TechRadar UK Blogs: Digital Home

The buzz across the web seems to be fixated on the 3G iPhone. When will it be released? Will it have GPS? Will it boast a higher resolution digital camera? What colour will it be?

The timing of Apple's WWDC this year suggests that a theatrical announcement of the 3G iPhone on June 9 is a fair bet.

While that AT&T email forbidding its employees to take any holiday between the June 15 and July 15 practically lights up the shipping date with a neon-lit arrow.

Showing some iPhone love

Now, I love my iPhone as much as the next recently-converted, non-Mac owning early adopter. It’s a fantastic bit of gear, arguably the best mobile phone I’ve ever owned.

But, even this close to a suggested launch of the 3G version, I find myself underwhelmed by the prospect of the new hardware. Even if it has 32GB of storage and a better camera.

Obviously, the 3G iPhone is a necessity. A 3G version will allow Apple to push its so-called Jesus phone into lucrative new territories in Europe and Asia (notably Japan and China).

But judging by recent leaked screenshot highlighting the 3G ‘off switch’ in the iPhone’s Settings menu, there’s a good chance that the 3G iPhone will suffer from the same horrendous battery life that plagues Nokia’s N95.

Are you excited? Really?

Is the new iPhone hardware really a big deal? I’m finding that the current 2.5G iPhone is still a device I wouldn’t want to live without.

It helps that I’m not tempted to watch YouTube or access iTunes on the move, so 3G isn’t that much of an issue. And I use RSS feeds when I’m in patchy areas of EDGE network coverage rather than loading full-blown web pages. Even when I do want to fire up the complete BBC Sport page, citywide EDGE coverage across Bath, Bristol and London is pretty solid.

Unless Apple surprises us all with all-new iPhone versions (a dinky iPhone nano, perhaps? Or the Apple MID that's spinning the rumour mill today?), then surely the real news this month is actually the iPhone 2.0 software?

I’m more excited by the prospect of third party apps and games than I am about my web pages loading in double-quick time.

Let's not forget the iPhone 2.0 software

Apple’s version 2.0 software has the potential to remake the iPhone. You only need to browse websites like Apple News to see the range of quirky apps that jailbroken iPhones can already run.

As an iPhone owner, I’m hoping for a swarm of time-wasting games ranging from vivid block puzzlers to brain training rip-offs; not to mention accelerometer-friendly versions of bigger titles like Spore and Super Monkey Ball.

In terms of new apps, I could do with off-line web browsing, OTA Google calendar syncing, VoIP and an IM client. A video recording function would also be useful, as would Flickr integration, contact forwarding, text cut-and-paste and picture messaging.

The 3G iPhone will undoubtedly juice up Apple's sales. But while Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, RIM, Samsung and other mobile manufacturers try to out-spec each other with hardware, it’s actually the software and the content that’s becoming more important.

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And as for the recent rumours about Apple launching a UMPC, MID or tablet device at this year’s WWDC, why take a look at Jeremy Laird’s recent piece: The UMPC is still a crap idea. Sums it up nicely, I think.

Canon has gone to great lengths to give its HF10 camcorder the most auspicious launch it could muster. The company flew 80 European journalists to Morocco, loaned them a camcorder each - plus accessories - and presented them with two days’ worth of luscious scenery and events to try out its idea of ‘freecording’.

But in the cold light of day (or the chilly English springtime), is the HF10 really worth this level of hype? Or is Canon merely hoping to spin things in its favour with a plush press trip and indoctrination via lengthy hands-on experience?

Canon’s HF10 vs the competition

For a start, the HF10 doesn’t introduce any specific new technologies. Canon is rather late to the Flash memory party, and it has some powerful competitors.

Panasonic’s HDC-SD9, for example, offers the same Full HD, progressive shooting at a 17Mbits/s AVCHD data recording rate. It’s smaller, lighter, and cheaper too.

But the Panasonic camcorder is behind the HF10 on image quality and enthusiast features. So whilst it offers great HD video quality in an eminently pocket-friendly package, the HDC-SD9 won’t woo budding movie makers.

Sony has a couple of potential alternatives, too. The HDR-CX6EK is remarkably similar in looks to the HF10. But it shoots AVCHD at 1,440 x 1,080 with a maximum 15Mbits/s data rate. It also doesn’t offer the same level of features as the HF10, with no headphone or microphone minijacks and fewer manual controls.

So although the HDR-CX6EK has great image quality, it’s more for the point-and-shoot user – and it’s not as small as Panasonic’s HDC-SD9, either.

The smallest HD camcorder in the world

But Sony has another trick up its sleeve – the HDR-TG3. This is being touted as the smallest Full HD camcorder in the world. It weighs just 240g without battery, 35g less than the Panasonic HDC-SD9.

Most impressive is the fact that it’s half the width of the HDC-SD9. However, the HDR-TG3’s top AVCHD data rate is 16Mbits/s – 1Mbit/s less than the HF10 or Panasonic’s HDC-SD9. And whilst it records Full HD at 1,920 x 1,080, the HDR-TG3 has no progressive option.

Its biggest stumbling block is its 1/5inch CMOS, which is much smaller than the HF10’s so doesn’t offer its low-light prowess. It has no accessory shoe, microphone connection or headphone jack, either.

Nevertheless, the HDR-TG3 is an amazing feat of micro-engineering, and sure to excite those who just want an HD camera you can stick in a pocket. But it’s nowhere near as flexible as the HF10.

Then there are the Sanyo Xactis, which are great value. The Sanyo Xacti VPC-HD1000 shoots 1,920 x 1,080 Full HD, but only interlaced and only at 30 frames/sec, not the 25 frames/sec we use in Europe. This could cause compatibility problems with European audiovisual kit. Image quality also isn’t up to the HF10’s standard.

So… does the Canon HF10 really cut it?

The Canon HF10 certainly has the best image quality and the best features in its class. You would need to step up to a professional three-chip model to shoot better-looking video, and only larger HDV or hard disk-based models offer more features for serious video makers.

However, despite its compactness, the HF10 is still too large – and expensive – to be the kind of camcorder you might want to chuck around during extreme sports.

It’s small enough to carry with you in a bag, but not a pocket. The only fully fledged camcorder we’ve come across which is truly pocket sized is Panasonic’s standard definition-shooting SDR-S7, and that’s reassuringly cheap at around £200.

