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The terrestrial services are being replace by Digital Video Broadcasting - Terrestrial (DVB-T), this is the European standard for the terrestrial transmission of digital television.
Digital free to air (FTA) television currently provides 35+ channels across most of the UK, user satisfaction will vary depending on location in relation to the closest transmitter.
Freecom's Digital TV DVB-T is a terrestrial receiver & radio input adapter stick for PC's.
It is about the same size as a USB memory pen, making it the world's smallest digital TV and radio receiver, allowing access to digital TV and radio programs anywhere, subject to reception, topography, objects, weather and Freeview coverage.
However most of these restrictions are resolved by simply connecting an indoor TV aerial into the adapter between the aerial cable and the stick itself.
This stick probably won't fit into a rear USB socket if the nearby one is in use due to its cross-section, but Freecom bundle a short extension lead.
A complete substitute without adapters or subscription, enabling you to totally dispense with the need for that outdated and space-consuming television.
This little USB stick frees you from programming schedules as it allows you to record television on your hard disk so you can watch at your convenience.
In the unlikely event you do not already have a TV license, purchase of this equipment will make this necessary.
Fail to do so, and you risk a trip to court and a possible £1,000 fine and no one has ever successfully managed to dispute it.
The application interface consists of a configuration & viewing program; the video is displayed in a standard window and there is an independent 'remote' window with all the channel and video selection controls, which are also accessible from the video window via a popup menu.
The video window can display any size up to full screen, between 4:3 for standard TV and 16:9 for wide screen movies, with a small loose of screen area, and stereo output, if the programme is transmitted in stereo.
Good points: 1) All other things being equal, a versatile and easy to use receiver with quick installation and setup with the Auto Scan for channels.
2) A complete and compact Digital TV solution with a good picture, no AC adapter is needed.
3) The 'time shift' function which allows you to pause live programs and continue or restart from any point.
4) Scheduling multiple recordings.
5) Supports teletext where available.
6) The Multi-Channel Preview.
7) The Electronic Program Guide provides a 7 day program schedule and program summary information for all channels which broadcast data for this service.
7) The supplied external DVB-T 'antennal' is compact and has a magnetic base to clamp it in a convenient place.
8) Both TV channel and radio station favourites.
Bad points: 1) The supplied external DVB-T 'antennal' has a strong magnet.
In principle a good idea but do not bundle it too close to a notebook or floppy disk.
2) The programmable recorder function uses a propriety MPEG-2 audio/video stream format which seems to be impossible to open in any package other than the bundled TV-viewer.
3) Due to the poorly designed application interface, it is necessary to read the user manual to use the less obvious features, however this is also poorly written, it reads as if English was not the native language of the authors or it was badly translated from another language.
4) Microsoft Windows XP, will not run under 95,98 or Machintosh.
Freeview Issues: 1) There is no access to the interactive services ("Press the Red Button now") in the UK, there is a red button but this is associated with recording functionality.
It only supports the European Teletext (not compatible with UK teletext).
2) The channels are initially sequenced as detected, ignoring the Freeview channel numbers (irritating if you are familiar with the Freeview channels).
Channels can be reorganised by dragging and dropping them within the set up interface, however you cannot change their numbers or the fact that TV channels start at 1 to x then the radio channels start at x+1.
3) The signal information refresh option is very energy intensive, disabling this feature triples a standard laptop batteries energy supply! 4) Not all channels broadcast aspect ratio, it can be manually selected.
This can be annoying when you move from one which can to one which can't, when the software automatically centres and resizes the window, so all your careful adjustments are lost.
5) The pre-recording, real time recording and time shifting functions are memory intensive, requiring approximately 1 gigabyte per hour, this is what we expect from very high quality digital video and there are no quality or resolution settings.
Software Issues: 1) The viewing application is a reasonably featured collection of interfaces, if lacking in refinement, sadly not enough consideration went into how the software would be used or the overall impact of all these interacting screens.
Some elements look as if programmed as quickly as possible, in visual basic for Windows 3.
11! 2) The on screen remote control interface would have been better if it were integrated into the video display window, all the separate elements of the application can get in the way of other applications and each other.
3) There is a help menu item which results in an error message asking you to refer to the manual on the instillation CD, again, lack of refinement.
4) The software supplied has reasonable EPG support but it opens in a dedicated window, I would like this (or a summary version of it) to have been integrated into the main viewing interface.
5) There is no way to 'hide' the title bar at the top of the viewing window, irritating if the window is very small.
6) The multi-channel preview feature is a bit slow, you cannot control how or which channels it cycles through (ie it shows 5 seconds from each of the first 9 channels), it only cycles through the first 9 channels (you must press channel up/down to see the next/previous 9 channels).
7) The electronic program guide can be used to setup prerecording, by double clicking the program titles, but there is nothing within the interface to indicate the existence of this functionality.
8) When selecting which channels the program schedule is to display from the electronic program guide, the channel being viewed is also changed.
I would like this to be an option.
More importantly, the guide is very simplistic with regard to searching or customisation options.
Hardware Issues: 1) After the DVB-stick is initially configured, its USB port cannot be changed without reinstalling its drivers, the software just can't detect its receiver if plugged into a different port.
2) The supplied aerial is adequate, however I am 10km from the Crystal Palace transmitter.
That said I receive 19 TV and 18 radio channels using the aerial provided, but I can get 35 TV and 27 radio channels using a good quality analog indoor aerial.
3) The remote control provided has a maximum operational range of 3 metres, providing that it is targeted directly to the logo of the DVB-stick, (due to the diameter of its receiving port) otherwise its effective range in roughly 3 feet.
4) The remote control is rudimentary and very temperamental.
It reacts poorly, the receiver does not reliably respond to the key presses and the receiver window must be the subject of "focus " to receive the remote controller input (I just use my PDA as a remote).
5) No subtitles for deaf or hard of hearing viewers or audio captioning for the visually-impaired, both services are supported by a number of programmes.
(Sometimes one or both aids are encapsulated within programme content).
Summary: Being a computer science graduate unfortunately makes you slightly critical of other peoples programming and analytical ability, in this case its just too easy.
In principle this is an excellent product, and there should be hundreds of satisfied customers out there that aren't bothered about the bundled software.
It is a real shame when a few lines of code here and there would have resulted in this mediocre software being excellent and a more complete system as a result.
This is nevertheless a good product which would get 10/10 for the hardware (if not for the remote control) and 6/10 for the software, but there is unlimited free helpdesk support from Freecom.
Features: Receive digital terrestrial TV & radio stations; Support DVB protocol (ETS 300 744); Real time Digital Video Recording (DVR); Supports EPG (Electronic Program Guide); Scheduled recording & time-shifting; Multi-channel preview; Includes antenna; Record Digital TV shows; Fully resizable TV, up to full screen; System Requirements: MicrosoftWindows XP SP1 or above; PIII 800MHz CPU or above; 128MB RAM, 1GB Free hard disk space; Graphic Card (Support Microsoft DirectX 9.
0 or above); Microsoft Direct X 9.
0b or above; Available Digital signal in your region; Box Contents: Freecom DVB-T Stick; IR Remote Control; Quick Installation Guide; Terrestrial Antenna; MCX-IEC Connector; Application CD & online manual; USE extension cable;
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