Chip manufacturer Intel is set to launch a movie download service on Monday (18 December).
The venture is a partnership with Coolroom.com and could be set to give iTunes a run for its money, especially when you consider that hardly any video content is available from Apple on the UK version of iTMS.
What's more, the service doesn't require a membership fee -- just a straight payment for the movie you want, which will be available at the same time as the DVD release.
The only drawback is, the movies will only be available on Intel Viiv-enabled Windows Media Center PCs.
Back in May, I moved to a new house and picked up a new Sky+ deal with BSkyB, which came with the newer box with increased capacity (and improvements on the recent software updates). I managed to flog my old box on eBay for £50 and pretty much made back the installation costs at the same time.
However, within a month of the new installation, I started losing channels all over the place, and the only thing which could bring them back was a channel re-scan or a complete planner re-build and a forced software download. So, BSkyB sent out an engineer, who then replaced my Thomson box with a new one.
Over the past few months, the problem has repeated itself, and I've continually found myself bereft of channels, and having to go through the re-scan on a fairly regular basis. When I spoke to the technical support at BSkyB last month about the issue, they sent a stronger update signal to the box, which seemed to cure the problem.
However, the cure was temporary, and the problem resurfaced last week -- so I called up BSkyB and asked them to send out an engineer. The chap who arrived was a pleasant character, and offered to replace not only the box itself, but the LNB on the dish. He even dug out a Pace box from his van for me.
Unfortunately, the Pace box died as he was setting it up, and I had to make do with an Amstrad box. Unfortunately, it means that I've lost a bunch of recordings, some of which I was planning to write about on our siste website, TV Squad.
I'm hopeful that the problem will vanish for good now, but you never can tell. I'll keep everyone posted on the fate of the Amstrad unit, and I'll live in hope that one day a Pace Sky+ box will be mine.
PVR news is on a go-slow at the moment, as most of the big companies gear up towards Christmas and the holiday season. So, to keep your mind occupied and stuffed full of great gift ideas for your loved ones, here's a recap of some of our best posts of the past seven days, starting with Brad's excellent 'How much have you spent ona digital living room?'
Remember to check out details of Brad's Podcast, which is on a rest at the moment, but you can still go back and listen to some of the best from the past few months.
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: www.sky.com/hd
2. Topfield TF5800PVR 160GB Freeview PVR. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of ordering one of these top-notch Freeview PVRs for the purposes of my job. It's a twin-tuner unit with a 160GB hard drive and a fairly easy-to-use setup and EPG. The only drawbacks are a slow reaction time on the remote, but it also has the added bonus of a USB connection, which comes in handy for moving videos around on to portable devices. You should expect to pay around £250, but it's worth every penny. More: Amazon UK.
3. Telewest TV Drive. If you're an NTL or Telewest customer in the UK, and you don't yet have a PVR, but you're sick of their basic on-demand service, you should consider treating yourself this Christmas by upgrading to TV Drive. It has a twin tuner, 80 hour capacity, 8-day EPG and series link facility. Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: Telewest UK.
4. Humax PVR800T PVR. If the Topfield doesn't take your fancy, you might want to consider the Humax PVR800T. It has pretty much all the same function as the Topfield TF5800, but with a slightly smaller HDD (80GB) and can only record one Freeview channel at a time. Expect to pay around £130.
Well folks, the festive season is upon us again. And, whether you believe in Santa, the Baby Jesus, the Tooth Fairy, or the Miracle of the Oil, then the chances are you'll be celebrating the 25th in much the same way as everyone else -- usually by passing around trinkets and gifts, while stuffing your face with turkey.
If you're anything like me, or the rest of the gang here at PVR Wire, you're probably struggling for something to buy your loved one (or perhaps, what NOT to buy them).
If so, then look no further than PVR Wire's Gift Guide, featuring a selection of thoroughly considered PVR-related choices from the five wise men here at Weblogs Inc Central; me, Brad, JJ, Chris and Matt.
If you don't like what you see, you can always buy perfume, a box of chocolates and a copy of The Eagles' Greatest Hits (everybody loves The Eagles, right?).
Following almost two years of constant updates about a product which never looked like materialising, BT has finally launched it's Vision service (previously codenamed 'Nevis').
The service promises a Freeview unit, with an 80-hour capacity PVR, along with the capability to watch/stream/download movies and TV shows on-demand via BT's proprietary IPTV service.
