QR Code 
| By Nathan Chantrell, on June 25th, 2011  In early 2000 TiVo launched their revolutionary Linux based PVR in the UK in partnership with Sky TV and it soon picked up a loyal fanbase. Unfortunately due to a lack of marketing it never took off as it should have and TiVo pulled out of the UK in January 2003 and Sky later went on to develop their own PVR with Sky+ but it was a poor substitute for a TiVo. The UK TiVo, manufactured by Thomson was originally launched at £300 plus a monthly or lifetime subscription, I picked mine up in November 2002 for £99 as Curry’s were clearing the remaining stock out and went for the £199 lifetime subscription which turned out to be a good move saving me over £800 in the 8.5 years I’ve had it.
Late last year Virgin Media announced they would be partnering with TiVo for their new PVR, nice to have new TiVo hardware in the UK after all these years but not everyone wants or can get Virgin cable. Still, we had our old series 1 boxes still didn’t we… but not for much longer if TiVo had their way, in a spectacular show of disregard for their loyal fanbase they made the unfortunate decision to cut off all existing monthly and lifetime subscribers, rewarding them for their loyalty by effectively leaving them with a useless box. The King is dead. Long live the King. Step forward the AltEPG project. A team of people from the tivoland forum decided this wasn’t going to be the end of our beloved series 1 TiVo so they got together to set up their own EPG service, gathering data from free sources around the net and compiling it into a compatible format. Getting modified TiVo boxes to connect to the new service would be easy but what about all those unmodified boxes out there that could only dial up to the preconfigured TiVo number? Well fortunately the TiVo software allows the entry of a dial prefix, eg. a number the box might have to dial to get an outside line, this prefix will take enough digits to allow a full phone number to be entered, the TiVo then dials the prefix and connects to the new number with the original number being dialled afterwards but ignored by the phone system. A nice trick. With only one line available during testing it was hard to get connected but since then several individuals who run their own companies have stepped forward to provide lines for use with the AltEPG project with one recent number having 60 lines meaning you should no longer struggle to get a connection. To connect your unmodified TiVo to AltEPG follow these steps.
Continue reading The TiVo AltEPG Project By Nathan Chantrell, on November 12th, 2009  Starting on Monday 16th November Channel 4 will be showing a series of programmes in 3D. They will be using the Danish ColorCode 3-D method which uses blue/amber lenses and is supposed to offer improved color and depth over the older red/cyan or red/green Anaglyphic 3D system. This probably means that any old 3D glasses you have stashed away are incompatible but don’t worry, you can pick up a free pair of glasses from most branches of Sainsbury’s.
The shows included in 3D Week are “The Greatest Ever 3D Moments“, a compilation showing some of the best 3D clips from over the years, some of the world’s greatest magic tricks in “Derren Brown Presents The 3D Magic Spectacular“, Paul Morrissey’s wacky 70s take on Frankenstein, “Flesh for Frankenstein“, horror film “Friday the 13th Part III“ plus “The Queen in 3D“, a showreel of the Queen filmed in her coronation year and “Best of Both Worlds“, a Hannah Montana concert. Something for almost everyone. There is some more information about the programmes here and some tips on how to get the best 3D effect. If you can’t wait for Monday you can view some 3D video clips and images on the ColorCode 3-D website or on YouTube. The snake video is excellent. By Nathan Chantrell, on October 18th, 2009  I recently found some old photographs that I took of parts of the Wisteria Lodge episode of the TV series The Return of Sherlock Holmes being filmed in Grappenhall Village in Warrington where I lived at the time. Starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Watson it featured the cobbled streets of Grappenhall village as well as “The Large Room” made up as a Police station and the Rams Head Inn as The Bull Hotel. The episode aired in April 1988 and as far as I can ascertain the filming was in 1987, at the time a few of us skived off school for the day to watch and take pictures, purely for educational reasons of course!
You can view the rest of the pictures on Flickr here and the full Wisteria Lodge episode can be watched on YouTube in 6 parts starting here or you can jump straight to the parts filmed in Grappenhall here and here. By Nathan Chantrell, on September 22nd, 2007 Taking the piss with this on screen logo or what! All the way through a 2.5 hour film  
By Nathan Chantrell, on July 30th, 2007 Well it might be an IE only DRM’d piece of crap but does it have any redeeming points? Not that I can find. Had a play with it last night and can’t say I was impressed. 30 mins show at 142Mb, not bad but took ages to download and quality was piss poor on my big telly, loads of artifacting. With that and the max 28 days to watch (7 days once you’ve watched it once) I will definately be sticking to torrents if that’s all they can offer! Expected better of the beeb By Nathan Chantrell, on March 14th, 2007 The Beeb have a great site with loads of info, pics and a video tour of the “Burlington Bunker”. You might remember this as the place Mark Thomas went and made a nuisance of himself… “there are no underground tunnels” was what they told him! It’s HUGE! Some of the time warp stuff in there is mad! By Nathan Chantrell, on March 14th, 2007 By Nathan Chantrell, on March 6th, 2005 Guess what I got of UKNova last night! Only the first episode of the new Dr Who!! It’s not even due to be broadcast till the end of the month. Wasn’t on there for long though, bit likely to draw the wrong sort of attention methinks Post viewing report coming later! I’ve had some good bits of televisual geekery off UKN last week as well, two of which were the “Beeb VT Christmas tapes” from 78 & 79 (made by the guys in “VT” and not for public consumption), lots of comic Dr Who clips in there amongst other stuff! Update:
You know, it’s actually not bad, Ecclestone seemed a bit out of place at the beginning but I think he grows on you… story is a bit of a revisit of a Pertwee one in some ways but I won’t spoil it! It was a full story in 45 mins too, not sure I like that idea but we’ll see. Billy Piper: If you’re an alien why do you sound like you’re from the North?
The Doctor: Lot’s of planets have a North!
By Nathan Chantrell, on April 20th, 2004 Good news on the “Terry Nation’s Survivors” front, it has been confirmed that the second series of Survivors will DEFINITELY be released on DVD and Video later this year. By Nathan Chantrell, on October 25th, 2003 I Bought myself the new DVD box set of Survivors series 1 last week. It is the first thirteen episodes on four DVDs with several extras and a 36 page booklet. It’s been well done so I hope that it is successful so that we get to see Series 2 and 3 on DVD as well. If you’re not familliar with Survivors it was a BBC TV disaster series from 1975, created by Terry Nation it portrayed a world decimated by an unknown virus which killed off 99% of the worlds population. More information on Survivors here and here. | |
In early 2000 TiVo launched their revolutionary Linux based PVR in the UK in partnership with Sky TV and it soon picked up a loyal fanbase. Unfortunately due to a lack of marketing it never took off as it should have and TiVo pulled out of the UK in January 2003 and Sky later went on to develop their own PVR with Sky+ but it was a poor substitute for a TiVo. The UK TiVo, manufactured by Thomson was originally launched at £300 plus a monthly or lifetime subscription, I picked mine up in November 2002 for £99 as Curry’s were clearing the remaining stock out and went for the £199 lifetime subscription which turned out to be a good move saving me over £800 in the 8.5 years I’ve had it.
Most Popular