Tag Archive for 'Television'

Sky

Published on 26 November, 2009. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

Sky Logo

Sky. If you live outside the UK, you’ll know it’s that thing above you that’s usually either blue, grey, white, or black. Water falls out of it sometimes, and other times, planes do.

Except if you live inside the UK, you’ll know I’m talking about Sky. Yes, them. So, why am I talking about Sky? Well, simple. I want to complain. I like complaining. :)

So at the moment, we have Sky’s “full” package. Which means we get all the “entertainment” packs – stuff like entertainment, documentaries, music, kids shows, news, etc. That’s the base price of £22.50 a month. Which, for the range of channels, isn’t too bad. It’s pretty much everything except movies and sports. Which we also get. Which brings the total up to £47.50 per month. Okay, so that’s expensive, but my dad loves the sports, and I watch a fair few movies, so we do use it. Then, of course, we have Sky’s HD box, with access to the HD channels…which is another £9.75 per month. So far, the total is £57.25 per month. Yeah, we’re starting to get expensive here.

Now, my parents almost always watch boring crap (I don’t have any interest in Strictly Come Dancing or Football / Rugby / etc, okay?), so I have my own Sky+HD box in my bedroom. Which means that we have a multiroom subscription (£9.75/month), and a second “HD” subscription (£9.75/month). So right now, we pay £76.75 per month. Which is US$127, CA$134, EU€85, or AU$139.

Oh, and I wouldn’t mind watching Sky News on my iPhone – Sky have an iPhone app that can do that (along with sports), which is £6 a month for non-customers…and actual customers. So you want to charge another £6 on top of that £76 we already pay? Um, no. If I buy a Slingbox, it’s more complicated, but it’ll cost the same over two years and it gives me access to ALL channels.

I would consider this to be on the high end of things – it’s a lot of money to pay for only TV (no broadband or phone), and yet…after all that, I hate the Sky+HD box. I hate their service in general. The content itself is great, but the rest of Sky….no.

Continue reading ‘Sky’

Windows XP? DVB-T? I have a solution!

Published on 30 August, 2009. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Windows XP, and DVB-T. Two things that have been hanging around for a bit too long.

So, first up, Windows XP. Microsoft have been trying to get consumers and businesses to switch to Windows Vista and Windows 7, but they’ve been unable to get people to fully switch over. So, here’s an idea. Roll out a critical update that displays advertising and banners all over the operating system that pretty much says “Get Windows 7 now”, and then just completely drop support for the OS entirely. Don’t issue any patches, don’t offer support, just forget about it. Oh, and while that’s happening, do the same with Internet Explorer 6. And IE7 too, while we’re at it.

Next up, DVB-T. The UK uses DVB-T for the whole Freeview system (free-to-air digital TV), and has done since it was invented. The problem is, DVB-T is MPEG2, and it’s not very efficient. While DVB-T can cope with MPEG2 HDTV (Australia, for example, broadcasts SD and 720p/1080i HD channels over DVB-T), it only works when you have a small amount of channels, due to limited bandwidth. In this case (as far as I know), Australia only has about 15 channels in total, five of which are HD. The UK, on the other hand, has about 60 or so SD channels, all of which use DVB-T / MPEG2 – hence why there aren’t any HD channels available yet, because there’s no room.

However, the plan for launching over-the-air HDTV in the UK is to switch over to DVB-T2, which uses MPEG4 – meaning that, eventually, all the SD and HD channels can be broadcast using this system, and they’ll all be able to fit, as there’s plenty of bandwidth. The problem is this:

6A.2 However, viewers would need to buy new receiving equipment to access any services using the new standards. With 25m DTT set-top boxes or integrated digital televisions already installed, there needs to be a compelling consumer proposition to drive take-up of the new equipment – and migration of the platform over time to the more efficient standards.

Source: Five’s Response to Ofcom’s Second Invitation to Apply for DTT Multiplex B Capacity (PDF file).