As I've said before, I'm completely underwhelmed by BT's efforts thus far in this arena, and I'm no-where near convinced that this will make any kind of impact on the market. It's a bit like Microsoft's Zune; if they chuck enough money at the advertising, people might go for it - but they'll probably regret it later when the product is upgraded and reduced significantly to draw in more suckers.
However, despite what the service is supposed to offer, you can currently pick up a 'V-Box' for free. Unfortunately, you still need to have BT's Total Broadband service in order to sign up for Vision, plus there's a £60 installation fee and a £30 connection fee just for Vision alone.
Movies start at £1.99, with TV shows and music more moderately priced -- or you can sign up to one of the monthly subscription packages, starting at £6.00 per month.
It's still not clear if the PVR will record off-air content for later viewing, or if it only stores downloaded, paid-for content.
You also need BT Home Hub to use Vision (which will cost you £50 over the phone, or £30 to purchase online) -- which, combined with the 2MB Total Broadband service, you're already looking at £9.99 for the first six months, then £17.99 per month thereafter (that's for an minimum of 18-months) just for Broadband.
So, you're looking at a minimum of £120 to get set up with BT Vision and BT Hub, plus at least £9.99 per month for Total Broadband.
That, my friends, is what's known in the real world as a joke -- and if you're prepared to part with all that money for what is essentially a pony, then you deserve everything you get.
For a start, it's still a soft-launch -- or a "measured roll-out of the new service that would pick up momentum in the spring", as a BT spokesman described it.
Which is basically spin for "we've made a right hash of this one, and we're just going to release it three weeks before Christmas in the vain hope that a few deluded individuals might be struggling to buy a present for their partner and might see this as a way out."
With the product still largely unproven, and competitors like BSkyB, NTL/Telewest and dozens of other Freeview PVR manufacturers already several months (if not years) into the UK PVR/iPTV market, BT Vision looks likely to be a certain turkey.
More analysis: The Guardian: Paul Richards, a media analyst at Numis Securities, does not believe that BT Vision will pose a serious threat to BSkyB's business. "There's a big gap between the Freeview offering and something like Sky, but if BT can find a niche in there to give Freeview customers a bit more, that's probably enough to give them a viable model."
The Register: Few expect BT to wrest a very large portion of the pay TV market away from Sky and cable monopoly NTL (soon to be rebranded as Virgin Media). The rationale backing Vision surrounds customer retention and adding value to its position in the broadband market.
In one of those re-branding exercises which happened here in the UK to products like Snickers (previously Marathon) and Starburst (previously Opal Fruits), BSkyB has renamed its broadband video download service to Sky Anytime (previously Sky by Broadband).
We reviewed the service here a while ago on PVR Wire, and I have to be honest in telling you that I haven't used it since, so a change in name isn't likely to encourage me to delve back in and start downloading DRM-crippled movies or sports events.
Sure, it's an interesting move to drop the limiting label of 'broadband' in favour of something more generic, but what it really needs is less restrictions on its use -- and more importantly, the ability to connect the video-out from my PC graphics card directly to my Sky box, in order to be able to watch the downloads on my TV, or save them off for later consumption.
As it stands, I can't even output the Sky Anytime content from my PC directly to my telly in the way I can with any other non-Sky video download, all because of Rupert Murdoch and Microsoft's effortless ways of persuading people to hate their products.
If you're one of those forward-thinking people who likes the idea of being able to control the temperature of your oven over the internet, or the speed at which your dryer heats your clothes, then you might be interested in the latest upgrade of HomeSeer for Windows Media Center Edition.
HomeSeer is a British-based company that specialises in home control software, including lights, appliances, thermostats and audio/video.
They've now released the second-generation of their MCE interface, which links in with HomeSeer-enabled devices and products.
HomeSeer claims to be operational in some 10,000 homes in the UK, but I'd be tempted to say those numbers are probably a little ambitious.
All the same, there's two things I'd love to be able to do automatically, either over the internet, or by email or phone; control the thermostat on my central heating, and set the lights around the house to come on at certain times.
Maybe one day...
The HomeSeer upgrade should be available any time now from www.homeseer.com
Digital Spy's regular reviewer Dek Hogan set his Sky+ box to record the BBC's Watchdog show, a consumer affairs programme aimed at targeting rogue traders and such like.