As ever, it comes down to what you plan to do with video. If you just want something to keep in a pocket and whip out for shooting the odd moment – like a compact digital camera – then the HF10 isn’t quite the best option. There are alternatives which compromise on quality to achieve even more impressive miniaturisation.

But if you want the best HD image quality and a heap of shooting features in a readily portable package, the Canon HF10 really is the best AVCHD model yet. We expect it to sell like hot cakes.

Do you agree with James? What do you think is the best camcorder currently available? Will you upgrade to HD? Leave us a comment below.

This morning’s news that Panasonic and Pioneer plan to share PDP technologies, was good news for everyone. Good for Panny, good for Pioneer, good for me, and good for you.

There’s not a tech-savvy person in the world who wouldn’t love to own a 65-inch Pioneer Kuro plasma television (and a living room big enough to house one, of course). However, the number of people who’re happy to blow nearly £4000 on a TV is very low indeed. And there sits the age-old problem for Pioneer.

As a consequence of this paralyzing catch-22 situation, the second-best plasma range – Panasonic’s Viera TVs - have been flourishing, offering a happy balance between quality and price.

This, though, now looks like it’s going to change. Pioneer can no longer afford to make its own Plasma panels. And so it’s sharing its secrets with Panasonic so that Panny can go forth and make super panels for both companies.

New TVs arrive next year

So what we’re going to get is improved Panasonic Viera TVs. But also improved Pioneer Kuro TVs… at cheaper prices.

It’ll be interesting to see how different the Viera and Kuro TVs are, once the next generation rolls off the factory conveyor belt in 16 months’ time.

Will Kuro still cost a lot more than the Viera? Will Kuro still be better than Viera? Will Kuro be worth the extra cost? Or will the two TVs be similarly priced?

It’s hard to see Pioneer making up an enormous amount of ground in terms of sales, and it certainly seems like Panasonic is the main winner in this deal. But it will sure-as-hell be interesting to hear more about this partnership once all the details are finalised in May.

Pioneer’s amazing zero-luminance extreme-black concept panel meets Panasonic’s mighty manufacturing muscles. The prospect should have Sony, Sharp, LG, Samsung et al, shaking in their proverbial substandard gumboots.

Got a PlayStation 3? For those of you that have picked up Sony's shiny black plaything, we've put together a Digital Home top ten of tips that you won't find in the user manual.

1) Play games from any country

Harbouring a desire to play Super Gaiden Ninja XI? Now you can. In fact, you can handily play any PS3 game from any country. On holiday in the States and spot the latest release at a bargain dollar-to-pound price? Help yourself. So far, at least, PS3 games aren't being region coded. That said PS2 and PS1 games are so you can't play a US title on a Euro console.

And let's not forget that Blu-ray movies are region-coded so the barriers aren't completely down yet.

2) The secret video reset

One of the most annoying aspects of the PS3 are its video settings. Take it up to the bedroom portable or round to a friend's house and there's a good chance that you won't be able to see anything on screen because your 'new' TV is running at a different resolution or using a different cable connection. And - because you can't see anything - you can't change it.

Until now. Shut down your PS3 then restart by pressing and holding the power button.This will reset your PS3 to its most basic 480p graphics mode so you'll be able to see enough to choose RGB SCART, component, HDMI or whatever from here.

3) See how much charge is on your pad

There's no indication of how much charge is left on the pad itself. Instead it appears on screen during games. Press and hold the PS button on any joypad. An indicator will appear, showing your pad's charge as a small battery. A full battery pic means a fully-charged pad. Neat.

4) Download game saves

Chances are someone out there has already beaten that boss for you and saved their game afterwards. Why not take advantage of it? Google 'PS3 game saves'. There are hundreds of finished and half finished game saves scattered all over the internet. Download the save you want - it'll come in a 'PS3' folder that you can lift onto a USB stick and put into your PS3. Go to the Game menu, choose your stick and the game save you downloaded should be right there. Press Triangle to copy it to your hard drive.

5) Make free video phone calls

You will need a USB headset (like the one you use for PS2 Socom) and an EyeToy camera. Plug in both via USB then go to your Friends menu. Choose a friend you've signed up earlier and press Triangle. Choose Start New Chat and type a message. Something like 'Videochat?' should do the trick. Now, providing they're in front of their powered-up PS3 (perhaps you could text them to tell them to be in position?) then they'll see your message and be given the option to accept your videochat.

Now, provided they too have a camera and headset, two windows will open, one showing you (so you can make sure you're looking your best), the other displaying your mate. Best of all you can hit Triangle again and invite more people to join your chat - up to a maximum of six. And the cost? Not a bean above your usual broadband connection charges.

6) Browse multiple internet windows

Open the browser (go to Network) and surf to a page you want. Now open up the menu with a press of Triangle and choose 'Open In New Window'. Enter another URL and then do the same again. Keep going until you've got six windows open. Now press L3 (done by clicking down the left stick). You're now in multi-page mode. Move the left stick to flick through the webpages as though they were bits of paper, then click L3 again to zoom in.

7) Upgrade your hard drive

We took the drive out of our PS3 and found it to be a Seagate Momentus 5400rpm 60GB 2.5inch SATA drive. We swapped ours out effortlessly for a Seagate Momentus 120GB 2.5inch SATA drive and it worked perfectly. Remove the cover flap on the bottom of your PS3 with a fingernail. Undo the blue screw and slide the drive over to the right and out of your PS3. Undo the four screws on the 'caddy' and remove the old drive.

Put your new drive in the caddy (it should be exactly the same size, of course) and re-do the four screws. Slot it back in and slide to the left to make the connections. Re-do the blue screw, pop the cover back on and restart your PS3. Say 'yes' to the message on screen and voila - new super-size hard-drive. (Go to Settings, System Settings, System Information to check).

8) Share your bought downloads

You can download anything you've bought from the store to five PlayStation 3s. This is useful if you've got more than one PS3 (of course) and also if you've wiped your hard-drive and don't fancy paying for the same download twice...

However, you can also choose to share your download with your mates. The PlayStation Store logs how many times each download has been downloaded by each user. On your mate's PS3 Create New User and log onto the store with your ID. You'll now be able to go to your download and see that you've already downloaded whatever it was that you paid for. You can now download it again, using another of your downloads and giving it to your mate for free. Or a small optional charge...

