felix FRIDAY 07 MAY 2010 3

Technology Editor Samuel Gibbs

TECHNOLOGY technology.felix@imperial.ac.uk

The World Cup in HD Eye-bleeding

There’s only 34 days left till kick off. Are you and your TV ready?
detail abound
Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor get the World Cup in HD. The other
free-to-air service FreeSat HD, a part- Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor
nership between the BBC and ITV,
The World Cup is coming and it’s only currently offers BBC HD and ITV HD,
34 days away! That’s 32 of the best with other HD channels promised in

H
teams from around the world, bat- the next couple of years. As the name D, it’s the future and it’s might be the last of it’s kind however,
tling it out over 30 days, through group implies, FreeSat uses a satellite dish to here now! Or is 3D the if Microsoft and others have their way.
stages and knockout games, all to get pull down its signal, which is great if future? Why not 3DHD? Gone will the physical discs of yes-
their hands on that elusive golden tro- you happen to be living in a place with 3DHD on your 52” OLED terday be, and in with the newfangled
phy. That’s a lot of quality football, and a Sky dish or other digital satellite dish FreeviewHD TV. What a mouthful, super-highspeed, mega-turbo-ultra
this year we’ll get the chance to see the on the roof. Whether you’re thinking of and it looks like it’s only going to get connections and their instant down-
whole lot in glorious HD. getting rid of your Sky service or want worse in the near future with all sorts loads. Problem is Britian’s certainly not
Meh, I hear you say. Why would I to put up a new satellite dish, FreeSat of new acronym brandishing technolo- going to be ready for it if we go along
want to see football in HD? What pos- carries loads of free-to-air channels as gies on their way. with what government calls ‘highspeed
sible benefit is it to football? Well, I well as HD offerings. To take advan- It’s not all bad though, because pre- internet’. That’s 2Mbit ‘broadband’ if
could bang on about how HD has up tage of FreeSat HD you again need an sumably one day HD won’t be high- you didn’t know. My cellphone get’s
to 5 times the level of detail of SD, HD capable FreeSat box, which starts definition any more, once everything is that kind of bandwidth and honestly, I
and that it’s broadcast with a Dolby at around £100 or an HDTV with Free- HD. At that point we’ll get 4KHD; four think it’s practically crawling. What will
Digital sound track, but I’m not going HD-ready or Full HD, it doesn’t mean Sat HD built-in. FreeSat HD PVRs are times the eye-bleeding detail of regular 2Mbit be like in the future or even 2012
to hit you over the head with that old you’re watching an HD broadcast. But also available and they start around the HD. We already have cameras record- for that matter? The internet with the
rhetoric. it’s an easy and relatively painless up- £250 mark. ing things in 4K and even 8K, but that’s hand brake on I’m guessing.
grade for most, now that Freeview has If you want more channels than the a good thing, because once the relent- But what is government expected to
gone HD. For those of us in London, free-to-air services provide, then you less onward march of technology get’s do? Especially in this economic climate?
“everything that’s the Freeview service that you know
and love began broadcasting in HD in
might want to look at the various sub-
scription services that are available.
those kinds of displays into our homes,
we’ll already have the content available
In all honesty, I don’t know. I hope,
companies like Virgin Media and BT,
exciting about December of last year. Unfortunately
to receive the HD channels, BBC HD,
If you’re in a cable area then you can
take advantage of Virgin Media’s HD
to make them shine. The BBC and alike
have been recording things with HD
pile the investment in, to get us truly
connected in the Gbps realm, at least
football is pin sharp ITV HD and Channel 4 HD, you’ll have
to either buy a new TV with Freeview
packages with a V HD box costing you
a one off fee of £49 or free on the TV
cameras for years, which is why you can
get the old, yet still digitally recorded
in major cities. You can’t expect a com-
pany that has to make money to fork
and in exquisite HD built-in or buy a new Freeview HD
receiver. Similar to the Freeview boxes
XL package. You then pay for one of
the Virgin Media TV packages, which
programs in HD now.
Blu-Ray has been making grounds in
out a boat load to make sure Fred living
on his country estate is connected. The
detail” that were bought to receive the digital
free-to-air service in the beginning,
range from £11.50 to £29 without a
Virgin phone line. Virgin Media also
recent months, having shown a relative-
ly lack-luster adoption after ‘winning’
digital divide might end evolving into
the highspeed divide in the modern in-
these Freeview HD boxes pick up both offer a HD PVR box called the V+ HD, the format war with HD-DVD. Blu-Ray terconnected world.
SD and HD channels using only your which also costs £49 but has a £5 per
What does HD mean for the World TV aerial. If you’re in London you’ll month extra service fee attached to it.
Cup? Watching the World Cup in HD have to have your TV aerial pointed at The venerable Sky also offers HD
is about as close as most of us are go-
ing to get to actually being there. The
Crystal Palace, which most already will
be, so once you plug the box into it and
packages with the UK’s largest selec-
tion of HD channels. Sky HD is avail- Can’t get enough tech news?
colours are vibrant and rich, the crowd your TV you’re set. A Freeview HD box able in a dizzying plethora of options,
roars as if you were there, whilst the will cost somewhere in the region of packages and charges starting with Then why not check out the
players dance their skilful moves now £100 to £180, with Freeview HD PVRs the £28 Sky+HD starter. That includes UK’s weekly tech podcast
shown in incredible clarity allowing starting at about £250. There is one 2Mb broadband as well, although you’ll
you to see exactly what they’re doing. caveat however, if you live in a block have to have a BT phone line to take brought to you by two
And the goals; every curve of the ball; of flats, the internal aerial feed may advantage of it. That’ll give you the all Imperialites and a Bulgarian.
every swerve in the air; the rebounds, be filtered causing problems with the important BBC HD and ITV HD chan-
the deflections, everything that’s excit- HD broadcasts. If you think you might nels among others.
ing about football, is pin sharp and in have this problem, buy a Freeview HD And finally, if none of that’s possible, The Wrap Sheet Podcast
exquisite detail. box from a retailer that offers refunds your budget’s a bit tight perhaps, then
OK, OK, it sounds awesome. How do if it won’t work for you. your best bet is to find yourself a pub
I get it? I have an HDTV, I already have Of course Freeview HD, although with the games in HD, or take beers Available on iTunes or at
it right? Contrary to popular belief, the most recent service to introduce round to your mates place and camp in www.thewrapsheet.co.uk
just because you might have an HDTV, HD broadcasting, isn’t the only way to front of his massive HDTV.

