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VHS Tape iPhone Case

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If you’re a little embarrassed to be lugging around a brand new iPhone, even though all of your other gear is vintage-core, this VHS Tape iPhone Case will help disguise your device as a piece of retro tech history.

The real painful part is going to be transferring all of your contacts to DVD once you wise up to the times. Grab yours for $25 from Etsy.

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Behind The Scenes At Netflix: How It All Works

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Did you think that all of your movies were shoved into those little red envelopes using a huge array of machines? Up until today, we thought that much of the Netflix system was ran by software and machinery, but as it turns out, a lot of manual human labor goes into the Netflix shipping cycle.

At the Netflix plant in Northborough, Massachusetts, about 50 employees sort through and repackage DVDs, manually deciding which are fit for recirculation. Employees sift through about 700 discs an hour. Some of the depots have repackaging machines which can stuff around 3,000 envelopes an hour, but many are still done manually. Save the Netflix crew some work and start streaming all the movies you can. More action after the jump. (more…)

Farewell VHS, We Hardly Knew Ye

It seems like only yesterday I was paying $20 dollars for every hot movie that hit store shelves in VHS format. Today, I can go into a store and buy three tapes for just a dollar. Whoever said that a dollar can’t buy you anything was full of shit. Ever since the creation of DVD, VHS has been on a steady decline. Now with the last major VHS supplier calling it quits, the final nail in the coffin of VHS has arrived.

“It’s dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,” Distribution Video Audio co-owner Ryan Kugler told the L.A. Times. “I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I’m done. Anything left in the warehouse we’ll just give away or throw away.”

Distribution Video Audio is now in the business of selling discount DVD displays for big-box retailers and its co-owner warns that in three or four years DVD will face the same fate as VHS. Looking to buy a movie for someone? Consider Blu-ray.


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Ice Hockey On A Portable DVD Player

This portable entertainment center is the only one in existence advertised with the Ice Hockey game for the NES playing on it. Despite all the expected features of a portable DVD player like a 14-inch crystal clear TFT LCD screen, multi-format disc play (including MP3 and DivX) and a high quality TV tuner for use all over the world; this DVD player is packing more than meets the eye. Again, why else would they advertise Ice Hockey for the NES on it?

That’s because this thing comes stocked with an 8-bit NES emulator. It could have been advertised with any game on the NES, but they chose Ice Hockey. Um, where’s Blades of Steel? For $246.25, it’s the most expensive emulator you ever payed money for. Oh right, it also plays DVDs.

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The Beat Goes On and On and On

The musical trio from Tokyo, Japan known as d.v.d. sound like a blast to see live. The group consists of drummers Itoken and Jimanica and visualizer Takashi Yamaguchi. As the drummers play and beat on the drums, Takashi projects and manipulates brilliant imagery on a screen. The sounds trigger geometrical shapes and landscapes via Processing (just like Metamorphosis 2), ensuring that it’s a real trip. PingMag has a fantastic interview with d.v.d. and I highly recommend you check it out.

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RealNetworks Releases RealDVD, Hollywood Cries

Have a Windows PC and a Netflix account? Perfect. Grab your credit card and get ready to hand over $30 to RealNetworks. Yes, that Real. The one with the obsolete streaming audio format. Yes! That’s the one!

You see, Real just released RealDVD. It’s a legal application that allows you to rip DVDs to up to five computers without ramifications. It’s legal, easy to use and will surely benefit the amateur pirate. Hollywood wasted no time in threatening RealNetworks and now, in a counter move, Real has sued the major studios. It wants a judge to essentially insist that RealDVD is legit and here to stay. As Chamillionaire says, controversy sells.

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Sony’s New Blu-ray Recorder Bribes You

If there’s one thing that’ll interest you about Sony’s third generation internal Blu-ray optical drive, the BWU-300S, it’s not the specs. So, what if it can write single and dual layer BD-R discs at up to 8X speed, or if it writes DVDs at up to 16X, CDs up to 48X and supports DVD-RAM recording.

No, we don’t care about all of that. We care that this drive comes with a free movie, not the news about no DH DVD playback. So long as it comes with Men In Black on Blu-ray, we’ll buy it. That’s like – a fifteen dollar value. Unbelievable.

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Rent, Rip, Return, Baby!

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to make a digital copy of any of your DVDs as if it were an audio CD you wanted to import with iTunes? You can! I mean, you will once RealNetworks introduces it’s $30 software program: RealDVD. It’ll allow users to make a digital copy of an entire DVD, including all the extras and artwork from the box.

Let’s face it: Blu-ray is king these days and that sucks for all the loons who bought a library of DVD movies (which is everyone). Now that DVD is out the window, Hollywood could care less if you copy all of your DVDs and start selling them on your website. OK, that’s not true at all but at least it’s giving up the ban on digital backups. If you dare do it with Blu-ray discs, the peoples of Hollywood will hunt you down and kill you. Just prepare your hard drive beforehand, otherwise you’ll only be able to fit the first season of Dawson’s Creek on it, and we all know that the second season is way better.

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LG’s Latest Portable DVD Player

LG makes every product under the sun. You name it, LG probably mass produces it. LG also enjoys marketing bizarre combination of electronic equipment. Take this 8″ portable DVD player, the LG DP889. Little excessive on the numbers, don’t you think?

Well, this portable DVD player not only works as a normal CD player but it also happens to be a digital photo-frame. Now, when you aren’t watching The Dark Knight on it, you can gawk at family photos as you dream of days past. It’s compatible with a plethora of formats, including DVD video/DVD±R/DVD±RW/Audio CD/CD-R/CD-RW, ensuring nearly any burned disc will work. It’s priced at $200, making it the most diverse digital photo-frame in existence and while, not quite as compact and portable as the Panasonic LF-P968C DVD burner, it’s certainly getting there.

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Your Wii Can Play DVDs

Everyone has been knocking on Nintendo for the past years for not equipping any of its systems with a DVD player. Even third party developers are finding something to bitch about. With all this flashy DIY work people are doing to the original NES like that old school DVD hack, it makes me wonder why no one has made a DVD hack for Nintendo’s latest system.

Wait, what’s this? Instructable’s member LAM83RT has used a homebrew method to get his Wii to play DVDs and now he’s telling everyone how he did it. Well, what are you waiting for? You’re Nintendo Wii isn’t getting any more entertaining, so you better strap it with a DVD player quick because The Dark Knight will be out on DVD in a few more months and you best be ready.

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