9) Force a PS3 to show your files

Put your photos in a folder called 'PICTURE' or your videos in a folder called 'VIDEO' or simply *force* your PS3 to look at your files on your stick regardless of what you called them or where you put them. Insert your stick and go to the menu option you want (Photos, Music, whatever). PressTriangle to bring up a menu and choose Display All.

This will show every file on the stick. It even works for a plugged-in iPod, though the multi-folder structure you'll reveal is a bit baffling. Still, your songs are in there if you've got the patience to find them.

10) Change your album art

When you import a music CD your PS3 automatically pulls down the album art and stores it with the tracks. Occasionally it gets it wrong, however, or it may simply not be able to find the art of your hipper, less commercial tracks. This is easily fixed however.

Download a pic of the art you need as a jpg on your PC and put it onto a stick (in a folder called PICTURE, ideally). Copy it to your Photo menu (press Triangle). Now go to Music and select the album folder with the offending art. Press Triangle and select Information. Go to the Photo menu and select your new picture. Bingo.

Words by: Dan Griffiths

Want more PS3 tricks? Read: More PS3 tricks Sony doesn't tell you

Three-dimensional movies and pictures are simple ideas that have been with us for decades.

Just by putting on a pair of highly fashionable red/blue glasses, you can bring images out of your flat computer monitor and into 3D. Anaglyph 3D is created by taking two images from two separate cameras.

The cameras are placed the same distance apart as your eyes, and the same view is taken. The pictures are then tinted – one blue and one red – and superimposed over each other.

When you look at them through similarly tinted glasses, you see each image with a different eye and the object appears to have depth. Put simply, each object in the scene appears twice – once in red and once in blue.

If the objects are a long way away, the red and blue images will be directly superimposed. If the objects are closer, the red and blue images will diverge and the 3D effect will be created.

Producing your own 3D pictures and movies has just become a lot easier. With the massive reduction in the price of digital cameras and camcorders, it’s now quite possible to consider using two identical devices to record 3D pictures or even videos.

Taking Photos

If you want to produce a 3D image, you’ll need two images of the same scene taken by cameras set slightly apart. The problem is that the two cameras have to be exactly the same – the same focal length, the same focus settings, the same aperture and the same zoom.

You can’t get away with putting a Canon on one eye and a Fuji on the other. If you don’t have two identical cameras, you can use the same camera and simply move it a little to the left for the second photo. This will work fine as long as nothing in your image moves between the photos.

People, then, are tricky – unless you can get them to sit very still. You’ll have much better success taking still life images and scenery. Colours obviously won’t come out as well when seen through a blue and red lens, so it’s best to pick shots where composition rather than colour are the main focus of the image.

Also avoid fussy edges. It’s at the edge of objects that the eye becomes most confused when re-assembling the images, so clear, simple lines tend to be more pleasing. If you can, find shots with a clear central focus and depth.

A flat wall isn’t going to work too well, so pick something with definite foreground and background shapes.

Finally, you need to make sure the view is the same in both shots. Keep your eyes fixed on a single point and make sure that point is at the same position in both photos.

It’s best to pick a distant point and keep it at the centre of both images. That way the final composite image will line up correctly.

Your own images

Of course, you can avoid problems with photos simply by creating your own 3D views to work with. If you’re a dab hand with 3D software, simply create two cameras slightly apart within your favourite 3D package and render away.

If 3D modelling isn’t your thing, try creating a basic composite using any 2D paint or image manipulation package. To do this, take a background shot and create two copies of it.

Now bring in a foreground object – either a piece of clip art, or an object cut out of a different photo – and paste it into both photos. On the first picture, move the object to the centre. On the second, move it a little to one side.

The more different the placing of the two objects is, the more pronounced the 3D effect will be when you create your finished 3D composite. The more separated the blue and red images, the closer your eye will interpret the object as being, because the closer a real object is to you, the more your eyes will have different views of it.

Once you’ve created a simple composite with one object jumping out of the screen, you might want to experiment further – placing different parts of the image at different depths to create a more sophisticated 3D picture.

Combining the shots

Essentially all that needs to be done is to tint the two shots red and blue respectively and superimpose them over one another (although, it works best if you make them black and white first).

You can, if you like, do this in any image-editing package. However, there’s a package that will do the job for you. It’s called Z-anaglyph.

The instructions are all written in French on installation, but you can change them to English with the ‘Preferences’ button located at the top-right.

Simply load the left image with the left-hand folder button and the right image with the right hand folder button, and click the ‘generate composite images’ button (the 3D glasses icon).

Your 3D image is instantly created and can be viewed right there and then and saved to disk.

3D video clips

3D video is a whole new ball game. You can’t use the same camera – you’ll need two. However, webcams are so cheap nowadays that there’s no reason why you can’t have two identical ones.

Combining the images from two video cameras is a little more complex than doing it with still images. The principle is the same, but you need to worry about synchronising timings as well as overlaying and tinting the images.

That’s not to say you can’t do it, however, and luckily HeavyMath’s Cam3D is a cheap and reliable tool for automating the process.

We got hold of two Hercules Dualplix Exchange webcams, which allow us to take stills in resolutions up to 2 megapixels (software interpolated) as well as video, so we can use them to record still 3D images or video clips.

We’ve placed ours on top of the monitor a couple of inches apart (you’ll need to experiment a little to get the best 3D effect depending on how far from the monitor you’re sitting).

Loading up Cam3D, you simply choose the left and right cameras from the dropdown list at the bottom of the monitor. This gives you an instant 3D display and allows you to choose whether to record audio or not.

Below this is another drop-down allowing you to set the output file name. We chose to record in avi format and chose cinepak compression because it gives a decent end result – it doesn’t mess our pictures up too much, and it’s also a format we can upload to YouTube should we decide to broadcast our efforts.

When that’s done, you can simply click the ‘Record’ button to start recording. If you’re using the unregistered version, your video will be recorded with a watermark, but you should still be able to produce a perfectly acceptable 3D video.

Making the BBC iPlayer accessible via Nintendo’s Wii is a stroke of genius.

The availability of the iPlayer effectively doubles-up the Wii as a set-top box, giving us Brits selected BBC TV shows, on demand. It blesses the Wii with an extended ‘digital home’ talent that most owners didn’t think it was capable of.

