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.

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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)

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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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In this video, Dan gets his hands on a tiny tiny digital TV reciever "designed for people who don't want big freeview boxes". It's got very simple, very small design, with just enough space to plug in the appropriate cables. Decent UI too. But don't take my word for it, watch the video and take Dan's. It's £60, and it's available now.

TVonics

Related posts: Two new Humax Freeview+ PVR set-top boxes out today | SURVEY: DVRs - good, aren't they?

What would companies be doing if they weren't out surverying the public and, indeed, what would the public be doing if they weren't out being stopped by people with clipboards outside Dixons?

Today is the turn of NDS to push their products on the world by giving us the results on the "just how wonderful the DVR is" survey and as it goes, I very much agree - well, to a point but to that point later. For now, prepare to have your mind blown with a volley of statistics.

Staring from September 15 you'll be able to scrutinise the skin of your favourite pop star in more detail than ever before, as MTV and its parent company Viacom launch an HD music channel for quite a chunk of Europe.

The new channel is called MTVNHD, a pretty complex yet descriptive way of saying MTV Networks High Definition. Initially shaming Britney Spears in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and Sweden, the channel will feature "new music" and "programming for kids," all in English-language to make churning out "content" easier on the hard-working production teams.

Samsung will, so it is believed, announce a deal with Yahoo to include a series of web apps with its refreshed HDTV range at this week's IFA tech show.

The apps, powered by Yahoo Widgets and operating under the name Widget Channel, will let you augment your TV-watching experience, having all sorts of little windows popping up to give you news feeds, tell you what the weather is doing outside and let you watch share prices plummet throughout that afternoon's episode of Countdown.

Sharp has introduced two new digital TV recorders (DTRs), the TU-R252H (pictured) and TU-R162H.

The TU-R252H boasts a 250GB hard drive, while the TU-R162H has a more modest 160GB drive. The larger capacity model can also upscale standard definition content to 1080i resolution and connects to a TV via its HDMI port.

Much to our disappointment (but certainly not surprise) Sony confirmed following its E3 press conference that the newly unveiled PlayStation Store TV and Movies download service would not be hitting European shores until next year. Maybe. But don't fret, telly loving gamers out there, Sony has something in the way of a consolation prize: Sony PlayTV. And it's landing in a little less than two months.

PlayTV is a dual digital tuner accessory for the PS3 with accompanying software. With it you'll be able to record TV directly to your PS3 hard drive for later viewing. Or you can copy them across to your PSP for viewing on the move.

Freeview has announced that its Freeview Playback service will now be called Freeview+. It's something Chris thought would be a better name back in 2006 when the service launched, because any DVR with the feature does for Freeview what Sky+ does for Sky, or V+ does for Virgin.

According to Freeview's Director of Marketing Communications, Rob Farmer, there are already over a third of a million Freeview digital TV recorders in UK households, with the market growing 76% each year. Manufacturers include Humax, Goodmans, LG, Sony and Sharp and Tvonics.