Following on from my previous blogs about recording HD television on my PC (optimism and disappointment), I had noticed that my PC hadn't crashed for quite a while.

So maybe it was time to give the Nanostick another go.

At last a success! My first complete HD recording is from BBC HD and a repeat of Doctor Who Confidential: When Time Froze. A nice result as this also contains the mini-episode "Death Is The Only Answer" and River Song's chronological appearances.

With Christmas coming up I hope that I can rely on my PC to carry-out a few more HD recordings for me.

Tagged: Doctor Who / Computer / Hardware

It is nice to see a traditional cover to the Radio Times return. The Christmas RT is a tradition in my house and it is always something that I keep.

Howevever, while it is a glorious cover the actual programming over the festive period appears a little lack-lustre this year.

Of course, there are a few things that I am going to catch, Doctor Who and The Borrowers but I just wonder if I have been spoilt over the past few years because there is so much missing that I have come to expect: no Ghost Stories For Christmas, no unexpected vintage repeats (such as last year's The Goodies) and far fewer special dramas.

Let's hope I am wrong and I find more to enjoy than my first impressions indicate.

Tagged: Broadcast TV

... and twenty-eight years ago Shoestring was only on VHS ...

Tagged: Colebox's Scrapbook / VHS

I don't have many Radio Times clippings but I do have a couple of interesting ones. Although, it has to be said, not in the best conditon.

Artemis 81 was a baffling film from, well er..., 1981. Baffling to the sixteen year old watching it at the time at any rate. However, I still kept the clipping.

I haven't seen this film since it was first aired but I do have it on VHS conversion. I must dig it out one of these days to see if this same sixteen year old, who is now forty-six, can make head or tail of it.

Tagged: Colebox's Scrapbook

I wasn't going to believe this until I had a copy in my hands and now I have.

All episodes of series one uncut with one un-noticable minor edit of a piece of music.

I can finally lay my VHS and Satellite recordings to rest.

Tagged: Commercial Release

I took a chance with a PCTV NanoStick T290e for my PC and initially thought I had, at last, found a way to record HDTV.

However, in practice it hasn't been such a success.

There are two main issues with my set-up. The native software, PCTV Center, is poor but, thankfully, Windows Media Center works very well with it. Sadly, the biggest letdown is my PC and/or Windows 7. Every time I have tried to record any High Definition, my PC crashes after about ten to fifteen minutes.

So I installed Windows XP on a separate partition. This only leaves me PCTV Center to use and, although the PC doesn't crash, it can't handle dispalying or recording HD under XP.

I'm glad I tried the Nanostick but this will be something that I will have to come back to at my next computer upgrade.

Tagged: Computer / Hardware

This week I took a chance with a PCTV NanoStick T290e for my PC - the first to receive free-to-air HDTV - even though my Video PC's specifications weren't quite up to the minimum specs for HDTV.

The specs stated that, for HDTV, a 2.6 GHz multi-core processor was required. My PC is a 2.5 GHz quad-core; potentially, not quite there. However, I'm glad to say, the playback and recording is hardly troubling my PC.

Also, I have got this working with both the NanoSick's TV Center software and Windows Media Center, although they both record in different formats. TV Center records in .TS (H.264) but WMC still records HD in .wtv but this is a .TS file that has been wrapped up in a .wtv to add the programme's details.

What's also a nice touch is that VideoReDo TV Suite can edit the .TS files.

Tagged: Computer / Hardware

This is one of the first handful of audio-tape to CD-R conversions that I did. Made on my very first PC: a Hewlitt-Packard Club 77 with 64mb of Ram, a 10GB hard-drive and Windows 98SE.

It isn't that bad for its day. I had got to know the recording program's settings, having done a rather poor tape conversion of Toyah's 'Sheep Farming In Barnet'.

However, there appears to have been a problem with the tape itself - I think I found it in a boot fair - as there is a noticeable tape noise throughout the last three tracks.

This is still brought out from time to time for the Quatermass theme, although I no longer have the tape that I converted this from.

Tagged: Colebox's Scrapbook / Doctor Who

I was given one of the new 2012 Olymipic coins this week and at a quick glance the picture, on the coin, resembles a Dalek.

Yes, I know it's a shuttlecock, but at a quick glance...

Tagged: Colebox's Scrapbook / Doctor Who

I heard this week that the BBC/Kudos are ending Spooks after ten series. Initially, I greeted this with shock - Spooks is one of my all time favourites - but there are some good aspects to be taken away from this decision.

Many recent drama series have been axed mid-story (More Never-To-Be-Solved-Cliffhangers). Spooks is going to get a proper ending. The series will be a complete package.

Also, Spooks can't be accused of withering away; it has always been good. There was a dip in the third series where the concentration was on the emotional side of things and it was a bit dull. However, even this series ended with a bang in a very violent episode where Danny, one of the original characters, was killed.

However, the one sadness of this is that Spooks was the last contemporary British Action Adventure series. I say contemporary as dramas like Merlin, Doctor Who, Torchwood and Primeval are fantasy series. Spooks was a modern 'real-life' take.