The iPlayer makes TV schedules irrelevant

The iPlayer is a undeniably handy service if you missed a TV show everybody’s talking about or you forgot to set your PVR. You could argue that it's a glimpse of the way we might watch TV in the future. But there’s still something awkward about watching Torchwood or Ashes to Ashes on a laptop or monitor screen. Television remains at its best when viewed on a proper TV, preferably when you’re slouched in a comfy sofa with a tube of Jaffa Cakes.

Manufacturers have always struggled to bridge the gap between Internet and TV. The current generation of Freeview and Sky set-top boxes aren’t Internet-friendly, while modern media extenders and video streamers are over-complicated and typically require a PC to act as the middleware.

The Wii offers a simple and populist solution, although ISPs will argue that it puts a considerable strain on their resources). Nintendo's console isn't just a games machine with clever motion-sensitive controllers. Wii owners can already use the built-in Opera browser to watch YouTube videos or to stream audio and video content from a PC using the free online Orb service. But until now, the iPlayer hasn’t been compatible.

How does it work?

So one question remains: how is the BBC iPlayer going to work on the Wii? The Wii’s Opera browser currently supports an old version of Flash (version 7, to be exact), which is currently incompatible with the iPlayer’s streaming video requirements.

According to Nintendo, there there's been some small tweaking work on both the BBC side and on the Nintendo side to ensure compatibility with the iPlayer. Nintendo hasn’t yet elaborated on what this ‘tweaking work’ consists of, but the Beeb's tweaking is much more substantial.

"Nintendo Wii supports only Flash 7," writes Anthony Rose, the BBC's Head of Digital Media Technologies, and Flash 7 "uses the Sorenson Spark codec rather than the ON2 VP6 codec introduced with Flash 8." The BBC is basically "transcoding an additional 400 hours [of video] per week" for the Wii.

The BBC has been really pushing the iPlayer online – it’s available on the PC (with a DRM-enabled download option), Mac, iPhone/iPod touch and it will be appearing on the Virgin Media platform this April.

UK web users have certainly taken to it. In March, the BBC’s own data suggests that 17.2 million requests were made to download or stream BBC programmes via the iPlayer. Consider that Nintendo has sold over 2.5 million Wii consoles since launch - that’s a big potential audience.

Call me a miserable old sod if you like, but I’m really getting the feeling that 2008 is shaping up to be a bit of a bore – at least when it comes to the usually fast-paced world of TV technology.

How come? Because so far this year, the feeling I’ve been left with after every show or brand product demonstration I’ve attended is that nothing really new appears to be happening. Honestly, the only significant ‘movement’ in TV technology that I’ve been able to discern is a concerted effort to make flat TVs a bit slimmer.

Slim TVs hide lack of real innovation

For instance, pretty much all the main brands at the CES in Las Vegas were banging on about how skinny their next generation of TVs were going to be, and JVC recently seemed positively cockahoop to announce at a press product preview that it was going to be the first brand in the UK to launch an ultraslim LCD TV in March.

Well, whoopee-ruddy-do. I mean honestly, does anyone really and truly care whether their next flat TV is a couple of centimetres slimmer than the ones you can buy now? They’ll both hang on the wall just the same, and the amount of living room ‘real estate’ they’ll eat up is in reality so similar as to be more or less negligible.

Doubtless the AV brands’ marketing machines will do their level best to make you believe that you ‘need to be slim to be in’, or some such fashion-based rot.

But as a, um, not especially skinny chap myself, I can tell you now that slimness really isn’t anything special. After all, does a TV’s skinniness improve picture quality? No it does not. Does being ultra-slim automatically make a TV sound better than its ‘fatboy’ rivals? Again, no.

Slim TVs will make certain compromises

In fact, it’s quite possible that the move to ultra-slim could have a negative impact on AV standards. In particular you’ve got to think that the sheer reduction in the space available to put an effective speaker could seriously damage audio performance.

But even with pictures it’s entirely possible that some brands might struggle to get their new skinny LCD panel designs to deliver the same image standards as their more established, chunkier designs.

At this point more informed readers might be wondering why I’ve not mentioned such cool sounding TV tech as OLED, LED and Quad HD. After all, all these things have been shown in public at the CES, and in private at closed industry gatherings.

But the truth is, none of these potentially stunning technologies – technologies which really could dramatically improve AV standards - are set to appear in 2008.

Don't pin your hopes on OLED

Sony and Samsung aren’t talking of any serious further OLED activity until 2009. LED technology is now being stated by pretty much everyone as being just too expensive to mass produce until 2009.

And Quad HD is frankly likely to be nothing more than a pipedream for the foreseeable future, as even an industry as prone to madness as the AV one is hardly likely to want to wind up a global population that’s only just plucked up the courage to embrace the current HD standard.

In other words, as I said at the start, 2008 really is looking like being potentially the most boring year in TV for ages, with the obsession with slimness actually looking like nothing more than an industry treading water.

Now, what we need to liven things up is a really nasty, vitriolic war between, say, two rival HD disc formats, with split studio support and… oh, no, hang on. Looks like that one’s already been and gone too. Damn.

When it comes to TVs, there are specifications and there are specifications. By which I mean that there are 'factual' specifications you can rely on, and 'fatuous' specifications used to make one TV look better than the rest no matter how dubiously they may have been measured.

The factual specifications are actually rather few and far between; probably just native resolution and screen size, in fact. Which means that more often than not the only apparent on-paper differences between various TVs come down to the fatuous ones. As a result it’s easy to understand why manufacturers might want to make these figures look as impressive as they can irrespective of how impossible to achieve in real-world conditions they might be. But that doesn’t make the practice any less annoying.

In fact, it seems to me that the situation has now got so silly that it’s actually made quoting some specifications, most notably viewing angles and contrast ratios, pretty much pointless.

A 176 degree viewing angle? Not likely!

Let’s start with viewing angles. You will now find practically every flat TV claiming a viewing angle of 176-178 degrees. Which, by my maths, means that you’re supposed to be able to watch it from practically a right angle to the left or right.

In real world conditions, however, this claim is usually utter cobblers. With the vast majority of LCD screens, you’ll be lucky if you can view the screen from anything more than 30-40 degrees off axis before the picture loses so much colour saturation and contrast that it becomes nigh-on unwatchable. That adds up to a real world viewing angle of just 60-80 degrees – far short of the figures claimed by the manufacturers.

