FrequencyCast UK – Show #21

• Freeview set to expand: Good news for Freeview viewers with a lot of patience! The UK regulator Ofcom announced that we can expect more channels on Freeview, including some high-definition content, as early as 2009. The extra Freeview channels can only happen when the analogue switchoff happens, as there’s not enough space on the system at the moment, and we could see new channels first in the Granada TV region, as they’ll have gone digital by 2009.
  See the Ofcom Press Release. As for HD, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five and all stated their intention to launch HD services between 2009 and 2012. The Beeb is already offering HD on satellite and cable, with Channel 4 launching their service soon.

• Sky’s Picnic: Last month, the Disney Channel announced it’s joining the Picnic TV lineup. If you’re not sure what Picnic is – this is a pay-TV service backed by Sky. Picnic is pending approval from Ofcom. If it gets the go-ahead, the service, that can be received via a TV aerial, will offer subscribers premium Sky content, including Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies, Sky One and Disney. Sky’s current Freeview channels, Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three, will vanish to make way for this new service. Are you pro-Sky One coming to Freeview, or anti-Sky’s plans for TV dominance? Ofcom are after public opinions on this, but hurry as the consultation ends on 14th December. More on the Ofcom site

• Top Up TV: We reviewed Top Up TV Anytime in Show 10 – this is a Freeview set-top box that records extra telly shows overnight, so you can watch then over the course of a week. Broadcasting hours for UKTV Gold on the TopUp TV service have dropped (again), this time to make way for some new content. Boxes will now be able to get programming from The History Channel, the Crime and Investigation Channel and the Sci-Fi channel – but you have to go Menu > Customise to get this new content. Also note that the Top Up software has been updated with some new features and stability fixes. More on our Top Up TV Anytime page.

• UK and US Strike news: The beeb’s planning to get rid of 2,500 jobs, and there’s a strike ballot in early January. Industrial action could affect a stack of BBC TV shows. On the subject of strikes, all is not well on US TV. The Writers Guild of America recently called a strike over pay for work distributed over the ‘net. With no new scripts, production has stopped on top shows including Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, House, Heroes, The Office and the final season of Battlestar Galactica. Fox has recently announced that the US premier of 24 has been postponed until the strike’s over. Some episodes of these show are in the can, but the US schedules are something of a mess.

• Channel 4 On Demand: Missed a show on Channel 4? A fan of classic comedy like Black Books, Peep Show, Father Ted or Brass Eye?
  Download the free 4oD player from Channel 4. 4oD on your PC provides access to 30-days of Channel 4’s schedule free of charge, plus some pay-to-view classic shows. Download the free 4oD player from www.channel4.com/4od.

• Knight Rider’s back: There’s talk of a new version of the cult 80’s show, possibly even starring The Hoff himself… But what’s ticked our fancy is a series of Knight Rider Mobisodes – new animated mini-episodes that you can watch on your mobile. We played a brief clip in the show, but you can get to an online preview of an episode, plus a series of teasers at www.playerxmobile.com/knightrider. Great to see that Knight Rider’s still alive and kicking, and we have more on KITT later in the show.

The main focus of Show 21 is
“How to archive your media”, as voted by our show listeners.

On the show, Carl and Pete cover:

• Archiving your audio cassettes, vinyl and CDs onto your PC

• Archiving your VHS video collection onto DVD or PC

• Archiving your old printed photos

• Keeping your PC archive backed up safely.

There’s too much to add here, so we’ve created a dedicated page looking at how to archive your video, audio and photos.

See our dedicated page: Archiving your media

The iPhone launched in the UK in early November 2007. In this show, we take a very quick look at this phone. As there’s been so much media coverage of the iPhone, we’ve not gone into too much detail on the show… but as we know there’s lots of people out there interested in what the phone does, we’ve put together some extra content.

For more on the iPhone, see our UK iPhone page, or check out our Audio Guide to the iPhone for 33 minutes of iPhone chat and review.

As we mentioned in the last show, UK Network Operator 3 has launched its 3Skypephone. This is a standard 3G mobile with a dedicated Skype button. It can make and receive, free calls to other Skype users over the 3 data network.

