Panasonic DMR-XW380 FreeviewHD photo gallery

Here are a few shots of another product that I’ll be reviewing for Register Hardware. Keep an eye on their site for the full review during May.

The DMR-XW380 is a twin tuner FreeviewHD+ box – so it can record two different things at once, and there’s a 250GB hard drive built in. There’s also a DVD burner, and one of the new features in this year’s Panasonic range is that you can burn HD material to DVD in Blu-Ray format. Ok, that’s a lot of jargon in one sentence, but essentially it means that you can save HD shows (albeit not incredibly long ones) in a format that will enable you to play them back in HD, on a Blu-Ray player.

Based on these pics, I also have the answer to another question – yes, Freeview are obviously happy for manufacturers to use advertising in their EPG, even with the Freeview logo appearing on screen.

The DMR-XW380 is a FreeviewHD recorder with twin tuners, and a DVD burner

No surprises round the back - pretty much standard for a FreeviewHD box

The remote will be familiar to any Panasonic user

Yes, that really is an advert at the side of the Panasonic EPG

An alternative EPG view shows one channel. But still with the advert

Goodmans GDB300HD FreeviewHD photo gallery

I’m working on a roundup of Freeview HD receivers at the moment, for Register Hardware. You’ll have to wait until it’s published there for all the full details and to find out what I think about the different bits of kit – it’s a comparative review, so I shan’t be jumping to any conclusions until I’ve had time to play properly with all the various bits of equipment that will be featured.

But, in the meantime, to whet your appetite, here are some photos of the Goodmans GDB300HD, which arrived today (courtesy of my friendly courier, who seems to have recovered from being clamped outside my flat a few weeks ago).

The Goodmans is from Harvard plc, who also own the Grundig brand in the UK, and there’s a corresponding Grundig model, the GUD300HD, which differs only in looks. Both should cost the same, around £150.

My photos

So, here are my photos of the Goodmans:

Goodmans pack shot

Front view of the GDB300HD

Unlike some other boxes, the Goodmans relies on an external power supply

The remote control for the Goodmans also carries the Freeview HD branding

The EPG carries the obligatory Freeview logo

For comparison, sitting on top of the Icecrypt T2200. The Goodmans is slightly wider, but a couple of inches less deep

PR photos

And, rather better lit, the official PR shots:

The Goodmans Freeview HD box ...

... and its identically specified Grundig branded sibling

Icecrypt T2200 FreeviewHD specs and on sale date

A little more on the Icecrypt T2200. As with quite a few of the FreeviewHD boxes, there have been delays in air freighting in the first shipments, due to the volcanic chaos. In the normal course of things, much of this sort of equipment arrives by ship, but very often when a product is new, a shipment or two will arrive by air, to satisfy the demands of early adopters.

I’m told that the first stocks of the T2200 should be available to pre-order next week from Turbosat, and it’s likely they’ll be on sale the week commencing 10th May.

Update: I’ve now had it confirmed that the box should be on sale on the 10th from CPC, Play, SuperFi and Turbosat.

I hope to have a manual available before then; in the meantime, here’s the spec sheet (downsampled to a slightly lower resolution than the original, to save space).

T2200SpecSheetGD

Connect your HD box to your home network

Originally published in Personal Computer World; expanded and updated for Gone Digital.

With both FreeviewHD and Freesat equipment featuring an Ethernet port, together with many games consoles and BluRay players, a key question for many people is how to connect up to the rest of your home network.

Freesat already provides iPlayer on some equipment, and it’ll be rolled out to more later (see here for details of updates to Panasonic Freesat TVs). BluRay offers ‘BD-Live’ with things like movie trailers, or extra information about actors, while games consoles offer online play against other users. Some Freeview HD boxes, including the Humax, will be offering internet video services like SkyPlayer, too. And, of course, you might want to play video or music that’s on your home computer.

