- UK Radio listening rockets
- US TV shows to be axed
- We have an iPhone app
- We’re on your Internet radio
- Get a half-price Joggler
- Powerlines break FM and DAB
You can download the update direct to your MP3 player or listen online at https://www.frequencycast.co.uk/update.html.
If you have an iPod or iPhone, get shows faster by signing up at iTunes: FrequencyCast on iTunes.
Handy links:
- Powerline interference YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3yVu5IfaEY
- More on Powerline adapters: frequencycast.co.uk/powerline.html
- Forum discussion: frequencycast.co.uk/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1274377381
I bought an 85M PLC Adapter (a powerline type system) and thought all was fine untill I plugged it into the ethernet connection of my Humax Freesat Recorder and found that the IPlayer stream was about 90% halted, apparently because the streaming rate through the system was so slow. When I plugged in an ethernet cable directly I had no pausing of the streaming video even at the higher quality rate. Even the BBC advises these units would be ideal to connect the Iplayer to Freesat PVRs, when my experience is that at least my brand of plug is clearly not.
My real gripe is about the industry press, however.
It reminds me of when I had a radio ethernet system put in my house, and immediately had to have it replaced with a wired one because of its total failure to deal with the requirements of streaming/transfering video. Similarly there is the slowness of USB solid state type drives compared to conventional hard drives, and lastly the fact that many powered multi USB hubs slow down the rate of transfers considerably. None of these issues was highlighted by the press.
Over the years I wonder how many people have been caught out by chasing new technology in such areas, when the good old fashioned methodology works much better and faster. I was thinking of looking at elements of a CAT 5 based connection system, but I simply don’t trust the industry and its press to realistically tell me if this would limit speed compared to normal ethernet type connections.
Why don’t the industry’s press make clearer the limitations of all such methodologies, rather than acting as an advertising hoarding for the industry. Perhaps a comment under bad points, such as “this system is too slow for video transfer and streaming” might cause their lifeblood of adverts to dry up.
Such an interdependency might also explain why there has been so little publicity that Humax and Topfield Freeview PVRs (and more for all I know) have been all but made unusable by changes of specs of broadcasters (apparently within the original parameters of Freeview broadcasts), and by the failure of the manufacturers to support the full spec (I suspect by both economising in memory used by their programs and the speed of their processors to service the interrupts required to run the firmware – it is noticeable changes to improve particular areas of slowness, have a detrimental affect on other areas of their firmware). Topfield has refered users back to old firmware (which still doesn’t work correctly) and Humax has after a long time introduced new firmware (Humax) that still doesn’t work. The affected machines are still being sold to customers by these firms
Manwhile my Segam Freeview PVR, despite having a control system that looks as though it was designed by the team who invented the camel – still manages to work perfectly.
Dave Thomson