Watch and learn

Posted on 16 Jan 2009 at 15:42

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Gallery

Living the high life might seem a distant dream in the present Siberian economic climate. But you don't have to be a Russian oil tycoon to enjoy the luxury of 21st Century home media.

High definition

Blu-ray is the latest generation of optical disc, a step forward from DVD. The only rival format, HD DVD, was discontinued last year. Drives use a blue laser in place of the previous red, achieving a storage capacity of 25GB for a single layer disk and twice this for dual layer, compared to 4.7 and 8.5GB respectively for DVDs. Movies are now available from all the major distributors in BD-ROM format, while BD-R and BD-RW discs are available to users wanting to burn their own - though drives that can do this, rather than just playing BD-ROMs, are still very expensive.

A 50GB disk can store over nine hours of HD (high definition) video. There are various standards for HD movies, with combinations of 720 or 1080 image lines and progressive (p) or interlaced (i) scan. More lines are better, and progressive is better than interlaced, so the top quality standard is 1080p. TV sets described as 'HD ready' may not have 1080 pixels, so check this before buying if you want to get the best from the best discs. Most 22 inch PC monitors have a resolution of 1680x 1050, but a few models now match 1080p's 1920x1080 resolution, such as the ViewSonic.

Wireless transmission

What if you want to connect a PC in one room to a TV and/or hi-fi in another? You can run wires around your house, invest in a digital streamer such as the Netgear EVA8000, or get an AV sender. This takes analogue audio and video signals from your PC and converts them to a radio signal. One or more matching units connected to your TV and/or hi-fi receives the radio signal and converts it back to analogue input. Products for HD video are pointlessly expensive, but for standard resolution you can pay less than £50. If you have a WiFi network (or your neighbours do!) it may help to pick a sender that works in the 5.8GHz band, rather than 2.4GHz, to avoid interference. Emprex and Nikkai are among the manufacturers with 5.8GHz products.

Being able to access media on your PC is of limited use unless you can control it too. Some AV senders can forward infra red remote control signals, which may be handy if you have an IR remote for your media centre PC or TV tuner. Wireless keyboard and mouse sets are available, of course, but Bluetooth models won't have enough range. Radio frequency models that claim to work 10 metres from the PC are available from around £20, but in practice they may not work anything like as far as that from the PC, especially if there are walls in the way.

Radio on the PC

Some TV adapters also provide FM radio, which will give you good audio quality on your PC, especially with an external aerial. DAB (digital audio broadcasting) is another option for receiving many of the conventional radio channels in the UK, but quality depends on the bandwidth used for each station, and can be disappointing compared to a good FM signal. DAB-compatible adapters for PCs are few and far between, though you may be able to pick up a second-hand Psion or Modular Technology product.

Both FM and DAB are limited to receiving radio stations broadcast in your vicinity. If you want a wider choice of channels, or don't want to bother with additional hardware, there's another alternative, albeit with lower audio quality: web radio.

Author: Mike Bedford