FrequencyCast UK – Show #19

This show’s news section covered the following stories:

• UKTV G2 becomes ‘Dave’: The channel UKTV G2 is relaunching in mid-October… and will be coming to Freeview. The channel, aiming at 16-35 year old men, will be on Sky and Virgin Media, and will replace UKTV Bright Ideas on Freeview. The channel name? “Dave”. Apparently, this new name is based on the idea that “everyone has a mate called Dave”.
• New iPods: In case you’ve been under a rock, Apple’s announced a pile of new iPods – the iPod Touch with built-in wifi and browsing, a new, squarer iPod Nano, some recoloured Shuffles, and an upgraded 160gig video iPod Classic. Most of these hit the shelves in September and can be ordered from the likes of
  Play.com.

• Apple iPhones: It’s just been announced the hugely hyped Apple iPhone will be carried by just one UK operator – and that’s o2. The iPhone should be available from the 9th of November 2007 from o2 and the Carphone
  Warehouse. Price? £269, with a fairly painful 18 month contract of £35, bringing cost-of-ownership to over £1000. Update: Try our iPhone audio review

• Tiscali TV: Tiscali’s expanded it’s TV-over-Broadband service to a number of extra cities. Sports fans note that three of Setanta’s sports channels have just become available for £9.99 a month. More on Tiscali’s site
• Channel 4 On Demand: A stop-press to our later On Demand feature – the channel’s 4oD “catch up tv” service is set to extend from 7 to 30 days. More at www.channel4.com/4od
• High definition news: In September, Channel 4 announced that from December 2007, they’ll be running Channel 4 HD, on the Sky Digital platform. It’s also just been announced that ITV will start offering HD content in early 2008 – initially with 2-3 hours of primetime HD content a night
• Recycle your mobile – If you’ve got an old mobile phone handset that you’re no longer using… do your bit for the environment, and recycle it safely.
  You may even be able to make some money for getting rid of your old phone safely. For cashback, go to envirofone.com, or to donate it to charity, try Fonebak.com.

• Lightsabers at the ready: New game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, due for release in 2008 on the Nintendo Wii… The game lets you use the Wii motion controllers to battle with Light Sabers. This is the game you’re looking for!

We covered the following Freeview news headlines:

• New Freeview channels: Lads channel Nuts TV launched on the 12th of September on Freeview channel 42. From October 1st, there’s Virgin One, replacing FTN – A quick look at the schedule shows a lot of Knight Rider and Deep Space Nine now available via Freeview. You may need to get your Freeview receiver to do a full rescan for channels to get them added to the list.
• Departing Freeview channels: Disney’s dropping the ABC1 channel on Freeview from October. No news on what will replace it as yet. Also, Thomas Cook has gone from Freeview channel 41
• Freeview Radio Stations: There are some changes to the Freeview radio stations – Heat and Kerrang have swapped multiplexes and some of the BBC radio stations will also be moving multiplex on October. They’ll be on the same channels numbers, but you may need to rescan to keep getting these channels

The main focus of Show 19 is
“On Demand TV”. We’ve created a special page about On Demand telly, but here’s a summary of what we discussed:

• Virgin Media – Largest collection of movies and TV shows

• Tiscali TV – Offering the largest collection of movies and TV shows via a phone line. Only available in selected towns in the UK (including London, Birmingham, Liverpool).

• Top Up TV Anytime page – TV content received via a TV aerial and captured on a special set-top box. Covered in more detail on Show 10.

• BT Vision – A combined Freeview box and on-demand content service. The digital hard-disk recorder and receiver is available free to a BT Total Broadband, customers. We received BT Vision in Show 12

• Sky Anytime – Service available to Sky customers over Broadband, with a limited service on newer Sky+ and Sky HD boxes

For more on On Demand TV, see our dedicated page: TV On Demand

For this show, we locked Pete up in the cupboard under the stairs, with just an electricity meter for company.

