ON YOUR MARKS… GET SET… GO!
Introducing IAAF World Athletics Championship in HD on Freesat
    
Reach for your running shoes and sprint to the sofa, because this year’s World Championships in Athletics is coming to Freesat in high definition and subscription free. From Saturday 15th to Sunday 23rd August, the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championship airs on the BBC HD channel.

Olympic Champion Michael Johnson will join the BBC commentary team to report on the nine days of athletics action – disciplines ranging from Relay to Triple Jump and Javelin Throw to 5,000 Metres. Some of this year’s hopefuls include British runner Christine Ohuruogu, as well as American-born Allyson Felix and LaShawn Merritt.

Berlin Olympic Stadium is the host of these prestigious games and for the first time in its history the marathon and walking competitions will take place in Berlin’s city centre – all in brilliant high definition.

HD is perfect for watching all the high-speed athletic action, with a picture that is five times the quality of normal digital TV. This amazing event in pin-sharp HD has a staggering 1,800 athletes, 47 competitions and 24 disciplines, there should be no need for photo finishes. Freesat + also enables you to record, fast forward and rewind live TV, in case you want to re-live any of the best moments.

Other BBC HD highlights include chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, and dramas such as Torchwood and Gavin and Stacey.

HIT THE RIGHT NOTES WITH THE PROMS ON BBC HD ON FREESAT

The symphonies, concertos, overtures and fugues of this year’s Proms will be better than ever this year with Freesat bringing viewers this unique summer event in glorious high definition on BBC HD. From the First Night of the Proms on Friday July 17 you can recreate the Proms experience in your own home all summer long, culminating with the renowned Last Night of the Proms celebration on September 12.

No need to compromise on sound or picture quality with Freesat as high definition (HD) gives you five times the quality of normal digital TV. With The Proms in crystal-clear HD, you won’t miss a single stroke of the kettle drum or twitch of the conductor’s baton as the experience bursts out of the TV and into your home.

This summer marks the 115th year of the Proms, with concerts taking place in famous venues around the country; from the Royal Albert Hall to Cadogan Hall and the popular BBC Proms in the Park events.

As ever, the world’s finest classical talents will be performing, including pianist Lang Lang, violinist Joshua Bell, and well-known conductors William Christie and Valery Gergiev. Enjoy the music and feel the passion as Freesat brings the event to life in glorious high definition.

The Proms on the BBC HD channel will also be available in stunning surround sound for Freesat viewers with home-cinema speakers. So music lovers up and down the country will be able to savour the best in classical music as if they have the best seats in the house.

Other highlights available on BBC HD in the coming weeks include the IAAF World Athletics Championship Berlin 2009, That Mitchell and Webb Look, Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey and Dragon’s Den.

Goodmans have announced two PVR’s:

The Goodmans GFSDTR320HD is a 320GB hard drive PVR with twin freesat HD tuners which Argos have at £299.99 (hopefully this price will fall soon after launch) due for release in August 2009.

The Goodmans GFSDTR500HD is a 500GB hard drive PVR with twin freesat HD tuners which Argos have at £349.99 (hopefully this price will fall soon after launch) due for release in August 2009.

Sagem have also announced two PVR’s:

The Sagem DTR94250S is a 250GB hard drive PVR with twin freesat HD tuners which Argos have at £249.99 (hopefully this price will fall soon after launch) due for release in September 2009.

 The Sagem DTR94500S which has a 500GB hard drive PVR with twin freesat HD tuners which Argos have at £299.99 (hopefully this price will fall soon after launch) due for release in September 2009

All four PVR’s comply to the normal freesat standards with the following specifications:

• Pause live TV.
• Twin tuner.
• Record 1 channel/watch another.
• Can record 2 channels at the same time.
• Series record.
• Digitally interactive.
• Digital text.
• Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) subtitles available.
• Upscales standard definition content to HD.
• Auto setup.
• User controlled auto detection of new channels.
• User controlled auto scan for new channels.
• 8 day EPG )electronic programme guide).
• 2 SCART sockets.
• Upscales to 1080i.
• Remote control (batteries included).
• Freesat approved

Known Specifications:

• Digitally interactive.
• Digital text.
• Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) subtitles available.
• Auto setup.
• User controlled auto detection of new channels.
• User controlled auto scan for new channels.
• Now and next electronic programme guide.7 day electronic programme guide.
• 2 SCART sockets.
• HDMI output socket.
• Upscales to 1080i.
• Freesat approved.
• Remote control.
• Size (H)4.1, (W)31, (D)17.5cm.
• Weight 1kg.

