A New Year - Go as you mean to go on!

They say you should start the year as you mean to go on, so i felt i better write something today or already doom 2013 to the scrap heap! Lets hope it isn't too literal that saying as i had curry and a cupcake with coffee for breakfast.

What can i say about 2013, not a lot so far. However i can look forward and muse over what will be and might be. Where to start, well the long awaited upgrade from the hunk of junk laptop which required fork handles (four candles, for those who didn't get the Two Ronnies reference and if you didn't then shame on you and see it here) to keep cool, is now imminent with the new desktop PC being built next week hopefully. Now before you all get your hopes up that i will have some all singing and dancing gaming beast of a PC, in true Nosh fashion it is only a half baked PC in need of more bits. I am cannibalizing an old case, disk drives and the Hard drive from my laptop as I'm too poor to get new ones, however they are on the to buy list when i have some money along with a graphics card, which does mean i am still using onboard graphics but they should still be better than my laptops.

Ultra HD - The reason your new HD TV is already on the way out!

Recently changed to HD? Just bought a nice big flat screen TV and have had all your friends/family and neighbours over to have a look. Well I’m here to tell you it’s old tech and on its way out. Now before you start crying and rue the day you signed that agreement on easy monthly payments for 5 years with high levels of interest! It is ok, its successor has only really just started to emerge on the commercial market and isn’t actually expected to be commercially viable and prevalent in homes before 2015-2020 apart from in China and Korea who are hoping for 2013-14 time frame.

How can HD be Beaten?

What could possibly be better than the “Michelangelo in motion” HD TV sitting in your lounge you must be asking yourself, well it is Ultra HD! Ultra HD I hear you shout how can that be, well I aim to introduce those new to Ultra HD to the world post HD in all its many pixelled glory. Ultra HD has actually been being developed since the early 2000’s and comes in two internationally recognised sizes 4K and 8K, or 3840 × 2160 (2160p) pixels and 7680 × 4320 (4320p) pixels respectively. This means in the case of 8K Ultra HD there 16 times the number of pixels in your current 1080p HD TV! What is the point in extra pixels, well it means greater depth of colour in each part of the picture bringing it ever closer to trying to show the scene exactly as if you were there yourself.

Is it expensive? Where can I buy it?

Why haven’t I heard about this, will they be available to buy? The answer is yes, commercial Ultra HD TV’s have begun to appear from the major companies such as LG, Sony, Toshiba and Sharp. However as this technology is still really only just beginning to enter the market there are the usual problems for early adopters to consider, few models so small amount of choice and highly expensive. How expensive can it really be you ask? Well models starting to become available in the later half of this year in the US market have been around the $20,000 mark! So it is really only for those with far too much money burning a hole in their pocket at the moment.

Can I see Ultra HD anywhere?

Well if you had been in London, Glasgow or Bradford during this summer’s London 2012 Olympic Game’s you would have had the chance to watch some of the world’s finest sports stars compete in Ultra HD, as the BBC put up 15m wide screens showing it. Korea’s major TV networks have said that they will be beginning to trial filming in Ultra HD, so with the BBC the world’s largest broadcaster having already invested and publicly demonstrated it during the Olympics, the rest of the world especially the US and Asian tech giants can’t be far behind the inevitable transition.

Does that mean my DVD’s/Blu Rays etc have had it?

Unfortunately your DVDs won’t be upscaleable currently to Ultra HD but HD video in 1080p or 720 would be able to be brought up to Ultra HD quality. This is much in the same way Videos and VCR player are still useable currently but the quality isn’t as good as on a DVD or really even comparable to HD on a Blu Ray. However don’t despair the first wave of Ultra HD TV’s look to be equipped with HDMI connections so your DVD player and other devices should still be able to connect and be useable.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at the future of TV tech in the form of Ultra HD. I will probably revisit this topic and write another article once they actually start to be sensible money and available to the masses.

Thanks for reading.

Nosh, Signing Out.  

Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-definition_television

http://www.t3.com/hot100/4k-ultra-hd-kit

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/11/30/lg-releases-23000-84in-ultra-hd-4k-tv-in-the-uk/

Hardly a Review: H+

I came across this interesting little web series last week, and after devouring the episodes so far I decided to share it with you lovely people, oh aren’t you lucky! H+ is a post-apocalyptic survival crossed with the sort of conspiracy laden drama you’d expect from the likes of J. J. Abrams. The show deals with the concept of post-humanism and the story centres around the H+ implant, which is essentially a smartphone in your head, and the inevitable pitfalls of technology that have been explored by authors dating back to Frankenstein. The show is set at an unspecified time in the future, with the only reference point being how long it has been from or to the day when “it happens.”

The main driving plot element is a computer virus infecting everyone with a H+ implant and killing them instantly, hitherto referred to simply as “the incident,” for simplicities sake, and because calling any event “the incident” just makes it sound infinitely more badass. Only a few survivors survive through the virtue of either being out of wifi range, or being one of the rural poor without an implant (the one time either of these is a good thing). The show then goes on to show the survival of the human race after the incident, and feeds a drip of information as to why and how the incident came about. The method of telling the story however, proves to be almost as inventive as the story itself, being distributed in extremely small chunks, sometimes only two or three minutes long, on a very regular basis. The ordering of the episodes seems very deliberate, however viewers are encouraged to watch the show in any order then like, to see if they can gain an additional understanding of events.

Hardly A Review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012)

I watched this after it landed on the hall floor from Lovefilm, didn’t really know what to expect. So with some trepidation and a couple of hours to kill having already watched all the TV series I watch (Perks/Curse of being unemployed), I sat down to watch this.

What did I find you ask? Well, what I first mistook to be just a different angle on the Rom-com genre, substituting pensioners in the place of the usual preppy 20/30 something’s. Turned out to be an irreverent comedy following a group of British pensioners who decide to see out their golden years in India at the newly renovated Marigold Hotel, they go seeking opulence, sunshine and elephants.



However what they find after arriving is more Kevin McCloud and Grand Designs than the Ritz, not as in beautiful open plan living spaces with snazzy appliances, in what would be otherwise unaffordable postcodes. Nope the kind where they have no idea what they are doing and by the projected finished date have nothing but a shell and no money. The Marigold Hotel fits clearly in to this category as what they are confronted with is dusty shell filled with junk and rooms with a bed and door if they’re lucky!

The set backs experienced help to bring his group of aging strangers together but I know how clichéd you say but it is the experience of being changed by the culture and each other that makes this film worth watching. The stellar cast give superb performances which are often understated, allowing them to convey real emotion and sensitivity to problems and issues ranging from death of a spouse, through to homosexuality and racism.

A film worth watching with a great cast, if nothing else to understand how poorly I have probably described it. A film that tries to show that the past isn’t what defines the future and that when you let go of it, life and love can be found at any age.

Nosh, Signing Out. 

Hardly a Review: Revolution

This week’s going to be a fairly big week for post-apocalyptic reviews, but seeing as we’re in 2012 did you expect any less from tv show writers? I mean they need inspiration... and if it’s not 12 feet in front of their face it doesn’t exist! Yeah, that was a pretty low joke, but let’s face it, the worlds ending in three months, there’s no way they’ll find me in time. Anyways onto a show I’ve been looking forward to for months, and I’ve finally had the chance to catch the first two episodes.

Revolution is a post-apocalyptic adventure story set 15 years after pretty much every invention and major discovery made since 1850 mysteriously stops working. In the intervening decade and a half, the governments of the world have collapsed and been replaced by the militia’s who were sensible enough to grab the guns before the food. Remember citizens, in a survival situation, always go for the guns first. The story follows Charlotte Matheson and her posse as she tries to rescue her imprisoned brother from their feudal overlords and discover the part her father played in the blackout, and how it can be undone.