving such a gift, I’m going to assume that it is, in fact, coming down my chimney in a few short days.  And as such, I would like to compile a list of must have movies in high definition format. 

Now, I own roughly 400 standard dvd movies, so I’d like to not replace them — unless a movie truly deserves to be watched in high definition format.  So, this list will surely be hard for me to generate.  If you have any suggestions, feel free to comment.  I’ll add them to my list as they come in.

My list below is in no particular order — just listed as movies which I believe are a must own in a high definition format.  I’m aware that some movies below are not available in the HD format just yet, so no need to point that out in the comments.

• The Matrix trilogy
• Gladiator
• Both Star Wars trilogy sets 
• The Bourne trilogy
• Casino
• Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series (not a movie, but still)
• 300
• Harry Potter Series

It’s been, oh, about a month since I cancelled my Netflix service.  Ok, I lied — I put the goddamn thing on hold.  But while my account is on hold, I don’t get charged, so it’s like I cancelled my service.

These past few days, as I began reorganizing my 400+ dvd collection into these, I realized I miss getting all those movies in the mail.  At times, it was great knowing that I had movies coming to me.  Often I’d forget what was in my queue, and a great movie would just randomly show up in my mailbox.  But, father time, these days, really restricts my movie-watching hours.

Fortunately, I have my HBO package (which I got added onto my Comcast-anal-raping-subscription) for $6/month for 12 months.  I’ve noticed I watch more HBO On-Demand than I do the actual HBO channels.  Essentially, I’m still using a paid movie service when all along I wanted to save money.

I suppose I’m just trying to justify myself into bringing Netflix back (sounds like the next Weird Al song).  I’ll fight the urge until I’m confident I’ll watch enough movies to make a Netflix subscription worth it.

Microsoft is deliberately feeding into the HD disc formwat wars to ensure that its own downloads succeed where physical copies fail. (electronista)

This is the feeling that a movie director, Michael Bay, is pushing throughout the community and is ultimately trying to stop.  Yet, how can you blame Microsoft for planning for the future?  Lets face it, HD content is our future.  And high speed available bandwidth is right there along side it.  So, how can you say that HD content, via high speed bandwidth, isn’t our future?  Physical movies are doomed to fail eventually, quite like physical music compact discs.  It’s enivatable. 

However, we are still a few years away from being an all-download society that pushes the HD content to our televisions and media centers.  Currently, under current broadband specs, it can take up to a few hours to download a full-length HD movie.  I’m sorry, but this wouldn’t be acceptable to my mom or dad — they want access right away. 

So until we’re presented with a high speed bandwidth option, we’re going to be using either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.  Deal with it, Michael Bay. 

I’ve yet to decide which route to take.  I love HD content, and I’m thinking of committing to an HD player add-on for my 360 (I’ve asked Santa to bring it).  I’m willing to purchase new movies on this format as well, but I’m quite excited for the day when I can purchase a movie, and download it almost instantly to my media center.