It’s a bit large…
Yesterday I took delivery of my new 32" Samsung LE32R87BDX (big mouthful thar) HDTV. I have been agonising over purchasing a HD screen for ages now but finally jumped on board after the recent purchase of my Xbox 360’s HD-DVD player. While I was day-dreaming away in my office at work, the delivery man phones up saying that he’s just delivered it at my home. I almost got knocked out by an Australian backpacker as I jumped onto the bus and dashed home…to find the biggest box I’ve seen in ages. Took me a solid 10 minutes just to drag the box up to my room!
Upon unpacking the screen, it’s just hard to describe how gorgeous the thing looks in it’s lovely reflective finish, which sadly also makes it a fingerprint magnet. HD video on it looks utterly crystal clear and so defined, once you turn off the post processing features that are enabled by default. This thing is gorgeous. Now for those who will tell me to wall mount it, I’m afraid it’s not possible on these walls….they’re made of something that isn’t your standard household masonry. Suffice to say that drilling into these walls is a mission and a half and I will end up with a huge amount of broken drill bits - I speak from experience.
Sadly I had to ditch my twin 19" Widescreen TFT’s that I use with my PC, just so I could fit that HDTV on my desk. So I’m back to a single 20.1" Widescreen for the PC now. Not good, it feels really odd to work with. Anyway, it’s a Bank Holiday weekend (Monday is a public holiday) so I’ll be spending it with me girlfriend chilling out and watching HD-DVD’s on me new tele \o/
A little more complicated then one would think…
I’ve been trying to make sense of this for sometime now, and only finally understood it. Microsoft have tried to get one over Sony in the HD (High Definition) war, and to be honest they’re hammering them hilariously. Although MS forgot to mention that 1080p wouldn’t be as simple as most people would have thought. The techy geeks knew it would be a complicated matter, and to be fair - it bloomin is. Depending on the method you’re using to connect the Xbox 360 to your TV set, you’ll obtain various results while watching films and playing games. I’ve been staring at a forum for what felt like hours last night and finally got my head around it.
360 with component cables:
- Xbox 360 games will be upscaled to 1080p, and games which are 1080p native will run without a hitch.
- HD-DVDs will run at a maximum of 1080i, which is due to the AACS DRM implemented into HD-DVD’s.
- DVD’s will only play at 480p, due to the CSS inside DVD’s, which prevents upscaling any higher…bummer.
360 with a VGA cable:
- DVD’s, games, as well as HD-DVD’s will display in full 1080p. Sweet!
Microsoft has been very quiet about this, and it’s obvious why. They know a lot of people use Component cables to connect the 360 to their HDTV, and to have DVD’s playing at 480p is quite frankly pathetic. However most people will already have separate DVD players anyway, so this situation isn’t that bad. MS were quite foolish not to have seen the HDMI bandwagon coming when they released the 360, and even bumbling giants Sony saw it. I wonder what the video quality will be like on the HD-DVD drive coming next month in November for the 360?
It will take the Uk by storm
It’s a step change in television technology which provides far clearer and more detailed pictures than normal "standard definition" TV. The benefits are especially suited to larger LCD and plasma display screens. Basically HD is transmitted digitally. Each step in the transmission chain must be high definition to produce the end result on your screen. So you will need a HD decoder box to decode the incoming signals, as well as a HD Ready TV in the first place so you can actually see the pictures. Sounds simple right? Well there’s a lot more to it then the above, and it can get very confusing. Riyad at Trusted Reviews has a brilliant round up of exactly what to expect from this upcoming HD era.
