Category: TV

Sky HD – Initial Thoughts

It finally arrived late yesterday – Sky HD. I’ve only watched a few HD broadcasts so far but I’m very impressed with HD and also the upscaled SD transmissions via the new Sky box. The box itself looks great and is pretty quiet – nothing to trouble you while watching and only a slight noise when recording and the TV is off which is only to be expected.

The BBC HD channel is the most impressive. Clips from Planet Earth are amazing and like others have said the HD adds real depth to whatever you are watching. I’ve not had time to take some photo’s yet but from the others I’ve seen on the web they don’t capture how much of a difference HD can make.

World Cup broadcasts have been superb – no motion blurring and just so much detail compared to the SD channel broadcasting the same game. No Dolby Digital 5.1 which was supposed to be part of the HD broadcasts. I guess it still is a test service for the BBC.

Sky Sports cricket was looking superb in HD also. Sky One HD was a bit iffy – mostly upscaled stuff that wasn’t true HD and it showed. Discovery and National Geographic were also very good.

The box has been reliable so far apart from one instance – I watched a recording and then switched back to normal viewing – the video seemed to stutter every 3 or 4 seconds. Switching the box off and on resolved the problem so it’s probably a firmware fix that’s required to resolve that and other issues that folk have – crashing boxes etc.

Sky+ functionality works like a charm. It’s great to be able to pause, rewind live TV and something I should really have bought in to a long time ago. I also notice a big difference with the upscaled SD channels. Doctor Who looked far superior than it did over Freeview. No macro blocking and a really clean picture which wasn’t something I expected.

If you have an HD television then this is THE broadcast step change you’ve been waiting for. The difference between SD and HD is quite marked and is certainly clearer than DVD. Well done to Sky and Telewest for getting HD out there – I’m still peeved that NTL are stating that it’s 2007 before they will have an HD solution. Poor. My TV is only 32inch and I can see a big difference with HD. Given that larger TV’s highlight the issues with SD material more than a 32 inch box is a no brainer that HD will look great the larger your TV is. Highly recommended although there will be hardware issues (early adopter tax) and a lack of HD material compared to SD. The later will only improve over time (Ryder Cup in HD – woo hoo) and hopefully the former will be resolved with timely firmware updates. Right – back to the World Cup.

Sky Trilogy

Sky announced a brand new service today – Trilogy. Surprisingly there are three main features to this service:

1) Sky will take pre-orders for the service months before it comes out and take your money the day you pre-order the service, not the day you start using the service (although this is probably to avoid confusion as they have no clue when you will start using their service).

2) They will move the start date of the service to…whenever they please.

3) When the engineer finally shows up to install the service he’ll struggle to fit a dish and/or deliver a box that doesn’t work. That last part is for special customers only.

Of course there is no such thing as Trilogy. There is however such a thing as another delay to my HD install. The engineer couldn’t fit the dish – requires high install team. God damn sons of bitches. So I’ve got the choice of fitting the dish to my garage or the shared chimney with my neighbour. I’ll plump for the garage as it’s probably easier in the long run. I learned last year with fences that seemingly innocuous things turn difficult when your neighbour is involved. Main worry was that the high install team are in high demand and it could be weeks. Thankfully I’ve got a booking for Saturday 10th June. So I’ll miss the first game of the World Cup but hopefully that is all.

So from pre-ordering at the end of March I’ve had install dates of 23rd May, 27th May, 30th May and now 10th June. I just hope that when I do eventually get a box it works. They’ve had everyone’s £300 who pre-ordered since end of March – that’s £12 million. If you do end up cancelling they have problems refunding credit cards so it will take 6-8 weeks to issue a cheque. Rupert Murdoch – genius or cunt.

Sky HD

Well…the verdict?

My installation was delayed until next Tuesday. Bar stewards. Feedback on AV Forums seems positive though so still looking forward to it. Can’t say much for Sky’s customer service though – told me one date over the phone and then changed it to another via written letter. I wonder just how confident they are of making next weeks date.

