Get More From Your TV - Practical Advice
We take a look at a couple of boxes you could connect to your home TV system to get a little extra. Here's a transcript of the feature from Show 48.
Listen to FrequencyCast Show 48 - Get more from your TV |
Show 48 Transcript:
Carl:
It's another fine time for Focus, so what are we focusing in on today, Pete?
Pete:
Getting more from your TV set.
Carl:
OK - what, you mean like free cappuccinos?
Pete:
You're looking blankly at me, let me try and help you out, let's ask you a little test question here: what you can plug into your telly?
Carl:
Video player, DVD player, Wii, PS, aerial?
Pete:
Yeah, pretty good actually, you got more than I thought, you kind of missed satellite and Freeview, but apart from that, yeah, pretty good.
Carl:
What are they?
Pete:
So yes, you can plug in set top boxes, you can plug in your games consoles, not just your Wii, you've got your PS3 and your Xbox, DVD recorders, video recorders, absolutely. But we want to talk today about other things you can hook up to your TV, and why you'd want to do that.
Carl:
OK, so an example of what else could I hook up to my TV?
Pete:
Well, there's a new series of boxes coming out called IPTV boxes, which effectively are boxes that you plug into your telly, and they just do internet, so a good example is something like the Fetch TV.
Fetch TV Box
Carl:
OK, is that a bit like a Slingbox?
Pete:
No, nothing like a Slingbox. It's a Freeview recorder, and it's got a hard disk, but it has an internet connection as well, and you can use that for hooking into things like Sky and BBC iPlayer to watch on demand TV, but also an on demand movie service, and there's more and more of these going to be coming out, boxes that you hook into your TV and it lets you watch content from the internet on your telly.
Carl:
OK.
Pete:
Now you might be thinking that there's a bunch of these out there already, and we've always talked about Virgin, BT Vision, Tiscali TV (which is now TalkTalk TV), they all are TV receivers and also they have content over the internet, but the new generation is going to be these IPTV boxes that are dedicated internet TV service boxes. There is an interesting one that's just come out recently called the Nookie Box.
The naughty Nookie TV Box
Carl:
The Nookie Box - does that get the Playboy channel?
Pete:
That's exactly what it is, it is a subscription service, you buy a Nookie box, and all it does is get you internet porn on your TV.
Carl:
They should call it "The Butler Saw Your Box" TV.
Pete:
Nookie Box - what a great name!
Carl:
I think my name's better.
Pete:
Well, possibly. So there you go, you've got Virgin, BT, TalkTalk, and of course things like the Fetch and the Nookie Box.
Carl:
You just like saying that word now, don't you? So which of those is the best?
Pete:
A tough one really, Virgin's obviously got the widest choice, and they have a lot of downloadable HD content; BT Vision's good because it's got catch up for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five; and Fetch TV's the only one that does Sky. By the way, Fetch, if you're listening, we would love to review your service, we keep talking about it, but we've never done a review - get in touch.
Carl:
Yeah, give a dog a bone.
Pete:
If you're interested in catch up TV over the internet, Show 42 is where you'll find our review of all the catch up services.
Carl:
Thank you very much.
Pete:
So that's something you can connect, these IPTV boxes. You've also got streaming boxes, now we covered streaming back in Show 36 - remember that one?
Carl:
I remember that one with a passion.
Pete:
So this is where you've got content on the Internet, content on your PC, content on your NAS storage box. You basically get one of these streamers, either wired or wireless, and it will suck in content from various different sources and let you watch it on your telly.
Show 36, we covered that, things like the Apple TV for the Mac lovers, Popcorn Hour (pictured) or one of the Pinnacle boxes, all let you stream content from your PC or from the internet or from your Mac onto your telly, so that's something else you can plug in.
Carl:
Right - oh, and of course, a laptop?
Pete:
Yes, absolutely - so if you've got some content on a laptop, get an HDMI lead, plug it into your telly, or use the old VGA connector if your TV's got one of those, and you can watch stuff from your laptop up on your telly. If you want to take PC connectivity that little step further, you could actually consider getting yourself a PC in your lounge hooked up to your telly.
Carl:
You what? - who wants to do that?
Pete:
It's big business, Windows have got this thing called the Media Center ...
Carl:
No no no no, look - PC: work; lounge: relax - all right? Now learn it, say it after me ...
Pete:
PC in the lounge - good.
Carl:
No, PC: work; lounge: relax. Try it - go on.
Pete:
No, I just don't think I can, because there's actually, in all seriousness, there's a whole bunch of reasons why actually having a PC in your lounge is a good thing, and if you think about it, what you may already have in your lounge connected up to your TV is pretty much a PC anyway.
Carl:
No.
Pete:
Right, OK - we'll think about it. If you've got a Sky+ box, effectively what you've got is a processor with a monitor on it and a hard disk in it.
Carl:
Oh, look at you, getting all technical. You've ruined my illusion of TV being fun now.
Pete:
Right, OK - let's think this through, you've got a PC, stick it in your lounge - it's actually your entire TV system, so you could get a TV card, which we've discussed before; plug it into your PC and you've then got a cheap Sky Plus-type box that will record onto hard disk. It's also got a DVD player, so you don't need to get a separate DVD unit; you can surf the net on it, which of course you can't do on a Sky box or on a Virgin box or anything else; you can look at your own pictures, your own audio and video clips and stuff that you've got on your PC, just connect it straight to your telly; internet radio - you can't do that at the moment, and you can watch things like iPlayer and all the catch up TV services; YouTube on your telly, no subscription. So actually having a PC or a media centre in your lounge hooked up to your TV is actually quite useful.
