Traipsing through the cavernous Westfield shopping centre might not be as arduous a task as it sounds next week, thanks to a special 3D TV trial that Sky are running.

Sky will be handing out 3D glasses to shopaholics visiting Westfield, where they will be treated to a short demo of 3D sports and catwalk clips.

With 3D TVs hitting stores next month, Sky will be looking to raise the profile of its own 3D broadcast service, which it aims to roll out later this year.

Thankfully, if you're already a Sky+ HD subscriber, there will be no need to upgrade your existing set top box as they will already be fully compatible with Sky's 3D service. Of course, you'll still need to shell out for a new 3D-compatible telly, but Sky are hoping to make the prospect a little more enticing by launching a new range of sports, movies, arts and documentaries channels all showcasing the extra dimension.

The trial will be running at the Sky Retail Store on Westfield's level 2. For more info on Sky's 3D services, click here.

Keen not to fall behind the pack of blossoming high-definition channels that keep popping up on Sky+ HD and Freeview HD, Virgin Media have secured the rights to broadcast the new Film4 HD channel, as well as E4 HD.

It's a massive win for Virgin Media subscribers, as Film4 HD offers what's probably the best catalogue of movies outside of Sky Movies and Sky Movies Premier.

"Channel 4 has a great track record in delivering innovative and compelling content and we're delighted to bring some of their very best films and most popular programmes to our customers in stunning HD", said Cindy Rose, executive director of digital entertainment at Virgin Media.

"As more and more households become HD-ready, we're lining up content that makes the most of High Definition and are making HD available to all our of customers for no extra fee."

As well as Film4 HD and E4 HD, Virgin Media's HD line up also includes BBC HD, C4HD, ESPN HD, FX HD, MTVN HD, National Geographic HD, LIVING HD and Eurosport HD, with Discovery HD also on its way.

This week sees the launch of a new range of Sony Bravia HD TVs, the UK's first to feature an integrated Freeview HD tuner.

Rather than having to shell out for a HD compatible set-top box, these HX, NX and EX sets will let their owners watch Freeview HD channels straight out of the box.

They're pretty good looking sets too, with a minimalist design that should see them fit right in in almost any home.

Each set will include a range of IPTV features too. LoveFilm accounts can be accessed through the sets, along with Twitter feeds and the Demand Five VOD service.

To sweeten the deal even further, the HX models will be fully 3D compatible once Sony start rolling out firmware updates to their Blu-Ray players and PS3 consoles.

Click here for more details.

In keeping with the big green trend in electronics right now, BT are re-launching their Vision range of set top boxes, claiming a 12% reduction in power consumption.

The new BT Vision + box doesn't just give you Freeview TV and digital radio channels, but also connects to BT broadband lines via their Home Hub router to give users access to on-demand TV, films and music. The box features a 160GB hard drive, storing roughly 80 hours of video content.

Marc Watson, CEO BT Vision said, "We are always looking at ways in which we can improve BT Vision. The new BT Vision+ box is not only better looking, it also consumes less energy, something that we know is extremely important to our customers."

The new glossy black look for the box is designed to match BT's "iconic" Home Hub wireless router. Well, as iconic as a router can be I suppose.

You can pick up the box for free when you buy BT Vision online, available here. You'll want to hurry though, as the offer ends 15th January.

The message boards over at our Shiny friends HDTVUK have been alight with readers venting their spleens over the new-look Sky + HD Guide, which completed its nationwide roll-out last week.

Many of you have been complaining that the new Sky Guide isn't up to scratch, either running too slowly, not being particularly intuitive or with text too small to read.

Alex Foligno posted on December 17th:

SERIOUSLY AWFUL the greatest injusticed (sic) is the fact that non-HD (lower paying customers) have the classic menu which we have all loved for the past decade. A CLASSIC option would be much appreciated.

James followed up with a similar sentiment:

I thought I would give it a go for a week before I complained as I thought it would grow on me. I was wrong. I still hate it. I want the old one back. The old one was straight forward and easy to use. This one is just a mess. It really puts me off watching TV.

Some readers have had such difficulty reading the new guide that they have contacted the Royal National Institute of Blind People, believing the new guide to be an affront to accessibility for the visually impaired.