So basically, the entire UK has DVB-T set top boxes, all of which would need to be replaced with DVB-T2 set top boxes to receive HD and (maybe) SD channels in the future. Again, I propose taking the same approach. Just cut off the analogue and DVB-T signals completely, and simply stick to DVB-T2. Considering a Freeview (DVB-T) box can be picked up for as little as £15 now, I’m sure DVB-T2 boxes can be made fairly cheaply, so it shouldn’t be that hard to switch over at all.

Oh sure, both solutions are pretty harsh, but come on. It’s almost 2010, and we’re talking about technology that’s over 8 years old (for Windows XP) and 12 years old (DVB-T). “Phasing them out” isn’t really going to work, considering how hard Microsoft have been trying to do it with XP. :lol:

Hollywood makes stuff suck.

Published on 18 April, 2009. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Back in early 2006, I heard about a brand new TV series called “Prison Break”. Long story short, I started watching it, and was hooked after the first episode. The first season of Prison Break was really ground breaking, and I enjoyed it immensely.

However, three years later, and Prison Break is currently in it’s fourth season. Which is three seasons too many. See, I think Fox have gone and made seasons two, three, and four simply because they know that by doing so, they can make a profit. Season one of Prison Break was superb, the rest…not so much. It’s not just Prison Break, either. I greatly enjoyed the first season of Heroes, but I’ve since given up watching it. It just became boring and rubbish. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is an even bigger mistake – sure, it’s an enjoyable show, but if you ask me, it shouldn’t have been made in the first place. Terminator should have been kept to the four movies, and that’s it. If they make a third season, I’ll probably just skip it. I was bored for much of the second season, and chances are, the third, if made, will suck even more.

My point is, TV shows, and in many cases movies too, simply go on too long and become boring or stupid. And yet the movie and television studios keep on making them because they know they can make money off them. And I just wish they wouldn’t, or if they did, I wish they would actually make them not suck. Case in point: 24. Despite now being on it’s seventh season, it’s still awesome.

Oh, and in case you’ve not yet seen Prison Break, but want to, watch the first season and then stop. DON’T watch the other seasons. But do watch the first. ;)

11 Features That Sky+HD Should Have

Published on 6 March, 2009. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Sky HD, for those who don’t know, is the UK’s largest subscription TV provider. Similar to, say, Dish Network in the US, it provides HD and SD satellite TV for a monthly fee, and has all the usual channels you’d expect, such as entertainment, news, sports, kids, music, and so on. Anyway, Sky themselves offer three set top boxes:

Sky Digibox: Provides basic viewing-only access to Sky.
Sky+: Provides viewing of Sky channels, but adds an internal HDD so you can record and timeshift programs, and has two tuners so you can record one show while watching another…or record two shows and watch a previously recorded show.
Sky+HD: Same thing as Sky+, but with an HD decoder too.

All three boxes share the same EPG (Eletronic Program Guide) software, which, while it’s a decent and easy to use design, it’s showing it’s age now, is severely in need of a makeover. However, Sky have announced a makeover of the EPG for the HD box only, which is great news…when it’s out. It’s almost a year since they announced it, so hopefully it’ll be out soon.

Anyway, enough of that. This post is about the features that I wish the Sky+HD box had. So, on with the list.

