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…

I’ve just joined the editorial team over at Gaming Horizon, one of the better up-and-coming gaming websites. Their news feed has been in my reader for a while, and I referenced them here when they were the first of the bigger sites with the Splinter Cell 4 screenshots. They should be around much longer than the last site that I joined and didn’t even get to finish an article for before the owner decided to pack it in.

Anyway, I’m onboard as a staff writer so I’ll be doing a few news stories a day, starting today, and features whenever I get given them, so keep an eye out for me.

Anyone who’s listened for any length of time to the excellent UK DVD Review podcast will have heard about the reboot of Battlestar Galactica which has been going on for the last couple of years. He doesn’t so much recommend it so much as positively evangelise it, and barely an episode goes by that you won’t hear the “previously on Battlestar Galactica” soundbite.

Based on his clear enthusiasm for the show and after talking to him about it a couple of times I ordered the 2003 miniseries on DVD (how could I say no for £5.99?), thinking that the last time I took a chance on TV sci-fi I ended up with a zealous love of Firefly. I’ve since bought the first season on DVD because this is yet another excellent piece of modern sci-fi, and considering that I’m someone who wouldn’t have been seen dead watching Star Trek only a couple of years ago I seem to be becoming quite the devotee.

Galactica isn’t quite as high on the list as Firefly but since that seems to be all but dead this at least gives me some decent ongoing sci-fi to follow. If you’re interested I really suggest checking out the information in the Wikipedia entry and picking up the miniseries which is available dirt cheap now.

It’s started doing it again. The skipping isn’t as bad or as consistent as it used to be but that annoying PAL quirk is at it again. I tried switching it to NTSC but it really looks a lot worse and causes some tearing and frame rate problems, presumably from changing the signal from PAL to NTSC. I’ll phone up Toshiba tomorrow and see if they can help at all. If not it’s going back and I’m changing it for the slightly more expensive Samsung DVD-HD950.