Your complaints have not fallen upon death ears completely however! A Sky customer services representative today confirmed to HDTVUK that visually impaired Sky viewers will be able to revert back to the previous Sky + EPG if they wish. However Sky + HD subscribers will have to downgrade to a Sky + box in order to get the old guide back. This may be however just a temporary solution, as all Sky boxes, including earlier models, are expected to take on the new look guide sooner rather than later.

What do you think? Should all Sky +HD subscribers be given the option to revert back to the previous guide? Or are the complaints all smoke and no fire, with the guide being well suited to your needs?

Let us know!

(Thanks to HDTVUK reader Mark for the tip!)

When it comes to digital TV services, Freesat is a relatively new kid on the block. Launched 18 months ago, it's still seen by many as the poor relation compared to Freeview (digital terrestrial) and Sky (satellite). But all that could be about to change with the announcement a couple of months ago that BBC and ITV are gearing up to launch their digital TV players on the service. The BBC iPlayer, already available on Virgin's cable service, is currenly in beta testing on Freesat and the ITV Player will start early next year.

Another attraction of Freesat is that it's a good way of watching HD content without having to pay Sky TV up to £50 a month for the privilege. The Beeb offers a wide selection of programmes on its HD service, including popular shows live Gavin and Stacey and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross while on ITV there's Champions League Football. And with all the criticism surrounding Sky+ latest HD TV Guide (see HDTVUK.tv for more details) now seems a good time to look at a much cheaper and aguably better alternative.

Annoying set up
Available in two versions (one with a 250GB and one with a 500GB hard drive), the Sagem DTR94 is the latest Freesat box from the France based company. Like most digital boxes these days set up is largely automated though you will have to feed it your postcode details (I'm not really sure why as you could easily make one up if you didn't pay the licence fee and besides you don't have to put in your full address).

Annoyingly it's default position is also to make you input a four digital parental code and to hide away all the adult channels - well there's only really two that I could find, Babestation and Filth (what a horrible name that is!) Once it's found the channels these are stored either by genre or as a channel list and you can move them around etc if you really want to.

The 8 day electronic programme guide is particularly clear with the ability to skip forward by days or hours to find what you want using the colour coded buttons. And one-touch recording is straightforward enough - recordings complete with a preview screen can be viewed by pressing the red button.

The only downside with Freesat is that you will need to have a satellite dish with two LNB outputs in order to watch one channel while recording another. The box can be used for manually adding channels and not only do you get the usual programme descriptions you can also access technical data about each broadcast such as whether it is available with 5.1 channel sound, is transmitted in high definition and what the satellite signal level is like.

High definition pictures
If you want to receive full HD quality then you will need to connect the silver box up to your TV via HDMI cable (most recent TVs have an HDMI socket - but if yours doesn't then you will only get standard def pictures). Plenty of other sockets are provided too, including two Scarts for connection to a DVD recorder and a digital audio output (coaxial) in order to benefit from DTS/Dolby Digital sound when connected to a home cinema amplifier.

Picture quality seemed very good though is of course largely dependent on the source material in the first place. For example watching old American programmes on the CBS channels I was struck by just how terrible pictures were, but that has much to do with the NTSC format they were filmed in rather than any fault of the set top box. On the other hand, Champions League Football in HD really does look fantastic with the players much more clearly defined. Nor is storage of high definition programmes a massive problem with the 500Gb box capable of holding around 200 hours of content according to Sagem.

Verdict
With the addition of ITV and BBC's digital players in 2010 and with some (albeit not enough) HD content now available for free, Freesat is definitely worth considering as an alternative to Freeview or Sky. And with a price tag of £300 for a model with 500Gb storage, the Sagem box is a good option.

Sagem DTR94 HD Freesat (£250 for 250Gb hard drive, £300 for 500Gb hard drive)

Pros:
Good price - works out much cheaper than Sky+
Easy set up
Lots of sockets
BBC iPlayer available soon

Cons:
Parental controls too restrictive
Still not enough HD material on Freesat

Links:
www.sagemdigital.co.uk
www.freesat.co.uk

BUY FROM HERE

Sagem has announced the availability of its latest Freesat+ High Definition digital recorders. Available with 250GB or 500GB hard drives, the boxes also boast auto set-up and navigation menus.

Sagem's Freesat+ digital recorders are available from all major high street retailers including John Lewis, Currys, Comet and Argos. The 250Gb model retails for £250 and the 500Gb model is £300.

* John Lewis has just reported that sales of digital TV recorders for Freesat and Freeview are up 175% year on year and 13% week on week.

