It’s here! It was like Christmas this morning when I was waiting for the HDTV to be delivered and it finally came just before 11. In fact I was more excited than I’ve been about Christmas for a long time (it’s not as fun once your age hits double figures), so since that was a bit of a non-event this was like the real thing again. Only I paid £615 for my present…

Crap analogies aside, I was excited. I’ve been gearing up for this since I ordered it, buying HD AV cables for various machines that I’ve got connected and now came the opportunity to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be. This is what the new baby looked like when I got it all hooked up:

Xbox 360 is the only natively HD device that I own and it naturally looks great – games look more detailed and DOA4 in particular looks unbelievably good; upscaled DVDs on the SD-350E look really nice but it’s definitely a stopgap before HD-DVD; Freeview through RGB SCART looks average and probably worse than my CRT (if anyone knows of a DVB box with progressive scan please tell me); and I’ve yet to try the PS2 through component. Nonetheless it gives me plenty to fiddle with and I’m loving it.

The only one I need now is a GameCube component because I’m told that it can look rather nice through 480p, but after spending that much on the TV and accessories I can’t justify having to import a cable for £30 or so. That’ll probably have to wait until Twilight Princess. Or the Revolution since that might actually come first at this rate…