TV related – Page 6 – Digital-Lifestyles

Pace Celebrate 25 Years In Business

Our favourite UK Set Top Box manufacturer is celebrating their 25th birthday this year.

Pace Celebrate 25 Years In Business 25 years! Staggering how old the industry is now isn’t it?

Waaaaaay back in 1982 they started off selling modems and software. Their first product was a PSTN modem called the Nightingale and we can even remember Pace modems from back when 1200/75 baud modems appeared as an exotic advance from the 300 baud ones that were the standard.

For all of you young ones who weren’t around in those days, that’s 1.2/0.075 Kbps vs 0.3 Kbps. Scarily slow.

Following their modem and software successes, Pace launched their first satellite set-top box (SR640) in 1987 and like all design, it was a product of its time, with a fab HiTech feel about it.

From there, Pace really haven’t looked back. They’ve consistently carried out pioneering development, building up a large selection of industry firsts, including the first digital satellite receiver in the UK, the first PVR (personal video recorder) in Europe, the first low-cost digital terrestrial adapter (thereby creating the freeview market in the UK) and, more recently, the very first H.264 DVB-S2 high definition set-top box in the world.

Their latest and greatest product is a HD DVR, the HR20, which records using MPEG-4.

If you, like us, dear tech trivia fan don’t know the history behind the name of Pace, you’ll be excited to hear that the name Pace came from an innovative shipping company in Australia called the Pacific Australia Container Express.

The Next 25 years
Looking forward to the next 25 years, Neil Gaydon, CEO, give his views of where Pace will be innovating, “Soon we will see multiroom and home networking solutions coming through, that will allow you to watch anything you want from any screen in the house, including mobile TV. When you add the fact you will import your photos and internet entertainment to any screen, your music to any room in the home along with wireless technologies emerging, so removing the need for wires, we are at the early stages of a new TV revolution.”

Best of luck to Pace in the coming years, may they continue their success.

Pace Jubilee

VBox: Virgin Free TV DTT Launched By Virgin Media For Non Cable Customers

Virgin Media Launches Virgin Free TV For Non Cable Customers Virgin Media has ramped up the availability of its quadplay (broadband, phone, mobile and TV) services beyond its cable franchise network with today’s announcement of a new digital TV service.

Using the digital terrestrial television platform (DTT), Virgin will be offering a new set-top box to lure customers with the promise of over 40 free-to-air TV channels and over 25 digital radio stations, an eight-day, Virgin branded, on-screen TV guide, interactive content (via the trusty red button) and plug ‘n’ play installation.

Perhaps cocking a snoot to Sky’s energy-scoffing box, Virgin say that their set top box will offer low power consumption and use just 1/15th of the energy of a standard 60W light bulb (we could work that out as a percentage for you, but it’s still Monday morning).

The box is a wee little puppy too, measuring up around the same size as Ye Olde VHS tape (19cms by 9cms) and comes with a remote control and a nifty remote control extender so you can still use the remote if the box is hidden away somewhere.

Virgin Media Launches Virgin Free TV For Non Cable Customers

Virgin will be dishing the boxes out for free to any non-cable customers subscribed to their twenty quid 8 Meg broadband and Talk Anytime phone bundle, or there’ll be a £40 charge to non-cable customers taking a broadband service on it’s own.

Philip Snalune, managing director of non-cable (bit a duff job title that, no?) at Virgin Media, said:
“Launching a basic TV service into non-cable areas enables us to expand availability of our quadplay of broadband, phone, mobile and TV. This is just the first step and our aim is to offer more advanced TV services in all areas throughout 2008.”

Virgin Media

BBC TV & Radio Trial On UK 3G

The BBC are going to start of a trial to syndicate a range of its television channels and radio networks via 3G to mobile phones within the month.

BBC TV & Radio Trial On UK 3G Three UK operators will be taking part, Orange, Vodafone and 3 giving subscribers to the trial the ability to watch BBC One, BBC News 24 and BBC Three streamed on their mobiles. Beyond some sports programmes and programmes where they don’t have the necessary rights.

As well as the TV channels, eight radio stations will also be included – Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, 6 Music, BBC 7 and Asian Network.

Appropriately enough the announcement by Richard Halton, BBC Controller of Business Strategy, was made at the Broadcast Mobile TV Congress.

The BBC haven’t done a great deal of content on mobiles, not that they’re not keen on it, as you’ll be able to tell from the comments of Richard Halton, “The BBC believes that mobile content is an important part of the broadcasting landscape and is looking at ways in which mobile devices will shape services of the future for licence fee payers.”

They hope to learn lots from this trial, as Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology at the BBC said, “The findings, combined with quantitative and qualitative consumer research, will inform the BBC’s future mobile strategy.”

We’ll keep our eyes on this.

Xbox 360 Elite Announced

There’s been lots of speculation going around the various blog sites about the release of a new version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 Elite Released Yesterday Microsoft confirmed that the Xbox 360 Elite is a real product and will begin arriving in US stores on 29 April with an expected retail price of $480.

