Digital TV

By -
Los reyes magos left a digital TV decoder under the siñorita's Christmas tree as they did in many homes across Spain this year. It was a Philips decoder and was slightly more expensive that the others but was nice and compact. It very easy to set up. It prompted me for a country (Ireland wasn't there) and then a postcode. I hope the postcode was to make it more efficient in some way and is not part of some rights management issue that would prevent viewing of otherwise available channels. I was impressed. There were some twenty-odd channels and most of them were useful. Spanish networks are in the habit of broadcasting programmes both in Spanish and in the original version. That usually means English, although it was briefly entertaining to watch manga in 日本語.

I visited my sister in France over the break. Digital TV has come to France also. There, however, the programmes seem seem to be only in English. This is a wasted opportunity.

A buddy of mine called to the house today with his laptop and digital TV decoder. I wanted to see if the signal was strong enough at my house to justify splashing out. It was. Cork is one of the first places to have a digital signal. The only question now is do I buy a decoder for my computer or my TV. The live ability to record to the hard disk is pretty cool. But I would really like to get to see HD TV on my nice TV. It seems a waste not to use it if I can.

TV decoders are not available to buy in Ireland at the moment. That's a pity on account of the recession and all, it might be the only thing in the shops actually selling. If I want one I'll have to import one from one the countries that uses a similar system to Ireland. And Amazon.fr ships electronics to Ireland. Strangely Amazon.co.uk does not. But in any event a UK decoder is no good to me. Both Spain and the UK are using a different system from Ireland. As far as I know the French system is the same as Ireland.

Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spencer Tunick (non) Exhibition

By -
Image
The exhibition of photographs taken by Spencer Tunick last year was on recently. It was called an exhibition, but they didn't even go to the expense of making prints. The photos were projected from a PC. It is interesting that despite the huge fanfare that accompanied the taking of the photographs, the display of the photos themselves was a non-event. The artist, as far as I know, did not even put in an appearance. This suggests that my suspicions were justified. It was never about creating photographs. It was about hundreds of people getting naked in a field. The photography was a side show. I am a bit disappointed by the pictures that were displayed. I found some of Tunick's other work very interesting. The Blarney pictures are a bit twee, sort of John Hinde postcards with naked people.
Read more

Bye Bye Eircom

By -
My Eircom broadband will be disconnected in the next 24 hours. The company made the classic mistake that large incumbent near-monopoly operators make : denial. For almost two weeks I had problems with my internet service. I concluded it was an issue with the name servers. I went several times to the Eircom website to see if it was a known issue but there was nothing there. When I eventually read about the problem it was in the Irish Times . I continued to have problems but the Eircom website insisted that although there had been a problem it had since been resolved. When I contacted Eircom to find out how to have my service disconnected (there's no easy way to find this information) I got a form response telling me that all was well, but telling me none of the things I asked for. When I eventually spoke to someone today I got the expected "not our fault" attitude. That was a mistake. "Eircom is very very sorry" was the only appropriate stance to take. At var...
Read more

Weeds Season 3

By -
I like Weeds. The episodes are short and densely packed with plot and wit. It is a dark drama based on a widow who turns to drug dealing to support her suburban lifestyle. There's plenty of interesting commentary and observation of the conformity of suburban life, and the thin veneer that covers the dark goings on behind closed doors. Weeds inhabits the same world as American Beauty. I think though that it misses the mark slightly. The problem with Weeds is that it is not dark enough. The inevitable violence of the drug business has a cartoon quality. So the danger that drives much of the plot and the tension is somewhat unreal. When one character is very seriously injured in a non-drug related incident, his injuries and his pain and suffering are played for laughs. Some interesting characters have become cartoon stereotypes. So when another character is beaten up (off screen) by a drug gang it's hard to take it seriously. Instead of being like the Desperate Housewives meets...
Read more