High def is the hottest consumer technology and it’s on the tip of every AV enthusiast’s tongue right now. While not quite ready for the mass market, High Def services and appliances bring unprecedented levels of picture quality, size and sound to viewers.
The benefit of high definition TV is that it delivers more lines resulting in a sharper, more realistic picture. The ability to display 720 progressive lines is the minimum requirement for a TV to be classed as a HDTV. Some HDTVs on the market will even display 1080 progressive lines which is the highest quality high definition broadcast that is available. Most HDTVs will support 720 progressive and 1080 interlaced. Interlaced refers to a method by which TV pictures are stitched together, progressive is the more modern digital technology and refers to the way in which lines are delivered from the top of the screen downwards. Rest assured regardless of the technical details, 1080p is the best quality you can get.
HDTVs are there
The flat-panel HDTVs required to display high def are on the market and their prices have come down dramatically to the point where you can have a high def-ready 32in LCD TV for less than €1000. 42in plasma models are available for €2,500 and even high def projectors can be purchased for less than €1,500. Screen sizes are growing fast and where 42in was once the holy grail, 50in and 65in are the new desirables. Quite simply, the bigger the screen the more fantastic high definition broadcasts and movies will look.
Michael O’Shea, country manager for Panasonic is extremely grateful for the launch of Sky’s high Definition service. He sees Sky HD as the key driver for the movement of consumers from standard definition TVs to HDTVs as it is the “only source of HDTV content available in Ireland.”
Sky high
Sky’s High Definition TV service has been in Ireland since May. To put it simply high definition broadcasts provide much higher image resolution than the standard PAL television system currently used in Ireland. And- as long as you’ve got a suitable HD-Ready flat-panel TV and a set top box that increased resolution creates a much more detailed image, with brighter colours and greater depth of field. Chuck in 5.1 surround sound audio as well and you’ve got something close to a cinema-quality viewing experience in your living room.
Ordering the Sky HD service is pretty straightforward – the hard part is paying for it all. The first thing you’ll need, of course, is an HD-Ready television set that has enough resolution to display the programmes in all their glory. Needless to say, you looking for a HDTV at least 28in in size but obviously the bigger the screen gets the more compelling the high definition broadcast becomes.
Box office
The next item on the list is the Sky HD Box, which acts as a receiver for the HD television signal. It costs €449 with a subscription. This replaces your existing Sky Digital or Sky + box, and has to be installed by Sky’s own engineers. The Sky HD box will have both an HDMI connector for your HD television and analogue video outputs (component/Scart) so that you can connect it to an ordinary TV as well. While an ordinary TV will only display programmes at normal PAL resolution, Sky has confirmed to us that users will be able to get a high definition signal from the component outputs.
The Sky HD box has the same recording and programme features as the Sky+ box, so it’s a good way of upgrading if you’re still using the basic Sky Digital box. And yes, the Sky HD box will also allow you to record HD programmes. It’s got a 160Gbyte hard disk built into it and will work just like the existing Sky + box, so you can record one channel while watching another and pause live TV.
Having spent the best part of €2,000 on a new HD Ready TV and the HD Sky Box, you’re unlikely to worry too much about the extra €15 per month needed for your Sky HD subscription. Yes, that’s €15 per month on top of your existing Sky subscription which can cost between €21.50 and €66. Everyone who pays that €15 will automatically get five new HD channels: Sky One HD, Artsworld HD, Discovery Channel HD, National Geographic HD and the pay-per-view Sky Box Office HD. That’s great if you’re a Stargate geek or an opera buff – but what about footie and films? The good news here ia that you may not have to pay extra for these channels. To get the new Sky Sports HD channel you will need to have Sky Sports 1 and 2 in your existing subscription package. However, most sports fans will probable already have these channels, in which case you’re getting Sky Sports HD at no extra cost. The same applies to the two HD move channels – Sky Movies 9 HD and Sky Movies 10 HD. Movie buffs who already subscribe to Sky Movies 1 and 2 automatically get the HD movie channels added to their package.
