The new free HD satellite service from BBC and ITV launches in London today. Freesat will commence with 80 TV and radio channels, with more to be added before the end of the year.

For a one-off payment customers will receive a box, dish and installation enabling them to receive HD broadcasts without a subscription fee. Freesat should be available to 98 per cent of UK households and include BBC HD and the new ITV HD channel – currently rumoured to be exclusive to Freesat.

Our coverage of the launch and all the details on Freesat will appear in HD Review issue 7.

After my eulogy to all that is worldly and indie in cinema, a spanking Blu-ray copy of Gus Van Sant’s skater drama, Paranoid Park, arrived. Without giving too much away (our forthcoming issue will feature the review), the film did come as somewhat of a double-edged sword. With said review mapping out the film’s glories, I see it as being a slight issue when, despite best efforts from both sides – Tartan has given the film a dutiful transfer spec while, to encapsulate, the film itself rocks! – the relationship doesn’t gel when cast in HD.Shot on less than DV quality, 35mm and merged with the kitsch images of Super 8 filming, Van Sant’s indie feel never ceases to shine through. But where the boot doesn’t fit is with Paranoid Park’s HD treatment, although in this case nobody is actually to blame. The distributors and those involved in production have dutifully seen that their product/baby reaches the public, but the aesthetics so vital in creating this left-field piece cannot marry with the future format.Saying this, Paranoid Park needs to be seen to be believed, with its shining qualities hardly dealing a death knell to left-field cinema and its future on Blu-ray.

 

Hardly a shock horror from the internet press but nevertheless, Grand Theft Auto IV’s record-smashing first week on shelves still manages to wow.

According to Shopwatchers Chart-Track, GTA IV managed to notch up a heady 609,000 copies after its first day on sale in the UK (which probably explains why the game is so darn hard to get a hold of), trouncing San Andreas’s 501,000 units and, furthermore, giving a certain Master Chief a run for his money. Halo 3 was previously the fastest-selling Xbox 360 title – shifting 266,000 units on its first day – however, with GTA IV selling 335,000 units after just one day on the shelves, Rockstar’s storming fourth entry in the series is clearly gunning down the competition.