FrequencyCast UK – Show #06

This show’s news section covers the following:

• Top Up TV Anytime: Top Up TV launched a couple of years ago adding extra channels to the Freeview lineup on a subscription-basis – channels included GOLD, UK Style, Discovery Channel, British Eurosport and Bloomberg, all for a monthly subscription of £7.99. In September, Top Up TV announced that it’s move to Top Up TV Anytime. The new service uses a hard-disk recorder to record TV shows from these extra channels, as well as other content from channels such as Living TV, Paramount Comedy and Hallmark. The shows are downloaded ‘off-peak’ onto a hard-disk player, and you’ll be able to watch them the next day. Existing set-top boxes won’t work with the new Anytime service, and you’ll be expected to buy a new one – priced £99 for existing Top-Up customers, or £140 for new customers.
  Boxes became available in Dec 2006.
  

  This has enraged many of the existing customers, who now have to replace their existing TopUp TV boxes, or go elsewhere… and our mailbox has been bulging. We cover this in more detail in the Interaction section of this show. See our dedicated Top Up TV Anytime page for the full story.

• Free digital channels on Cable TV : If you’re in a cable area, cable company Virgin Media (formerly ntl and Telewest) is offering free digital TV – From September 2006, if you get your home phone service over cable, you’ll get access to around 40 free channels, including Sky One, ITV2, BBC3, E4 and More4, all over the cable network – this offer is set to make cable TV even more attractive to new customers. See www.virginmedia.com for details.

• A quick snippet for those of you with the access to the Internet and time on your hands. A new service called Yahoo Answers has launched – you log on and ask a question on any subject you like, technical, philosophical… anything, and other users provide answers – each answer posted earns points, which aid member’s reputation. This isn’t the first service like this, but as it’s backed by Yahoo, it could become mainstream. Worth a look – the address – answers.yahoo.com.
  

Two new channels from broadcaster Five launch on Freeview in October.

• Five Life will launch on Sunday, October 15th. The channel will show daily entertainment programming, Australia drama “Love my Way”, series Supermodel Extra, and a “first chance to see” Home and Away. Five Life will broadcast between 6am and 11pm.
• Five US launches a day later on Monday, October 16th, and will air daily between 4pm and 1am , featuring a mix of American drama, films, documentaries and comedy, with shows including Conviction, Shark and the conspiracy series Vanished.

In this show, we’re talking about DVR, PVR and DTR, only to find out that they’re all the same thing – Digital Video Recorders. On this show, we explore what a DVR is, what to look for when buying one, and run down some of the better buys.

For all the details, see our DVR page.

Thanks to everyone who got in touch. In this show, we looked at:

• Top Up TV Anytime – Loads and loads of emails… we take a rundown of the mail we’ve had, and explore the pros, and cons of this new service that’s upsetting so many existing TUTV subscribers
• Just how good is Slingbox quality from UK to Russia over broadband?
• Can the BT Home Hub support time-based restrictions? We think not
• How to connect the BT Vision box to broadband

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