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The remote control for Sky digital TV beats every other remote I've ever used. The button layout is designed perfectly and the weight and balance make the remote want to stay in your hand without effort. Looks good too.

Colours are a bit off in this picture but...

http://skybuy.sky.com/img_live/HTML-SA0015_large.g if

The remote for Sky+ (a PVR) has a few extra buttons on it for record and playback. Has more of a silver finish to it and looks even nicer.

I live in Ireland. I have yet to see the first Tivo like appliance in the stores for average consumers (the closest we come is Sky's Sky+ which only works with sky's satellite TV). I think that TV Listings are the primary issue for the slow roll out of these products into different countries. I personally suspect the PS3 will probably be the first real product to hit Ireland with this, Sony having "perfected" the system with the PSX in Japan will probably carry it forward worldwide.

These projects fail in the PVR stakes, at least for me, in that they don't have consistant, reliable sources of TV listings. Even if they do, they're often US-based. WebTV (remember that?!) and so on don't really work properly due to the fact they aren't supported worldwide. Unless you're going to pay somebody to provide your listings, they are probably going to just dry up. In Sky + I've got a reliable, if closed-source solution. But the developers are proactive and working on it, so its not all bad. For a project like this to be totally successful as a PVR it needs either a community willing to edit these listings (some are available anyway for free) or another method, like using DigiGuide or a similar system. Some of the PC-TV cards out there like the Black Gold use DigiGuide for PVR features. Trouble is, its currently Windows only.

Digital radio is finally taking off, with the major electrical chains offering receivers at almost realistic prices (around 75 for a table model) with the hope that enough will have been found under the tree the Christmas. 6Music and its companion raider of the BBC archives BBC7 have been major drivers in the digital radio takeup campaign, as the UK government is still working towards an end of analogue broadcasting in the VHF and UHF bands by 2010. Ironically, 6Music and BBC7 seem to have been more popular over the Internet outside the UK than on digital radio in the UK in the last year. Speaking as an early adopter with digital radio in the car, I can confirm that while the BBC's coverage has improved enormously over the past year, there are still many holes in the network. My parents, who live in a fairly large ex-industrial town in the north of England, can't even receive the digital Freeview TV service, and BBC digital radio literally disappears at the nearest motorway junction. On the other hand, Sky TV, which provides all the national digital radio channels through a satellite dish via TV has become an enormous success, and it seems likely that Murdoch will be the ultimate winner in the whole process.

If you'd said that he might be surprised to discover the sky doesn't make "The Simpsons" then you might have actually had a semi meaningful post. Sky (yet another Murdoch company) launched and built it's network in the UK based on a diet of Simpsons and Premiership football. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant percentage of UK viewers believes Sky owns and funds "The Simpsons", and as Fox and Sky are both Murdoch perhaps they'd be right!

this is shocking and oddly funny at the same time

And maybe it would help if you stopped shooting children

JAT. HTH. HAND.

And I was just about to submit this too... Still, here are some more links since the BBC and Sky News are covering it too. Looks like they might actually be serious about going ahead with it this time!

I suspect that they were considered evil -- not only because of the witch connection, but by their nocturnal activities (hideously loud mating rituals come to mind here). This society still considered breathing night air to be harmful to the health....it wouldn't be a leap of (twisted) logic to say that anything that thrived in such evil conditions was evil, too.

Good point. Alas, such idiocy continues unchecked even today.

I prefer Skyy...

Sounds very much like Sky+ in the UK

And this...

Iran just tested a missile that can reach Israel. Much more war-like than a privately financed rocket with a credible civilian use...

If anybody's interested, here's some more links:

Discovery Channel
Sky News
Space Daily
Voice of America
BBC News

Nearly no DVDs in the UK are only 4:3 unless they were TV broadcasts formatted in that way. Most are 16:9 with a few have two versions of the movie. Recently all of Sky's PPV movies went wide screen. Before then I'd only watch the widescreen one's anyway.