To be fair, the viewing angle situation is rather better with plasma technology; you really can watch plasma pictures from pretty wide angles before the picture degrades too badly. But if anything that just makes the claims by LCD screens all the more cheeky, as they’re obviously just trying to appear on a par with plasma in this pretty important picture area even when they’re actually not even in the same ball park.

Don't get me started on contrast ratios...

When it comes to contrast ratios, my incredulity about the believability of some of the sky-high figures being claimed for various flat TVs reached a new high at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Various brands showing there, most notably Samsung, were bandying around such contrast ratio figures as 1 million to one for some of their new screens that surely just won’t be achievable in real world conditions.

The problem with contrast ratio figures, especially again with LCD technology, lies in the way they’re measured. The definition of a contrast ratio is the difference in luminance between the darkest possible part of a picture and the brightest possible part. But this definition is open to exploitation if you decide to measure the deepest black with the screen’s brightness turned practically to zero, and then measure the brightest white with the brightness set to maximum.

The above approach means that while the contrast ratio figure quoted is technically correct, you as a consumer will never be able to experience the full impact of that figure as the extremes it describes can’t exist on screen simultaneously.

How dynamic backlighting fakes deep black

Most LCD TVs actually unwittingly draw attention to this situation by using dynamic backlight systems, whereby the backlight is dimmed when dark scenes are detected in a bid to improve their perceived black level response. In other words, dynamic backlight systems simply prove how it’s actually impossible to get the deepest blacks on an LCD TV without sacrificing potentially significant amounts of brightness.

One or two more honest manufacturers sometimes quote two contrast ratio figures: one ‘out there’ figure based on manipulating the possibilities of a dynamic backlight system, and one genuine or native one that reflects a more real-world scenario. For instance, JVC’s 42DV8 LCD TV quotes a ‘theoretical’ contrast ratio of 3500:1, but a native contrast ratio of 1000:1.

For me it’s a real pity that there’s no organisation out there with the teeth to make all brands pursue a policy as honest as this. Maybe one day there might be. But until then I’d suggest that you don’t just treat contrast ratio and viewing angle figures with a pinch of salt, but actually dismiss them out of hand.

As an amusing footnote to all this, I attended a press conference at the CES in which Pioneer claimed that its upcoming KURO plasma TVs had an ‘infinite’ contrast ratio, and as such rendered the whole contrast ratio debate redundant. Great - if only I could bring myself to believe that their infinity claims were calculated fairly!  

I was continually dazed and confused at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, thanks to the joint effects of jetlag, a hideous cold, full pancake stack breakfasts and the endless noise of my hotel's slot machines.

But I was still able to spot irony when I saw it. And I saw it in spades on the stands of those arch Blu-ray supporters, Sony and Panasonic.

When Warner Bros dumped HD DVD

Not surprisingly both brands were in bullish form following the pre-show announcement - make that bombshell - that Warner Bros was going to go exclusively with Blu-ray from May of this year.

While a touch unseemly, though, such ebullience is entirely forgivable given the potential magnitude of the Warner Bros decision. But what was rather harder to swallow for a non-partisan home cinema fan like myself was the complete lack of irony with which the two brands were pushing the supposed benefits of the Blu-ray format.

Basically the Panasonic and Sony stands had big sections on them bragging in the loudest tones about two 'awesome new Blu-ray disc features'. The first is being able to watch two pictures at once - say for a filmed director's commentary track. The second, being able to access online supplemental materials.

This is all well and good, of course, except for one small detail: while these features are indeed new to Blu-ray, they've actually been available via the rival HD DVD format from day one of that format's launch. And that's the best part of two years ago!

Blu-ray still isn't finished...

To me, seeing the format that now looks likely to win the HD disc war bragging about only just being able to offer features that its struggling rival has always offered, was ironic in the extreme. Yet to the smiley, starry eyed people running the stands, these new features were just another great reason why Blu-ray is supposedly the best.

In fact, when I asked the 'booth people' what made Blu-ray's shiny new picture in picture and online features any different to those long offered by HD DVD, all I got was a slightly bemused look and a response along the lines of:

"Well, I didn't actually know HD DVD could do these things too, but I'm sure Blu-ray does them better'. Followed by a shrug that seemed to say: 'but who cares about HD DVD now anyway?'

As a person who's had the good fortune to see both the HD DVD and Blu-ray versions of the same films in recent months, I can say categorically that, in the vast majority of cases, the HD DVD versions have been better thanks to their online features and use of picture in picture tools.

I stress again that these are not the warped findings of some deluded fanboy; I honestly am not bothered which HD format wins. In fact, I even suspect that in some technical ways Blu-ray is actually a marginally superior format to HD DVD. But it's a plain, undeniable fact that until now Blu-ray just hasn't been a finished format, and so hasn't even been playing on a level field.

The best reason to buy a PS3

In fact, the ultimate irony is that Blu-ray isn't even finished now. For while picture in picture Blu-ray discs have started to dribble off the production lines, all of the 'Blu-ray Live' online stuff Sony and Panasonic were making such a song and dance about at CES is, in fact, still not here in a fully working fashion.

It's not even part of the latest mandatory Blu-ray Profile 1.1 specification, for heaven's sake. So all those Blu-ray players you're now expected to immediately snap up will themselves arguably be outdated again when BD-Live (Profile 2.0) players finally hit shelves.

Obviously it's not unheard of by any means for the latecomer to a technology format war to end up winning. But if Blu-ray has now pretty much seen HD DVD off, it's pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of winning without actually ever having caught up!

Many tech journalists, myself included, were expecting new iPhone firmware at Macworld this week. And we got it - I upgraded to v1.1.3 yesterday, right after the Steve Jobs keynote.

Apple rolled out six new features with the new 1.1.3 iPhone firmware - Google Maps with location-finding; Web Clips; customisable home screens; the ability to send text messages to multiple people (finally); plus video chaptering and onscreen lyrics.

Location-finding via Google

The most useful addition to the 1.1.3 iPhone update is the ability to pinpoint your geographical location using the Google Maps application. And without using GPS. Google added non-GPS location-finding to Google Maps on Symbian S60, Blackberry and Windows Mobile-powered phones in November last year.

