Throw away your Sky subscription!

Only kidding. Well, I’ll let you make your mind up. A joint venture between ITV and the Beeb will provide viewers with subscription free HD digital TV. Yes - I did say “free”. The service will cover about 98% of UK homes and launches with an initial package of 80 channels. So far, so good (unless you’re one of the unlucky 2%).

Major sporting events such as the Olympics, Euro 2008 (any reason why you’d want to watch that now we’re out?) and Wimbledon will be shown in HD.

The service is planned to have about 200 channels in place by the end of the year.

Ok, it’s not totally free. There is a one-off payment to buy the box or Freesat capable HDTV: £49 for the box, £120 for the HD box plus installation which adds about £80 on top (this covers dish installation).

Popularity: 69% [?]

But still eating Apples dust.

It looks like Microsoft is trying to catch with Apple. The Redmond based company has announced that is sell TV shows that can be viewed on the Zune. Downloadable media has been available since last October but the content was limited to music videos. The new offerings, which became available yesterday, will include hits from the NBC channel including Battlestar Galactica and South Park. The downloads will cost $1.99 (double it and £5 for the UK!!!).

Coming up the inside track.

Microsoft is working hard to catch up with Apple. Since 2006 the Zune has sold just over 2 million units. That’s not bad. But are they gaining ground on Apple? No, not really. 10.6 million iPods were sold in the first three months of 2007. Does that tell you something? One point to note is the release of the Zune Pass subcription service. For $14.99 per month you can access every single song in the catalogue. Not a bad idea, eh Apple?

An update made available on Monday also allows you to synchronise your Zune wirelessly with other Zunes and PCs (sound like an alien mating ritual!).

Microsoft have a long way to go to catchy up with Apple but the features being added into the Zune may just swing some buyers in their direction.

Popularity: 73% [?]

Going at it, belt-fed.

Blu-ray has only recently been annointed the king of DVD formats but that isn’t stopping Pioneer. They have just announced the release of the BDP-LX71. The player is due to arrive in Europe this summer. Pioneer has done some tinkering under the bonnet. Expect to see HDMI 12-Bit Deep Colour and 1080p HD digital film direct / 24 frames per second video output. Huge leaps in the optical field alone. The BDP-LX71 also includes PureCinema Deinterlacer: you can enjoy your DVD collection scaled up to a 1080p resolution. Now that is seriously impressive. Hey, can you see that needle?

The audio specifications are equally impressive:

• Dolby TrueHD
• Dolby Digital Plus
• DTS HD* and
• DTS HD Master* high resolution audio formats.

And to top it off the player utilises Wolfson DACs.

I want one for Christmas. Come to think of it, this’ll be old hat by then.

Full details here.

Click here to go to the home page.

Popularity: 70% [?]

MobiBLU on the rampage.

Need a gym partner? Or maybe you’re just looking for a compact MP3 player. If so, then mobiBLU may just be the answer to your micro-prayers. At under an inch cubed and weighing just an ounce this has to be one of the smallest players in the game. And, to top it off, the device contains a fully featured display.

What’s the appeal?

Does you current MP3 player have more than one cable? How many? One USB connection, a headphone jack and perhaps a power socket? The mobiBLU has one. Did I hear an audible gasp from the audience? Yes, I did say one socket (ok, enough pantomime games, let’s get back on track!). This little bundle of audio joy has a single connector that allows you to:

• connect USB2.

• plug in a set of headphones.

• charge the battery.

• connect an external output cable i.e. speakers.

I’m starting to drool, tell me more.

The mobiBLU is PC and Mac compatible (it also worked with my Linux laptop out of the box but I can’t find any official acknowledgement on this point). The player supports MP3, WMA and DRM formats. In addition, there are 5 preset EQ modes: Classic, Jazz, Normal, Pop and Rock. Hmm, I wonder what the ‘The Final Countdown’ sounds like in Jazz mode? Going on a long run? Think you might get bored listening to the 2 Gb of tracks? Not a problem. Just switch over to the FM receiver and you can chuckle away at the comedy talents of Sandy Toksvig, etc, etc, etc…The built-in microphone allows you to record comments on the go i.e ‘This hill is huge’, ‘I’m knackered’ or even ‘I’m going to use some lame excuse for giving up running after this monster session’!