Most subscribers to TV (Satelite and Cable) receive digitally. You can also receive digital TV down your Antenna for free. Digital transmissions and the receivers can support pure widescreen, letter box widescreen (for 4:3 TVs) and 'pan and scan'. In most cases the processing has already been done but you can in theory transmit a widescreen signal together the pan and scan data. Many movies and new programs on analogue are widescreen (letterbox) broadcasts.

UK Widescreen TVs support both line 23 WSS and SCART signalling which means the TV can select the most appropriate mode in which to display the video. They can display 4:3 either 'squashed' or with black side borders. A 36" TV will be similar to a 26" 4:3 in that mode. Many of these TVs now have terrestrial (antenna based) digital decoders built in.

I really don't understand this aversion to widescreen in the US or is it just that you're a bit behind us and don't have the broadcasts yet to warrant it?

Where's the gold plated version to go with my gun?

Right......

Other than typical news sites...

-- Debka (Middle East News)
-- Official Iraqi News
-- Where is Read? - Iraqi Blog
-- Kuwait Blog
-- Back to Iraq Blog
-- Iraq today
-- Warblogs.cc
-- Kevin Sites
-- Sky.com
-- BCC News Live Feed
-- Agonist

CBSnews also has a beautiful high detail webcam without all the crap on the bottom of the screen.
God bless our soldiers.

Davak

Tivo faces respectable competition over here (UK). Something like 1 in 4 households have digital television of some kind which comes with EPGs. The digital satelite, cable and DSL providers have video on demand which reduces the need for PVRs. Also many channels have time shifted versions so that if you're late or get interrupted you can catch the program an hour later.
Finally the PVR functionality is being incorporated in to the set top boxes. Sky already have one, the Sky+ box, and there are digital terestrial combined STBs and PVRs on the horizon. Why convert to analogue then back to digital when you can record the digital direct?

TiVo may have seemed revolutionary in the USA, but in the UK it was just one of many enhanced TV systems.

TiVo's biggest rival, Sky Plus (Sky+) did everything that TiVo did, and more, came pre-packaged with an installation engineer's visit and had the branding and backing of the UK's largest pay-TV provider, Sky (backed by Rupert Murdoch/Fox corp).

Sky already had a shedload of TV toys. For instance, I remember one of my business meetings in Texas two years ago, the CEO of this oil firm was saying something like "In the future, you'll be able to watch a football match and zoom in on individual players".

...and I thought to myself "I can *ALREADY* do that in the UK with Sky. We've been able to do it for years! How backwards are these people?"

Then I glanced down at the predicted coverage map for my GPRS phone in Texas...

TiVo may have seemed revolutionary in the USA, but in the UK it was just one of many enhanced TV systems.

TiVo's biggest rival, Sky Plus (Sky+) did everything that TiVo did, and more, came pre-packaged with an installation engineer's visit and had the branding and backing of the UK's largest pay-TV provider, Sky (backed by Rupert Murdoch/Fox corp).

Sky already had a shedload of TV toys. For instance, I remember one of my business meetings in Texas two years ago, the CEO of this oil firm was saying something like "In the future, you'll be able to watch a football match and zoom in on individual players".

...and I thought to myself "I can *ALREADY* do that in the UK with Sky. We've been able to do it for years! How backwards are these people?"

Then I glanced down at the predicted coverage map for my GPRS phone in Texas...