Weekly Wrap-up: A quick guide to the best of the rest you might have missed
Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor retrofitted into a regular USB cable. Light Peak will be capable of, is only ing on the lights in the room your in. Dr. Andre Ng became the first cardi-
The demonstration unit pumped two the beginning, with trillions of bits per Intel also showed a prototype Atom ologist to use a robot to complete a re-
simultaneous HD streams down one second theoretically possibly over op- Z-packing phone running Quake 3 at mote heart operation, at the Glenfield
Another week in tech has flown by cable without even a stutter. According tical fibre. If Intel and Apple get their 100fps, which is way too fast to actu- Hospital in Leicester this week. By us-
whilst the majority of you have been to Intel, the initial 10Gbps bandwidth way, Light Peak could end up replac- ally play, but impressive none the less. ing a robot, cardiac surgeons can avoid
fighting your way through exams. So ing almost every type of connection; Intel’s making some bold claims how- the cumulative effects of exposure to
let’s have a quick recap to see what you displays, data, networking, everything. ever, and faces an up hill battle against X-rays, which are used to monitor the
might have missed in a pretty much Intel also announced this week that the extremely efficient and moderately progress of the operation. ‘As long as
Apple free week. we could have smartphones with ‘10 powerful ARM competitors. the connection’s reliable, the operation
Intel’s been busy this week with two days of standby time’, thanks to it’s could be performed from anywhere in
separate announcements of which Atom Z-series of processors. Previous- the world’, Dr. Ng was quoted as saying.
the first we’ve talked about in felix ly known as Moorestown, Intel hopes Is this the future of surgery, with brain
before: Light Peak. If you remember, the Atom Z will enable it to get a prop- surgery and a kidney transplant having
Light Peak is Intel and Apple’s shot at er foothold in the smartphone market already been performed using robots?
USB3 using the power of light. Yes, as currently dominated by ARM based And finally, those 3D specs you got
the name suggests, Light Peak pumps chips like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon. 10 with your 3DTV could work fine with
data down optical fibres as well as the days worth of standby time is appar- your mates incompatible 3DTV, just
more traditional copper variety. This ently achievable by only switching on by turning them upside down. Appar-
week Intel showed off a laptop kit- those parts of the chip that are required ent incompatibility solved. Format war
ted out with the optical technology The power of light. Intel’s Light Peak at any one time; a bit like only switch- Hold still a minute will you? averted. Absurdity inevitable.