Tuesday, 27 February 2007

Interactive T.V

Interactive TV, allows viewers to do other things with your television, than just sit and watch. It lets you join in with programmes, see extra news stories and sports coverage, check sports results, travel information and weather forecasts, plus play games, go shopping, and place bets. Which is slightly like using the internet.

All you have to do is press the "red button"! It comes up when a certain part of a programme is on, or throughout a certain programme a red button symbol holds its position in the top right of the screen... fun?? No. More annoying. Because NTL find it incredible hard to create a flowing T.V experience with no hicupps (and thats not just me, iv had words with other people).. ~So yes the red button shows... but as soon as you hit it FREEZE alert. I've never used it before because it freezes. But Sky does it aswell at times... so its not completely reliable.

So!! Interactive TV is available with any digital service, though the type and number of features vary according to whether you have Freeview, satellite or cable.
Most of the interactive features currently available are provided by the BBC, Sky and the cable companies. A few other broadcasters, including Channel 4, offer a limited range, and there are also games participation channels such as ITV Play and YooPlay.

Personally, from what I've heard, sports are the best option to use interactive TV. On BBC, you can watch the football in different angles, watch it in split screen, whilst the other half has the updated football scores.

well overall its a good idea, however it is unreliable, and needs alot of work on.. but soon it will kick ass.

Wednesday, 21 February 2007

Blue Ray Disks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

First I will bore you with the techniqal information in a simple summary....
The Blue-ray disk is a new type of storage CD. Alike DVD, it will soon be used wordley for films, and other things that are used... for example the Playstation 3 games will be used by blue-ray disk because Sony developed this devise. Technically, it is better than DVD because the DVD can only perform 4.7 G.B on each layer, and the Blue-ray does up to 25 G.B... which is a fantastic difference. Rumours have it that a single disk can hold up to every season of the Simpsons and Friends. This has not been proved mind, but is used as a selling point. The reason that the Blue-ray-disks hold more is because the red lazer which is used for DVD has the wavelengh of 50 nm and the Blue-ray-disks wavelengh is 650 nm lazer which is well, blue.... hense the name.

The price online, for a standard player is in America $1,500, which is in UK £785.

Expensive mabey but dam right worth it. Theres no downer, better quality, sound, and more storage space, and yes the price is quite expensive, but it will drop quick, and will get smaller and better. Think of the DVD, that was even more expensive to start with, and now look, 50 quid for a decent one. Just you wait... its the new generation of movie watching, game playing, and music listening. Also, you can instead of buying box sets, or each DVD as it comes, just buy a whole bundle of stuff, for me it would be all seasons of Scrubs. Plus in all movies there will be longer and better extra feactures... What is there to lose?

The in formation, and picture of the player on... http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v3/pg/product/details/0,,2076_310069741_290062577,00.html

Tuesday, 20 February 2007

Playstation 3

Finally after a long long long long long long long time, the Playstation 3 is finally coming out in Europe!! It's about time. It's been over a year more than the original date coming into this country at March 23 2007. However, if you want the playstation 3 for at least two months after it comes out you best put down a deposit somewere because they are going to be sold out for weeks!! People are already basically at the gates waiting to bang the doors down, but I'm a little more practical. And heres why...
The Cost is disgusting.
£425 just for the console. The games cost £60 quid each. Rip off one might say? Well you can see it in both ways but personal I think it's daft. The reasons are Sony are struggling, they are running out of money. The chip in one of these consoles costs up to £2,000, and with the new media technology of the Blue-ray disks, (I will explain more in my next articale, but it is a type of CD with more storage than DVD.) the cost just rides up. Plus, there is all of these other good points-
It has four USB ports, it is capable of saving up to 60 gigabite of about anything, has an ethernet socket for online gaming which is getting ever increasingly popular, wirless controllers, and 256 megabites worth of RAM. This may seem impressive, but the only main difference to the main competition Xbox 360, is that it takes blue-ray disks.
However, all of these call add ons, which are mostly on Microsoft Xbox, do look good, but there is one main question... how much out of these media funtions will you use, and is it worth putting it in, riding up the cost, and upsetting customers. Will it fail to sell?? Only time will tell. I'm hoping prices will drop dramitically.
Its not set onto paper as yet, but slowely but surely it likely that you cannot use, borrow, or sell pre-owned games, which puts a big bullet in businesses like Blockbusters who would dream of all the selling they would be doing from pre-owned games. This is a big let down. What they have done is they have encoded a code onto the game disks, and when inserted into the PS3 it takes the code away and remembers it, so it cannot be used on other Ps3's. What if you wanted to go round a mates and bring some games? What happens if your PS3 break and you get a new one> ? You need to get new games. Sort it out Sony.
Overall the Playstation 3 is a powerful machine, with graphics so amazing it will rock you of your seat. But they have gone to far with the expensive and ruined the chances of everyday ppl having this console. It will be better when it's cheaper, and im pritty sure the pre-owned games situation will go away. hopefully.