Further details as soon as we can find out more.

The Sagem  DSI86HD retails for £129.99 at Argos as soon as we can find out more details we will advise accordingly.

When you consider an equivalent full HD 1080P TV with only Freeview built in would cost around this price the LG 32LF7700 with freesat HD represents outstanding value and you do not have the clutter of a separate HD satellite receiver that would cost around £100 on its own.

• Dixons are £449.99 Delivered
• Laskys are £449.99 Delivered
• Amazon are £449.99 Delivered

Compare all LG 32LF7700 prices here

The full review will be published in the What Satellite and Digital TV magazine on sale May 14, but they have released the following information from the full review:

“The casing is almost identical to Technisat’s Digicorder HD S2X. A classy blue vacuum fluorescent display shows the name of the channel you’re tuned to, or which menu you’re viewing. A flap reveals a host of data ports for slotting in storage devices for multimedia playback: USB, an MS/SD/MMC card slot and a Compact Flash reader. To their right are two blank spaces where CI slots would otherwise be.”

“The remote control looks more like your average TV zapper than a set-top box controller, but it is still very usable, despite having lots of small similarly sized buttons. A blue ‘Nav’ button reveals context-sensitive shortcut menus for accessing the most desirable features.”

The HDFS has two operating modes – Freesat and Technisat mode.

“The Technisat mode is for multi-satellite users and has many features offered by a conventional satellite receiver.
You can specify the type of LNB you have, there’s DiSEqC 1.2 support and motorised users can specify east and west limits. There are numerous search options and you can have multiple channel lists (also in Freesat mode).”

“The HDFS is capable of playing media from inserted storage devices or from a PC via Ethernet or wirelessly. Wireless streaming requires you to buy Technisat’s USB-WLAN adapter (£30) which can be front or rear-plugged or set apart from the receiver in the stand provided.
‘Supported formats are MP3, JPEG or MPEG-2 (MP4 and DivX are expected to be added later) and you can create playlists and slide shows.”

The brief review can be see here.

The new DRM which is encoded with the programme will now allow consumers to make one personal copy of a HD programme (after recording to the PVR hard disc) to a Blu-ray disc, but the DRM will prevent copies of that Blu-ray disc.

Danielle Nagler, head of BBC HD said:

“It will now be possible to make a single HD Blu-ray copy of one of our programmes, although not copies of copies. An HD connection to a protected home network will also be possible, although an HD connection to the Internet or portable devices will not work”

Copies of SD (Standard Definition) is not affected and you can make copies of copies if you so desire, Digital Rights Management is enforced on High Definition programmes as the rights holders (ie film makers) do not want HD copies of their materiel freely available on the internet, if DRM was not enforced by the broadcasters they would not be allowed to broadcast HD content from the rights owner and would only be allowed to broadcast the Standard Definition version.

The BBC says in the future it will be possible to make a copy onto any portable device that supports the relevant copy protection protocol – but this support will be up to the individual manufacturers.

The BBC went on to say:

“Copy protection is a big issue. The BBC has not restricted the copying of any of it’s own programmes in SD and we do not want to do it in HD however some rights owners do want high quality versions of their material protected from multiple copying and from being distributed on the internet and we have to comply.”

“The level of protection on the BBC HD Channel has been reduced to allow the new Blu-ray recorders to make single copies and (subject to the manufacturers) home network distribution to IP TVs etc.”

