Peter's Blog

Old 32 inch Hitachi TV in computer room was getting annoying:

• generally poor picture quality: lousy colour
• very poor picture quality when using scart lead: hence had to connect to PVR with phono so whenever I turned it on I had to manually switch it to EXT2.
• randomly turned itself off once a day or so, causing babies to start screaming at loss of 'In the Night Garden'. My hack had made this happen a lot less but it still happens at annoying times (e.g. ending of Titanic). Once it is in the mood it won't stay turned on for more than a minute.
• electric shocks when I fiddled with the aerial cable (turning equipement off when fiddling with cables is for wimps).
• original remote long lost by previous owner, programmable remotes can change volume/channel but not colour/settings.

So after some scouring I bought a 42 inch plasma TV. It's a Philips and it was £650 from amazon (compare to £899 for a 40 inch LCD in Currys). Ok Philips isn't the most popular make but reviews I read were enthusiastic. Picture is amazing, very sharp if a little too bright, everything is a bit cartoonish. Setting picture to 'soft' makes it ok. It seems to be lacking in front panel connectors but I never use those anyway. I was initially reluctant to buy a plasma as I heard they degraded faster than LCD's but apparently modern ones aren't so bad and we're talking 20,000 hours to degrade to half brightness on a tv that should only be on a couple of hours a day so it may be something to worry about 27 years from now.

I've connected it up to an AV amp and a big pair of speakers and it is fantastic. The built-in sound is ok but the amp and speakers put it in a different league. The TV has freeview (DVB-T) built in but the PVR is a much nicer thing to use: for example the guide in the TV is reluctant to show you what is on beyond the next program and doesn't show a picture. It also changes channel sluggishly.

Time to break out Dean's Firefly DVD set, now I have something decent to watch it on. One question though: is it better to watch Serenity before or after?

I haven't blogged for weeks but I've now done something so cool I cannot keep quiet about it. I've solved my mobile TV-watching problems. I have been trying for ages to build a reliable PVR system using the Hauppauge Nova-T USB and had given up because of the flaky software that is around.

My solution: Humax PVR-9200T Dual Tuner 160G PVR plus a SlingBox.

Humax PVR-9200T bullet list:

• easy to set up
• sensitive tv tuner, finds all channels where Nova-T struggled to find any.
• channel changing speed none too bad
• can do picture in picture
• can schedule recordings from the EPG
• can download recordings to PC using USB port
• can upload MP3s to play on it a-la juke box.
• can upload jpegs to look at on it
• can upgrade the firmware using an RS232 port, not via USB. Have to borrow cable from work.

Summary: good player

UPDATE: player locks up regularly when left on Channel 4. This seems to be a common gripe, something to do with the digital teletext for Big Brother. Will try updating firmware and using a better aerial booster.

UPDATE2: upgraded firmware over-the-air. Box ran overnight for the first time.

The Slingbox takes the output of the PVR and broadcasts it over a network. I can watch TV on laptops or my pocketpc both at home and anywhere I can get an internet connection. The Slingbox has two notable limitations:

1. the Sling Player software won't record the video stream
2. only one client can watch the output at one time

These seem to be anti-piracy measures: I cannot put up a feed where anyone on the internet can watch channel 4.

SlingBox Bullet List:

• easy to set up
• PC Software only downloadable: no CD in the box?
• software is nice, slick and well designed.
• SlingBox has IR transmitters to control your PVR (or DVD Player, TV tuner or whatever your source is). This makes control sluggish and it doesn't support everything the PVR can do (e.g. turn on picture-in-picture).
• have to pay extra $30 for pocket pc version of the software: what a rip.
• the uk version includes a DVB-T tuner (i.e. freeview) but it's not as sensitive as the Humax (which found all the local channels) and the control of it is pretty basic: no EPG!!

Summary: it is good but over-priced

Hooking two consumer devices together has solved my problems: within two hours it was all working. It is not the cheapest solution but it is cheaper than a dedicated media PC would be. By cancelling my sky+ subscription the PVR will pay for itself.