On the iPhone, Google's location-finding works using a combination of GSM and Wi-Fi triangulation technologies. Google Maps can get a very basic geographical fix on your position by working out where your phone is in relation to any nearby GSM signal transmitters.

But the distance between transmitters usually means that GSM-based location-finding on its own is vague. So, an iPhone will know that you're in, say, Bath, but it won't be able to tell exactly where.

To get a more accurate fix, the updated Google Maps app also uses unique Wi-Fi data provided by Skyhook Wireless.

Wi-Fi Positioning System

Skyhook has developed what it calls a Wi-Fi Positioning System (WPS), which uses the signals that are broadcast from local Wi-Fi networks and public wireless hotspots to narrow down your location to within 20 metres.

So where GSM triangulation alone will tell you you're in Bath, somewhere, WPS can be much more precise. It can inform you that you're in Bath, north of the river Avon, on a road called 'The Ambury'. At least, that's where I'm writing this post from. And a 20-metre accuracy isn't bad. Especially when you compare it to the 10-metre accuracy of GPS.

Of course, GPS is available everywhere in the UK. WPS isn't. But as Apple can't magically add GPS tech to its existing iPhones, WPS is the next best thing.

WPS relies on a vast database that lists the known locations of over 23 million Wi-Fi access points. To obtain this information, Skyhook deploys specialised vehicles to survey city streets. These methodically scan for access points and plot their geographic location. Current WPS coverage is typically centred around heavily populated areas and Skyhook has already mapped UK cities such as London, Birmingham, Bristol (and Bath), Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds.

There's a coverage checker here.

Skyhook has your router listed

If you live or work in one of these cities, Skyhook's WPS technology is certainly effective and the way it works is quite ingenious.

When an iPhone requests its location using Google Maps, Skyhook's WPS software uses the iPhone's built-in Wi-Fi to scan for nearby access points. It doesn't try to connect to any access points that it finds, it simply collects a MAC address and the Receive Signal Strength Indicator (i.e. the proximity and strength of the 802.11 signal itself) from each one.

The WPS algorithm then compares this data to Skyhook's database of mapped access points. Finally, the WPS algorithm uses both data sets to calculate the iPhone's geographical location.

Tested in Bath, it works surprisingly well, successfully pinpointing our office on the 'Ambury' and then tracking down my position once I'd wandered aimlessly into the city centre to stand on Westgate Street. Search queries (i.e. "pub", "hotel", "pizza") returned a scattering of results centred around my location. I could also use my newly found 'current location' as a starting point if I wanted directions to somewhere else.

Privacy concerns?

Of course, this means that Skyhook's database undoubtedly has my own Wi-Fi router listed and the MAC address associated with it. Are there any privacy concerns about this?

Skyhook's FAQ suggests that the company secretively guards the Wi-Fi data that it's collected. It's the foundation of its business, after all. Without a magic list of Wi-Fi hot-spots, even the fanciest of location algorithms is next to useless. And besides, it's not as if Skyhook is hacking into my home network, it's just noting my existence down. I'm just another Wi-Fi dot on the big UK map.

Of course, if you own an iPhone but you don't live or work in one of the UK's big cities, you'll have to rely on GSM triangulation alone. And this probably won't be able to tell you anything about your location that you don't already know.

Yet again, it was wall to wall LCD and plasma panelry at CES this year. But it's about time punters realised the HD TV market is all about sparkly gimmicks and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses consumerism.

If you're remotely interested in the viewing experience, what you really want is a projector.

Preposterously pricey panels

The basic argument goes something like this. Even the largest, most preposterously pricey panels are plain puny compared to a good projector. For pure cinematic immersion, a decent projector is absolutely untouchable. And thanks to the recent fall in HD projector prices, you'd be mad to pay more money for a smaller, chronically inferior HD TV.

The details are obviously more complicated. I fully accept, for instance, that projectors are significantly less flexible than TV screens of any type. They don't work well during daylight hours or in brightly lit rooms.

They're also a pain to set up and difficult to seamlessly integrate into aesthetically sensitive living environments. The image itself might be thinner than even the funkiest new super slim sets shown at CES. But there's still the projection unit and messy cabling to deal with.

I also concede that today's HD TVs are light years ahead of the models being hawked as recently as 18 months ago. Prices for large format HD TVs are tumbling, too. You can now pick up a quality 40-inch Samsung unit with full 1080p resolution for under £800.

Making a 150-inch plasma look small

But why settle for 40 inches when you can have 140 inches. Or even 240 inches. With a projector, the physical dimensions of your home rather than the depth of your wallet define how big you can go.

Currently, there are several solid 720p DLP projectors available in the £500-600 segment. Just compare that as a value proposition to a £5,000 60-inch plasma TV. Hand on heart, I'd rather watch the £500 projector painting an eight foot image across my wall than the much pricier plasma. What's more, by this time next year, I reckon full 1080p projectors will be selling for under £1,000. Then it really will be no contest.

Much of the explanation for the roaring success of big HD TVs and the relative failure of projectors is down to combination of ignorance and rampant materialism. Punters, it seems, are desperate to have a large flat panel TV in their living room to complement that superstore-bought leather suite and the imitation blonde-wood flooring.

Sod the silly HD TV!

But if you have an ounce of image-quality nous in you, you owe it to yourself to at least try out an HD projector. In my experience, everyone is blown away the first time they see the cinema-busting scale of an HD projector running in a home environment.

So, here's what I recommend for your next TV and home cinema set up. Sod the silly, premium-priced HD TV. Instead, buy an HD projector and a smaller, cheaper TV.

A 32-inch or so 720p TV can be had for peanuts. That's plenty for casual TV viewing, catching the news when you step in from work and all that jazz. Then, when you fancy some serious viewing courtesy of an HD disc player, HD movie or sports content from Sky HD, or perhaps Apple's new HD movie download service (when it arrives in the UK), fire up the projector.

And enjoy a home cinema experience that the flat panel-owning hordes can scarcely imagine.

If there's one thing we love about Apple's annual Macworld show it's the ability to generate its own hype, weeks before anything has actually been announced.

With so much secrecy surrounding every single Apple announcement and a global audience of fans whipping themselves into a frenzy over every perceived hint, it all makes for good sport.
Something in the Air

This year is certainly no different. As Steve Jobs adds the final touches to Tuesday's keynote speech, the Apple rumour mill is in overdrive once again. Especially since a number of giant banners with the words "There's something in the air" were spotted hanging from the rafters of the Moscone Center in San Francisco over the weekend.