The confirmed spec of the 360 Elite is a combination of a 120Gb hard drive, new accessories bundled in, and to all of those HD TV fans, an HDMI port built in. Oh, and a return to a black case like the original Xbox. Microsoft tell us that the retail price of all of the bundled bits is over $600 if bought separately.

The HDMI port is an interesting move – yes it will make it simpler to get High Def screens connected (if you have a screen with an HDMI in port), but importantly it will let Elite owners play protected HD-DVD discs on the long-discussed add-on HD-DVD drive. HDMI connection is needed for the HDCP content protection scheme.

The new, large hard drive is a big step up from the previous version of 20Gb to 120Gb – all the more space for Microsoft to sell you TV shows, films and software to download – oh … and save you game positions to as well of course.

The hard drive is detachable and will also be sold separately so standard Xbox users will be able to get hold of them too. Expected US price is $180.

Alongside the goodies above are an Xbox 360 Wireless Controller in black and a headset, in … err, black. Do you get the black theme? There’ll be a couple of other new bits available separately too, a Play & Charge kit for the the wireless controller ($20) and a black rechargeable battery ($12)

Xbox 360 Elite Announced Peter Moore, Corporate Vice President – Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft, turned the hyperbole meter way up to deliver the following, “Today’s games and entertainment enthusiast has an insatiable appetite for digital high-definition content. Xbox 360 Elite’s larger hard drive and premium accessories will allow our community to enjoy all that the next generation of entertainment has to offer.”

It’s worth noting that the first shots of the Elite, while looking slightly underground, are in fact taken by ‘Major Nelson,’ the pseudonym for Larry Hryb, Xbox Live Director of Programming. So ‘leaked’ photos are now coming from official sources!

Images courtesy of Major Nelson

TVMini Express Shipping With The Tube Software

For those of you who have been wondering who will be supplying the software to Miglia following their falling out with Elgato, you need wait no longer.

TVMini Express Shipping with The Tube Software Miglia have not only signed a deal with software suppliers Equinux, but have a package available already with the software, called The Tube. They’re calling the hardware and software bundle the TVMini Express.

Simon Ellson, CEO, Miglia Technology enthused about their new partners, “‘TV from a different perspective’ is our mantra and Equinux undoubtedly provides the most effective ‘starter’ application to allow Miglia customers to watch, record and put TV on their iPod, easily.”

TVMini Express Shipping with The Tube Software Equinux are confident with the swift reaction of the software, as they tell us it was written “from the ground up” in Cocoa, Apple’s object-oriented application environment designed specifically for developing Mac OS X-only native applications. ie it wasn’t written for Windows and ported over to the Mac.

All of our US readers who might be getting excited about this will have to bite their hands in frustration. As Equinux point out at the bottom of their page, “DVB-T is not available in the US, Canada and some other regions, so TubeStick will not work in those countries.”

TVMini Express is available now with a retail price of £39.95, €49.95 or $69.

TVMini Express

Ofcom Announces Premium Rate TV Inquiry

There’s been three weeks of hoo-har in the UK about television stations using Premium Rate Telephone Services (PRS) to extract income from the phone-willing programme viewer. Whole TV channels have been stopped in the process.

Ofcom Announces Premium Rate TV Inquiry Ofcom has just announced that it will be carrying out an inquiry into the whole area.

It sounds like there’s going to be a few feathers ruffled. Viewers and a range of other stakeholders have raised serious concerns with Ofcom regarding apparent systematic compliance failure on the part of a number of broadcasters, whose actions appear to contravene existing consumer protection rules.

Hearing how serious this is, does give clues as to why the TV stations acted so swiftly in suspending the availability of their PRS.

Many have criticised some UK broadcasters for creating programs whose sole driver appears to be collecting as much money as possible from the viewers.

The inquiry will be led by Richard Ayre, a former Deputy Chief Executive of BBC News. He is expected to receive extensive input from the premium rate services regulator, ICSTIS, who are already investigating a number of individual cases.

The fragile relationship between TV viewer and the TV stations appears to have been damaged further by the PRS announcements over the recent weeks.

Ofcom Chief Executive, Ed Richards said: “Widespread concern about the use of premium rate telephone lines by broadcasters and editorial standards in those programmes has raised serious questions about trust between broadcasters and viewers.”

The scope of the inquiry includes

Consumer protection issues and audiences’ attitudes to the use of PRS in television programmes;
The benefits and risks to broadcasters in the use of PRS in programmes;
The respective compliance and editorial responsibilities of broadcasters, producers and telecoms network operators and others involved in those programmes;
The effectiveness of broadcasters’ and telecoms operators’ internal compliance procedures, guidelines and arrangements to ensure compliance with Ofcom and ICSTIS codes;
The inquiry will also propose recommendations on actions necessary to restore confidence and trust.

Ayre expects to report his findings to the Ofcom Board and the Content Board by early summer.