FrequencyCast UK – Show #13

This show’s news section covered the following stories:

• Virgin vs. Sky: As we reported last show, Virgin Media cable TV viewers lost their Sky channels. There’s been subsequent silliness, including Virgin re-branding the old Sky News channel name to “Sky Snooze”. Virgin’s freephone number now has a recording which talks about Sky channels losing their appeal and that they’re reporting Sky to the authorities. In return, Sky is offering Virgin Customers the chance to hop to Sky with a “Rescue Package”. Sky’s also planning to run a catch-up weekend showing Lost, 24 and Battlestar Galactica episodes that Virgin’s customers will have missed. It’s getting cut-throat, and we’re waiting to see what happens next in this saga. More at www.sky.com and www.virginmedia.com.

• ITV Play and Calls Controversy: At the start of March 2007, ITV was the subject of some controversy surrounding premium rate call lines. All premium rate activities were suspended. Shortly after this, ITV axed its games channel ITV Play from Freeview and Sky, replacing it with ITV2 +1. It’s expected that ITV will find a new use for this channel later in 2007. Visitors to our blog have already started campaigning for the return of former Freeview channel Men and Motors, which was pulled to make space for ITV Play last year.

• Current TV: This new TV station launched in March 2007 with show made and scheduled by viewers. News is based on top Google news stories. Current TV is now available on Sky Digital and Virgin Media cable.
• Sky+ boxes reduce power: Sky+ and Sky HD boxes get a new feature: Auto-standby. This puts boxes into standby overnight, saving power. Sky+ recordings won’t be affected. Standard Sky boxes use less power than Sky+ boxes, so won’t be updated with Auto-Standby.

• Sky+ Remote Record: It’s now possible to set programmes for recording remotely, over the Internet. Formerly, this was possible from some mobile phones and by text message, but now you can log on to Sky’s website, select a programme from the guide, and a command to record will be sent over-the-air to your box. Sky Remote Record.

• Tiscali TV launches: At the start of March, Homechoice rebranded as Tiscali TV, offering digital telly over a phone line in London and Stevenage. Tiscali’s planning to start a national rol lout this Spring, with predicted coverage of 10 million homes by the end of 2007, with Birmingham, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield due by mid-2007. Basic service is £15 a month. More details: Tiscali TV Explored

• Comet bargains: Got an eye out for a bargain? We’ve found a couple of deals on offer at Comet… These were valid at the time of recording (late March 2007)

• WKRP in Cincinnati: This classic US sitcom about life in a commercial Rock station is finally coming to DVD – WKRP Series 1-3 is due to be released on DVD in April 2007. Sadly, only Region 1 at the moment. Anyone remember WKRP and want a UK release?
  
  

The top vote for what our listeners wanted us to discussing this show, went to “Internet extras”… here’s what we focussed in on:

• Orb: Add some software to your home PC, and it lets you access your photos, audio, video and even TV for remote access. We feature Orb on our TV Control page. A great utility for accessing your media collection when you’re away from your home PC. Best of all, it’s free. www.orb.com

• Wikipedia: Carl and Pete started chatting about Web 2.0, and how social networking is changing the Internet. We first looked at Wikipedia – the online encyclopedia that’s written by Internet users. Anyone can submit a story, make changes and increase the knowledge help in this huge online reference site. We checked to see if there was an entry for Jammie Dodgers – and there was (although nothing on dunking these biscuits). Sadly no entry for FrequencyCast yet. Anyone up for correcting that for us? www.wikipedia.com

• Linked In: Add details of your work colleagues and business colleague, and build up a network. Pete’s got over 100 contacts, who in turn know 3,700 people, who know over 344,000 people – a huge network of people that you can make contact with. A handy business tool, and a little more serious that the likes of Friends Reunited. Sign up at www.linkedin.com
  
  

• Delicious: A social bookmarking tool. Store your favourite websites, bookmarks and blogs to your own space online. Share out your bookmarks, and find likeminded people and links. See our bookmarks at del.icio.us/frequencycast

• Digiguide: So many channels, so little time. Sign up to Digiguide for an online or PC version of their top TV listings service. A very powerful tool to manage your TV viewing, with up to 14 days of fully-searchable listings. Digiguide is also available on PDAs and mobile phones using the AvantGo service. More at getdigiguide.com
  
