FrequencyCast UK – Show #30

This show’s news section covered the following stories:-

• Freeview HD Update: ITV and Channel 4 have submitted bids to regulator Ofcom for their Freeview High Definition services. It’s planned that Freeview Multiplex B will be reconfigured to support HD before 2012. The Beeb are inline for one channel, with ITV and Channel 4 after the other slots. ITV plans to simulcast their 6pm to 11pm slot in HD – ITV hopes to have 60-65% of their content in HD by 2012. Channel 4 plans to bring their existing 24 hour HD service currently on Sky Digital over to Freeview.

• Freeview on your PS3: Freeview’s coming to the Playstation 3 from the 19th of September. For £70, you can buy PlayTV, which supports Freeview, has a 7 day EPG, turns your PS3 into a digital recorder.
  Available to order now at Play.com

• Sky HD Update: New HD channels from Sky – Sky’s just announced that 7 more HD channels are about to be added, bringing the total of High definition channels on Sky to 26. Six of these new channels will be movie channels, with the seventh being an HD version of Sky Real Lives.
• Digital Radio News: Some radio news – Upcoming digital station E4 Radio, from Channel 4, is now set for an April 2009 launch – not on a new national DAB multiplex as planned, but on the existing Digital One multiplex. When it launches, E4 Radio plans to be a rival to BBC Radio 4.
• BT Vision HD Content: In August, BT Vision set-top boxes got a software upgrade, in readiness for HD content. The Vision box already has HD capability, but no on-demand content. Apparently, this is due by the end of Summer. There’s not enough bandwidth for HD over broadband, so shows can be downloaded to the V-Box drive to be viewed in HD later. Here’s a screenshot of the new ‘Download HD content’ screen:
  

• Updated Skypephone: The Skypephone, released in November 2007, just got better. The Skypephone S2 allows free Skype-to-Skype calls, and now supports Facebook, Windows Live Messenger and RSS feeds. The camera’s been upgraded from a 2 to 3.2 Megapixel camera. The new S2 also doubles as a USB modem. Free on contract, or £79.99 on contract. The original’s now £40 on PAYG. Available from www.three.co.uk
• iPhone Update: Two updates from Apple this month, mainly to fix bugs. As of 31st August, v2.0.2 is the latest. iPhone explored.
• Freeview landfill latest: The Freeview transmitter updates that have trashed Daewoo, Bush, Triax, Portland, and Labgear boxes is now complete, leaving a potential quarter of a million Freeview boxes destined for the bin. We’ve covered this in the last few shows. If you’ve missed the story, see our Freeview Landfill page, or check out the comments in our news blog.
• Black Hole Alert: Warning… the world may end in September – paper bags at the ready… Big Bang Day
  
• And finally: Fancy yourself as a spy? There’s a new set of sunglasses on the market with a built-in 1.3 Meg camera. The glasses have 1 gig of onboard memory for photos, and the camera trigger is via a wireless keyring for clandestine snapping. Battery lasts for 9 hours, oh, and they also have an onboard MP3 player. Supplied with clear and polarised lenses. To get your snappy shades, go to I want one of those.com

If you’re prepared to filter out all of the puns on the word “Watt”, you’ll find that this show looks at power consumption. We covered:

How to calculate how much a piece of kit costs to run: See our How Many Watts page

The cost of running household and tech kit: See our How Many Watts – Cost

We also mentioned the ecobutton – pictured to the right. This is basically a button that you plug into one of your PC’s USB port. If you’re planning to leave your PC for a while, press the button and it’ll put your machine into a power-saving mode. Start-up on return is fast, and the software shows you how much you’ve saved (££s and Carbon) by pressing the button.

The ecobutton is available for £15 from I want one of those

• More on this subject on our How Many Watts page.
• You might also want to check out our Energy Meters page.

We took a look at a collection of smartphones in this show – the phones owned by the FrequencyCast team.