However, the box failed to record the show.
Presenter Nicky Campbell cited the example of one unlucky user who had worked his way through 11 boxes (I'm currently on my second box, V2 box -- I went through two hard drives in a year on my V1 box).
As Dek says, it might be worth running your old Sky+ box in to the ground before upgrading to Sky+ HD and uncovering the world of bugs which still seem to be out there.
We're just over halfway through November, and well on our way to the end of the year, but the PVR news just doesn't stop flowing here at PVR Wire HQ.
So, to save you the trouble of scouring your way back through some of our quality news, here's a snapshot of the best posts from the last week, exclusively for your entertainment:
Who better to review one of the big television technology revelations of the past year or so than a blog which specialises in reviewing television shows?
Our sister blog, TV Squad, has managed to bag a SlingBox AV and ran it through its paces, concluding that it was fairly easy to set up (although, some users might get stuck with some of the more technical side of things, namely cables and firewall settings), and that it could benefit from a few minor improvements -- one of them being a wireless hardware standard.
Read the review, and make up your mind if you want one of these bad boys from Santa this year.
Why not start your week with a fresh look back over some of the best of PVR Wire from the last seven days, starting with Brad's excellent podcast, this week featuring an interview with Bill Loewenthal, vice president and general manager of ReplayTV.
Or, you could browse your way through some of these headlines and find out things about PVRs that you never knew before:
The Independent newspaper in the UK has knocked out a quick 'Ten of the Best' PVRs.
It's a snapshot quick-glance type feature, which includes a single-sentence review of some of the best Freeview and analog PVRs (with Sky's HD thrown in for good measure) along with the price, model number, website address and phone number of each one reviewed.
It's a great idea, and one we plan to do here at PVR Wire before the festive period kicks in next month as a guide to all you potential PVR owners, to help you decide which digital recorder to ask Santa for.
Look out for the Topfield TF5800T at £259.95 and the bargain Goodmans GHD8015F2 for just £99.99.
While Apple's iTV is still several months away from seeing the light of day, Microsoft has continued their assault on the living room and the media center market with the launch of their Xbox 360 movie download service, Xbox Live Video Marketplace -- which officially launches on November 22 and boasts the first ever HD video content for a games console.
Effectively, this gives Microsoft a place on the living room couch which Apple can only dream about getting their mitts on, by plugging straight into a device already connected to over seven million home TVs: the Xbox.
As Rob Enderle of Tom's Hardware observes, Microsoft's aggressive marketing campaign for the Xbox will see them reach close to 17million Xbox users by the end of the year, and the Xbox Live Video Marketplace will offer downloadable HD content viewable directly from the games console itself.
Worse still for Apple, the Xbox will be a full $100 cheaper than the proposed price of iTV -- and gets you something you can play great games on to boot -- and no amount of syndicated YouTube content will persuade sensible customers to part with an extra $100, only to discover that they're probably going to end up locked down to iTunes anyway.
And as for HD content on the iTV -- well, Steve Jobs will probably get back to you on that one.
As Rob says, if you're thinking of picking up a games console this year for Christmas, you might want to think about the Xbox, as you'll get much more than you bargained for.
Chip manufacturer Intel is set to launch a movie download service on Monday (18 December). 
Back in May, I moved to a new house and picked up a new Sky+ deal with BSkyB, which came with the newer box with increased capacity (and improvements on the recent software updates). I managed to flog my old box on eBay for £50 and pretty much made back the installation costs at the same time.
PVR news is on a go-slow at the moment, as most of the big companies gear up towards Christmas and the holiday season. So, to keep your mind occupied and stuffed full of great gift ideas for your loved ones, here's a recap of some of our best posts of the past seven days, starting with Brad's excellent '
1. Sky HD. If there's one present I'd really love someone to buy me this Christmas, it's BSkyB's news HD service. It's a Sky+ PVR with 160GB of storage capacity (around 80 hours) and it displays tons of Sky's content in glorious HD (presuming you have an HD capable TV. It'll cost you £299 for the box, £60 for installation and an extra £10 per month on top of your subscription, depending on the channels you already receive. More: 
Oh, and it does HD too. Subscriptions start at an additional £10 per month, with no connection fee. More: 
We're just over halfway through November, and well on our way to the end of the year, but the PVR news just doesn't stop flowing here at PVR Wire HQ.
