Tag Archive for 'sky'

ITV’s Rampant Stupidity Continues

Published
by
John Griffin
on May 7, 2008
in TV and Tech
. 0 Comments

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.

Change the Aspect Ratio!

Published
by
John Griffin
on January 22, 2008
in TV and Tech
. 3 Comments

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.

JVC LT32DX7BJ 32″ HDTV Ordered

Published
by
John Griffin
on December 5, 2006
in Gaming, Life, TV and Tech
. 2 Comments

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!