BBC HD Channel is now official and will launch…today! After trialling for over 18 months it looks to be hastily launched and not that much different from the test channel it’s been running as. It will show more content though, around 9 hours a day starting from 15:00. Programmes like Jools Holland and Planet Earth look stunning in HD - it will be good to see Kill Bill and Sin City at Christmas in HD too.
With Channel 4 rumoured to be launching their HD channel on Dec 10th and ITV in March 08 it looks like HD is finally getting more content. If only Sky would drop their £10 a month HD charge. A lot of people want the HD box and are willing to pay the one off charge but not the monthly fee. The image quality from the HD channels is excellent on Sky, even to the point that I’ll not watch an SD movie as it’s that inferior but I can understand the cost putting people off. Next year may see a TV upgrade!
Steven Fry has just launched a personal blog and it turns out he’s a bit of a techie and loves smartphones. Quite a long but interesting read for his first post but I guess that’s only to be expected. One to keep an eye on, especially as it attracts a lot of comments.
Been pretty busy so not had much posting time, so without further ado…some stuff.
- PS3 update. Firstly the reviews of the update have garnered some great reviews. Upscaled DVD’s look great, noticeably better than the 360. I guess most surprising for me is that they looked better/on a par with the Denon I have. Looks like I can eBay another piece of kit. Of course me writing eBay really means it will retire to the ‘gadget graveyard’ - the attic. I have an embarrassing amount of old gadgets and tech that I won’t part with or can’t be bothered selling on eBay and dealing with Nigerians (sorry all legit Nigerians), kids wrecking bids and fraud. 720p playback of Blu-Ray is also welcomed. Network playback of media…nice try but not quite there yet. Nero and Media Player 10 work well on Windows for sharing media. For the Mac, options are a little more limited. TwonkyMedia Beta 4.4 and EyeConnect are the best bet’s for the moment. Hopefully a version of Connect360 will support the PS3 (news that Connect360 tries to talk to the PS3). Joystiq have a list of 20 clients that may work. Final option is to use a NAS device that supports DLNA. Unfortunately my current NAS doesn’t. Synology forums admin have said they have purchased a PS3 to look at connectivity - supporting DLNA would have been my preferred option although it’s probably easier for me to rely on a Connect360 derivative.
- Since switching to Mac I’ve only used Windows to update my remote and a couple of other small’ish tasks. However the last 3-4 weeks have seen me use Windows every day for a couple of hours and during that time Parallels has been a life saver. Rock solid and to be honest, you are hard pushed to notice your running a virtual OS. The coherence feature alone is worth the money. The good news is version 3 has been announced with increased USB support, 3D graphics support (pretty vague but a good list of Windows games) and future Vista Aero support. Sounding good and like a good little fanboy I’ve already paid for the upgrade.
- Halo 3. It’s soooo much fun. It’s a shame it will finish this Sunday but I’ve really enjoyed the last couple of weeks. Robert - hope to see you before Sunday!
- Forza out this week. Has had great reviews, the user screenshots from USA & Japanese gamers have looked awesome and a received a 9 in Edge this month. Roll on this weekend.
- I’m starting to become a GTD geek. Been using iGTD for a few weeks, Omnifocus is picking up some good early press and the process has really help me keep on top of tasks recently. If you’ve got a lot on (even a little but some of it’s long term) or need something to help manage those inspiration moments that need noted down somewhere then give GTD a try.
- WWDC next week which means a lot of Mac rumours. New laptops and iMacs could make my hardware feel out of date which is always the problem with Macs. However, the hardware has been good since I switched, the software excellent and I have absolutely no regrets. Should have done it years ago. Tips for next week - new Leopard features (I still think there will be some virtualisation/boot camp news) and new Macbook pro’s. One more thing - new iPhone features?
- I think I’ve finally settled on a work/laptop bag. I’ve always admired Tom Bihn bags and I think the soon to be released Zephyr will fit my needs. Why does it take 30 mins to choose a laptop and 6 months to find a bag?
- Try and catch the Jobs/Gates interview from last weeks D|All Things Digital. Gates comes across really well and it was nice to see the respect they both had for each other. Video’s here and now on iTunes.
Mmm - that went on a bit.
I’ve always had a thing for nice packaging. The Apple packaging is hard to beat and gives you a great impression of the product you’ve bought before you’ve even switched it on. Likewise a great CD case (Thom Yorke, Lemon Jelly) has always given the CD a greater worth. All in the head as it doesn’t change the music, but there you go. My first Blu-Ray movies have now arrived and again the packaging is interesting. The cases are smaller than DVD, nicely rounded, slightly transparent and just feel better quality than a DVD. Which ties in with the fact it should be of better quality. All in the head but I like it.
Thats why I’ve always liked Japanese game packaging. Far smaller than western equivalents and to be honest far better. I look at my DVD collection - it could take up a quarter of the room that it currently does. Nevermind.
Speaking of room, I’m still tempted to ditch all my cd’s as I have them all digitally available. I would probably re-encode some of the disks at a higher rate but apart from that I have no need for the physical disks. Apart from the nice packaging that in my head adds value. Doh. So do I dump the disks and save room or not?
Finally, a quick bit on the Blu-Ray disks. I imported them from the states using DVDWorldUSA. They delivered within 7 days and there was no import duties to pay. They also guarantee to pay import duties if you do have the misfortune to get caught. It’s a long time since I imported and I was a bit worried about region playback issues. However this site lists the region free or restricted titles released so far. Very handy. Just need the player now.
The first Macworld where I’m actually a Mac owner takes place on Tuesday. So like other geeks here are my predictions for the two hour keynote.
- iPhone - maybe. But is it a phone with iPod type functionality or is the emphasis on the iPod which has additional phone capabilities.
- iTV. With flash disk, support of external drives via USB2, HD playback, HD downloading from iTunes, playback of media from home pc’s Macs and NAS devices, a mini OSX - the community at large could then add so much functionality over time - some of the dashboard widgets would look great on the big screen, controlled from bluetooth keyboard or Macbook/Macbook pro. We’ll also get the proper name which if it has to include ‘Mac’ will make it the MacMedia or something corny like that.
- Updated Airport to take advantage of the pre N hardware in Macbooks. Macbook Pro’s and iMacs. Maybe driver support won’t be available until leopard though.
- Leopard - a new look. Maybe the reason why the Apple logo was black- a new dark look to Mac OSX? Will also get release date and some previews of new’ish functionality. Built in virtualisation or is Parallels to good to compete with?
- iLife - updates but I don’t think there will be that much of a change
- .Mac - never thought this was much value with so much web competition doing it better and for free. Maybe this is where some Google integration will come in.
A couple of days from now we’ll know how close the list is. if I was to pick one thing off the list it’s iTV - I really want something new that works with all my media to replace XBMC which is getting a bit long in the tooth.
