The Fat and the Furriest Capsule Submission

No review here

S P O I L E R

S P A C E

DYN's

the police car license plate is D 1151? the tic-tac-toe pattern carpet in Maggie's room? Bart and Lisa are strong enough to carry Lenny and Carl on their shoulders?

Refs.

The Fast and the Furious -Title

Wal-Mart Sprawl Mart

Veggietales -Religious vegetable video

Winnie-the-Pooh, Paddington Bear, Chicago Bears, Care Bears -Bears in Homer's nightmare

Afternoon Delight -Song on the radio

Comments:

At most store like Wal-Mart, there's usually a worker at the front of the store called the greeter. This person, who is sometimes a senior citizen (as seen with Grandpa), greets the people who enter the store. However, that is just one of many duties that a greeter does. Other duties include tagging items that need to be returned, checking for receipts to ensure that the customer have paid for the items that are in the bag, and turning off security mechanisms on electronics items (if the people at the check-out failed to turn them off).

Joe Klemm

One more thing about the episode, which concerns a joke involving the junkyard:

Betamax: Betamax was one of the first home video systems introduced to the market. Compared to VHS machines, Betamax was the better of the two when compared to video and sound quality and rewind and fast forward capabilities. However, two things led to Betamax's demise. The first cause was that with the Beta tapes being smaller than VHS tapes, less amount of video can be put on a Beta tape (in the beginning, Beta had only one hour of tape time compared to VHS's two hours of time). Second, the company behind Betamax, Sony, failed to promote the system effectively during the VCR wars, thus giving VHS the major advantage.

Laserdiscs: Introduced in the 1980's, laserdisc was the first digital home video system. Not only did it have better video quality than the analog VHS and Beta, but it also had other features like chapter stops (meaning less need to rewind and fast forward) and the ability to contain extras like special features and additional audio tracks. Unfortunately, laserdisc had some problems of its own, which led to it not being able to beat VHS in the video wars: the titles were expensive (about $100 a disc); the discs were as big as vinyl records; and the discs can only hold an hour of video footage per side (which meant flipping over the discs if you want to see a two-hour movie).

Reserved for DVD: Currently, DVD, which is very similar to laserdisc, isn't going to wind up in a junkyard at any time. In fact, it has surpassed VHS in the home video market. Like laserdisc, DVDs contain movies on a disc. However, there's many improvements from laserdiscs that was used for DVD: the discs are smaller (the size of a CD); they are much cheaper (while still more expensive than VHS, the cost of a DVD is usually around the $25-30 price area); and there's way more room to store video on a DVD than on a laserdisc. Add the DVD-ROM's that are sold on most computers and the fact that the Playstation 2 and Xbox can read DVD's, and you realize that it will be a while before the place in the junkyard reserved for DVD is filled up.

Joe Klemm

Well, that all depends on the high-definition format wars. First of all, HD-DVD is only a few years away, so within 5 years or so, DVD's as they are now will be on their way to the Springfield dump (at least insofar as their dominance of the home video market). However, HD-DVD is not shaping up very well. There are at least 3 totally different formats being touted by different groups of companies. Sony, as usual, is leading one group with their own format (such as betamax and minidiscs) which will have a case like a floppy disc instead of being like a CD or DVD. There is the Blu-ray group which has the same size disc, but uses a thinner laser so much more info can be crammed onto the same space. A Chineese group is working on a red laser based system (which is what we have now) but it will use different compression to squeese more onto a disc. The format from the group headed by Toshiba is the Advanced Optical Disc (AOD). AOD may start hitting stores as early as late 2005. The good thing about AOD & Blu-ray is that they are backwards compatable and will play current DVDs. Sony's, however, isn't. The bad thing is that they are splintering the home digital format. DVD is the greatest and fastest-growing development in the history of home electronics and now that it's time to upgrade, they are turning their backs on the consumers who embraced DVD and made it what it is today. Moving on to one new, backwards compatable HD-DVD format is the way to go. The AOD format has been officially named the new format, but these other companies are going ahead anyway. Hell, they actually released HD-VHS last year just for the fun of it.

Jeff

[email] (JDMCMAMC) wrote in message news:...

Then there is also the possibility that (legitimately) downloading movies and music could become popular/the standard. This would not involve any physicality of discs or whatever, just the transfer of information.

So LDs _are_ digital? That's what I had believed also, but I've also heard otherwise.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag Michael Jackson is a fag Pepsi Cola burnt him up now he's drinking 7UP 7UP has no caffeine Now he's singing Billy Jean Billy Jean was not his lover and his nose is made of rubber Rubberface, but don't repeat it"

LD had analog video but, could do Digital audio. Also one note for Home Theater junkies. At one time Laser was the only way to get movies in Dolby digital or DTS. It was like that for about 3-5 years after DD came out, and DVD was starting to move in.

Many audio experts feel that the AC-3 / Dolby Digital sound track off a laser disc sounds better than any DVD to date (I will not disagree here).

I own a LD player (don't use it as much as I used to) with over 400 discs, there are still a lot of movies that you may never see on DVD....

Great format for it's day but, it's day is over

"Gyumaoh" wrote in message news:[email]...

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Nope, they are optical analog.