Most people can receive 5 channels via aerial, approx. 30 using a freeview digital decoder. Sky via satellite delivers more channels than I care to remember and my cable service delivers practically the same only by cable (with cable modem :) )

I live in Ireland, a country of around 4 million people compared to the U.K. (our closest neighbour and fellow island just north-west of France, in Europe, about 4000k east of New York) at about 60 million. We were lucky enough to get a half-baked Sky service in Ireland for quite a while, but they never really treated us the same. For example, Tivo's were out, no service :-( They were meant to come in along with a Sky+ box (which is made by pace and which a sky rep told me just before it was being launched had "stolen the bits they needed from Tivo". BTW a quick call to sky's freephone number (yes at 3am) confirmed Sky+ STILL isn't available here and won't be til they launch the interactive services which are coming (and have been for over a year).
Now I had been thinking for a while that an open/distributed tv listings service for Ireland would be great, but that I might find little help in putting it together! But perhaps if Tivo is closing in the U.K. there might be an existing marketplace who were paying £10/month who are looking for an alternative. I can't imagine it would be the most impossible task to fool a present tv into using the free service. You'd have to reverse engineer the format used by the service, and then (to save making people solder) you'd need to deal with the fact the Tivo has a telephone connection and dials it's own number. You could establish some phone numbers to feed the demand and use a simple router to translate all dialed numbers to the new number or you could make a server to run on a PC (with a modem) that answers the calls and feeds it the data (which the server keeps up to date). There is only one response to this (and sky's attempt to take the £10/month for themselves) and that's to take the money away from them!

at an altitude of 200,000 feet (61km) and velocity of 12,000 miles per hour (19,000 km/h)

That makes terrorism highly unlikely. That's too high and too fast for much of anything to hit it. It's more like a ballistic missile than an airplane at that point, and we all know how well the Star Wars project is faring.

I posted a similar comment to yesterdays RIAA story

Of course their declining record sales have nothing to do with the public is now fed up of mass marketed pop music where record contracts are won not by original musical talent and song writing , but by nieve and desperate individuals in f***ing competitions while real talent falls into the gutter, leaving a trail of destruction in its path while the instigators get rich.

The only thing killing music is not kids downloading mp3's or pirating dvds at market stalls but by the industry killing itself, kids are simply getting ripped off by these marketing/record companies and have just started to realise globally they are being taken for idiots

why is it that so many companies in the industry (or others for that matter), have so much contempt for their customers and choose short term monetary gains instead of actually concentrating on producing superior products ?

of course their declining record sales have nothing to do with the public is now fed up of mass marketed pop music where record contracts are won not by original musical talent and song writing , but by nieve and desperate individuals in f***ing competitions while real talent falls into the gutter, leaving a trail of destruction in its path while the instigators get rich.

The only thing killing music is not kids downloading mp3's or pirating dvds at market stalls ,but by the industry itself, kids are simply getting ripped off by these marketing/record companies and have just started to realise globally they are being taken for idiots

why is it that so many companies have so much contempt for their customers and choose to be greedy instead of actually concentrating on superior products ?

Napster was as much as anything a symptom that the music industry's 20 year old technology and even older business model . Was obsolete. If PVRs become the Napster of the television world, then this means much the same. The cable companies have to see what it is that customers actually want, and then give it to them.

Satellite companies seem to have no trouble with this concept. BSkyB in the UK is offering a combined Set Top Box / PVR, and charges an extra 10 pounds ($15) a month for customers who want this. DirecTV seems to offer something similar . Given that in the digital world cable and satellite are offering very similar things - essentially a box in your living room capable of decoding MPEG-2 signals, that also contains a CPU, some memory and maybe a hard disk, I cannot see why cable cannot also offer this, if it is what customers want.

As far as the cable companies are concerned, here we have an entrenched former monopoly that wants laws to be passed to protect an obsolete business model rather than attempting to find a new business model that works.

If, like me, you'd like to keep firefly on the air there's a lot of things you can do:

Check out Firefly Immediate Assistance

Sign the Online petition

Post on the show's bulletin board

Email Fox

Write to fox at:
FOX BROADCASTING CO
ATTN: SANDY GRUSHOW, CHAIRMAN, FOX ENTERTAINMENT GROUP
10201 WEST PICO BLVD
LOS ANGELES CA 90035

Write to the sponsors

If you live in the UK email Sky (Fox UK) to pick up the show

More than anything if anyone you know is a "Neilsen Family" then please get them to what the pilot "Serenity" when it airs in December.