The cost of HD Ready TV sets means that HD isn’t going to revolutionise the Irish broadcasting industry overnight. However the experience in the US – where HD broadcasting is at a much more advanced stage – shows us that sport has been one of the main factors in influencing people to upgrade to HDTV sets. Sky’s timing for launch therefore was good especially with the Ryder Cup from the K Club available in HD glory.
HD everywhere
You may buy your new HDTV in order to watch sport or HD movies, but having spent all of that money, you’ll soon want to see everything else in HD as well. Eventually then you will expect all television broadcasting to move over to HD. In the UK for example, the BBC shot its Planet Earth series in HD, it was sold to the US market but not to the UK one because nobody there could get access to HD services when it was first made available. In Ireland, the map has still to be drawn for the roll out of digital terrestrial TV services – quite simply there are no free terrestrial HD services here. Analogue TV, by ruling of the European Union must be switched off by 2012 so the Department of Communications must make provisions for a public digital service otherwise Rupert Murdoch could be dictating to us what appears on our TV and how much we should pay for it. He might even block party political broadcasts.
Next gen players
Sky HD is expensive but then it really does target the early adopters and the real TV fanatics at the moment. As time passes and the subscriber numbers to the service increase, it will get cheaper. The same can probably be said of the next generation high definition disc players. At time of press, there were only two next players on the Irish market – the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and the Samsung BDP 100. The Panasonic model retails for €2,000 and the Samsung for €1,400. Based on Sony’s Blu-ray technology, these players are expensive and as Panasonic’s Michael O’Shea commented are intended as ‘flagship products and not as mass market offerings at the moment’. Indeed Philips will not be launching Blu-ray players until March.
Designed to compete with Blu-ray in the next generation format wars, HD DVD has been developed by Microsoft and Toshiba. The first HD DVD player – the Toshiba HD XE1 – was due out for Christmas and expected to retail for around €1000. Unfortunately, product rollout problems has pushed back its launch until January. Both Blu-ray and HD DVD promises DVD discs with capacities of up to 50Gbytes and this means that allot more movie, multimedia and interactive content such as in-movie games can be stored on a movie disc. Also, with Ethernet connections on the players, additional content can be downloaded from the Web including director tours and the like.
Content wise, there are few box office movies that have been ported to Blu-ray and HD DVD disc – launch titles include Tears of the Sun, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Hostel, Into the Blue and S.W.A.T on Blu-ray and Land of the Dead, Mission Impossible III, Serenity, Apollo 13 and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines on HD DVD. It looks as though Christmas 2007 will be the boom time for the next gen players and movies, by then the price and choice of both will have come down to a point where both are more palatable for consumers.
Handy HD terms
HDMI High definition multimedia interface that is the special connector used to connect your HD set-top box to your HD Ready TV set.
HD Ready Only TV marked with the HD ready logo have the high resolution screen needed to display high-definition programmes.
PAL Stands for Phase Alternate Line. Ireland’s current standard definition television format.
Set top box A box that connects your TV set and acts as a receiver for your television signals.
The format wars
Blu-ray
Drool: 50Gbyte capacity and industry heavyweights Sony, Philips, Pioneer, Panasonic and Dell are right behind it. It will also get into a lot of Irish homes when the PS3 launches in March.
Gruel: There have been some early production issues with the diode laser and the dedicated players are hideously expensive. And why if I buy a PS3, would I ever buy a standalone Blu-ray player that costs three times the price?
HD DVD
Drool: Certainly it’s more affordable than Blu-ray and it’s got huge behemoths Microsoft and Toshiba backing it. The IT crowd may also burn content with the HD DVD drives on their laptops and they’ll need an appliance to play that content back.
Gruel: Only 25Gbytes of storage and not supported by as many Hollywood studios as Blu-ray.
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