RIP HD-DVD. Finally the war is over.
As the song says “War, What is it good for, Nothing”
Of course, I’m talking about the High Def. Disc format war in this case - today Toshiba issued a press release which basically says “We’re not making the players any more” - and as they were the major player behind the HD-DVD format, that’s pretty much the end of the battle. The format has been on it’s way out for a while now, as studios have been pursuaded to change sides towards Sony’s Blu-Ray format - which had the major advantage of being supplied “built in” to the Playstation 3 games console - effectively pushing blu-ray players into homes who wouldn’t necessarily pay for a standalone machine.
Now the war is over, people who’ve been holding off buying a HD player to wait and see which format wins - and who don’t want to be lumbered with the Betamax of the new millennium - can now safely buy a Blu-Ray player or PS3. Until of course the whole “profiles” problem rears it’s head, with a next-generation of blu-ray disc possibly being incompatible with current players - unless the players are updated. Of course, this is entirely dependent on the manufacturer.
In my opinion, a sensible choice of player at the moment is actually the aformentioned Playstation 3 - as it’s blu-ray decoder is software based, it should be upgradable via a download (which given that the PS3 has both wired and wireless network capability should not be a problem) - plus it’s only a little more money than a standalone blu-ray player, with the bonus of also being a high quality games machine.
Broadband and the BBC
Well, here we go… it was only a matter of time really before the UK’s Internet Service Providers (ISPs) got all het up over the BBC’s new, legal, peer-to-peer video download service.
It seems that ISPs are objecting to the amounts of data this service will require, and that they’ll have to provide the peak-capacity that their customers have been paying for. Now, if I’m paying for a 4, 8 or 20Mb/sec broadband service, I expect to be able to use services which are going to use that speed to deliver content quickly enough to play “streaming”. Of course, I know about such terms as “user contention” - and that home broadband is provided on a shared-bandwidth principle - ISP’s don’t actually buy enough bandwidth to give every user the full bandwidth they’re paying for all the time. If they did, broadband would be far more expensive, ISP’s work on the basis that not everyone who has (say) a 2Mb/sec connection on a particular exchange/head will use all that capacity continuously. The BBC player however will likely increase the amount of bandwidth they need to provide the service the customer is paying for.
Virgin Media (the ISP I currently use, not through choice, but because I live too far from the exchange for ADSL to be worth buying into) have “peak time, fair use” caps, so if you download too much between 4pm and midnight, you can expect your speed to drop. They suggest if you want to download large files that you schedule them to download off-peak (for example, in the early hours of the morning). While this is fine for Linux ISO Installation images, it is unfortunately not so appropraite for streaming video, as those “peak times” are exactly the times when people are likely to want to use the iPlayer…
Now, I know other TV stations in the UK have had their players on-stream for a while, but I suspect the BBC’s will garner quite a bit more interest from the public… being free and all…
(full story on Wired)
Reality TV
Answer me this - what is “real” about taking a bunch of fame-seeking wannabes who’d probably never cross paths in real life, and subjecting them to living together in a house designed to provide a complete lack of privacy, whilst subjecting them to “tasks” - many of which require disruption to sleep patterns or extended “role playing”.
Apparently there’s something very much like that starting tonight on UK television…
Is this formula one, or a cookery show…
Today I actually watched the whole programme of the F1 GP, rather than coming in late for just the race - and F1 Coverage from ITV has taken a turn for the worse - with a segment that can only be called “Cooking with Heikki Kovalainen”…
I want to watch F1 - I don’t want to watch a driver preparing a meal for his girlfriend… (and no, I couldn’t find the recipe on the website…)
Eurovision…
Oh well, it’s that time of year again - and not even starting the show with last years winners can really help it…
However this year’s videos between the songs at least had Linnanmäki’s Vuoristorata scenic railway coaster - but then went back to the expected and stereotypical scenes of ice and snow… with the occasional stadium sized IT conference and Bog Football (and at the time of writing we’re only about 45 minutes into the show…)
As for the songs, well, nothing stands out - half the acts are using pyrotechnics in some form - and there’s a distinct lack of Lordi Wannabes doing heavy metal power songs…Â this is probably for the best.
The less said about our entry the better really…Â I mean, why do we go into this so expecting to lose that we field “Scooch” as our best hope…
Sometimes I wonder why I’m bothering watching it at all…
When Death By Chocolate isn’t enough…
… you need “Exterminate By Chocolate”
(and as a passing note, there’s a new series of Doctor Who starting this weekend… but if you’re interested, you probably already knew that)
Lunch on a Rollercoaster
As part of a series celebrating classic Saturday evening TV show “Jim’ll Fix It” - they’ve recreated the iconic moment of the show, a group of cubscouts have relived their Rollercoaster Lunch “fix it” 27 years after the original was shown in 1980.
There’s a nice story on the BBC News website - which contains a link to the videos of both the old a new versions.
However they are not the first to recreate this classic TV moment featuring that ride in Blackpool. Back in 2002, the European Coaster Club also did a recreation, this time in the interests of raising money for Give Kids the World. The photos from that (rather messy) event are also online - at the ECC Website.
One of the most iconic and memorable bits of tv from when I was young, will be relived again - The new series remembering Jim’ll Fix It is being shown on UK Gold, starting in April.
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