HDTV Lust

While visiting a customer recently, and after the work on his PC was completed, he insisted I had a look at the custom home theatre that he had installed in his newly-built home. And very nice it was too. The centre piece of his set-up was a wall-mounted 50" Pioneer plasma high-definition TV supplemented by a Bose surround-sound speaker system and hard disk media server, all with hidden wiring leading to a very clean appearance that even the most fussy of spouses would find it difficult to complain about.

I was sat down and treated to a visual and aural treat as he fired up his Sky HD box and switched on Discovery HD. The subject of the documentary that was playing was fighter jets, and the footage of the view from the cockpit of one of the jets as it engaged in a mock dogfight with two others was breathtaking. The difference between HDTV and regular colour TV is almost as big as the difference between black and white and colour TV, it really is jaw-droppingly good. I was thoroughly impressed and experienced a bout of HDTV lust on the spot.

When I returned home I looked at my 12 year-old 26" TV with contempt and started to plan its imminent trip to the Ballyogan recycling centre. But before I got carried away I decided to think about what I would watch on my spanking new HDTV when I had it installed. And this is where the wheels started to come off the wagon.

The majority of our viewing consists of Channel 4, BBC1 and BBC2 with a bit of the RTEs thrown in for good measure (we're not a SKY household because Sports programs are low on our agenda). And here's the rub, these channels are not currently broadcast in HD and, from what I can gather, they won't be broadcast in HD for some time yet. I could migrate to Sky HD for a selection of HD channels (Sky One, Discovery, National Geographic) but would I actually watch these channels and, if so, would it be just for the sake of HD rather than content and interest?

Another issue is the DVD library that we've built up of our favourite movies and television series. These were produced pre-HD, and when displayed on a HD TV will look no different from on a regular TV. If we want to enjoy these in glorious HD we will have to fork out on a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player and re-purchase our DVDs in HD formatted discs - an expense that can't be justified for the benefit that it may bring.

So, when it's all added up and HD-ready flat screen TVs now abound, it transpires that we ourselves are not HD-ready just yet and our trusty12 year-old CRT TV is not going to be taking a trip to Ballyogan just yet. Maybe next Christmas....

An Inconvenient Truth

I don't know where you stand in relation to global warming - whether you are concerned about it, whether you believe it's an issue or whether you are even aware of it as a phenomenon. My own position was very middle-of-the-road until recently when I happened to see the film An Inconvenient Truth which is a documentary presented by the "former next president of the United States" Al Gore.

When I say that it is a documentary your eyes may glaze over and you want to file it away under David Attenborough-type documentaries. But you shouldn't, for two reasons. Firstly, Al Gore does, in my opinion, a tremendous job communicating the science of global warming in a way that is easily understood and stays with you beyond the closing titles. Secondly, the issues portrayed in the documentary just might be the most important that mankind has ever faced, relegating famines, wars, and localized natural disasters to the inconsequential.

Avoiding a climate crisis and the consequences that that entails is fundamentally not a technological challenge - we already have the technological means to prevent it - but a political and moral question. There would appear to be many big businesses with a vested interest in us believing that the scientists are merely scaremongering. However, does anyone remember the tobacco companies producing reports in the sixties rubbishing the idea of smoking being linked to cancer?

You should make up your own mind on this important issue, but viewing An Inconvenient Truth should be an essential part of that process. If you missed the film in the cinemas, you can get it now on DVD. Watch it and decide where you stand.

Vista Flavours

Microsoft has revealed the various different versions of Windows Vista that will be available in the near future here in Europe (business versions are already available since the end of November for corporate customers). The line up consists of:

Business
Enterprise
Home Pemium
Home Basic
Ultimate

This line-up contrasts with Windows XP which came in just three flavours XP Home, XP Professional and XP Media Center Edition.

The version that most people will probably finish up running is the Home Premium edition which sports the new Aero interface (provided you have the hardware to run it - thought to be a minimum of 1 GB of RAM plus a 256 MB graphics card). If you want to upgrade your Windows XP to Vista Home Premium the suggested retail price in the US is $159, so expect to pay around €120 here in Europe. If you buy a new Dell between now and the end of March, you can sign up for a Vista upgrade pack, which will be sent to you as soon as Vista home editions are launched here in Europe.

More details on Vista can be found on Microsoft's Vista Pages.