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Last updated on 21-Jan-2012 17:18

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TV & Radio Page 8

Digital TV (No subscription costs once set up costs paid)

Digital UK switchover dates See when your part of the country switches from analogue to digital Tweets Latest news on Freeview TV

1. Freeview Official website Click here for what channels (TV and radio) you can get (roughly 100! but they are SD - Standard Definition) Read about Freeview HD High Definition now available; BBC, ITV1, Channel 4, S4C, (BBC1 - due Autumn 2010) Check Radio&Telly too for info

2. FreeSat Read about the free digital TV service which requires no subscription, just a satellite dish, cable and Freesat box Tweets

Buy a £30 Standard Definition box from Argos Comes in HD too but only 2 channels so far, BBC and ITV1 (BBC1 - due Autumn 2010) See Freesat channel list Iplayer on FreeSat now

3. FreeSat from Sky Read about the free digital TV service from Sky - 240 channels for £175 Real Digital A brand new service in direct competition with Sky - apparently coming soon (for some months now!)

Set top digital boxes from around £18 - click Pricerunner to see what boxes are available, or click Radio&Telly for set top boxes - a great source of up to date info.

The TV market has been, and still is, very confusing and requires a lot of homework. Check this table to see a selection of what PVRs (Personal Video Recorders) are available with 2 or more tuners

Personally I would buy an HD LCD TV, then buy a box offering the following features; 1) HD Freeview &/or HD Freesat with HDMI connectors, 2) Ethernet connector for Internet TV, &/or 3) Wi-Fi to connect to your home network media and 4) PVR capability with storage of a least 500GB. DVD (and possibly Blu-ray) may become superfluous in the future due to Internet TV and Wi-Fi connectivity

VideoOnDemand news from Digital Spy also check here for forum discussions of the latest PVR boxes - scroll down the page

Another option is to buy a Media box e.g. Sony Playstation 3 which will stream media content from your PC to display on TV and play 'On-Demand TV' (see below). Click Pricerunner for available media centres

Video On-Demand VoD (Catch-up) TV

Basically VoD can be viewed either on a PC or on a TV. See the options below.

Future of TV which lists one of them as....................On-Demand TV (IPTV) List available services - "tailor made television piped into your home'

VoD on PC

Click here for links to watch (on your PC) BBC1, BBC2, BBC3, BBC4, BBC News, BBC Parliament, CBBC and CBeebies

1. BBC iPlayer BBC Player enabling catch-up of BBC TV and as of Feb.2011 supports search for ITV and Channel 5 Multicast Higher quality radio and TV but must be right ISP

2. YouView (official) (available early 2012) A project to create a player that brings together all the services listed below Read more on this subject here

3. TV Catch-up 40 channels to choose from (Requires registration and has adverts) but it's brilliant and currently best in class

4. MSN Player Same as BBC iPlayer

5. CBS TV.com US Channel currently only showing Channel 5 content (below) but more to follow apparently

6. Hulu (not quite ready for UK - yet!) Last but by no means least. Hulu is the massive VideoOnDemand (VoD) service in the US and should be coming to the UK - message pops up after 15secs and you can register your interest Read here for the latest news

7. ITV Catch-up Same as BBC iPlayer

8. 4OD (Channel4) Catch-up Same as BBC iPlayer

9. Channel 5 Catch-up Same as BBC iPlayer

10. Sky Go (was Player) Same as BBC iPlayer - but requires registration

11. Zeebox A social app that acts as a clever TV remote. Only works on an iPad (at the mo. Nov.2011)

hbbTV Read about 'Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV' a pan-European initiative

Video on-Demand (VoD) on TV (IPTV)

1. BT Vision Available with BT Total broadband package - not free

2. Freeview 'TopUpTV' Add extra channels, if you have a Freeview set top box, (STB) for around £12/month. Click here for more useful info on compatible boxes and also read about what TopUpTV has to offer

3. FreeSat On-Demand BBC iPlayer now available, also ITV Player available on some boxes

4. Virgin TiVo Digital TV through fibre-optic cable from Virgin

5. Boxee One of many solutions for watching internet media on your telly

6. Google TV Available now in US. Have a look at PocketLint for more info.

7. Sky Anytime+ Sky's video on-demand service

SimplifyDigital Click here to find the right package for telephone, digital TV and broadband

OntheBox Very good TV listings Radio Times What's On TV?

Blinkx 35 million hours of TV and video - Amazing site Worldwide TV 3000 stations ChooseANDwatch BBC TV TV Cream Beware as this site is very addictive - all your favourite TV programmes from the past British News Pathe (Archive - requires registration) 3500 hours of archive footage between 1896 and 1970

TV links below are .ram files that play on RealOne Player

Digital Radio

1. Want to listen to Digital Radio? Click BBC for more info. including a postcode checker for UK digital radio coverage. Find radios for sale at Radio Now

For more in depth and up to date news, and a very honest opinion of DAB quality in the UK, plus a list of all radios for sale try Digital Radio Tech (scroll down for all the news with his personal opinions - he's not impressed!)

Also read about wireless free internet radios from £100 HD Sound Now available on BBC Radio 3

Radio

RadioPlayer The iPlayer for radio

BBC Radio on demand Latest BBC Programmes (on BBC IPlayer) Radio Fail Snippets of radio when it goes wrong

Podcasts BBC podcasts (listening to radio shows on mobile device) See here for more worldwide Podcast content

BBC Radio 1 Listen live!

(BBC Radio 1 - Webcam Image)