For further information go to www.sagem-communications.com or the new www.sagemdigital.co.uk.

The first technical transmissions of Freeview HD have begun today.

The Winter Hill transmitter group is currently beaming broadcasts to select areas of Manchester, with the Crystal Palace group doing the same for pockets of London. They are the first in the world to adopt the DVB-T2 standard and MPEG-4.

James Jackson, BBC head of broadcast infrastructure carried out a demonstration live at the BBC Media Centre. Promotional cuts from BBC HD and ITV HD broadcast by the Crystal Hill group were displayed using brand new IDTV's manufactured by Sony and Panasonic. Both channels were fully incorporated into the Freeview electronic programme guide.

Though the BBC broadcast was the same as is currently available on Freesat, ITV's offering was currently just an upscaled broadcast of the ITV1 channel. ITV have committed however to broadcast most of their top peak programme scheduling in full HD as the service becomes more widespread.

The BBC hope to have a national coverage of 50% for Freeview HD in time for the 2010 World Cup, reaching its maximum 98.5% national coverage by late 2012. Channel 4 also hope to launch a Freeview HD channel in the new year, with as many as five other HD channels in the wings from the network.

For news of when your area will be receiving Freeview HD broadcasts, click here.

See Mr Spock and Captain Kirk as they were meant to be seen warts and all as the digitally remastered version of the original Star Trek comes to Freesat. Three new CBS channels are due to launch on Freesat, November 16 - CBS Drama, CBS Reality and CBS Action - replacing Zone Romantica, Zone Reality and Zone Thriller.

Other classic shows on the three channels include Dynasty, Moonlighting and Models Inc. Freesat, the subscription-free satellite TV service offers over 140 channels and free high-definition (HD) programmes from the BBC and ITV. CBS Drama, CBS Reality and CBS Action will be on channels 135, 136 and 137 respectively.

www.freesat.co.uk

LG has announced that the HR400 will be available at the end of this month. The HR400 is a Blu-ray DVD player, a Freeview receiver with recording onto a built-in HDD and it also streams YouTube videos without the need for a PC.

The Blu-ray is 1080p full HD and will also upscale your old DVDs. The Freeview element includes a 160GB HDD.

This really does do the job of two separate boxes and the YouTube feature is just a nice little bonus.

It will cost around £350 - which is fairly cheap considering the functionality. Find out more from LG.

(via T3)

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So, you know what it's called and you know how much it costs but the question is, what exactly is a multimedia HDD box and what can it do for me/you/anyone?

Everything and nothing is the answer. On the surface, it's an excellent product. It's small, it's portable, the 250GB HDD detaches while the flash drive in the main body of the unit will keep on recording regardless. You can connected it via just about any cable you've got to whatever kind of screen you like and you can plug in all manner of USBs and SD cards to play off or record onto.

Digital Vision has launched the GiGo DV-DTR1 Digital Freeview recorder - the first USB stick based recorder on the market.

It's basically a single tuner Freeview receiver, with the usual EPG you'd expect on a Freeview box, that has three USB ports on the front of it. Users can record programmes using the EPG direct to any storage device plugged in to one of the slots.

Programmes are recorded in MPEG-2 format with an hour's worth of programming taking up about 2GB. The file name is taken directly from the EPG and programme synopsis is also copied.

Playback is via the GiGo or via any device that supports MPEG-2, meaning you can take your recorded programmes with you on the move.

Robert Musk from Digital Vision told Tech Digest (well, me) that he sees the GiGo box as a direct replacement for people who were comfortable recording onto VHS but haven't got to grips with Freeview recorders and personal planners yet.

The GiGo DV-DTR1 will be available in Tesco from September for £69.99 initially, although this will probably drop to £59.99. The cheapest Freeview reorder I could find on the Tesco website was £87.89 for a 250GB DigiHome model meaning the GiGo could be a good entry-level Freeview recorder.

It doesn't take a satellite dish or subscription service to get yourself a PVR these days and a company from France is pushing the set-top box paradigm a little further as of last week with an HD multimedia HDD device known as the Wyplayer.

It's a good-looking, fairly compact device in the flesh with all the ports you'd expect in the shape of 3 x USB, Ethernet, RCA and, of course, HDMI (1.2 only). It also happens to have a built-in Wi-Fi N receiver with no ridiculous aerial sticking out of the back. So, already we're looking at one function most PVRs don't have - media streaming straight from your computer.