Recharge the batteries

So – this weekend will mostly be in Peterborough celebrating Shakeel’s 35th birthday. It’s a shame it’s a short trip but will be good to get away. Need a break. The little things are getting to me while the big important things are being ignored…this really has to stop. This is coupled with a sudden urge to travel.

Anyway…back in the real world Big Brother 7 has just started. Does Pete have tourette’s or is he just a complete tit. Lisa – shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Shahbaz – stop stroking people. I have delusions that not watching any of the first weekend will mean I don’t get hooked on it. Aye right.

BBC HD

BBC HD Sample 1
Someone has recorded Planet Earth from the new BBC HD trial service and uploaded it to the newsgroups. Quality of the broadcast is excellent – I’ve uploaded a few snaps (resolution not quite right of jpg – media player issue).

Can not wait for Sky HD which promises to be this years must have new technology. 13 days to go.

ABC – TV for Free

ABC has launched it’s full episode TV streaming servicee. For free. Users can watch advert supported episodes from the comfort of their PC. When I first heard about this I thought the adverts would be more intrusive than on TV but they break at the same time and are no different to a normal viewing. Finally a broadcaster wakes up to the modern day requirements of TV watchers and provides a credible alternative to pirating.

Note that this is only available to US viewers although I’ve had joy with Tor. Charon is another alternative as described here.

Yahoo! Go TV

Yahoo bought Meedio last week and has already released the Meedio Pro software ($45) as a free beta. Meedio is similar to Windows Media Centre or FrontRow in that it groups all your media together in a TV friendly format. Yay! for Yahoo! The bad news is that on start-up it checks to make sure you are located in the US using your IP address so will only work for US users. Boo!

However you can get round the US check and run the software although none of the internet functionality will work. I hope you like purple and blue screens.

HD Stuff

A few bit’s and pieces on HD. Firstly, my TV. Had no real issues with it apart from a bug with the 360 (and maybe hi-def content in general) in that the colour red (and oranges) would cause some ghosting of the image on the screen. Nothing major and certainly nothing that could be spotted in game. You could see it especially on the dashboard and in PGR menu’s although changing the dashboard theme removed the issue.

However I picked up TopSpin last week which looked gorgeous until I played my first tournament on clay. Uggggggghhhhhhhhh. Fugly and difficult to watch – felt the whole image was blurry. Luckily for me the next day saw the latest firmware release for the TV which solved the problem. Good stuff Philips – only took 4 months.

I still don’t know whether providing the facility to upgrade your TV’s firmware is a good idea. In one respect it allows Philips to address issues through the life of he TV. However it also allows them to ship a ‘buggy’ product knowing it can be addressed in the long term. How many users though will:

  • Know about the firmware release
  • Know how to apply it
  • Have the confidence to do it

People I know have issues applying a firmware release to a DVD writer worth about £60 never mind to a TV worth £1800. For me it’s great but I’m a geek. For average users it’s just not good enough.

Other HD news is a rumour – Microsoft will announce their HD-DVD add on at E3 next month and it will be priced at $100. That sounds stupidly cheap. If it’s true then I can see a lot of people picking up the device. Hopefully they’ll add an HDMI socket to the player as well – HDMI is the new scart and I’m still surprised they went with component rather than HDMI on the 360. Time to make amends.

I’m still looking for an HDMI switch box. As I’ve mentioned HDMI has become the standard way of hooking up HD sources yet most screens still only have one socket. If your a switch box manufacturer then the next couple of years is the time to make money. By year end I’ll have the DVD player, Sky HD, PS3 and probably the 360 via the HD-DVD add on all using HDMI. So it’s definitely a five way switch box which looking at those on the market will cost between £150 and £350. Ouch. Octava is my first choice as there is now a UK distributor and it’s the cheapest. Gefen do a 4 way HDMI and audio switch box but it’s over £300. I would rather get a new amp with some HDMI inputs than pay that much. So it looks like Octava unless I turn up a bad review in avforums. I’ll post an update once I have the box and tested it.