For some reason, the non-terrestrial channels on our Sky+ box are showing very dark on the TV.  If you switch to BBC1/BBC2/ITV/C4 it looks fine (they’re still being delivered via Sky+ over the same SCART connection).  But anything else you can actually see it ‘flip’ to a darker picture.  On top of that, any dark scenes are causing the black on the TV to get totally saturated and you can hardly see any detail.

I’m positive it only started doing this in the last couple of weeks, maybe even after I switched in the new Sky+ viewing card.

It’s really frustrating me.  I hate when ’simple’ technology like this doesn’t work and hate it even more that I can’t fix it.

So I’ve seen 18 episodes of Fringe now, and a comment from Mark prompted me to blog about how it’s going.  I’m still compelled to watch each week (which is good), and while there are dips of ‘odd thing which Walter solves’ there are also highs of ‘really odd thing which explains some stuff and asks more questions’.

It’s worth saying again, this is not a programme which intends to depict fringe science as anything but totally made up.  The writers take a thread of what might be a possible thought about the existence of some concept in fringe science and then turn it into something totally outlandish.  Don’t watch it for the science.  It’s an FBI / Weird-Shit-Goes-On investigation programme.

So are we any nearer to knowing things?  Yes and no, during the season we’ve learned something things about Olivia, we’ve had some hints about Peter, both his past as a child and maybe his past as a young man.  We’ve learned a little about Walter, but mostly there are still many questions.  In the last few episodes it feels like we’ve had some deeper revelations but JJ could just be toying with us.  I’m pleased at how the relationship between Olivia and her boss (Phillip Broyles) has improved.  It grated on me that they didn’t trust each other at the outset.  I’m pleased as well that we’re seeing Olivia unravel to some extent, she’s seeing a lot of weird shit and it needs to have some impact if we’re to give it any kind of credibility.

If you like detail – then you’ll like the series.  Most of this goes over my head, I’m just in it for the story and the characters, but JJ makes sure there’s a lot of detail.  For example, the colour motif (red, yellow, blue) shows up for several episodes, several times an episode.  A line of M&M’s, a poster in a nightclub, lights in a room, even the gore on a body.  The fan forums are full of people discussing the deeper meaning of the tiniest things like that, I scan them every now and then but I don’t need them to enjoy the shows.

Threads sometimes get dropped and never resurface (we’ve not heard anything about the odd egg-shaped things travelling through the earth from an early episode), and sometimes they do come back (the glass discs).  Links are starting to appear, but as I said, JJ is likely to be messing with us on some level.

In general, I feel that it’s been worth watching, I’ve enjoyed most of the individual episodes for what they are, I’m starting to enjoy the arc that is forming and I’m interested in knowing where it goes.  I’m hoping that JJ won’t annoy the shit out of me with a huge cliffhanger ending to series 1, but somehow I think I’m going to be upset.

Criminal Minds is finally back on in the UK this week on Living!  Normally I don’t look forward to TV programs this much but CM is just excellent.  Really looking forward to the opening episode after the cliffhanger at the end of last series.

I did quite a bit of standby and call out (and a little overtime) in November and December and due to various timings, all my claims got stacked up and paid in February.  Which was good news because I needed to pay off the dental work on the visa card and think about organising the rest of it.  But it also meant we had a little spare cash, and that was added in to the reduction of my mortgage by £100 and not having to pay council tax this month.  So I decided to do my bit to end the recession by spending and not saving¹.

After wavering a lot recently about Blu-Ray, and deciding not to get a PS3 when I finally did go for Blu-Ray but to get a dedicated player, I did a complete about-face this morning.  Playstation 3 bought from Tesco (proof that supermarket points schemes work, price was roughly the same as other places, but we get points at Tesco that we can buy food with when the vouchers come through).  I also bought the Matrix Blu-Ray set (needed something to watch on it), and we got LittleBigPlanet free with the PS3.

Got it all home, disconnected the optical audio from the Sky+ box and plugged it into the Playstation², and it was all up and running.  The PS3 did some updates (two, I think), and LittleBigPlanet tried to do some, but it got a big confusing, and then finally worked.

We watched bits of the Matrix and were awed by the clarity and the colour and the detail.  I also put our original DVD Matrix in and tried it with and without the PS3 upscaling.  I even took some photo’s to try and show people how clear Blu-Ray is, because I can’t find any good examples online.  While I was looking at the photo’s I noticed the Matrix Blu-Ray pictures were a totally different colour to the DVD.  Seriously, much more blue and green.  I was a little worried, was that normal?

Then I played LittleBigPlanet for an hour or so – looks like it might be fun.  Between levels the screen goes fully white though and after that hour I was getting a headache.

We eventually settled on watching the Matrix tonight to really see how good Blu-Ray was, and to try and convince myself the colours were okay.

And then I remembered – our TV sets preferences on a per-input basis, so the HDMI2 channel we were watching the PS3 through was set to all the defaults.  Those defaults include Backlight set to 100, Contrast and Colour are also pretty high.  On my regular setup I run Backlight set to 20 (yes, 1/5th of the default) and Contrast and Colour differently.  In fact, I don’t use any of the TV defaults.  I set them through a lot of playing around when we first got the TV and again recently using a THX calibration section of the Star Wars DVD’s, so I’m pretty happy with how they look, and they don’t give us headaches.

Setting those values on HDMI2 has left us with a much kinder Blu-Ray image and none of the retina burning sensation that the defaults give you.  Also, some searching online showed that the 2004 DVD for The Matrix (and also the Blu-Ray print) have a different colour setup compared to the original DVD release which is the one we own.  So, those two things together make me much happier, the on-screen image is now less obviously different, and where it is different I know it’s because the print is different this time around.