Make the connection

That’s all very well, but for many people, the broadband connection isn’t necessarily in the same room as the TV. One alternative is to run a very long cable from one room to another, but that’s often untidy; WiFi is another, but in many built up areas, it’s problematic – I can see several networks from my living room, and the congestion is so bad that even playing standard definition films over my home network is jerky.

With its built in socket, this pass-through adaptor is a great way to link your router to a HomePlug AV network

For many people, then, HomePlug is a great solution; it uses your mains wiring to send signals across the home; you plug one adaptor in by the router, and link it with an Ethernet cable, and then plug another one in behind the TV, and connect if to your set top box, games console or BluRay player. The Home Plug AV standard claims speeds of up to 200MBps, though around half that is more likely in the real world. You could use slower 85MBps kit, but I recommend going for the ‘AV’ version – it’s often only around £10 more per adaptor, and having the extra capacity will be useful if you decide to use the HomePlug connection for other things too.

I’m using two products from Solwise here, which both support the HomePlug AV standard. The first is a single adaptor, with mains pass-through socket, which means you can plug in the adaptor, then plug something else into the socket on the front, as well as an Ethernet cable on the bottom – so you don’t lose the use of a powerpoint. The second is catchily called the ‘VESEnet HomePlug 3 port Ethernet power strip’ or Piggy-6.

The sockets on the Piggy-6 provide space for even the bulkiest mains adaptors

Living room solution

It’s pretty much tailor-made for the modern living room where you might have a few gadgets that can benefit from a connection to the home network. It’s a six way power adaptor, with surge suppression and filtering on the mains sockets, which are arranged around the hexagonal unit. It might look odd, but it’s actually very usable, and even bulky plug-top tranformers fit in easily – something that’s not always the case with straight power strips.

In the centre is a power button which turns all the sockets off – so it’s easy to save energy – and at the base are three Ethernet ports, plus a small set of lights and buttons to control the HomePlug side of things.

The buttons need to be pressed with a paperclip through a hole, annoyingly. That said, I didn’t need to press anything to add the unit to an existing HomePlug network. If you’ve not set up a HomePlug network before, all you have to do is plug in one unit, press it’s button, then plug in a second, and press the button on that too – it couldn’t be much simpler.

So, with the pass-through adaptor connected to a socket in my home office, and linked to the Ethernet switch, the Piggy-6 provides net access to a Panasonic Freesat TV, Humax Freeview HD box, and my laptop in the living room.

Performance

The filtering on the mains sockets of the Piggy-6 serves two purposes – it provides cleaner power to your devices, and it also stops those with cheap nasty power supplies from interfering with the HomePlug AV network. In my tests, the Solwise gear certainly seemed to perform well at that; with the Piggy-6 plugged into a problematic mains spur that supplies all the AV gear, I was able to stream standard definition video without a hitch, whereas a standalone unit that had no filtering kept losing the connection – though on our noisy spur, we only managed a connection at 40MBps, and HD video playback was still juddery. Connecting directly to the ring main boosted that speed more than threefold – so adaptor placement is obviously very important with HomePlug AV, and the filtering in the Piggy6 won’t solve every problem, though it certainly gave us improved performance.

Together, you’ll be looking at just over £100 for the two devices, which might seem a lot – but you’ll also have three Ethernet ports in the living room, to connect your gadgets to, and a six way filtered mains adaptor – for which you could easily pay over £30 on the high street anyway.

With three ethernet ports, this is a great way to connect your AV gear to the internet

So, if like me you’ve got several devices in the living room, like Freesat, FreeviewHD and BluRay players that want network connections, HomePlug AV, and the Piggy-6 in particular, could be a great solution – faster than wireless, and less messy than long cables.

Details

Price: (April 2010): Pass-through socket: £37.24, Piggy-6: £65.38

Contact: Solwise, 0845 458 4558

Making an entrance

It’s not all digital TV here; there are lots of other handy gadgets, and an ongoing project is switching my telephone line over internet telephony. That’s largely come about because BT’s prices for the ISDN line that I use are ridiculous – I pay around £150 a quarter in rental, and £20 a quarter in calls. Bonkers!