Carl:
So the future of TV is a computer?
Pete:
If you think about it, it's getting there already - it's just actually moving it from a bedroom or an office into the lounge environment.
Carl:
Yeah, right - so we've got big clunky boxes with fans, zzzz all day long, and all that rubbish - that's not really very helpful, is it?
No, you see - that's now where this new generation of nettops come in.
Carl:
Oh, nettops! - what are they?
Pete:
Right, give me a minute - hang on, in my little travel bag here I've something to show you. Right, what's that?
Carl:
It's a hard drive, isn't it? No, it's a bit like ... hold on a minute, it's quite a sturdy little lightweight box, OK, fair enough. Let's have a look round it, what we've got - we've got a sticker, it's a Windows 7, so it's got something to do with Windows; it's got some SD card hole bracket, it's got headphones, it's got a USB there, a USB there; what's that? - a power supply, that's the old connector for screens, isn't it, or something? Four more USBs - is this to do with your telly?
Pete:
OK, so how big is this?
Carl:
It's about the size of a double CD box, a bit bigger.
Pete:
It's a little bit bigger than a CD box, but yes, this is actually a PC.
Carl:
Sorry?
Pete:
This is actually a PC.
Packard Bell iMax Mini on a desk
Carl:
What - that's a computer? Yeah right, OK. Now you're putting my Acers to shame - why?
Pete:
OK, look at this - so you've got your SD card slot there, one, two, three, four, five, six USB sockets, that's an Ethernet one, the other you didn't recognise, and a VGA socket. So this is actually a small computer, these are called nettops, or micro PCs as they're sometimes called as well, and it's basically a little computer, and they're really cool because they don't have noisy fans and they're designed to sit there fairly unobtrusively in your hi-fi and TV environment, not make a bucketload of noise. The only thing this doesn't have is a DVD player, because it's just too physically small to get a DVD in it.
Carl:
Yeah, I see your point.
Pete:
And this is, on its own, a nice little PC you can just plug into your telly, HDMI socket on the back there, look - plug into your telly, 160 GB hard disk, it's running, as you say, Windows 7, it's got an Intel Atom processor in, it's not the fastest PC in the world, but for something like putting your media on it, recording TV on it, using it as a PVR, connecting to YouTube, that sort of thing, ideal.
Carl:
Right, hold on one second then - so where's the keyboard?
Pete:
Right, that's in my bag here. That's the keyboard that comes with it, so it's a little micro keyboard.
iMax Mini keyboard and mouse
Carl:
That's quite nice, it's got a nice feel to it, but it is a bit diddy, isn't it? OK, but what about the screen - how big's that?
Pete:
It doesn't actually come with a screen, so you have to get your own screen with it.
Carl:
Is that good or bad, do you think?
Pete:
Well, if you're hooking up to a telly, you don't need a screen, because your telly is your screen.
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You can get the
Carl:
Oh, I see - the purpose of this, you're supposed to buy this for your telly only then?
Pete:
Well, yeah, now you see, I've got one, I've actually gone out and bought one of these thingys, because I think they're rather nice. This is a Packard Bell, it's called an imax mini. I've got one, I'm not actually using it for my TV, to be fair; this is actually sitting in my office at home, and I'm running it as a server.
Carl:
Right, OK. Why didn't you buy it and put it with the telly and ... OK, it's all very small and neat, and yeah, you're kind of swaying me, but I'm still not too sure, and you've proved my point. Where is it? - in the office ... what do you do in the office? - my work!
Pete:
Yes yes yes yes, OK. So I'm just giving this as an example of something that you could do. As it happens, I've got so many boxes in my lounge anyway doing Sky and BT Vision and everything else. This is actually for me great for the office, I need a machine that's on 24 hours a day, because I've got stuff hooked in to stuff that's on the net and everything else. My normal big heavy base unit PC is just too thirsty to do that, so I'm using this effectively as a 24/7 server.
Carl:
Oh, I see. So what is it that you need 24/7, I mean what are all these things you've got connected to yours that normal people wouldn't have?
Pete:
So I have a little weather cam that looks out of my window at the world outside, and it's a nice little streaming webcam that people can log into and look out my back window.
Carl:
Just prevents you from going out, doesn't it? - it's because you're recluse - you live in the dark, don't you? Very pale, aren't you?
Pete:
Bright light! Bright light!
Carl:
No, you're not cute, like Gizmo - you're spooky.
Pete:
Just don't feed me after midnight. I've also got a 24/7 home security system in there, I think we've reviewed that a little while ago; I've got my - you know the power meters we talked about, the dear electricity consumption, one of those plugged in, so I've got a little graph of all my electricity consumption, one of those plugged in, so I've got a little graph of all my electricity usage.
Carl:
You really don't get out much, do you? Do you remember what the planet looks like? - the grass is green.
Pete:
I wouldn't know. And I've got an email server running on it, it's also running something called YouTorrent on there, which we're not allowed to talk about, and my weather station's hooked into it as well, so I've got loads of things all hooked in to this little unit - rather nice.
Carl:
Are you lonely? Oh dear, you've got a weather station, you say, plugged into it? Good grief! Can I actually work with someone else? Is there anyone else in this building that would actually be more interesting than this geek?
Pete:
What's wrong with a weather station?
Carl:
Don't get me started.
Packard Bell iMax Mini Review
The feature continues with discussion of the WD HD Media Player, pictured below. Follow along with our transcript...
Other transcripts from Show 48
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