Let’s get physical.

The mobiBLU is available in red, silver, black, blue, orange and pink with a bright and easy to read OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode). A ‘nice’ additional touch are the necklace headphones, apparently. Plug them in, then dangle £70s worth of MP3 player around your neck! Yeah, right. Why not just say “Please mug me.” instead?

Popularity: 70% [?]

World domination at the hands of OS X.

Did your mother always tell you that watching too much TV would hurt your eyes? Mine did. But on seeing Apple TV Take 2 we decided that we don’t mind. Besides, there are many other things that can make you go blind, apparently!

To stream, or not to stream?

Apple is cool. Apple makes IT look pretty. And this offering is no exception. The system is designed to stream iTunes media from networked PCs and Macs and does so in Apples own ‘grab the market by the balls’ fashion. Admittedly, there are many other offerings on the market but, in our opinion, none of them have the appealing looks of Apple TV. Of course, you could settle for one of these other products but just think of the wow factor when visiting friends see this funky little baby.

Under the table or on the shelf?

Do you like to show off your gadgets? So do we. There is no way I would hide this, ‘Come on in, sit back, enjoy watching movies on my BRAND NEW APPLE TV’ - you get the idea, right? The 20 cm x 3cm case is styled in the same fashion as the Mac mini and features an internal power brick so no chance of ruining the positive Feng Shui of your living room. It even comes with a remote control (Um, did that sound like I was surprised? What entertainment system would come without one?).

Out of the box.

Ready to rip open the box? Ok, inside you’ll find the Apple TV, a power cable and a user manual (but nobody will ever read it because we know everything there is to know, yes?). No TV cables? Correct. Top tip: if you know that you’re going to buy one of these machines pick up an HDMI or component RGB cable whilst you’re at it. Once hooked up, WEP enabled access to your WiFi network is simple. Even entering you WEP key using the remote is childs play.

Take off the rose tinted glasses.

Everything in life has a minus point or two although we can always turn as negative into a positive, can’t we? (Say ‘yes’, we don’t do negatives). Apple TV comes with a puny 40 Gb hard disk for caching iTunes media and several gigs of this is taken up with adverts that can’t be removed. If you exceed the disk capacity you’ll need to ensure that the machines hosting your iTunes content are running. This can’t be upgraded, unless you want to rip up your warranty and do some serious hardware hacking. Finally, iTunes UK does not currently allow you to download movies. You can, of course, manually drop movies into iTunes and we suggest you do some research on this as Apple don’t provide much help here.

Is it worth it? Do bears…

…have sharp teeth? Yes. I agree that the lack of streaming movies may well be an issue for some but don’t expect this to last for much longer. Seriously, Apple wants all the profit it can get in order to build the next generation of cool, shiney things.

Popularity: 63% [?]

Here wii go again.

We love the wii. Some companies don’t. Rumours are flying that Microsoft is about to launch a clone of the wii hand held controller. According to MTV this is part of Redmonds campaign to muscle in on Nintendos share of the gaming market.

Horses for courses.

Apparently, the Xbox controller will have a similar design and functionality to the Wii remote, but feature fours control buttons, a stick and a microphone - hmm, sing-a-long-a-Gears-of-War anyone? There are also plans for the controller to interface with the Xbox Live Vision Camera. Many images are filling my head!

Good idea?

The introduction of such a device would, in theory, allow Microsoft to gain some ground in the face of recent reports. The major downside that we see is one of usability. Yes, the Wii controller has captured a large market share but this is based a playing sports oriented games. In the general gaming category the controller has faired less well due to the layout of the function keys.

When?

Despite some delays in development work the new Xbox controller is due to released later this year. So what happens in the mean time? It’s not unrealistic to think that Nintendo will release a control unit more suited to needs of us everyday gamers. In fact, in light of the Xbox news, they’d be mad not too. Let’s see, eh?

Popularity: 81% [?]