Other features: 3’s Skypephone acts as a normal mobile as well as a Skypephone. It has an MP3 player and a 2meg camera.
Available free on contract, or under £50 on pay-as-you-go. Calls on the 3Skypephone are truly free, there are no calling charges and no data charges. FREE calls to anyone with Skype, anywhere at anytime. Get two on Pay-as-you-go, and you can use them as walkie talkies for free Skype calls within the UK – you will need to keep the handset topped up if on Pay-as-you-go though.

More details on 3’s 3Skypephone page.

OK, so we had a little fun with this one. This is a new tooth cleaning solution – the Oral B Triumph with SmartGuide. The toothbrush handle has a built-in wireless transmitter that sends information about your brushing habits to a separate display unit, to show you how well you’re cleaning your teeth. Despite the fun we had at this product’s expense – it does give a good clean, and promote’s oral hygiene… it’s just the idea of a wi-fi toothbrush, especially for a technophobe like our Carl!

At the time of recording, you can get the Triumph for half-price – under £70, from Argos and Boots.
It’s also listed at Tesco Direct

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

• Broadband on a train? Kim Ashton asks: ” I’ve just bought a laptop and have a wireless connection at home. My sister said that people can get wireless connection anywhere including on trains. How does this work? Is there such a thing as a USB portable wireless modem?”
  Some train providers in the UK are offering on-train wi-fi, but it’s fairly rare. Your best bet is likely to be to use the 3G mobile phone network. In the UK, we can recommend two providers who both supply a USB modem: T-Mobile Mobile Broadband offering mobile surfing for £15 a month,
  or there’s 3 Broadband to Go, with prices from £10 a month.
  More on our Mobile Broadband page.

• Wi-fi on a laptop – Natalie Taylor mailed us – she has USB ADSL modem which she plugs into her laptop and wants to know how to get wireless broadband. What Natalie needs to do, is replace your USB modem with a Wireless ADSL router. This plugs into your phone line and will give your house wireless Internet access. If your laptop doesn’t have built-in wifi, you’ll need a wireless USB stick. See our example of wi-fi setup.

• o2 XDA Orbit file problems – We had a call to our podline talking about corruption and deleted files on memory cards used on the o2 XDA Orbit. A fix was released in August 2007 that solves the problem and upgrades the phone to Windows Mobile 6.0. This free software update can be downloaded from www.my-xda.com/xdaOrbitSoftware.html

• Update on DVD Recorders – In the last show, we discussed DVD formats. Neil Fulcher contacted us to ask whether he should be worried about the difference between DVD-R, and DVD+R. The DVD-R format got there first, and is a standard developed by Pioneer. DVD+R was created by an alliance that included Philips and Sony. Whilst there is a technical difference, from a practical level, there’s not a lot to worry about – Both formats can be played by over 90% of the world’s DVD players, you just need to make sure you buy the right discs for your recorder. So if your recorder can only burn DVD-R discs, don’t buy a box of blank DVD+D discs.

• DAB+ Radios – John Chambers wants to know when can we expect DAB+ digital radio receivers in the UK… DAB+ is a little way off yet. DAB radio Manufacturer Pure seem to be ahead of the bunch. They’ve released two DAB+ upgradeable radios already, the Siesta and Chronos II.
  There’s also the Revo Blik RadioStation which also supports wi-fi radio and is the first commercially-available DAB+ radio that doesn’t require a software upgrade to get DAB+.
  We can expect to see more DAB+ upgradeable radios released in 2008.
  Pictured here is the Pure Siesta, available for under £50 at the time of recording from Tesco.com

• Homesight – Back in Show 12, we looked at the cheap and cheerful Home Security system, Homesight. Thanks to Christopher for letting us know that (at last) a Windows Vista software update is available. It’s available for download from Motorola Support and from the downloads section at MyHome247.

• On Demand TV – Andrew Malloy asked us about the different ways to get On Demand content through a TV, specifically wondering if he can get BBC/ITV/Ch4 and Five through his TV.
  Well, Virgin, BT Vision and Tiscali TV all offer on-demand TV programmes from their set-top boxes. This is normally a back-catalogue of popular shows. Additionally, Virgin and Tiscali TV offer catch-up TV from the last seven days from BBC and Channel 4, and BT Vision has a Channel 4 catch-up service (the excellent 4oD service). Nothing from ITV or 5. The lack of on-demand TV content appears to be due to rights and content licensing restrictions.

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