Last week, Foxtel finally announced their high definition offering, which includes a new higher capacity HD capable PVR (the IQ2). It includes four HD channels, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I'm pleased to see that two of them are sports channels (Fox and ESPN). Based on what I have seen in the US, sport is particularly good in HD; the higher res makes it easier to read microscopic names on the back of jerseys or see what's going on when the producers decide they are going to zoom out to encompass the whole field.
When I got to California last Saturday, I went to Bernard's house. He has a very sweet high def setup; it was more or less the exact configuration I would love to own myself -- 52" Bravia at 1080p, a high def set top box/PVR for his cable provider, a borrowed PS3 (which includes a bluray drive), and the Denon 3808 which supports upscaling and many HDMI inputs (4!). I have had my eyes on the Denon for a while, so it was nice to see it in action. It did not disappoint.
I spent a fair percentage of the evening slack-jawwed, looking at the various HD content, including a very _very_ sweet dedicated Kungfu channel. While the Kungfu content was not high def, someone has gone to a lot of effort to restore some old chopsocky (and Samurai - we are talkin old school 60's here) movies into a digital format, as well as immaculately subtitle it. On the upscaled setup it looked terrific. Also, the nice thing about watching films in HD on the bluray disc player is that they actually look like films (i.e. the quality you see in the theatre).
Then on Sunday, I went to my friend Richard's house (in Palo Alto) to watch the Superbowl. He also has a nice HD setup, with an impressive array of speakers and an HD projector which illuminates a 150" screen. Definitely the way to go for a big sporting event!
I may hold out for a little while before I adopt, but this visit to California did not do a good job of providing me with more willpower :)
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