Fan campaigns do work and have in the past entended the runs of both Buffy and Roswell.

There is already a fan-contribution paid-for full-page advert going into the December 9th issue of L.A. Variety.

Don't give up hope yet! :-)

Ordinary analogue terrestrial,

digital terrestrial (previously known as On Digital and then ITV digital

Digital Satellite, and

Various cable TV companies

I'm a digital satellite viewer myself; more on that later.

The various cable TV companies also offer cable modem access. For some companies, this is a seperate device, such as a standalone modem which is connected seperately to the TV set-top-box; but some cable companies have ethernet ports built into their digital decoders. These provide you with simple-to-configure (assuming you have an ethernet card and appropriate cabling to keep your PC a fairly good distance away from the TV, because there's nothing more annoying when you're trying to watch a film then to have noisy PC's running (or kids playing noisy games on the same)). In that sense, the device could easily be a router. (However, having had past experience with UK cable companies, they will advertise such as device as X, but it's really only a Y)

How this integrates with the plans of the TV cable companies, who usually run their own systems on equipment that they supply, not catering for user-acquired decoders, I don't know, but it may be an attractive prospect for some of them.

Back to the digital satellite. Sky also provide a PVR service, called Sky+. Essentially, it's a hard disk, connected to a satellite tuner, connected to a quad-LNB dish, allowing the box to receive MPEG-2 streams from two channels, record one, and view another at the same time, together with nifty features that TIVO users would be familiar with. I don't have one of these, but I expect one day I'll be persuaded to part with the GBP300 plus GBP10/month service charge. Because the satellite system is one-way, with interactive services provided over a telephone line, I can't see much use for a router in it, unless Sky plan to break into the ADSL market; although I'd still be uncomfortable with that (eggs, one basket, etc.).

Now, what I'd really like to see developed is a satellite/cable receiver, which records MPEG-2 to hard disk, and dumps the same to DVD-R instead of to video. I'd bet the movie industry would hate this idea though. However, given that the UK market for satellite receivers is far more open (you can buy them in the shops, and self-install, dealing with Sky only insofar as getting a contract to receive subscription channels and a viewing card), some bright spark out there should hopefully be able to design one of these. Let me test it for you!!.

Well, in the UK, you've got Cable (NTL or Telewest generally) or if you want Digital, you have Sky and Freeview (used to be called OnDigital then ITV Digital then bust).

Freeview is in its unfancy and is basically free stuff. I also know very little about it.

Sky on the other hand has tonnes of packages. In short, all the decent channels (IMO) are spread about several packages. Which means that if you want all of them you have to pay the premium rate and get 55 other really rubbish ones.

AFAIK there is no way to pick and chose your cable products too. You just have to pick a bundle and put up with the rubbish ones that come with it.

Yeah. That's exatly what I want (all of you). Trouble is, I don't live in the US, so don't get DirectTV. We get Sky. they have a similar system called Sky+, but I'm not sure how similar.

What I do know is that Sky are a pretty lousy company with some lousy products. My experience of their user interface (at least with their normal STB) has put me off buying their products. Tivo on the other hand has a very nice UI.

is it possible for HBO et al. to broadcast Macrovision copy protection on their signal so that one cannot record such broadcasts?

On digital cable and direct-broadcast satellite, yes.

I don't know whether Macrovision can be sent over analog cable & whether it would be possible to unscramble the "premium channel" CATV scrambling while leaving (or adding in the box) Macrovision.

On digital boxes, however, extra bits in the MPEG sream or simply stuff in the program guide information can be used to turn on the Macrovision-generation stuff in the Digital ENCoder (DENC) which encodes YUV digital video into NTSC or PAL.

That is if the DENC has such a feature. I know that some chips (which are usually well-integrated: MPEG & AC-3 decode + graphics + DENC & in Broadcom's case, a complete "settop on a chip") are offered in two versions: Macrovision & not because some box builders might not want to pay for the license.

