Galactica HD Recap Special Due

[dkennedy]

Galactica HD Recap Special Due

August 11, 2006

SCI FI Channel News Release

SCI FI Channel and its sister NBC Universal networks will air a one-hour HD recap special of the original series Battlestar Galactica in advance of the show's October third-season premiere.

Battlestar Galactica: The Story So Far will incorporate footage from the original SCI FI miniseries and the previous two seasons of the Peabody Award-winning series.

The special will be narrated from the point of view of Laura Roslin (Mary McDonnell), the resistance leader on Cylon-occupied New Caprica. The special will also appear on SCIFI.COM's SCI FI Pulse broadband network.

The special will be broadcast as follows:

Aug. 13 at 10 p.m. on NBC West Coast,
Aug. 28 Free On Demand via SCI FI's cable affiliates,
Sept. 15 at 12 a.m. on USA Network,
Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. on Universal HD,
Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. on USA,
Sept. 22 at 8 p.m. on Universal HD,
Sept. 22 at 6 p.m. on Sleuth,
Sept. 29 at 7 p.m. on Bravo,
Sept. 30 at 11 a.m. on Bravo,
Sept. 30 at 4 p.m. on Universal HD,

Throughout the month of September on SCI FI Pulse and Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. on SCI FI.

Throughout September, The Story So Far will also be made available for download via iTunes and XBox Live and will be distributed at Best Buy as a bonus DVD with the Battlestar Galactica season 2.5 DVD set and other genre titles from Universal Home Video.

The DVD will also be distributed to visitors to the Universal Studios theme parks, and snippets of the special will be available on YouTube.com, Google Video and other video portal sites.

[dkennedy]

Battlestar Galactica on Xbox Live: Not HD, not widescreen, not at all satisfying

August 29, 2006

By Richard Lawler, HD Beat Magazine

The recap episode of Battlestar Galactica was posted on Xbox Live Marketplace yesterday and we regret to inform you it was not high definition.

We're not entirely surprised at the resolution, a 720p-encoded file would have been a long download, not to mention the Xbox 360's smallish 20GB hard drive.

Unfortunately it gets worse, the presentation was in widescreen, but with included bars at the top and bottom as though it were intended only for 4x3 SDTVs. Why they opted for a version that looks like it was taped off of Sci-fi network onto someone's VHS we will never know, but with the artifacting and low quality of the file we cannot recommend this to anyone in good faith.

Hopefully they will do better when the episode is aired on Universal HD in September and it will be presented natively in widescreen.

Oddly, despite the low quality of this file, you can download two HD clips of upcoming kids show Viva Piñata that look fantastic; hopefully future downloads will follow their lead instead of the quick and dirty approach apparently used on BSG.