A lot of rumours claim that the banner purports to the impending announcement of a size-zero subnotebook... a MacBook so light it floats. The MacRumours.com website has even suggested that this new notebook is to be called the MacBook Air. This new portable will reportedly lack an optical drive and employ 1.8-inch solid-state Flash memory (64GB?) instead of a standard 2.5-inch hard-disc drive in its quest to shave off some extra fat. We'll see, we'll see.

Another explanation for the banner could be the introduction of WiMAX into Apple laptops, and possibly even the rumoured size-zero MacBook. Businessweek.com notes that Apple chipmaker Intel "loves" the long-distance wireless connection technology. The only problem, as Valleywag.com points out, is that beyond Intel and Sprint in the US, WiMAX currently has little support.

Maybe Apple is about to change all that. But what's the point of a WiMAX-equipped notebook without widespread WiMAX coverage?
Spinning the rumour mill

Another popular rumour doing the round is that the banner refers to an impending announcement of an improved version of AppleTV, with the ability to stream rental movies from the iTunes store. Of course, sales last year didn't hit the giddy heights Apple had hoped for, but maybe Steve Jobs can see something in it we can't.

Then again, maybe it's a 3G version of the iPhone. We'd certainly settle for that.

Other slightly more quirky suggestions we've seen over the past few days include Apple Airlines, Apple-Nike branded trainers, an Apple hoverboard and wireless electricity for all Apple products. Ouch. There's even been some speculation on one message board that the slogan refers to a joint bid by Google and Apple for the 700MHz spectrum! That's extremely unlikely, but out there in Apple-land, nothing is ever quite impossible.

Check back tomorrow and all will be revealed. It's probably all hot air anyway... Ouch!

At first sight the recently announced deal between Microsoft and BT allowing UK Xbox 360 gamers to access BT Vision through their console seems like a win-win situation.

However, look a bit closer and things aren't all they seem.

Here's the catch...

BT Vision doesn't actually deliver live DTT/Freeview TV over a broadband connection into the home. Only the on-demand element of the service is actually delivered by IPTV. To receive Freeview via BT Vision requires a dedicated BT Vision set-top box, which is essentially two DVB-T tuners and a built-in 160-gig hard drive.

Granted, BT do throw one of these V-boxes in for free when customers sign up to the BT Vision service, although it's subject to a one-off £30 "connection fee".

The reason why potential Xbox owners might be confused is that BT is basically dressing two separate and distinct technologies, with different delivery methods, as one shiny package. Oddly enough, Monday's announcement of the Microsoft-BT Vision deal somewhat glossed over this fact. Maybe they thought their target market tech-savvy enough to understand the nuances of what they could or couldn't access?

Pay as you watch

What it all boils down to for Xbox 360 users is this: they won't be able to watch or record live Freeview using only their console and a broadband connection. BT assures us that it will be possible to stream or transfer Freeview programming to an Xbox 360, but only with the assistance of an additional set-top box, such as the BT Vision V-Box.

It's a far-cry from Sony's proposed PlayTV gizmo for the PlayStation 3, which is a combined Freeview (DVB-T) TV tuner and Personal Video Recorder (PVR).

Instead, what Xbox 360 owners will get is access to BT Vision's various on-demand pay services, which include films, "nearly-live" Premier League matches and TV shows.

Or will they? There's another potential catch here, because unless you've signed up to a 12- or 18-month BT Broadband contract you won't be able to access anything. Not even the on-demand services, for which you'll be required to pay up front for - either pay-as-you-watch or a monthly subscription.

"In order to receive the service you will need to meet the requirements set out online at www.bt.com/btvision," say the BT Vision T&Cs, "and your BT Total Broadband service must be activated and subject to a line survey test that we will perform."

It all goes to show that no matter how glitzy the PR launch, there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

The Christmas holidays are a chance to put in some serious time console gaming. Excellent. Um, except for the fact that last week, at least, my gaming talents appear to have completely deserted me.

Seriously, it's bizarre. I used to hold my own against most of the Yanks playing Halo 3 on the Xbox 360 online, or strum my guitar in perfect time with the music on Guitar Hero III. But last week I was getting shotguns in my face before I'd even noticed anyone was there, and my musical timing was so bad that Brian May was crying into his magnificently unfashionable hair.

Bad reflexes or technical troubles?

What's going on? Was my age suddenly catching up with me? Were my reflexes giving up the ghost? Thankfully, no. It turns out the reason for my new-found crapness was, in fact, my TV. Let me explain...

The main review product in my life recently has been Philips' massive and actually rather magnificent 52PFL9632D. Watching films and TV on this 52-inch beast is an absolutely joy, as it produces quite possibly the finest big-screen LCD pictures I've seen to date. Even my HD games on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 look totally gorgeous.

But it's impossible to ignore the fact that my sudden downturn in gaming skills coincided with the 52PFL9632D's arrival. And now I come to think of it, I had a similar skills blip when Philips sent its 'Aurea' TV to me a couple of weeks back. Hmm.

To check if this was just a coincidence, I fired up an old Sagem DLP rear projection TV I've got lying around (!), stuck on Guitar Hero III again, and lo: I was plucking all the right chords in all the right places. Phew.

What? Why? How?

But exactly how, you're doubtless wondering, could the Philips TVs be affecting my reflexes? Am I being put off by Philips' Ambilight system or something?

The answer actually lies in the vast amount of image processing Philips applies to the 52PFL9632D's pictures before producing them on its screen.

For powerful though the TV's processors are, the sheer amount of operations they're having to perform on the picture means there's a slight delay between the pictures arriving at the TV's inputs and them finally appearing on screen. And it's this delay that appears to be turning me into a gaming eunuch.

You see, I'm only reacting to what I'm seeing on screen, yet because of the TV processing lag, what I'm seeing on screen is no longer what my consoles are seeing. They've moved on without me. The result is that I constantly look rubbish.

Gaming lag

After some experimentation, it turned out that I could make the situation marginally better on the 52PFL9632D by deactivating as many optional elements of its video processing as possible. But I never managed to get completely back on top of my game.

I don't mean to suggest in this blog that nobody buys any of Philips' new TVs. Far from it; they're actually class-leading performers with video sources, as I suggested earlier. But if you're a really dedicated gamer, the sort of problems I've described probably do need to play a part in a TV buying decision.

