"I don't know where you get your delusions, laser brain!"

I'm finding myself more and more frustrated with optical media and I can't wait for digital downloads and flash/solid state memory to replace it completely.

The Humble CD has been with us since 1982- long overdue for retirement. The problem is that we have put ourselves in a corner with the need for backwards compatibility. Nobody wants to replace their whole collections, which is why DVD players had to be able to play CDs and why Blu Ray players had to be able to play DVDs. Being chained to the 12cm optical disc has meant that innovations had to take place elsewhere- dual layered discs or thinner lasers for example. The problem is that with each progression comes a caveat: DVDs are more fragile than CDs and Blu Rays are like freakin' egg shells.

This is a real bone of contention for me, having to eject and clean a disc three times because the person who rented it before me put their grubby, chow mein finger prints all over it. For goodness' sake people- please treat these discs with a little more care! Inconsideration aside, this is an inherent problem with optical media but luckily, change is coming.

The failure of HD DVD and UMD have prompted Microsoft and Sony to switch tactics. Xbox 360 owners now have access to HD movie downloads and Sky channels, whilst the latest PSP does away with its optical drive completely, prompting the user to buy all their games online from the Playstation Store and save them to internal or flash memory. Also, some films now come with 'digital copies' on the disc: protected video files, for use on specified devices. The latest Star Trek film for example is available for purchase on a 4GB pen drive (it's excellent by the way). Soon the digital copies will be the only ones distributed, either on external memory or downloaded/streamed.

It's not just pre recorded content that will feel the benefit of this revolution though, storage will too. Solid State Drives (SSD) are already available, some high end laptops come with them installed as standard. These boast ultra fast access times and no failure due to wear, as they have no moving parts. More than you can say for their ageing brethren.

This clearly shows a move away from optical and magnetic media, with it's slow seek speeds and susceptibility to jammy fingers. But it isn't perfect. Downloading several gigs of data a month can incur the wrath of unforgiving ISPs and you'll need some beefy bandwidth to stream 1080p footage. Moreover, the copy protection embedded into digital copies means that you will not be able to swap or sell your own intangible property. The rise of downloaded films and games will kill off the second hand market and of course, this is exactly what music, game and film companies want. Cost is also an issue, Solid State Drives work out at around £2.50 per gigabyte, magnetic drives at less than 5p.

Of course, these problems are only temporary, internet speeds will go up and prices will go down, whilst Digital Rights Management will find a happy medium between allowing more freedom and stopping piracy. Conversely, the problems with optical media will take it to its grave. An important factor in all this is that the nuts and bolts for the change are already in place: all computers have USB connections now and most homes have broadband. You may even find that your DVD player can show movies from a pen drive already.

Solid State and flash memory have some significant advantages over optical and magnetic media and are naturally the way that technology will progress. There are teething troubles at the moment but one thing you can definitely say for the new kids: at least you won't be ejecting and wiping anything three times during play- cursing the God of lasers as you do.

Bring it on!

Macho, Metro Man!

First things first. For those of you who have not met me, I'm big. Pushing 6' 3” and 20 odd stone, I was a massive rugby player and martial artist in my younger days. Not exactly a typical candidate for a health spa then, you might imagine.

But to a health spa I did go and an interesting experience it was. Sorry, went a bit Yoda on you then.

Anyway, at first I thought I'd taken a wrong turn and ended up at the Mental Asylum wing from Prisoner: Cell Block H. As I drove up the long country road to the old secluded building and parked the car, there were dispersed groups of plump, middle aged women roaming around outside, wearing only dressing gowns and glazed expressions. The inside continued this trend: dozens more clucking, be-slippered zombies, shuffling their way around after white jacketed professionals down long, carpeted hallways, entering 'treatment' rooms. Scary stuff...

But no, I had to shake these thoughts from my head. I was here to keep my girlfriend company, this was her birthday treat after all. Whilst she was being pampered, I would just be chilling by the pool, maybe taking a bike ride. Or so I thought. Unbeknownst to me, my better half had booked me in for 'the works'. I was to be rubbed, prodded, plucked and even, it turns out, caked in mud and steamed for twenty minutes, like some kind of child's bakery attempt!

I'd had a few comments from colleagues in the run up to this day: Am I a Metrosexual, one asked. Another offered to lend me her boyfriend's Speedos. To be honest, I probably shared the same preconceptions. But I went in there with an open mind and I have to say, at the expense of my macho reputation (yeah right): I really enjoyed it all.

Speaking to my treatment lady on the day, whilst she was working me over, produced a few interesting facts: Sometimes there are entire days when you won't see a bloke in there. But when you do, presumably it's all dapper, effeminate types, I asked. Nope, just husbands and boyfriends with their female counterparts.

I was starting to feel in tune with the place. There is no 'type' of male that goes to health spas, it was all sorts. It's OK for a man to have manicures and pedicures, isn't it? This was great, I felt like a modern man. We are not 'Metrosexuals' we just acknowledge the need to look after our bodies- there's nothing 'gay' about that. Awesome. I wanted to know if there were more of us out there, maybe we could start some sort of movement. So I asked my therapist if men she knew came to the spa: “Oh no!” she shrieked in dismissal. “My dad and boyfriend would never come here in a million years!”

Hey ho- viva la revolucion!

Steff.

Steff starts reviewing for Geek Planet Online

Hello all, just a quick note to say that those fine fellows at Geek Planet Online have asked me to review video games for them. I'm obviously really pleased to do so.

