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Motorola Defy Mini Review 
The Downside Of Living In A Digital World 
Australia, NZ And South Africa To Share Square Kilometre Array 
Watch That Tiny $74 1.5GHz Android-Powered Thumb-Puter In Action Foxtel created a bit of a stir earlier this year when they launched their iQ2 PVR alongside their new range of HD channels. Even though the free-to-air networks all had HD channels broadcasting, there wasn’t a lot of content available in HD that really took advantage of the growing trend for homes to have Full HD TVs in the home. With their HD+ service, Foxtel hoped to bring HD content to the mainstream. And after more than three months of watching their HD channels, I can happily say the future looks bright for HD+, but at the moment it’s held back by a lack of variety in its content.
While high HDTV prices may have made this day seem improbable, iSuppli is reporting that HDTV shipments have outpaced SDTV shipments in 2008. And iSuppli doesn’t see HDTV growth slowing any time soon, ballooning by a compound annual growth rate of 20% through 2012 when an estimated 241.2 million HDTVs will ship. By that time, iSuppli projects that just 23.1 million SDTVs will hit store shelves. Sorry standard def. At least your spirit lives on in YouTube, Amazon Unbox and crappy video streams everywhere. [iSuppli via InformationWeek and image]
Just about a month after launching TV shows in high def on iTunes with NBC leading the charge, iTunes now offers shows in HD from every major network: ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC. So pretty much every major primetime show that matters is now in HD on iTunes, which is great if you don’t wanna settle for Hulu. AU: Note that in Australia, we still don’t have HD TV shows, and probably won’t until our broadband situation improves…
At face value, “1080p high definition” means 1920×1080 pixels presented progressive scan (all at once). But if a clip is 1080p that alone doesn’t necessitate that it will look good. Just as you can stretch a thumbnail in Photoshop to any gargantuan size you like, so too can content providers give you ugly 1080p.
We’ve been bringing you news on Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link for ages (it’s that net-connected, wired, Bravia-TV compatible movie-player device) and now Sony’s announcing official support for Amazon‘s Video on Demand service. So you’ll have “tens of thousands of premium movies and TV shows” for the device, and more importantly “streaming high-definition content” from Dailymotion, Sony Pictures Entertainment and other providers will be available too. Since it also streams YouTube and other sources, is it possible that the US$300 BIVL may make a dent in the home-streaming HD TV market? It could, with the might of Amazon and the sheer number of Bravias sold alone. Press release below.
All you city-dwellers out there – spare a thought for your poor, unfortunate rural brethren. For while you dine on the feast of High Definition delights afforded to you from Foxtel HD and the free-to-air TV channels, they have to rely on Austar, which has decided to take the “slow and steady and maybe not at all” approach to HD.
According to Australian IT today, Austar CEO John Porter has stated that launching HD channels on Austar probably won’t happen any time soon, as they are struggling to find a financial model that will actually make them money from new subscribers.
Although – just to confuse us all – he then stated that they will probably still release a HD-capable PVR in the 3rd quarter of 2009, although they may not accompany the hardware with any HD programming.
DirecTV is poised to take the lead in the HD battle by adding 30 extra channels starting on August 14th. That would give them 130 channels of HD in total–putting them well on their way to the 150 mark they floated around early this year. By the end of this month they also plan to be the first company to transmit all of their HD programming in the MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding standard with Dolby Digital Audio. And the icing on the cake will come later this year in the form of 1080p movies.
Canon’s AVCHD HF10 camcorder got an excellent reception earlier this year, and now Canon have tweaked it slightly into the upcoming HF11 version. The most important tweaks are doubling the internal storage from 16GB to 32GB and the addition of a 24Mbps high quality MXP imaging mode. Otherwise, most features of the camera remain the same. Similar tweaks have been made to last year’s HG10 HDD camera, adding in the 24Mbps shooting mode, a 120GB drive and now allowing movies to be saved onto SD card whereas before it was limited to still imagery. Both cameras will be available in August for US$1,300. [AVWatch]
Only back in May were we talking about another Times Square display—Walgreen’s one—and today Toshiba’s news is about its new display there. Sitting 86 metres in the air, the 15.6m by 16m display is a 1280 x 1248 pixel LED high-definition monster that uses some proprietary Technovirtual technology to create virtual pixels to achieve an even higher apparent resolution. It can show over a billion colours, and since it sits atop One Times Square, it’s got a pretty commanding view over the streets. And environmentalists may be pleased to learn it replaces a previous screen that consumed much more power. High-def advertising and green credentials? Impressive. [Toshiba]
The high definition wizards at RED have a new design update on their Red Scarlet HD Pocket Pro, their handy high definition camera priced under US$3,000, which can shoot 3k resolution 120fps video. Looking at the new rugged exterior, it can probably shoot anti-matter beams or armour-piercing grenades too. We want. [Scarlet user]