We were looking at the Efergy energy meter, which gives you a portable screen that shows you how much power your home is burning

See our dedicated page for more pics and a full review: Energy Meters

In this show, we took a look at a rather snazzy, and tiny, media player – the Cowon iAudio D2. Features include:

• Plays and displays music, video
• Displays JPG images and text files
• DAB Digital radio, plus an FM radio
• 4GB storage, expandable using SD cards
• Crisp colour touchscreen
• Voice recorder, notepad, calculator and USB storage

Available from AdvancedMP3players for £169.99.
Get 5% off at advancedMP3players.co.uk by entering the following code at the checkout: AMP3D21.
Also available from PurelyGadgets.co.uk

Thanks to the team at RADIOJournal in Germany for featuring our podcast in their August 2007 magazine. This is a German magazine that concentrates entirely on radio broadcasting – covering everything from domestic public radio via privately owned and operated stations to webcasting, plus international radio, radio drama and audio books, as well as the latest developments such as DAB, DRM, DMB, DVB-T and podcasts.
The magazine’s 36 monthly pages are full of feature reports, news, interviews, tests and product presentations, plus frequency listings.

RADIOJournal offers subscriptions for its print and online editions. More information – as well as some articles from the archives – can be found at www.radiojournal.de

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

• Streaming Media: Michael Johnson got in touch via the FrequencyCast Facebook group. He has a small home wi-fi network and is after a way of watching DVDs and playing streaming music and video in a variety of formats. He’s aware that a Windows Media Centre could be the answer, but he doesn’t want a PC on 24/7. From his long email, Michael’s really after a small magic box that does all that a Windows PC does. The PS3 and Apple TV are options, but not quite as powerful as the Windows option.

• Archiving video cassettes: Richard Curtis has a lot of recordings on Video cassette and wants to know how to go about digitising these. A couple of options – consider getting a DVD recorder and burning your old videos onto DVD. Alternatively, you can hook up your VCR to your PC and transfer videos onto your hard disk, for storage or editing. You’ll need a PC TV Card or USB adapter, as we covered in Show 18.

• Sat Nav on mobiles: Ghela got in touch via our podline and asked if he could get satellite navigation on his Nokia 6230i or Sony Ericsson k800i. Well, these models don’t have built-in GPS like the XDA Orbit on the Nokia N95, but you can use them with a Bluetooth GPS receiver (from Dabs.com) and some suitable software, such as Nav4All and Google Maps.

• Built-in or stand-alone Freeview? A mail from Joe Thorogood. “I am thinking about buying a new TV for my bedroom. Should I get a TV with Freeview incorporated, or would it be better to get a top set box?” The advantage of a TV with built-in Freeview is that it’s all-in-one. No extra cabling, no need for an extra box plugged into the mains eating electricity, and they’re easier to connect and set-up. On the down-side, they tend to be more expensive. A separate box allows you to take the box to another room, or replace it if a better box comes along.

• BT Vision sound control: Andrew Morris wanted to know why he can’t control sound with his BT Vision remote… The answer to this applies to Sky and Top Up TV too. Your set-top box remote can be programmed to be able to change channels and adjust the volume of most TV sets – with your manual, you should have a sheet of code numbers – with some that match your TV manufacturer. See the box manual for details on how to set the remote to be able to control the telly.

• Power-saving mains sockets: Our digital dinosaur asked us for advice on ways to power down equipment not in use in his home office. Switching off his PC still leaves loads of lights on – printers, screen, modem, etc. Here’s the gadget we discussed in the show – The intelliPlug, from OneClick. This automatically cuts the power to peripherals when your PC gets turned off. Clever. IntelliPlug is available for around £15 from Ethical Superstore and Maplin.co.uk.

  There’s also the “Bye Bye Standby” product that allows you to switch off standby devices with a simple button-press – also from Ethical Superstore

FrequencyCast is now broadcasting 24 hours a day. We’ve set up a streaming radio station using the online radio service www.live365.com for those that prefer to listen to a stream of our shows, as opposed to a podcast. The feed is at:

www.live365.com/stations/frequencycast

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