As much as I hate Sky, I hate ITV even more. And today is no exception with the announcement that ITV HD will be a Freesat exclusive. So rather than rolling out their channel to the largest established HD platform in the UK (Sky HD) they choose to go with the unproven service that just launched.
There is no technical need for it to be exclusive to Freesat. It all comes from the same satelite orbiting the Earth regardless of which service you sign up for. BBC HD which is available on both proves this. As far as I can see the only thing they need to do is maintain two EPG formats - thats it.
We all know how well it went the last time ITV were a platform holder (hint: horribly) and it looks like they are well on their way to screwing things up again.
Not that I watch anything on ITV.
Charlie Brooker hits one of my little frustrations right on the head today,
I tend to assume other people share my obsessive need to examine the settings until everything is just so, and get genuinely enraged when I go to someone’s house and discover, say, that they’re watching programmes in the wrong aspect ratio. People over 50 are the worst offenders: they’ll blithely sit through a Dad’s Army repeat that is unnaturally stretched across the screen so that the entire cast look as if they had difficult births that left them with flattened skulls. Faced with this, I get acute back-seat-driver anxiety, and end up hectoring them like an exasperated pilot trying to teach a four-year-old how to fly a helicopter.
It’s not just the aspect ratio, when I go back home shows are being watched in standard def even when they are being broadcast in HD on the next channel and we are paying for the luxury of Sky HD. That’s not as bad as watching a whole nights TV with squashed or stretched heads but still makes me wonder why they pay for it.
The exception to the over 50 rule is my brother who couldn’t care less and is oblivious to picture quality. I’ve caught him watching analogue terrestrial with black bars (put on by the broadcaster for 4:3 correction) stretched across the 16:9 LCD. Ouch.
I have had my “home cinema” setup for a few months now but totally forgot to blog about it until I was reminded recently. Right now I have an Optoma HD70 projector sitting atop some cheap IKEA shelves that boost it over the height of the sofa with anyone sitting on it. It’s far enough away from the wall that I can get about an 80″ to 100″ picture depending on how I feel. Luckily the wall in my apartment is very plain and clean and you don’t even notice the texture of the wall. 720p stuff looks amazing while standard def content doesn’t look too shabby either, especially when compared to and LCD TV. The projector has HDMI, component and VGA inputs so I connect my PC via HDMI and the Xbox 360 via component.
I knew I would have to get some new speakers to go with this when I got it so I went for the cheapest THX DTS set around. This turned out to be the Logitech Z-5400 which produces a ton of bass and has coax and optical inputs to connect to the PC and 360 respectively. The remote is a little flaky but nothing a few smacks can’t cure.
(click for full resolution)
Alien is an awesome demonstration of the system. I have a 1080p version with DTS sound and it just comes alive with the creepy score and crisp visuals. Having this system makes me want to go back and watch the classics all over again and I have definitely found myself watching more movies because of this. Next on the list is Blade Runner Final Cut and Back to the Future (if I can get a decent HD version).
The 360 works nicely too but I did find myself getting slightly motion sick in Halo 3 from the first few hours of play. This is probably due to the sheer size of the screen alone but you do get used to and it only affects FPS games. Oh and playing games like Lumines, Tetris and Bomberman on the thing feels like total overkill!
So my recommendation if you are looking for a nice big screen is to seriously consider a projector. Obviously you need the throw distance, a dark room and a large enough wall but the price per inch of screen size cannot be beaten. Gizmodo put handy list of tips together recently which are worth checking out.
Finally with the move to HD and at the first PPV of 2007 the UFC updated their presentation of the show. At UFC 67 were treated to new snazzy graphics all round with sound effects thrown in for the fun of it. This is a good move and the investment was sorely needed after years and years of the same stuff on PPV and TV.
Although I didn’t watch the show in HD initially I did manage to catch a couple of the fights in High Def the following day. Just check out the crispyness of these caps:
By now you have all heard the rumours that Microsoft are going to drop the Xbox 360 Version 2 bomb sometime this week. The leaked pics show a clearly visible HDMI port below the the regular video out connection. Also rumoured are an increased hard drive (120gb) and all sorts of new TV based services such as VOD and IPTV.
This is good stuff especially if they are serious about expanding the box to have more TV features. HDMI is only important if you have 1080p and even then you can use a VGA cable. I see the inclusion of HDMI as more of a tick on the back of the box and a counter to Sony rather than a vital need for the system.
All this is also rumoured to coincide with the new CPU chip which should run cooler but no faster. While some people have reported over heating I have never had this problem. What I would like to see is a far quieter DVD drive and that’s a fairly basic component to change compared to a new chip.
However you look at this it’s only a very minor change and the games will still all play the same, it would seem MS are trying to expand the capabilities of the box while not breaking compatibility with v1 systems. If the IPTV is any good (ie available in the UK with UK content) then it will be a simple HDD upgrade to make the jump for existing users.
We popped into John Lewis over the weekend hoping to pick up a new TV (JVC LT32DX7BJ) only to be told it wouldn’t be available till Friday. Why must I wait for my HD goodness!
Seems like a good display and if you go into the store its ¬£200 less than on the website even though it’s probably going to be delivered from the same warehouse. It will be nice to finally get a new TV, we completely skipped getting a regular wide-screen so we are about due.
It’s only recently that they became viable with the reduction in LCD prices and more HD content being available either via Sky HD or the Xbox 360. Not that we are subscribing to Sky HD yet - that’s a whole other investment.
I’ll have some time to play with it over the weekend so I’ll post my thoughts up when I get the chance. Gears on insane difficulty in HD sounds good to me!
The 90 minute season finale of BSG was everything we could have hoped for and more. I have never seen a show jump a year ahead and then continue the story line without batting an eye lid. Many shows such as Star Trek would jump about in the timeline but that was for one off episodes and they’d be right back in the present the next week.
It’s a testament to the quality of the writing and the characters that we have seen develop over the past few years that Ron Moore was able to accomplish such a feat successfully. Everything was in place, Baltar’s colonisation plans were doomed to fail and all the character’s relationships were in lined up and holding firm.
It certainly has huge implications for the next season which may or may not wind up on NBC proper in October. It’s going to be a totally different show and I can see it having more of a secret rebelious feel to it rather than the huge space battles we are used to. There’s only a skeleton crew manning the fleet so it will be a while before we see that sort of thing again.
As for the potential move to NBC there are arguements for and against. On the plus side more people are going to see the show and with NBC comes HD, rather than the god awful quality that is being used in the first runs at the moment. On the flip side the season is going to start much later and there will be more ratings pressure making it more likely to fail and get canceled on that network.
Personally I believe it should be moved to NBC as the iTunes downloads and DVD sales can more than make up for any lost revenue from ratings. The gains of HD and an increase in the budget would allow the already epic series to ascend to new heights.
Roll on October.
![Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs [2008]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511PW90lDhL._SL75_.jpg "Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs [2008]")
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