  

• Web Radio: Toolbar that can be added to Internet Explorer or Firefox, that provides access to stacks of online radio stations. A nice freebie addon. www.web-radio.com
  

Finally, we took a look at RSS (not Roland Surround Sound, but Really Simple Syndication). When surfing, you may come across the icon pictured to the right – this indicates that the site has a machine-readable RSS feed, so you can subscribe and be told when the site changes. Typically this means to can sign up to feeds from websites, blogs, podcasts and news headlines. You can use IE7’s RSS feed software, or web-based service, Bloglines. For Podcasts, you can use a solution like Juice. – add the FrequencyCast feed, and it will download ‘casts into the right folder as they’re released. Here are links to our feeds: 

• Our Blog
• Our Podcast Feed

We also gave a mention to mobile network operator 3 X-Series – This is a package designed to make use of the data services that 3 offer in the UK. At the time of recording, the X-Series handset of choice is the Nokia E65
– This supports Orb, Slingbox, Skype, MSN Messenger, MobiCast, EBay and Yahoo
on the move.

Thanks to everyone who got in touch. In this show, we respond to the following mails and calls:

• Windows Mobile and the Apple Mac: As a follow-on to the last show, Christopher Smith contacted us to tell us that he has an HP iPAQ running Windows Mobile 5 which I sync to an old Apple Mac mini running Mac OS X version 10.4.8. I use software called “Missing Sync for Windows Mobile” by Mark/Space.
  His wife has an HP iPAQ but it’s an hx6500 series running Windows Pocket PC 2003. She syncs to a new Apple MacBook Pro, also running Mac OS X version 10.4.8, using PocketMac Lite. Both these programs are reasonably priced for what they do and are quite easy to install, setup and use, Chris tells us.
  
• No Freeview coverage: Adrian Ashton contacted us to say that he lives in a valley town that can’t receive a digital signal, and wonders if when switch over date approaches, all households in the town will have to pay for sky dishes? At the moment, Freeview signals are kept on reduced power, so’s not to interfere with standard telly. As we get closer to the Digital Switch, digital power will be increased, and analogue transmitters will be converted to digital.
  If you don’t want to wait for Freeview coverage to improve, there’s a number of free channels you get with a basic digital satellite system, one that doesn’t require a Sky subscription – a basic subscription-free kits is available from Maplin for around £100. There’s also cable, and we can expect a wider range of TV-over-Internet services coming soon.

• Unhappy with Top Up TV Anytime: We took a call from an unhappy Mr Hughes about box problems, and the cost of calling Top Up TV’s support number. Firstly, an over-the-air update was sent out in mid-March, bringing the box to v2.44. The feedback we’re hearing is that it’s made a difference – still not perfect, but a lot less crashes. Our advice to Mr Hughes, and any other folk not happy with Anytime, is to complain to TopUp TV. We have their Head Office contact details on our site. The other option, of course, is to cancel your Anytime service and go elsewhere – perhaps to Sky, or to BT Vision, (which we reviewed in Show 12).
  
• Home Hub and Windows Vista: We were asked about time-outs with Windows Vista and the BT Home Hub by Stuart Harrison. The Home Hub is compatible with Microsoft’s new Vista, and BT has a page at bt.com/vistasupport that shows how to set up Vista to use the Hub. There’s also a driver for USB connectivity with Vista. See the Vista and Home Hub FAQ
  We’ve also been asked about a Playstation 3 with the Hub and an Ethernet cable. See the Home Hub FAQ for our answer.

• Podcasts on BT Vision: Thanks to Paul from Mac Land for contacting us about podcasts on BT Vision. Well, last year, it was announced that US firm Podshow would be offering their podcasts on a user-created channel on BT Vision in 2007. No news as yet on when this will be available.
  Wonder if FrequencyCast will get a slot on BT Vision‘s podcast channel when it’s launched? We sure hope so…

Want new shows as soon as they’re released?

Get FrequencyCast shows automatically, as soon as we’ve finished them:

• Got iTunes? Add FrequencyCast to iTunes
• Otherwise, use Juice or another podcatcher to subscribe to our show feed.
  Our feed address: https://feeds.feedburner.com/frequencycast

Get email notifications when a show is released