Ideally you'd actually take Guitar Hero III into a store with you to try on different TVs. But given that this is hardly practical, you may actually find yourself in the seemingly daft situation of having to look at relatively low-rent TVs with minimal video processing systems!

Sigh. All in all, this is starting to look like yet another reason to finally hang up my joysticks and do something more useful with my spare time instead. Yeah, right...

Freelance technology writer and reviewer John Archer reports on the hottest products and issues to catch his eye this week...

With the future of the HD disc already under threat from a debilitating format war and the potential popularity of downloadable films, you'd think the HD disc fraternity would be going out of their way to woo as many electronics brands as possible to their respective causes.
But actually, the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps seem so obsessed with ripping each other's throats out that they're in danger of leaving their friends to rot.

In an earlier blog (see: A tale of two Sonys) I talked about how the affordability and upgradability of the PlayStation 3 console made it arguably the only Blu-ray player worth buying. And this week the same sort of 'one man band' problem seems in danger of afflicting HD DVD, too.

Kicking off this train of thought are Toshiba's latest two HD DVD players: the EP30 and EP35, which I've been looking at this week as part of my reviewing duties for What Video & High Definition TV magazine. (Tech.co.uk has already taken a look at the EP35).

Of the two, the EP35 is a particularly well-specified beast, with 1080p/24fps support, HDMI 1.3 output with Deep Colour functionality, 7.1 bitstream audio support via HDMI, and 5.1-channel analogue line outs for piping out various audio formats, including the ultra high quality Dolby True HD. Yet it costs just £350.

It's almost unbelievable that such a clearly premium player in a relatively new, high-end home entertainment market should already be so cheap. Yay.
But the fact is that the EP35's low price could well cost us punters in other ways, most notably in a lack of HD player choice.

The cynics and Blu-ray fanboys amongst you are probably already thinking that the phrase 'HD DVD Choice' is a classic contradiction in terms. The only people doing HD DVD players appear to be Toshiba.

However, not one but two new HD DVD player brands have launched products this month from Ventura and Onkyo.

Yet because Toshiba has allowed the prices of even its step-up EP35 HD DVD player to plummet far lower than anyone would have anticipated even as recently as six months ago, the Venturer SHD7001 (always designed as a budget option) has had to offer an extremely basic spec in order to stay priced below the Toshibas. And for Onkyo, the situation seems even worse.

I contacted Onkyo recently with a view to reviewing their player, the £699 DV-HD805. But after a bit of a delay they basically got back to me to say that they were no longer actively pushing the player as they felt they'd been left too high and dry on price to be able to compete.
The problem is, Onkyo started working on the DV-HD805 - which is based around Toshiba's now aging XE1 player - in the good faith belief that Toshiba would still have a player in the marketplace that was in the same sort of price ballpark. So stepping up to the Onkyo's extra qualities, especially in the audio department, wouldn't seem like too much of a stretch for the videophile/audiophile market.

But the unexpectedly dramatic price erosion in the rest of the HD DVD market means that you're now looking at finding double the money for the Onkyo over the Toshiba - a hike Onkyo just doesn't feel confident many people will be able to justify.

Yet Onkyo can't just dramatically drop the HD805's price because it developed the product all the way along with a specific price in mind that would give them a workable return for their licensing and R&D outlay.

Onkyo is thinking about coming back in a bit with a cheaper model, but if the HD format war continues to hit rock-bottom prices like it is now, any new product could end up in precisely the same boat as the HD805. That is, as a product that's had the pricing rug pulled from under it before it can even launch.
In other words, in classic 'format war' style, the bitter rivalry of the HD disc battle is in very real danger of leaving both chief protagonists with absolutely sweet FA in the shape of a market that's dead on its feet.

After all, if a lack of confidence in the market from other potentially supportive brands means we end up with just two manufacturers left in the game, Toshiba for HD DVD and Sony for Blu-ray, the whole HD disc market place could become so marginalized that people frankly just forget about it, and look at other HD options instead.

All of this just goes to prove, of course, one thing you already knew already. That the whole idea of having another format war over something as important as the first high definition disc format is as stupidly self-destructive for both sides as it is annoying for us punters.

Making matters even worse for the opposing HD disc sides is the now very imminent arrival of new dual-format players from LG and Samsung. Provided these are decent performers, multi-format players will surely almost immediately establish themselves as the only HD players worth buying.

Which would mean, of course, that Toshiba, Sony and anyone else forced by stubbornness and/or industry politics to support just one format will be left even more out in the hardware sales cold than they are already.

And if that's not the very definition of irony, I don't know what is.

* What do you think? Agree or disagree with John? Email us today and have your two cents at editor@techradar.com.

Freelance technology writer and reviewer John Archer reportson the hottest products and issues to catch his eye this week...

To say the Great British Public - yes, that means you - isobsessed with flat TVs would be an understatement.

Apart from the odd projectorhere and there, flat screen tellies are pretty much the only thing anyone seems to bebuying. Yet I really don't think this is how it should be.

For while they're getting ever-harder to find (because nobody is buying them), I'd really like to stick up for rear projection TVs.

Big is beautiful

These poor, misunderstood creatures seem to suffer with animage problem that's almost completely undeserved, and which could well bespoiling your chances of getting the best TV for your money.

My inspiration for this is JVC's DLA-65DS8 Hybrid TV - a rear projection TV using JVC's now-superb DILA projectiontechnology. The DLA-65DS8 delivers a truly huge 65-inch screen size that can be bought -including the cabinet stand - for well under £3,000.

Crikey. Just try getting aflat TV that large for that little money.

While size matters, though, I'd be the first to say that size isn'teverything. In fact, if a TV's pictures suck, they'll only look worse thebigger they get shown.

But as the DLA-65DS8 amplyproves, rear projection TV pictures have come a (very, very) long way fromthose godawful efforts you used to try and watch in sports bars back in the1980s.

RPTV outperforms LCD

Colours now actually stay in the right place rather thanleaking all over the shop; pictures are bright enough to see easily (even inlots of ambient light); and the perpetual feeling that the picture was out offocus has been replaced by pin-point full HD precision.

Even the old rear-pro problem of average to poor blacklevels has been solved by the DLA-65DS8 - and by Sony's similar