  • eSATA HDD: The box has an eSATA jack on the back, but at the moment, you can’t use it for anything. Why not? The box has a stupidly small 320GB HDD (of which 160GB is reserved for Sky’s Anytime service), so why not open that up like the US services allow, and let me plug in my own 2TB drive? The current box, if you full it with HD movies, lets you have about two pages of programs, and then the HDD is full! In fact, this is perfect – put a 320GB minimum restriction on external drives, and then keep the internal HDD for Anytime, and use the eSATA drive for recordings!
  • USB Port: Again, this isn’t used for anything so why not let people use it for HDDs too? Or, just leave it unused, since eSATA is far better for HDDs. ;)
  • New EPG: It’s already been done by Sky, so WHEN are we getting it? (According to Twitter, it seems to be out on Tuesday the 10th of March, actually. Fingers crossed!)
  • HD Swap: It’s a descriptive name for it…and I think it’s would be a useful feature. Basically, the Sky box should be able to detect when you’re watching something in SD (such as Nature’s Great Events) on, say, BBC1, and see that it’s being broadcast at the same time on BBC HD. It should then pop up a suggestion saying “This program is in HD! Switch to the HD version?”, and you can choose if you want to switch or not. This could be made even better by having two more options in the settings – first of all, a setting to automaticially switch over to the HD version without asking you, and secondly, the option to map the HD channel to the SD channel number (quick example: set the box to switch to 4HD whenever you type in “104″, since 4HD’s quality is much better then the non-HD 4…even on SD channels.
  • Commerical break skipping: Windows Media Centre already this this feature. It would have to be mapped to an existing button on the remote (I considered double-tapping “Play”), but it would mean you could skip forward a specific time (instead of fast-forwarding) so as to bypass the ad breaks. Again, this could be an option that you can set in the settings, allowing you to change how far forward it goes, say, 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, or 240 seconds. I suspect this would cause quite an uproar from the broadcasters though, so it’s probably unlikely this would ever happen. :(
  • Shared DVRs: The ethernet port on the back of the Sky+HD box is unused, so, this would be a great feature for it. As long as all the Sky+HD boxes are on the same gigabit ethernet network, allow them to share their programs with each other. I’m not sure how well this would work with HD programs, or even SD programs (though you could perhaps buffer them, like YouTube does), but if it works well, why not allow the Sky+HD boxes to share their content? For example, if I record the cricket downstairs, on our main TV, but my parents then watch something else on that TV, I should be able to watch the football, stored on the TV downstairs, from my TV upstairs. I believe you can do this already with AT&T Uverse in America.
  • Pizza ordering: TiVo can order Dominos pizza, so why can’t we? :P
  • On-demand internet TV: This may be a little harder to implement, but the technology itself is there (the H264 decoder(s)) – allow the Sky+HD box to use the ethernet connection to connect to the internet and download TV shows such as Revision 3′s Tekzilla. This would, of course, be trickey to do due to the codecs needed, but I’m sure if Sky crammed ffdshow or similar into the box it would work for most video podcasts/internet shows. In terms of adding shows, this could be done via the Sky website, or something similar.
  • While we’re on the topic of internet TV…YouTube? I’m sure it can’t be that hard. Other devices can do it, so why can’t Sky?
  • Remote Record v2 (which the Sky+ box could do with as well): The current method of remotely recording programs is rubbish, if you ask me. You can either do it using Sky’s flash-only website (which won’t work on the iPhone, because, well, it’s Flash), by text (which I’ve never bothered to remember how/what to do and where to send it to), or via their Java app, which, annoyingly, works on only a few handsets. Also, setting it up is a nightmare, and you have to record things at least 30 mins before they start. The NEW remote record, however, should have both the website, using both Flash (for PCs) and non-Flash pages (for stuff like the iPhone), text, a Java app that works on all phones, an iPhone app, and finally, setup an official API for it so other people can code apps and so on for various devices. Setup should be made easier – you should simply have to enter your viewing card number on Sky’s website, then enter a code on the box itself if necessary, and that’s it. Simple. Oh, and finally, I’d like to be able to choose which box to send it to if you have two HD boxes.
  • CSS: What is CSS, you ask? Cascading Style Sheets. Oh yes. I think it would be amazing if you could go onto Sky’s website, input your own CSS (or user-submitted CSS), and be able to customize the colours of the EPG yourself. Again, this would send itself to your box using the ethernet jack, over the internets. Wouldn’t that be awesome? :D

So, those are the features that I wish Sky+HD had. Most of them should be easy to implement, and several of them are already available in the US and on other platforms. If Sky added these features (oh, and Sky News HD too please! :D ), Sky+HD really would become the best HD service available outside the USA. :)

Opinions?

Sky HD

Published on 17 December, 2008. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

The BBC HD Candyman

Last Friday, on the 12th of December, I had Sky HD installed in my bedroom. I had actually booked it over a month before – Sky had an offer in October for a £75 Sky HD box with free installation (if you’re doing multiroom, otherwise £30 installation), so I decided to go for it and get it installed. Obviously they’re busy, as they didn’t have a single day available for installation during November.