Over Christmas I ate a lot of turkey, drank a lot of wine, and fiddled endlessly with this - the Emtec S800 movie cube. I'll break it to you now - it's not a cube - but it is a great little home entertainment set-top-box that lets you stream video over a network and record television.

Not one for the technophobic amongst you, but if you like tinkering with your AV setup then it comes highly recommended. It costs £230 and the company claims it's available now from Dixons, but I certainly can't see it on the site, or anywhere else for that matter. If you know where you can buy it in the UK, drop us a line in the comments.

Related posts: Emtec S800 HDD Movie Cube - an all-in-one digital media set-top-box | Emtec launches Movie Cube-R multimedia centre

IP Vision has announced a new hybrid set-top box which can be used to access the complete range of Freeview channels, acts as a digital video recorder (DVR), as well as being able to access a range of video on demand content over the Internet.

The company is keen to point out that this is a subscription-free, operator independent service, unlike those from the likes of BT, Virgin Media and Tiscali. It can be used with any broadband provider.

At launch, over 1,200 hours of content will be available in the VoD library including films and programmes from Paramount, ITV, Turner Broadcasting, Eagle Vision, Fremantle, Entertainment Rights and Aardman.

Ladies and gentlemen! Roll up! Roll up! The gadget freak show is in town! Here, behind a wall of steel for your safely, is the Silicon Mountain Allio - a 32" or 42" HDTV that also squeezes a Core 2 Duo PC and Blu-ray player into its case.

It even manages PVR-like recording features thanks to its PC bit's hard drive. Plus you can split the screen if your brain's capable of multitasking and you want to watch TV, browse the internet and play video games simultaneously because you're THAT CONNECTED. Here's a look at the beast...

Careful, she's hungry! The 42" model does the full 1080p spec, with the 32" version maxing out at 720p. The Allio is available in America right now, with the 32" one going for $1599 and the 42-incher costing from $1999. Bigger hard drives for the PC part and larger chunks of RAM up the price, which is a thrillingly novel fact to take into account when buying a telly.

(Via VisionMan)

Related posts: Humax/Freesat combo-update | YoYoTech MONSTER

The UK's Information Commissioner, who's been a very busy man/department recently, declined a freedom of information request to reveal how many TV license detector vans the BBC operates - because it might stop people believing they exist.

The shadowy fleet of TV-detecting vans is supposed to be able to pick up tell-tale signs that a TV's being used inside a house, but the ICO ruled that revealing how many vans the BBC actually operates - and the technology they use - might undermine the level of threat they pose. And lead to us not bothering to pay our licence fees any more.

Pure White and Beige Grisé are the exciting names of two new colours Pioneer has invented to jazz up its KURO range of HD Ready plasmas a little. Pioneer's home business product manager Jim Catcheside offered us the following explanation about why white and beige TVs are best...

"With these Limited Edition KURO TVs we want to offer our customers the opportunity to customise their viewing environment even further by harmonising their TV with their interior design. The minimalist White and luxurious Beige Grisé KUROs are an excellent means to express one's individual taste and style."

The KRP-500AW and KRP-500ABG both use Pioneer's media receiver technology to "outsource" cables and connectors to a separate unit, which then connects to the KURO through a single cable - making the display a mere 64mm thick.

It's high-end audio time now, with the announcement of the Imerge MS1 home server. It's a media server which, when combined with a storage system like XiVA's three and six terabyte disc arrays, will give you a very high-quality audio and video streaming solution over a network.

The server has some very impressive specs, including 1080p video playback over HDMI, an audiophile-grade audio board with Wolfson Delta-Sigma 24-bit DACs, a lovely flash GUI, and any kind of connectivity and configurability you'll never need.

Continuing today's impromptu theme of dull things made sexy, we bring you this - a remote control. Made sexy.

The pyramid-shaped remote control has been designed to stand on its end. This ruins the fun game that is trying to stand a remote control on its end on the carpet, but maker Brookstone has additional fun-streams lined up for you - this remote is voice-activated.

So, instead of pressing a button to change channel, you can experience the fun of saying "Channel up" in numerous different accents until you give up and walk over and press Channel Up. Brookstone reckons its Universal Remote "responds to virtually any language or accent," but we'd like to take it around a Glasgow housing estate and and film the results.

Actually, we wouldn't. We'd like to sit here in the warm and make wild, sweeping generalisations instead.

(Via BR)

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