Of course, Strikeback is still on SKY but with the second series' funding coming from the American HBO it is debatable that this will now be a British production (see Torchwood's Miracle Day), especially as Richard Armigate's character appears to be being sidelined to make way for an American lead.

I will miss Spooks very much. I hope that there will be a stylish and worthy replacement. After all, I accepted Spooks as a replacement for the action adventure Bugs.

Tagged: Broadcast TV

I nearly bought a new Sony television in the New Year sales as there were some excellent bargains about. Before I did so, I looked into what the 2011 models were offering. I am very glad that I did as, after a six month wait, I have now bought a Sony 40" KDLHX723 television.

Now, this isn't going to be a review as such but just a note to bestow some of its pros and cons and the extras that link to stuff I have talked about before.

1. With High Definition, Blu-ray and Freeview HD, the picture is stunning.
2. There is an amazing array of settings to tweak.
3. There is lots of on-line content, most importantly for me, including BBC iPlayer which has solved an issue I was recently complaining about: My Old Dell Really Isn't Up To The Task
4. This television can record to an external hard-drive. I bought a Western Digital 1TB hard drive which was pre-formatted in NTFS. This was recognised by the HX out of the box (previous televisions would only recognise Fat32).
5. It can record from the HD channels. This was something that I was interested in way back when: BBC One HD - Now To Find A Way To Record From It
6. Standard definition, for the channels with higher bitrates (the BBC, ITV1, Channel4) is quite good when viewed up close.
7. It's got 3D!
8. There is a good DVD upscale playback. I tried an old James Bond DVD.
9. The design is much more stylish than my last Sony.

1. Standard definition for channels with lower bitrates (Dave, Yesterday, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 etc) are quite poor when viewed at close range.
2. There is also a poorer picture quality from commercial DVDs that lower the bitrate to cram as much video in as possible. I didn't notice this with my old 32" but the HX shows up the stingy bitrates of some commercial releases. Name and shame: the BBC's Silent Witness DVDs cram four hours into one DVD9. I have a lot of BBC commercial DVDs; I am a little concerned.
3. As yet, I can't transfer any recordings from the external HD to my PC. They will only play on the television.
4. The Wifi, amazingly, isn't built in. A Wi-fi dongle has to be bought as an extra and 3D glasses are also an extra that has to be purchased.
5. Its all nice new shiney design is all very well but it's a bit of a dust magnet.

Overall, the HX is a good investment as, where possible, I will be getting Blu-ray rather than DVD from now on and the playback of HD, as I previously mentioned, is amazing.

Tagged: Hardware

I once complained that my Dell Laptop couldn't cope with playing iPlayer videos at full screen (BBC iPlayer And Stuttering Full-Screen Playback). But after doubling the RAM to 4GB and upgrading the operating system to Windows 7, I thought I had solved the problem (Revisiting And Clearing-Up Old Blogs).

So, for the last few months, I have been using my 2007 Dell Inspiron 6500 Dual Core as my main source of watching catch-up television on iPlayer or ITV-Player. This is connected to my Sony 32" LCD where I have been watching the streaming versions of shows, quite happily, in full screen.

However, last weekend I tried to watch this week's Holby City. The playback got interupted frequently with an error message saying I didn't have enough bandwith. I have a 30meg broadband service, so that wasn't the issue. This was a Saturday night so I was encountering very busy net traffic or the iPlayer servers were very busy.

Not to be beaten, I installed the iPlayer Desktop and downloaded the episode; something I have not done since that first blog in 2008.

The episode was watched but, at full screen, the playback was still choppy. So my laptop can cope with streaming iPlayer video but not play a downloaded one. Pretty much back to square one.

So together with this and its complete inability to play anything HD, my Dell was never really up to the video task in the first place.

Tagged: Computer

My most often used video software, VideoReDo TV Suite, recently updated to a better version and I have, at last, updated to this version.

It now features support for more video types and most importantly is able to load up .wtv files that have been recorded from Windows Media Center. No more having to convert to a different file type first, like I used to.

There is also an ability to save video to different file types, most noteably to H.264, although there are some playback issues with certain video players. VLC player is a good one to cope with most if not all.

However, I don't suppose I'll be using the h.264 aspect very much but it's nice to know it's there. VideoReDo TV Suite H.264 has been added to the Video Software page.

Tagged: Computer

I was reading, on various blog sites, that a lot of people are not happy with the Hi-Def picture that BBC One HD and BBC HD are currently broadcasting.

I have to admit that I was one of them. I didn't think that the HD picture, via my Freesat box, was as good as when I first saw it two years ago.

However, on an internet forum recently, talking about just this subject, it was pointed out to me that HD pictures are transmitted at 1080 horizontal lines but my television, being only HD Ready, means that it only has 720 horizontal lines. This means that my television is downscaling the HD picture which is loosing me detail.

I did know the difference between HD Ready and Full HD but the idea of downscaling had never occured to me!

Not that I need another one but another reason to upgrade my television.

Tagged: Hardware

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