BBC HD to hit Freeview

The BBC trust announced yesterday that they have given the backing for a fully established BBC High Definition Channel . The channel is currently trialing on Sky HD and over Cable. The schedule will be drawn from the full spectrum of BBC channels and will not simply be a High Definition version of BBC 1. A spokeperson said yesterday the a 4 hour service could be launched ‘almost immediately’, but the feeling in the trust is that the public must be consulted first because a 9 hour service will follow but this will almost certainly mean that us ‘the public’ will have to buy a new set top box to receive it. Further discussion will be undertaken regarding the delivery a full schedule on Freeview early next year. Meanwhile the service will be assessed during a public consultation period, which will run until October 23.

HD and DVD Bargains

You may have noticed a lack of posts to this blog recently, well all I can do is apologise and promise to do better starting from today. The reason I’ve been a little quiet is simple. Along with a good friend I recently purchased a part share in the popular community driven website www.hdanddvdbargains.com (formerly CD and DVD Bargains). The site has a great sense of community and is the ideal place for locating all the latest and greatest prices for Cheap DVDs, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Discs. We’ve taken the site to the next level since the purchase, installing a brand new vBulletin forum complete with a custom skin. We’ve also got an exciting Price Comparison and Pricewatch Service which enables you to quickly compare prices for DVDs, HD-DVDs, Blu-Ray and much more, with the option of adding individual items to your pricewatch account so you can be emailed when your target price is reached. All this and not to mention the fantastic competitions we are running at the moment. So why not pop along and introduce yourself. You wont regret it (probably…).

Comet Discount Voucher - 19/07/2007

Not strictly HDTV but home entertainment related nevertheless. Comet are offering 25% off Panasonic DVD home cinema when you enter code 25PANA into the promotions code box after adding the product to your basket! – Offer ends 25/07/07

Digital Direct Offers 12/07/07

This weeks top offers from Digital Direct are:

JVC
1) 32” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £447.39, saving of £352.60

2) 26” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £404.89, saving of £245.10

Sony

1) 40” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £903.01, saving of £596.98

2) 26″ HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £420.01, saving of £279.98

Panasonic

1) 26″ HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £531.99, saving of £358.00

2) 37″ HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview and wall bracket now only £668.01, saving of £1711.98

Toshiba

1) 37″ HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £563.91, saving of £786.08

Hitachi

1) 37” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £644.01, saving of £1025.98

Pioneer

1) 42″ HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview now only £951.49, saving of £1548.50

1080p Projector for Project Design

The Norwegian Company projectiondesign has announced sketchy details of their latest offering and it does sound rather good. Called the M80 and boasting full 1080p HD compatibility the three-chip DLP projector will be capable of true ‘e-cinema’ level image quality and is based on the Cineo professional projector range. It includes HDMI 1.3 connectivity, 10-bit video processing, optical filtering and perhaps most notably claims an astonishing contrast ratio of 50000:1. Due for launch in the Autumn 2007, you can bet this baby wont come cheap.

The Queen of Hearts Rocks - In Hi Def

This weekend sees the BBC boosting its extended HD Trial with the first of 2 big concerts to be broadcast in high definition, so dont forget to set your Sky+ box for The Concert for Diana, a day of live music from the newly rebuilt Wembley stadium to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the death of Princess Diana. The impressive line-up includes Elton John, Take That, Natasha Bedingfield, Duran Duran and Will Young among others. If thats not enough, on July 7th BBC HD will be screening Live Earth, the worldwide event put together by former US Vice president Al Gore to save the planet with venues in London, New York, Johannesburg, Shanghai, Tokyo, Sydney and Hamburg. Should be good.

Not all 1080p Screens are created equal.

At the moment it appears as though everybody wants a new flat screen TV, unsurprisingly since we the public have been bombarded with marketing spiel surrounding this new technology for the last 3 years or so. Perhaps more surprising is how this technology has evolved over those 3 years. From the beginning we have been told that these new screens will accept 720 lines of progressive scan loveliness or up 1080 lines interlaced, these being the maximum resolutions for HDTV. Early adopters then handed over small fortunes for these sets, safe in the knowledge that they could now watch TV with the best possible picture quality around (never mind how poorly some of these sets rendered the standard definition free-to-view broadcasts).

A mere eighteen months later though a new breed emerged - the 1080p screen. The self-satisfied expressions worn by everyone who had rushed out to be the first to own the biggest and best screen on the block, turned overnight into fixed grins and the blood drained from their faces (probably) as they quickly realised that their state of the art goggle box was rapidly becoming an also ran. 1080 line progressive scan screens are capable of almost double the resolution of the 1080i counterpart and the latest high definition sources (blu-ray and HD DVD) can deliver images to match. (Although it may be some time before broadcasting technology catches up, so dont hold your breath there).

You might think therefore that we’d reached limit HD technology could go no further? Well give your head a shake my friend, has history taught you nothing! 1080p is not the be all and and end all. Most of the 1080p screens on the market <i>only</i> work in 50 or 60 hz or whole numbered multiples of this (ie 100 or 120hz). Why is this important, well thats up to you but hertz are the defined frequency at which a specific number of frames are cycled to create the impression of a moving picture. Most movies are filmed at 24 frames per second (which is another way of saying 24 hertz) and since 24 doesn’t divide easily into 50 or 60, some technichal jiggery pokery occurs which is best described using the 50hz screens as an example. 24hz is almost 25hz which in turn is half of 50hz. European TVs typically operate at 50hz, so when mastering a european DVD the movie is transferred at 50 frames per second, which naturally should mean that the film would end up being half as long, with the action played out at speed and with everyone speaking in queaky voices. To get around this problem each frame is repeated twice - so if you were watching Denzel Washington in Deja Vu on a European Tv and thinking you had seen the film before, well, um you had - kind of.

However a new breed of next generation high definition disc player is looming on the horizon, which surprise surprise, can output movies in the native 24fps, but to take advantage of this you’ll need a screen capable of rendering this frequency, such as the SONY Bravia D3000 series. By all accounts the results are impressive, but unless you are a home cinema videophile you’re unlikely to notice to much difference - even so the urge to upgrade your now obsolete 50hz 1080p screen will undoubtebly prove overwhelming in the long run.

Digital Direct Offers - 22/06/2007

Hitachi
1) 37” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £650.81, saving of £1019.18

2) 50” HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview now only £1114.96, saving of £665.03

Sony
1) 26” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £404.96, saving of £295.03

2) 32” HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £767.01, saving of £232.98

LG

1) 32″ HD Ready LCD with integrated freeview now only £447.01, saving of £552.98

2) 42″ HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview now only £629.01, saving of £1073.98

Pioneer

1) 42” HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview now only £976.49, saving of £1523.50

2) 50″ HD Ready Plasma with integrated freeview now only £1446.49, saving of £2353.50