Freesat from BBC & ITV

May 7, 2008 · Filed Under Television · Comment 

BBC and ITV just launched Freesat, a subscription free Satellite TV service which promises 200 channels by the end of the year.

To get this you will need to pay a one off fee to get the satellite and decoding box installed.

This could be a good option if you want the freeview channels but don’t live in an area which can receive them over the aerial, or a fast internet connection.

For those of you out there who have an HD TV and dont plan on getting a HD subscription service in the future, a Freesat HD box might be for you. Currently this service only offers BBC HD, but according to the website ITV HD will be launching soon on the Freesat service.

If you go for an HD Digital Television Recorder box, you’ll get a recording feature similar to SKY + which according to the Freesat website; is capable of recording up to 160 hours of standard-definition or 80 hours of high-definition TV.

Sky has been offering a Freesat service of their own for years, they do not however offer an HD freesat service to my knowledge, this is a major selling point of BBC & ITV’s freesat.

I am sure there is good demand for an HD subscription free service.

For more information check out http://www.freesat.co.uk

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Sky HD - Upgrading to 750gb

March 29, 2008 · Filed Under Gadgets & Tech, Television · Comment 
sky-hd-upgrading-to-750gb

sky_hd_box.jpgToday my 750gb Western Digital Green Power hard disk arrived…

Following this guide I opened up my sky box to take out the 300gb hard drive, There was quite a bit of unscrewing involved but I got there eventually.

To back up my old recordings on to the new hard disk, in addition to formatting the new drive correctly for use in the sky box I installed a free software solution ‘copyplus‘ on my Windows Vista desktop and connected up both the old Maxtor and new Western Digital, before copyplus recognise the new hard disk I had to Initialise it as a Basic hard disk in Windows Computer Manage.

I then selected the Maxtor hard drive as the Source in copyplus & the Western Digital as the Output, A full list of my sky recordings appeared along with details. Before clicking ‘Copy’ I ommited a few Anytime recordings that I didn’t want to copy over.

Copyplus

I should also note that it is possible to save/load a backup image file, this is good if you have plenty of space on your computers existing hard drive for backups, or if you are simply only dealing with the one sky hard drive.

After about an hour and a half my recordings were all copied over, in about 10 minutes I put the box back together and hooked it back up to the TV, I then performed a planner rebuild as advised.

I can report that it was a complete success

-I have over 70% free space now

-I am sure this new hard drive runs quieter and cooler than the old one.

-I recorded two HD sources while watching another HD recording and had no issues.

* I would like to thank Mr pcBBC from the Digital Spy forums for developing the CopyPlus software. *

Needless to say this is an unofficial modification and will void your box’s warranty. *Attempt at your own risk!*

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