If you were ever wondering, can upscaling DVD players really give you Blu-Ray quality images – the answer is no.  Maybe with newer DVD’s that were created with upscaling in mind they may come closer, but comparing the original Matrix release and the Blu-Ray release is like comparing the granularity of gravel and sand.

Really pleased with it.  Also glad I bought surround sound first, rather than Blu-Ray.

1. this is my regular behaviour as well, but during a recession I have an excuse [↩]
2. so, no more surround sound from Sky+, which I think we’ve used about twice since we got the surround sound system [↩]

We recorded Superbad over Christmas and watched (the start of) it this evening.  Maybe myself and Grete weren’t in the right mood but it really didn’t strike a chord.  I chuckled a couple of times, but I hated Seth and the other two kids were equally annoying.  We made it to the part where the liquor store gets robbed but then just gave up.  Perhaps it turns a corner at that stage and gets super funny, perhaps not.

Won’t be rushing to try and catch it again any time soon – deleted it from Sky+, dissapointed and left wondering what we missed.

I won’t call this a full review since we didn’t finish watching it – and that’s something that hasn’t happened in a while.

Haven’t blogged anything for a few days, because Gradwell’s hosting hasn’t been very reliable among other reasons.  So here I am.  And I guess I don’t have much to say.  Not painted anything, not done much, oh I watched some CSI.

Quite a bit of CSI.  Two Miami episodes (penultimate and series finale), one Vegas (start of new season) and one New York (start of new season).  Turn away now if you don’t like spoilers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Really good read over at Topless Robot – The 7 Sci-Fi Shows That Deserved Better Endings

You should go read it, while I should think about writing a post covering some other series endings.

Welcome to Christmas Eve.  I’m just finishing a can of red bull before heading into the kitchen to make us a small fried breakfast (mushrooms, tinned tomatoes, hash browns, bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, toast).  While I’m doing that you should all go and watch a video over at Zeeker’s livejournal.

We finished season two of Black Adder last night and started season three.  I really can’t believe there’s only six episodes in each season, that’s mad.  By the way, if you’ve never seen Black Adder (because you’re too young, or you live in a country where it’s never been shown, or you’ve just not seen it) then you should try very hard to see it.  All four seasons are classic comic TV with some truly side splitting moments of laughing.  Still, I can’t beleve there’s only 6 episodes per seasons, although as Grete said, “BBC”, which explained the whole thing in one word.

We discovered half way through season two and into season three that both of us have speech patterns heavily influenced by Black Adder.

I need to write up part 4 of the painting diary after doing some more painting yesterday as well (I write them and and schedule them three days apart so that even if I don’t paint for a couple of days the diaries aren’t too far behind the miniature).

But first.

Breakfast.

Spoilers for CSI: Miami series 6 – so hiding everything below the cut, just in case (oh, now with added swearing, so don’t read if you’re easily offended) Read the rest of this entry »

I promised you I’d write something about Fringe and Burn Notice.  With Criminal Minds and CSI (Vegas) being on a break, we’ve been scouting for stuff to watch.

Fringe

This series is either going to be awesome, or going to become totally annoying.  The pilot was intriguing and promised an X Files like experience without the stupid alien story arc.  Do not watch this show if you intend to analyse the fringe science, it’ll only annoy you and it’ll only annoy us when you explain how annoyed you are.  The show follows a female FBI agent investigating weird shennanigans with an elderly formally insane scientist who appears to have been involved in a lot of this stuff, and his son.  Clearly these events are tied together with some intricate back story and there are a range of supporting cast members all generating more questions and giving no answers.

The episodes so far (5 I think) are formulaic, typical of early episodes in a series of this kind.  Something weird happens, some people are injured or killed.  The team investigates.  The insane scientist admits he was involved in this kind of thing in the 60’s, comes to a conclusion, and they either save another potential victim or they catch or don’t catch the people involved.

The characters are interesting, which is critical since the formulaic story at the moment isn’t quite enough to keep me tied in.  Sure I want to know more about The Pattern (the link between all the weird stuff), and they’re clearly laying the groundwork for some subplots (the son, there’s something up with him).

The reason geeks are flocking to the show, is that it contains a huge amount of self referrential material, injokes, scientific references and subtle facts.  For example, in one episode a character looks at his watch and it’s 3:14 and 15 seconds (Pi).

We’ll keep at it throughout the first season and see how it goes.  We miss a lot of the references, so we’re just watching it for the characters and the obvious plot.

Burn Notice

This turned out to be exactly not what I thought it was.  We saw some teaser-trailers for it and set it to record on Sky+.  It looked like a spy drama, but has turned into a one-man A-team story.  Not that it’s bad, just that it’s not what we expected.

The simple premise is that an American spy has been burned by his agency and hence has no money, contacts or anything to do.  To add to his misery he’s essentially confined in Miami (he’s told early on if he tries to leave, he’ll be activley hunted by the police rather than being just watched).

Each episode involves our main character (can’t remember his name) trying to work out why he’s been burned and who did it, while also trying to fix a problem either a friend, a friend’s friend, his mother’s friend, or some random person is having.  For example, one week he helps an airport security guard who’s basically being blackmailed to ignore illegal weapon imports.  Helping him out in his endevours are his mother, his brother, an ex-spy buddy and an ex-girlfriend spy.  As I said it’s a one-man A-team.  It’s funny, engaging and entertaining, we’ll see where it goes.