Freeview
I had my Freeview boxed installed today, in time to watch Boston Legal in HD.
It was impressive. First up 3 News was clear and solid. The pictures flipped from wide to 4:3 frequently but the aspect looked good all the time.
Boston Legal looked great. It was a bit strange being able to see the make up on Denny. Shirley definitely looked a bit older in HD.
The little ‘uns are excited about Kids Zone.
It’s all about trade off’s. Watch Boston Legal in HD and watch ads. Or time shift normal TV and no ads on MySky.
I’m pretty sure that Sky won’t let you record their HD shows either so the dilemma will continue. Time Shifting is far more useful that HD.
The Freeview box isn’t as ugly as expected but the remote is cheap and nasty. The UI is pretty raw and EPG seemed to be an hour out on some modes. Another remote and set of instructions joins the coffee table and the grandmother babysitter has zero chance of turning the system on by herself.
If you have a flatscreen with HDMI, FreeView is a no brainer, even if just for Kids Zone. I suspect many will extend their stacks and have both FreeView and MySky HD.
Broadcast TV is so broken and so in conflict with consumers. As HD roles out the broadcasters gain a short respite but as the glass arrives near the doorstep the Internet has to win.
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Sky are bringing out a new HD version of the My Sky in July along with four HD channels (2 sport channels, Sky Movies 1, Sky Movies Greats). I doubt however that we will see any of the FTA networks provide HD feeds to Sky though so it looks like two boxes for HD for some time to come :(
Why not get a separate PVR or are you loath to get another box and remote.
I think I will get a media centre computer to try and integrate all media on my TV.
I’m using a DVB-S freeview box that has USB. It was a stop-gap measure when returning to our house to find the tenants had broken all terrestrial signals, but had installed a dish (without our consent of course).
http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/ultraplus-micro-digital-satellite-receiver-p-442.html
So I’m getting MySky-type EPG+Timeshift+recording for free. The UI is great, as is the remote. Can’t really fault it.
DVB-S only broadcasts at 576i, but Freeview are using a healthy bitrate so on myBravia LCD I can still tell when things aren’t correctly focussed etc.
If I was starting again now, I’d go with a Media Centre and DVB-T card, giving you all you need in one small package (including torrents ;-) ).
TV3 are hyped about their HD broadcast, is it actually a true HD source? All they say is ‘Broadcast in HD’. You can broadcast any crappy source in HD.
MySky HD still seems vague - it’s rather tricky to broadcast HD over satellite - and Sky *love* turning down the bit rate anyway - Freeview’s satellite bitrate is typically double of Sky’s for the same channel - makes for a startling contrast in quality.
If you’re in the market for a new TV, hold off for a couple of months. The LCD’s with built in freeview decoders are imminent.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried to use Freeview with Windows Media Center. I use WMC and I couldn’t possibly live without it now unless someone else offers a solution as good. However I’m a bit nervous about trying to integrate it with Freeview - it was hard enough to get working with normal (VHF/UHF) TV. I haven’t tried it with Sky because I don’t need to (when timeshifting is this easy there’s plenty to watch on normal TV). On the other hand I have a hi-def TV going to waste watching SD 4×3. Argh, the dilemma :(
Sounds like you need a universal remote! I use a Logitech Harmony 525 and it’s great… the concept of activities rather than individual devices is where it wins I think.
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/remotes/universal_remotes/&cl=nz,en
Hey Rod, I’ve also got Freeview HD and MySky and the choice of watching ads or watching in HD was hard at first, but I’ve gone back to MySky (just can’t sit there watching ads!). To improve the situation I upgraded to my receiver to the Yamaha RXV3800 that does 1080p up-scaling, while not perfect it is a certainly an improvement.
I was hoping to use the Freeview HD box with Windows Media Centre, but WMC doesn’t support the MPEG4 technology. Hopefully it will one day, but there’s no word from Microsoft about this.
Having gotten use to HD in Australia it’s great to finally have it here in NZ. I expect to see PVR Freeview HD boxes within 6-9 months, so that will be another upgrade as well as MySky HD in July.
For media convergence, the popcorn hour (http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/) looks like a good solution. Cheap too.
Naff name though.
“I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried to use Freeview with Windows Media Center”
Vista Media Center doesn’t support H.264 and the beta is now a year overdue. I’m sure we’;ll see something before the end of the year. I’ve heard that many of their issues are based around implimentation of DRM - I expect we’ll see the ICT flag implimented in VMC meaning that a video card with HDMI+HDCP will be required to use it with our DVB-T HD channels that transmit the ICT flat.
As for the popcorn hour this doesn’t currently support the AAC-LATM audio used in New Zealand. A future firmware update is extected to fix this but at present it won’t work.
““I’d love to hear from anyone who has tried to use Freeview with Windows Media Center”
Vista Media Center doesn’t support H.264 and the beta is now a year overdue. I’m sure we’;ll see something before the end of the year. I’ve heard that many of their issues are based around implimentation of DRM - I expect we’ll see the ICT flag implimented in VMC meaning that a video card with HDMI+HDCP will be required to use it with our DVB-T HD channels that transmit the ICT flat.”
– A good reason to switch to MediaPortal. All you need is DVB-T capable tuner card, Win XP SP2 with MediaPortal installed and you’ll have your Freeview HD and Analogue (for Prime) all on one box.
Rod,
Sweet Picture on the NZ Herald. What’s up with you in space and astronauts and stuff?
I’m keen on HD as well but not so keen on another box in my lounge.
I’ve found you can add a tuner to a mac, and along with Eye Tv and a feed for EPG data. Planning on doing this, recording Freeview and then syncing with Apple TV
@Miki, not sure you can sync non iTunes content to AppleTV. Can you?
@Rod, You’ve got to import content into iTunes correct, you can avoid iTunes with v2.0 but only with content from the iTunes store accessed direct from the AppleTV with a US iTunes account ( via gift cards ).
Nigel, what do you mean import content into iTunes correct? Does that mean you can get video, load it into iTunes in such a way that it syncs to the AppleTV?
Anyone interested in comprehensive media convergence might be interested in
TVersity Media Server. Lets you manage your Internet and home media and create your personalized lineup of channels, It serves this media to a multitude of networked devices in the home or on the go, overcoming their inherent limitations by doing all the necessary conversions on the fly, and thus making your media available anywhere, anytime and on any device.
http://www.tversity.com/home
@ Rod - it is doable. Takes a bit of time to get your content into the right format.
http://www.methodshop.com/gadgets/tutorials/handbrake/index.shtml
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20061004084252194
I think you all need to spend less time watching TV, or organising your technology to watch TV, and take up embroidery or something.
Real life HD comes complete with ’smellorama’ and touch. Wow. And it’s wireless! And remote-free!!
:-)
@Alan - the idea is to use technology to enable you to watch less tv.
Consider it time travel. You can watch 60 minutes of TV in 42 minutes!! Or alternatively, watch 4 programs in the time of 3.
Also, if you have time to watch tv, why watch the cr@p that is scheduled at that point in time when you can watch higher quality tv that is scheduled at a different time.
I was being cheeky. I watch nearly everything I need to watch via a DVD recorder, without the ads, albeit without the sophisticated hookups you are all talking about.
Hi Rod,
You can use a Mac (mini would work) with Elgato EyeTV 3 and an external DVB-T receiver [USB or Firewire] (www.elgato.com, http://www.digital-everywhere.com) and have a PVR for Freeview.
EyeTV3 can export to Apple TV so that could be your viewing machine in the lounge.
One small issue is that EyeTV has issues dealing with the non-progressive feeds at the moment. Elgato knows about this and a fix is on the way.
-Philip