 

The full article can be seen on the BBC HD Blog

The three models are:

• DMR-BS850 High Definition Twin freesat Tuner 500 GB Hard Disc Drive and Blu-ray Disc Recorders
• DMR-BS750 High Definition Twin freesat Tuner 250 GB Hard Disc Drive and Blu-ray Disc Recorders
• DMR-XS350 High Definition Twin freesat Tuner 250 GB Hard Disc Drive and DVD Recorder (Standard Definition archiving to disc)

All three models come with twin freesat HD tuners allowing recording of two simultaneous programmes on different channels to the onboard hard disc drive these can be HD (High Definition) or SD (Standard Definition) programmes and then archiving to Blu-ray or DVD disc, the DMR-XS350 will only allow standard definition archiving.

If the recorders are used with a Viera flat screen TV the propriety Panasonic Viera link functions can be used to control recording with the Viera TV remote control making recording and pausing live TV easier. The top of the range DMR-BS80 will accept up to 77 hours of HD recording or 240 hours of HL recording direct to its hard disc and 24 hours of HD programmes can be archived onto a Blu-ray disc in high speed copy mode. Part or all of the hard drive can also be used as a music jukebox allowing you to copy your CD’s and mp3’s to the hard disc for instant playback.

All three models feature high image quality PHL reference Chroma Processor Plus and P4HD delivering deep, detailed images from recorded programmes. All models also come with Bonus View and BD Live a feature which allows downloading from the internet special features and images for a BD Live enabled Blu-ray movie.

The DMR-BS850 and DMR-BS750 support Dolby True HD and DTS Master Audio Essential on Blu-ray discs and if connected to compatible home cinema amplifier you can utilise the exceptional quality of 7.1 surround sound of Blu-ray discs. If recording a HD broadcast the hard disc will record Full HD picture quality, 5.1 surround sound, subtitles and audio description, obviously to appreciate 5.1 surround sound you will needs to be using compatible home cinema amplifier.

All three models come with a SD card slot and USB input to allow easy transfer of home movies and images to the hard disc or Blu-ray / DVD drive.

Prices are still to confirmed but expect the top of the range DMR-BS850 to be around £999, the DMR-BS750 at around £899 and the DMR-XS350 £699. These prices are very high and we would expect them to fall as the product establishes itself into the market, unfortunately the high exchange rate is not helping the issue at the moment.

The DMR offers a serious rival to the Sky+ HD box and has features only Sky users could wish for without any subscription and all three Panasonic’s  do feature cutting edge technology and if you can afford one do offer the benefit of one box under the TV does everything but until the price is a bit more realistic we can’t see them having runaway success of the Humax HDR.

Link to article on:  Panasonic website

Related article: Panasonic to launch freesat+ HD PVR with Blu Ray

To go to the Dixons product page

To compare all Humax HDR prices

The  LF7700 LCD series comes in 32”, 37”, 42” and 47” diagonal screen sizes and are full 1080p HD Ready. All TV’s have 3 HDMI inputs and USB 2.0 inputs to allow streaming mp3 and Jpeg from an external source. Also included is component input, PC input and optical digital audio out. The LF7700 series also contains the company’s invisible speaker system with a high gloss black with grey trim on sides.

As part of the freesat standard all freesat TV’s come with an Ethernet input to allow for future internet services most notably BBC iplayer which will hopefully will be available later this year. The LG comes with an 8 day EPG for freesat, parental controls and all the usual freesat standard features.

Also included is LG’s Intelligent Sensor II technology optimises the picture for the ambient light conditions and LG claims uses less than 69.5% less power than a standard TV. The LF7700 series uses less than 0.5 watts in standby.

Dynamic contrast is quoted at 80,000:1 for the 42″ and 47″ and 50,000:1 for the 32″ and 37″with 24p Real Cinema and SRS TruSurround XT, the larger 42” and 47” screens also come with TruMotion 100Hz.

If you are looking to replace your old television a freesat HDTV could be a real consideration with freesat HD built in allowing access to BBC HD and ITV HD and access to over 140 channels at no cost without the clutter of a set top box.

No prices have been announced yet but we would expect them to come out slightly cheaper than the new Panasonic series. Sony are due to release freesat HDTV’s for Christmas 2009