So, yes, in some cable/sat. systems (where the operator bought the right box that had the right chip), you could prevent a TiVo from being able to "back up" a show to VCR. Macrovision in cable boxes was primarily considered for Pay-per-view, though, not for premium channels. I don't know of any USA systems doing it, but I get the impression from a UK TiVo review that BskyB does.

One thought in the US was to have two pay-per-view prices-- pay more to disable macrovision. I believe that was an idea the box makers & system operators cooked up & don't know if the MPAA would go for it, but it suggests one way out of this that pisses off fewer people.

Maybe the policymakers need to distinguish between boxes like TiVo that make "ephemeral" copies and VCRs/DVD-recorders.

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Because, contrary to the development of music, open source development is directed, it's directed in a sense the evolution was at least directed one point in time.

You can't say "Beatles are better than American Jazz", but you can say "linux 2.4.18 is better than linux 0.9.9".
No matter where you look, open source developement is directed, with only small perturbations.

Can we really say that of music? Where is the uber-musician, standing on the shoulders of giants like Mozart and Bach, creating things they never have dreamed of?
Noel Gallagher? (amusing little on-topic sidestep)

And that's why I think that the "development" in music is not comparable to that in software, the benefit from copying (in a non-negative sense) is much more untangible, therefore less profitable, and in consequence of less value.

This isn't new. Sky in the UK has been offering this feature for at least 6 months with something called Sky+.

Sounds very much like the TiVO + DVB-s dual tuner that has been available from Sky for a fair few months.

This is not a goatse link so don't moderate it like it was a goatse link

This is REAL news by a REAL company and NOT some crap website ran in rob maldas dirty bed room using a crap os that nobody uses! (funny too)

.ever .wondered .why .pages are .wide? .well .just .use .the .tt .tag .and .put.a .dot .before .each .word! .nth .post .too

Should be named after "Sid Waddell (the darts commentator)", surely!
"The players are under so much duress, it's like duressic park out there" - thanks, Sid!

"Consider that the (non-financial) news networks (with the exception of Fox news, which is more popular than CNN, despite being available in fewer homes) are also extremely liberal ." (my emphasis)

Not too long ago sky came out with a new PVR system called Sky+ which they are now starting to hype (though this questions if it is released). What's interesting is that sky have left Tivo to persue this option from Pace. One of the touted advantages was that the Sky+ will record the actual broadcast stream direct to disk, but I can't help but think the real reason for the change in tack from sky is that they wish to have more control over the capabilities of their customers (i.e. no Network card streaming hacks please).

Not too long ago sky came out with a new PVR system called Sky+ which they are now starting to hype (though this questions if it is released). What's interesting is that sky have left Tivo to persue this option from Pace. One of the touted advantages was that the Sky+ will record the actual broadcast stream direct to disk, but I can't help but think the real reason for the change in tack from sky is that they wish to have more control over the capabilities of their customers (i.e. no Network card streaming hacks please).

Not too long ago sky came out with a new PVR system called Sky+ which they are now starting to hype (though this questions if it is released). What's interesting is that sky have left Tivo to persue this option from Pace. One of the touted advantages was that the Sky+ will record the actual broadcast stream direct to disk, but I can't help but think the real reason for the change in tack from sky is that they wish to have more control over the capabilities of their customers (i.e. no Network card streaming hacks please).

Here in the UK c4 shows Futurama at about 6pm on seemingly random weeknights - and sometimes earlier!

I've probably only seen about 6 episodes ever because of this. I know I could tape it, but I'm not that organised, and anyway, I probably don't care enough to bother!

If it was on later, anywhere between 7:30 and midnight, it would get a bigger audience. Unfortunately, those hours are reserved for chick programming like Allie McBeal, Make over shows, and soaps!