I previously had ghetto-Sky HD installed in my bedroom using a Firewire based DVB-S2 tuner, however since my MacBook has no Firewire, I sold it, and decided to get the cheap Sky HD box. Anyway, a technician arrived on Friday (and, I will add, he looked suspicously like Hamish Blake, which was weird), and got to work. First of all, he drilled a hole in the wall downsairs, next to the master phone jack, and installed a wire going outside, up the wall, and into my bedroom. For those who don’t know – the phone line is used for ordering pay-per-view programs on Sky, as well as to make sure you’re not giving the box to a friend to use. If you take out a multiroom subscription, you’re essentially getting a second box for only £10 more a month. Presuming you have two HD boxes, Sky don’t want you giving that second box to a friend so you can both have the full Sky package for a total of £77 per month – because if you EACH take out Sky, it’s a total of £114 a month (for two HD boxes with all programming).

Of course, there are a few ways you could get around this. If you’re sharing it with your neighbour, you could simply give them the box, and run the telephone wire from your house into the box. Unless Sky actually came and checked, they wouldn’t know any different, however if they did find out, I can imagine you’d get your service cut off or you’d be fined, so…don’t try it.

Anyway, back to my box. The installer guy then removed the old satellite cable to my bedroom, which I had had installed last year for my ghetto-Sky-HD solution, but it was only a single feed, so he replaced it with a dual-feed cable. He also replaced the LNB (the thing on the end of the stick attatched to the dish), as it was looking a little worse for wear from the sun. I also suspect he did it because when he pulled the cover off to access the jacks on the LNB itself, the cover itself snapped in half because it was so brittle from the sun. Anyway, he came back inside, did a few tricks on the box, and within about half an hour, it was up and running with Sky HD!

It’s pretty much the same thing that we’ve had downstairs for the past year, so I’m not going to go into any detail, but I must say that the box itself is nice and quiet – it’s an “Amstrad” branded box, whereas the one we have downstairs is a Thomson box which I purchased off eBay last year. The one downstairs is okay, but it crashes sometimes (I generally have to do a hard-reset about once a month), and the fan inside it basically never stops, and hasn’t stopped since I upgraded the HDD inside it with a 500GB drive last year. :( It’s also quite a noisy fan, so you notice it when you’re watching TV, even with the volume turned up a bit. I’m tempted to butcher the box a bit to fit my own quieter fan, but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea, because I’m not sure if the box would work with the fans unplugged. If you unplug the CPU fan header on a PC, it complains, and I can imagine the Sky HD box would do the same.

I’m not that fussed overall about it though, as you do get used to it after a while. However, I’m very pleased at how quiet this new box is, as it’s in my bedroom and I like to sleep in a *quiet* place. :)

Anyway, that’s all up and running and I’m very happy with it so far, and I’m even happier at the fact that Sky switched MTVN HD on yesterday, so there’s FINALLY some good quality HD music showing. Well, there’s not that much at the moment but I’m sure it will get better after a while. I wish all the channels would go HD, even if they’re just showing SD material – the difference between the SD music channels and SD content shown on MTVN HD is amazing, since they absolutly kill the bitrate on SD channels, sadly. You can especially see it if you switch between Channel 4, and Channel 4 HD, during the 7pm news. The HD channel looks loads better, despite it still being SD.

In other news, I finally upgraded to WordPress 2.7 on here and several other places that I manage (with a little help from kudos, because I always break something). Also, I’m going to London for a couple of days from Saturday, to see the Stereophonics live at The O2. As usual when I go to London, I’ll most likely have both my iPhone and laptop with me, so I’ll still be reachable. Just maybe a bit slower at replying. ;) In preperation of the trip I also decided to pick up a cheap laptop slip-case-thing for my MacBook, as I don’t really have anything else that’s good for transporting it in, other then a messenger back which is 1) designed for 15″ laptops, and 2) missing.

Anyway, this post is too long, so that’s it for now. :)