* Posts by Duncan Barr

8 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jan 2008

Europe loves HD TVs - but not HD broadcasts

Duncan Barr
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HD

To those asking about quality- yeah its worth it.

We've just had Sky HD installed and even though we have had BD for some time I was very impressed with the PQ.

True on some of the lower bandwidth less premium channels compression artifacts are present, but even then the PQ is far crisper, detailed and has a wider gamut of colours than SD broadcasts.

Then you have the flagship channels such as Sports, Movies and Documentaries- whereas older movies are of variable quality, new movies such as 300 are superb. Sports and Documentaries are just startlng though- it really is like seeing these with new eyes.

Even SD channels benefit from the upscaling- and imo look better than they did on our SCART RGB Sky + box on the same TV.

If you like Sports then imo HD is an essential purchase.

Why I downgraded from Vista to XP

Duncan Barr
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Who would think it......

.....that XP would perform better on older hardware than Vista does!

What next? Why I downgraded from Crysis to Doom?

Obituary: HD DVD 2002-2008

Duncan Barr

@SSU

Only benefit was better capacity??

Duh, thats the whole point, 1080p movies with uncompressed multi-channel sound take up a lot of space. Thats a huge benefit for the home cinema market- which with the advent of "cheap" 1080p screens is becoming less-niche by the day.

Dont get me wrong DVD has its place and will continue to be the No1 for a long time- as essentially its the new VHS (in playback terms anyway), but I know more than a few people (who have just HD screens, but not the kind of cinema system we have) who are looking at getting BD to get the most from their HD TVs.

Duncan Barr
Stop

@Michael Compton

Since when did HD-DVD have 25GB a layer? Only BD supports this.

HD-DVD infact supports "just" 15GB per layer - therefore a quadlayer HD-DVD is "only" 10GB more than a dual-layer Bluray discs.

Just surprised nobody picked up on this sooner!

Mole claims Toshiba to terminate HD DVD

Duncan Barr
Alert

@Glenn

Not true that 1080p is only worth it on 50" or bigger, this is such a myth. Im a PC gamer too and the improvement in quality at 1920x1200 on just a 24" LCD is clearly discernible- its hard not be seeing as its nearly 2.5 times the resolution of 720p. Its pretty hard NOT to notice a 200%+ improvement in resolution!

The thing is the improvement over 576p of 720p is so much of a leap (remember we must consider the horizontal resolution increase not just the vertical) that for many 720p will be amazing enough as it is 2.2 times the resolution of 576p- again hard to not see a 200% improvement.

But for me the difference between 720p and 1080p (even 1080i and 1080p) is clear even on our 1080p 37" in the bedroom- I wouldnt have spent the extra if it wasnt.

Duncan Barr
Happy

Why physical media will never die

People just like having something they can hold, or something physical to own when they hand over their cash.

Then there is the bandwidth considerations- as typical HD movies with lossless audio start at around 20GB.

Companies like Virgin have problems delivering constant 20Mb connections without traffic management let alone the kind of connection required to allow reliable streaming or reasonable download times of HD movies.

I also believe the ISPs will traffic manage these huge downloads as they do P2P content- as why should they supply the infrastructure for other companies to distribute HD movies but get nothing in return?

Then there is the storage consideration- ok hard drives are "cheap" but "affordable" media boxes with say a 1TB drive in will only hold 20 Blu Ray (BD-50) discs if you include extras, or approx 40 movies on their own.

When you think that many DVD owners will own many more than 40 titles you start to see the picture.

IMO most will use their existing movie providers (Sky/Virgin) as Sky provide HD movies, some on demand too- this will only increase over time. And on top of that the "buy to own" market will still revolve around physical media.

There is room for both.

A shame HD-DVD lost btw- although we recently "chose" Blu-ray. Sorry did I say choose? Of course we didnt we had to because the studios made the choice for us, so please stop saying the consumers had a choice.

If MS had bundled the 360 with a HD-DVD the story may have been different, as no doubt the PS3 was a huge part in this victory, and even though Im certainly no Sony fan Im absolutely delighted with our BD player- it genuinely surprised me how much of a leap it was over DVD as even though I knew the numbers I wasnt prepared for how good 1080p really is. Plus the upscaling of DVDs is superb, and its probably good enough that I wont need to double dip for too many of our existing DVDs.

MS bundles Vista SP1 and Server 2008 out the door

Duncan Barr
Happy

@Michael

Im the same too- Ive just upgraded 2 gaming PCs from Vista 32 to Vista 64 and have had no issues with either.

Pretty much anything I throw at it be it games or work sticks.

As I work in the industry I have been testing 64bit Vista (to some degree alongside Server 2008) at work, and pleasingly all but applications steeped in 16bit code work on a fairly modest spec.

The more I see of this the more I like it, and without all the bells and whistles Vista 64 is imo potentially MS's first serious Business OS since NT 3.51/4.

Just a shame MS didnt have the balls to draw a line under 32bit with XP- and release Vista as 64bit only.

So I guess that makes 4 of us without issues!

Government piles filesharing pressure on UK ISPs

Duncan Barr
Stop

To Lee- at least get your facts straight!

0.99 for old games and 1.99 for new ones?!!

Erm no- budget (Mastertronic, Firebird) games were eithrt 1.99 or 2.99 for premium titles.

Full price titles tended to cost 7.99 for Spectrum, 8.99 for CPC464 and 9.99 for C64, although pricepoints for premium titles (Eg Elite, Knight Lore, Lightforce) would cost 9.99 or even 14.99.

Considering game nowadays can cost millions of pounds to develop I dont think the current pricepoint of around £30-40 (retail not rrp) is too bad when you consider how much titles REALLY cost 20 yrs ago, rather than prices you choose to pull out of the air to suit your arguement.