There will be more to come but for the time being they have put up a special, FULL FAT, DIRECTOR'S CUT version of the inFamous review that I did for The Reading Chronicle. This includes a lot of detail that I couldn't fit in before due to word restrictions. In future I'll be doing longer pieces for Geek Planet, then cutting that down for The Chronicle, to suit the different styles of publication.

The link is:

 http://www.geekplanetonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=40:ps3&Itemid=13&layout=default

but this will also be in the 'Links to other articles' box on the right side of the page.

Cheers me dears!

Steff.

Reading Festival 2009

Yes, I know this was way back in August, but I've been busy, OK? I needed to collect my thoughts. So stop judging me! In fact, if I'm honest, I don't much appreciate your attitude of late. Go on, clear off! Get out of here and leave those pilchards behind, on the table!

Sorry about that, he shouldn't give us any more trouble. Anyway, this year marked the 11th anniversary of my first visit to The Reading Festival. How did I celebrate this auspicious occasion? By, err... going to The Reading Festival again. Now, I haven't attended every last one in the previous decade but I have noticed some marked changes. Don't worry, I won't be harping on about how for the cost of a day ticket nowadays, you could have got a weekend ticket in 1998. Or how commercial it has become (it's always been bad for that), or even how “this all used to be fields” (it's held in fields for goodness' sake). No, the changes I'm talking about have come around in just one year.

The Reading Festival 2008 was excellent. Great bands, great atmosphere. Now, whether you like the acts is a matter of personal taste, but whether you enjoy them can be something that's reliant on many variables and that's where I feel this year's fest let us down. Broadly speaking, this can be divided into 2 categories: Audio Quality and Band Attitude.

Audio Quality
Let's face it, if you're watching an enormous, open air concert, the sound quality is never going to be the best. For those of us who want to actually hear the music, we're left with two choices: Watch a band on one of the smaller stages where you can get closer and the tent provides better acoustics, or fight your way to the very front of the main stage. Both of these are problematic though. The best bands don't play the smaller stages and not everyone is up for the crushing, elbow session that is your average mosh pit.

So what's the solution? Well, Festival Republic are kind enough to provide us with satellite speakers. What are these? Imagine the main stage. It has massive speaker sets either side of it, yes? Well, set further back into the crowd are another set of speakers that repeat the same sound at the same time. So if you're chilling further away with your Tuborg, you still get a quality sound experience, without having to worry whether the wind will change direction and it will seem like you're listening underwater. Now, in 2008 there was another set of speakers, even further back. So you could even enjoy the band from afar whilst you eat your £4.50 portion of chips. However, this year, the extra set were nowhere to be seen, meaning there was a massive 'dead area' where if you weren't very near a speaker, the sound was washy and vague. The volume level itself wasn't high enough this year either, despite claims that this was to be the loudest one yet. This sucked big time for me.

Although admittedly I may just be getting more deaf every time I go...

Band Attitude
Terrible, terrible, terrible. Not many things annoy me more than stuck up 'artistes' acting above their stations and festivals are rife with them. The absolute worse perpetrators at this year's shindig were the headline acts. On Friday it was the Kings of Leon, who have taken their drastic restyling too seriously methinks. They played a very mediocre set but then had the gall to act pissed off when they weren't getting much of a reaction from the audience. Here's a clue, if your fans are annoyed, don't have a go at them- play better! They also refused to allow the last part of their set to the broadcast, although the TV audience probably benefited from that more than the band did.

Saturday it was the Arctic Monkeys, who I was very much looking forward to seeing. But northern scallys they are no more. Oh no. They have transformed themselves into heartfelt, ballad singing poets, who now spend more time trying to break America than they do writing any more good songs. All the old charm is gone. Even the quality first album tracks were performed without the venom they used to have. There was a feeling that they were now above us, like they didn't need our little festival. Goodness knows what they're like at Leeds.

Finally, Radiohead closed the whole festival. Now, I'm open about not being a fan, so it's not for me to comment on the performance itself (which I'm assured was very good) but the whole pomp of the stage set was pretty annoying. Plus it frustrates me when bands play videos or use heavy effects on the giant video screens, rather than for their intended purpose of letting us see the acts close up. So if you're far away, you're forced to squint at tiny figures on stage, whilst the enormous TVs play some wanky kaleidoscope for hours. Still, last year, Metallica had fireworks and gun shots and all sorts, but that was heavy metal baby, a real show. Not some lazy eyed, whining git from Oxford. Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyway, I went to see Lost Prophets after three songs.

What was amazing was the contrast between the headliners and the 'almosts' who opened for them. Kaiser Chiefs and The Prodigy were excellent (I swerved on Bloc Party after getting my fingers burnt last year). You could see the hunger, the talent and the real audience connection that these bands had, which was totally missing from the headline acts, in my opinion.

The saving grace for this year was the unannounced super group- Them Crooked Vultures, Grohl, Homme and Jones. This had the best of all worlds, audio quality was great thanks to them playing a smaller stage and their attitude and songs were excellent, a real highlight. I can now say that I've seen ¾ of Led Zeppelin live. Which is the best it's going to get, thanks to Bonham's penchant for lunchtime double vodkas (sleep well, sweet prince).

So overall, this year's Reading Festival was a mixed bag. Festival Republic seem to be cutting costs whilst putting up prices and some bands act like they don't want to be there. Luckily, it's still mostly about the music and thank goodness for the smaller bands and stages for reminding us of that.

To be honest though, I haven't ruled out the fact that I might just be an ageing, deaf, miserable arsehole.

Thoughts?

Steff Parry.