Friday, August 8, 2014

NETFLUNKS

The announced demise of the DVD may prove to be a bit premature. Like so many others in the
I LOVE BEING A TV BINGE WATCHER club, I have been trying my hand at streaming TV series on Netflix.  House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and even belatedly catching up on my new
favorite guilty pleasure, the ABC television series Scandal.    Watching three to five episodes back to back at a single sitting has altered my life for the better.  If you haven't tried it, you simply must.  And don't forget to invite in the neighbors.  It's more fun than a book club.


These three shows (compared to Game of Thrones, Deadwood, True Detectives and even Boardwalk Empire all on HBO GO), are all very good, but they are not great.  One of the things keeping the Netflix product from that lofty pinnacle is, unlike HBO GO or even DVR, the sound is rarely in sync with the picture.  If there is a computer in the house that has been left on, or our Vonage phone rings,
it gets really bad.  All other times, it is just bad-to-not-good.  Netflix just hasn't figured out yet that sound travels at a slower speed than light.   Worse than that, they have sold us a system that is (at best) flawed.  And that brings me back to the DVD...literally.


Great picture, synchronized sound and it doesn't matter who is on a computer or a phone or if  it is a dark and stormy night.  DVD technology simply works.  Did I mention you can still buy the entire collection of Cagney & Lacey on DVD?...It's a great Christmas gift, it's still better than the copycats....and you can remind yourself what the world was like, and how the police did their work, before there were spy cameras on every corner or cell phones on every hip.  You'll also see what acting was like when actors moved their lips in sync with the words the were saying.


Barney Rosenzweig
August 6, 2014

3 comments:

Unknown said...

True this.

Mentioning 'Deadwood' is a reminder of a great series that ended prematurely - something that was close to happening with 'Cagney & Lacey' of course, but - thankfully - history turned out for the better.

Thanks to a recent BBC-1 repeat, my wife and I bought the complete box set (with pilot and Meg episodes) and have had quite a binge ourselves on 'Cagney and Lacey' episodes. 'Caggers' (as its' known in our house) can very easily get triple episode plays some weeks in the winter months. :)

Unknown said...

Awesome got the cagney and lacey boxset and also the menapause years 4 movie set. Love them. Bring back cagney and lacey in the retirement home. Love them both

Anonymous said...

How about a Cagney & Lacey remake?