Christmas TV guide for geeks

Friday, December 24th, 2010

As usual this Christmas there’s the best part of naff-all on the main channels, so for some real techie viewing it pays to look around the schedules – which is precisely what I’ve done. First, a disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea how good these programmes will be, I’m going in blind with the rest of you. So fingers crossed, here’s some geek content you might not have spotted…

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3D in the home: let the hype truly begin

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

So, you thought the 3D hype was already in full swing? Brace yourself, because over the next few weeks we’re going to see advertising campaigns, news stories and product announcements blitz our lives. And at least some of the blame falls at the door of that accursed World Cup.

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Do you actually want 3D?

Friday, February 27th, 2009

While researching an upcoming feature, I found a link from the BBC. Entitled “Why 3D is about to break through“, it explains the exciting world of 3D movies and projection, before concluding that it “looks like the future of 3D is firming up.”

Only trouble is, the article was from over a year ago. Since then I’ve been to see Beowulf at the IMAX, and toyed with an old game on one of Zalman’s monitors, but I can hardly say 3D leapt out at me through 2008.

This year, though, is different – one look at the barrage of 3D TVs launched at CES is enough to realise that. But while the industry hypes it, I’m intrigued to know whether you, the consumers, are actually interested in 3D at all. Going to a movie once in a while is one thing, spending your own money on kit is another entirely.

So, is it something you’d consider investing in? And, gaming and movies aside, are there any applications for which you see 3D being genuinely useful?

Entertainment industry? Heads in sand? Still? Surely not.

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

Want to know the most illegally downloaded TV show of 2008? It was Lost with 5.73-million downloads per episode, which across its four seasons makes for an astonishing number. Heroes and Prison Break complete a blockbuster top three, but it’s the show at number 6 on the pirate list that is most surprising.

Stargate Atlantis is rubbish. This is a fact. This one single photo should tell you just how rubbish it is, but if it doesn’t, well, let me tell you: It’s rubbish. Really.

But the real eye-opener is not that people like it, it’s that in 2008 more people downloaded each episode from torrent sites worldwide than watched it on TV in America. While the big shows mentioned above still roped in vastly more TV viewers than downloaders, Stargate Atlantis tipped over the edge.

Why this show? (more…)

Don’t miss any Christmas TV with our expert guide

Wednesday, December 24th, 2008

The Christmas TV schedules may be overflowing with goodies, but with hundreds of channels to keep an eye on and mum taking the remote control hostage for the Coronation Street special, how do you ensure you don’t miss any of your festive favourites?  Time to employ some high-tech tactics.

Here are five ways to ensure you’re not stuck watching re-runs of The Vicar of Dibley this Christmas.

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Are viewers “two-timing” their televisions?

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

If you were watching BBC2 last night you may have noticed that PC Pro was mentioned on a little show called Dragon’s Den. This has done interesting things to our web traffic, which lets us see just how watching TV has changed.

A couple of months ago I wrote a story about how people now routinely surf while watching TV. It seems that 70% of us now split our attention this way, for a variety of reasons; TV shows are generally slow-paced and dull, for one, and the internet lets us research what we see in real-time and add to the experience. Thanks to this unique opportunity we can dig a little deeper to see if this is true.

Between 9pm and 10pm last night – when the show was broadcast – we experienced a jump in traffic of around 1,100 new users. This is down to the fact that my review for the Very PC Treeton is the second result for “Very PC”, the company who kindly plugged us by waving its PC Pro award around, on Google. Clearly, people were searching for the company while watching the presentation.

However, if you assume that most browsers would click on the first link – 90% perhaps – then you only have a figure of 11,000 people “two-timing” their television with their laptops – a tiny percentage of its total viewers.

Mind you, PC manufacturers aren’t going to grab the attention of the average viewer, so perhaps the jury is still out on this one.

Why is PC gaming intent on killing itself?

Monday, June 16th, 2008

Today’s launch (and review) of Nvidia’s latest enthusiast cards staggered me. The GeForce GTX 280 is fast, blisteringly so; but it’s also mind-bendingly, incomprehensibly, ball-achingly expensive. It’s certainly not the first – every new launch seems to have such prices attached – and it won’t be the last. But £430 for a graphics card?

Let me set my stall out right from the outset: I once spent in excess of £300 on a Radeon 9800 Pro with a fancy blue cooler just to play Far Cry in all its glory. Being a student, I had no money and even less sense, but it just seemed like something I had to do – how else would I experience something so beautiful?

A launch like the GTX 280 should be like technological Viagra to me, then, shouldn’t it? (more…)