Here are the phones we covered:

• Nokia 6220 (pictured here). Powerful phone with GPS and a 5Meg camera. Top choice, and with a low price-tag. More,

• Skypephone (check out the new Skypephone at three.co.uk)

• BT ToGo, reviewed in Cast 28, and available free with BT Total Broadband Anywhere

• XDA Orbit, a powerful Windows Mobile device

• Apple iPhone 3G – need we say more?

• Freesat ND mystery: Shane Doveton’s mailed in. He’s got a Humax Freesat receiver, and in non-Freesat mode, sees the letters ‘ND’ after some Sky channels. What do the letters stand for?
  In the satellite TV world, the initials NDS are associated with a secure TV encryption service known as Videoguard, produced by the NDS group. If you see ND or NDS, you’re trying to view a channel that’s encrypted by Videoguard, and requires a subscription.

• Dead Daewoo Freeview: Mike Hoyle asks: “Having had my Daewoo DS608P ‘blanked’ on the 5th of August, will Freeview guarantee that all Digital boxes with the ‘Digital tick’ will continue to function after any future updates before and after switchover?”
  Freeview are not directly responsible for the dead boxes – it’s the fault of the manufacturers for not fully implementing the specification. Although the Digital Tick is a good indication of compliance, Freeview don’t make or license boxes, so they won’t guarantee them. Go to our Freeview Landfill page for the latest.

• Vista frustrations: Jon Spriggs got in touch. His dad is getting frustrated with his MS Vista computer; it keeps crashing and he’s thinking of trying one of the alternatives. Jon’s thinking Mac or Ubuntu as an alternative. Also, he asked if we could you recommend any good genealogy software? Pete
  suggested good old Windows XP as an alternative to Vista… it’s stable, and if Jon’s dad is used to Windows, there’s less learning curve. As for family tree software – I’ve been doing mine for years using Rootsmagic. Runs fine on Vista and XP, and creates nice looking tree websites too.

• ITV HD TV Schedule: Allan Brown’s mailed us about Freesat: “Regarding HD services on Freesat, is there anywhere I can get to know what HD programmes will be broadcast on ITV?”
  Amazingly it’s hard to get a decent listing of ITV’s HD shows. Even the itv.com site doesn’t carry a listing. Best we’ve found is a Digiguide user channel. See community.digiguide.com/default.asp?m=itemreviews&nItemID=313&t=2

• Voice over wi-fi repeater? A podline question from a listener asking if voice calls can be routed over wi-fi when using a wi-fi extender. Certainly should be possible – as long as the phone can get an Internet connection from the router.

• Route over wi-fi, not mobile network: Our podline caller also wanted to know how to ensure that voice calls are routed over wi-fi, not over the Orange mobile phone network. He’s blind. We’re struggling for an answer. One option could be a wireless VOIP phone such as a Skype phone instead?

• Setanta without Sky Subscription: Keith Green asks: “If I buy a Sky free to air box can I get Setanta Sport without subscribing to Sky?”
  The answer appears to be “yes”. You don’t need to be a Sky subscriber to get Setanta via satellite – you’ll need a Sky box with a card slot, and a Sky viewing card.

• Two Home Hubs: In this show, we took a call asking if you can have two Home Hubs in the same house. The answer’s “Yes”. Basically, you have one connected to your landline, and set one as a wireless Repeater, to extend the wi-fi range. More on our Home Hub FAQ.

• Digital TV in the US: John Long’s mailed us – Apparently the whole of the USA would be going all digital by mid 2009. Why is it that the UK’s smaller and it takes 4 years, but the US can do it in one year?
  If there’s anyone from the US listening, we’d love to hear from you about the state of digital telly in the States. Call us free on Skype – our ID is frequencycast.

Any questions for Carl & Pete? Got a comment on the world of TV and Technology?
Call 020 8133 4567 and leave a message and be heard on the show.

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