I think it goes out first on Sky or e4 at a better time but because I've got a posh old house I'm not allowed a minidish because I have an evil neighbour who puts in planning objections... bitch! And the Monkey signal is too weak on my street.

Precisely. In the UK, most DOGs (on-screen graphics) are on channels on digital satellite (SkyDigital) or terrestrial (ITV Digital). Both have an "i" button which tells you what name the channel you're on has, what the current programme is and what the next one is, making DOGs redundant.

Plus, they're very annoying: SkyNews has a HUGE graphic now which makes it look like a tabloid newspaper, and BBC CHOICE has a series of red boxes appearing constantly telling you what's next. That *IS* annoying, especially when you can hit "i" and see the same info, inanimate. I don't know why they do it.

Most importantly it was a joke dude :-)

More seriously, every person is a unique individual and while certain predispositions (such as a propensity to post on slashdot) may incline that group to be more likely to have a certain view I strongly believe that no conclusions can ever be drawn about the individual. However when it comes to slashdot, a large percentage of the posters are American and when it comes to Americans a large percentage of them are very insular (be they in slashdot, media or just my humble experiences of all the Americans I have met ... and they were the ones who weren't in the states at the time!). Americans are tarred by the brush of the media in such a way that the individuality you love of the different states is washed away in the corporate melee to win the lowest common denominator market. In my country of Europe (hehe) the divisions of language are protecting the Sky's of this world from blending us into one culture.

It was a joke, and one born of sarcasm, for the only things I probably dislike about slashdot (trolls, moderation etc. are all imperfect but I don't care). And finally I play cricket too, in Ireland!

'Attack On Freedom'

It's being called the worst terrorist attack in history. At the end of the New York rush hour, a carefully planned and well coordinated series of hijacks and kamikaze crashes wiped out America's major landmarks - killing hundreds if not thousands of people.

In what George W Bush called "an attack on freedom" the first target was the city's World Trade Centre. A commercial aircraft was flown straight at one of the towers, setting the huge structure ablaze.

Up in smoke

Then, just a few minutes later, another hijacked passenger plane was deliberately flown into the landmark building's second tower. With both engulfed in flames it didn't take long before first one then the other crashed to the ground.

More than 50,000 people work in the complex. An unknown number of people have been killed, but the figure is expected to reach catastrophic proportions.

Next, The Pentagon, perhaps one of the most potent symbols of American might was also hit by an aircraft. A 60-ft section of the building collapsed.

Warplanes scrambled

Another hijacked passenger aircraft crashed near Pittsburgh.

Fighter aircraft have been scrambled and are patrolling the skies over the US capital in case of further attacks on the capital.

Sky's Washington Correspondent Keith Graves said "There can be no doubt that any aircraft flying over Washington now will be shot down."

A separate fire forced the evacuation of the White House.

Hijack

American Airlines says two of the planes involved were theirs. One, flight 11 from Boston to LA had 81 passengers, nine crew and two pilots on board, the second, a flight from Washington Dulles to LA had 51 passengers, four crew and two pilots on board.

United Airlines says one of its aircraft, flight 175 from Boston to LA, a Boeing 757 has also gone down with 56 passengers, seven crew and two pilots on board.

A second hijacked United flight - number 93 from Newark to San Francisco - is also confirmed crashed. It went down 80 miles south of Pittsburgh.

'We're dying'

A person who answered the phone on the trading floor at interdealer-broker Cantor Fitzgerald, located near the top of the World Trade Center, said: "We're f***ing dying," then hung up. There was screaming and yelling in the background. A follow up call was not answered.

"This has got to be one of the most horrendous terrorist attacks perhaps ever perpetrated," terrorism expert Chris Yates told Sky News.

The Foreign Office has issued a number for worried relatives 020 7008 0000

Last Modified: 18:54 UK, Tuesday September 11, 2001

Video is working too.

http://www1.sky.com/sky_asx/news2/p2_livebb.asx

For those without radio and TV (like me)