StudioUK wrote:
so get a giganews account and download all the hi def movies and tv shows
you can eat.
morally dubious perhaps - but in the absence of alternatives what choice is
there ?

What's a giganews account? (a more expensive monthly subscription to
ntl broadband no doubt - what £30pm?)

Giganews is a subscription based binary usenet server. There are groups
on there where you can download films in full HD resolution (720p or
1080p). I think an unlimited account is about $19/month.

I've only got a mac with 80GB hard drive - whats the best way/place/
free software to download films from and rip to disk ( a whole new
discussion I guess + one thats probably illegal - I'll blame you guys
for corrupting me).

You need to read up on nzb files, binary usenet files are posted in
several parts & these are 'pointers' to the individual files. You can
search for these at a site called Binsearch (sorry I don't have access
to my home machine with the full url on) and then feed them into a free
nzb reader (again - apologies but I can't remember which I use) which
will download them all.

Your best bet would probably be to get a 400gb external hard drive to
store them on.

Also whats 'Full HD' as compared to 'HD Ready'? If your TV is HD ready
and for example you connect a £400 HD DVD to it (or your Sky box),
press play do you get an the full HD experience?
I'm relatively new to this so please bear with me - the more I look
into it the more complicated (and expensive it gets).

HD Ready = able to display a HD feed but may downscale it (i.e. show
less pixels than available).
Full HD = A display with a minimum of 720 horizontal lines (or even
better 1080 lines) which can display a HD feed without downscaling.


From what you've said it sounds like there'll be lots of Comet
salesmen telling discruntled customers
'Ah MR. Gullible, what you actually bought from us last week was HD
Ready TV but in order to get the crisp picture you see here in our
showroom you should have bought the Full HD Model, that'll be another
£2000 please. The HD Ready just means you get a sticker saying HD
Ready'

I would imagine that 90% of the people who bought the sets believing
that will plug a HD source in and convince themselves that they are
getting full HD. Not all HD ready sets are only 480p, some are 720.

Also isn't what's on Sky and NTL intermittant HD i.e theres a football
match in 3 weeks time thats going to be HD or there's 300 films being
shown over the coming 6 months 2 of which will be HD.

HD seems to have been here for a while, I was just surprised to find
that after all this time there was still only one HD DVD player - I'm
accept it's £400 but surely the rest of the big boys must have seen
the potential for HD DVD players?

Now I've rigged up my Hitachi projector I can't wait to see a big fat
sharp HD picture across my living room wall. My problem is I have
family & a life so can't afford to make 'finding the right cable' my
goal in life.

Never mind the cable - have you used the right paint on your wall?

Ordinary bloke just wants to impress the girls with his big... picture