However, one of the reasons I persisted with it for ages was the need to keep my phone numbers, and useful features like the entry phone being integrated with my phone system. That was fine until in January the phone system died, leaving me to bodge something up as an interim measure, while I move everything over to VoIP – a process that I’ll be blogging more about as it happens.

The TeleDor-2N outside my flat

Meanwhile, with the good weather, I wanted to get the entry phone working again, and happened across the Dorcom website, where they had a few items on special offer. The gadget pictured is now installed outside my front door, replacing the old entry phone and keypad.

What’s it for? Well, press the big button and like any entry phone, it lets me know there’s someone at the door. However the TeleDor-2N, as it’s catchily known, links not to a dedicated handset, but to a phone line. In my case, it’s plugged into the back of a FritzBox 7270 which is presently working as my phone system. So, press the button, and it rings on my cordless phone, enabling me to answer the front door when I’m in the garden, or the bath, and unlock the door by pressing 00.

There are other tricks too — when I go to the corner shop, I don’t have to take my keys. I just key in a code number when I get home. If I have to go out, I could put a note asking delivery men to press 02* and it’ll phone my neighbours, to see if they can take the delivery for me. I can even open the door from my mobile phone.

Ok, so it’s overkill for quite a lot of people, but a handy gadget. Over coming weeks, I’ll explain more about how I shall be saving around £50 a month by ditching my expensive ISDN line and routing all my phone calls over the net.

Set up your TV for HD

This article was originally published on RegHardware in August 2009 and has been updated for Gone Digital.

Back in the old days, when you bought – or rented – a television set, there was a pretty good chance that someone would deliver it, set it up, and tune it in for you. And there was a very good chance that when they did that, they’d be able to find a channel broadcasting a testcard without much difficulty, and use that to make sure all the picture settings were correct, or at least not completely wide of the mark.

If you’re buying a new TV to get the best out of services like FreeviewHD and Freesat, things are pretty different. Unless it’s coming as part of a high end AV installation, chances are you’ll be unpacking it yourself, and trying to make the best job of setting it up to give the brilliant picture that the reviews raved about. So, just how do you do that, then?

When you see a TV set in a typical showroom, it will have been set up to produce vivid, eye-catching colours, and to look fairly reasonable under the harsh fluorescent lighting. A typical living room will have rather more subdued lighting, and for a more realistic picture, you may well want something rather less vivid.

There’s a huge range of settings on some modern sets, and even just the basic options can be easily misunderstood. So, just how do you set up your new flat panel to give the best picture possible?

One answer is to have it professionally calibrated – and if you have the cash to spare, then for upwards of £2-300 you can have an ISF calibrator visit your home and set the TV up for you. Prices vary, and you can expect to pay more for each input that you want set up. An ISF technician will access the hidden service menus on a TV and use a colorimeter to make sure everything is set up more accurately than you’ll be able to do it with the naked eye. Is it worth it? Plenty of people think so, but the cost will rule it out for many. I’m going to look at some of the DIY alternatives; they may not be quite as accurate, but you can still improve the picture, without breaking the bank.

First catch your test card

Before delving into the nitty-gritty, what do you need to set up? Firstly, you probably don’t want to spend hours tweaking a brand new panel – wait a few weeks, until it’s been used a fair bit, and then tweak. Remember that for the best results, you’ll have to set up the picture for each input that you’re using, if the TV remembers per-input settings. You can’t assume, for example, that a signal fed from a DVD or Blu-Ray player via HDMI will be treated in the same way as one from a SCART, or a memory card reader.

Fortunately, the switch to flat panels does mean that display setup doesn’t involve worrying about geometry – aside from stretch effects applied to non-widescreen programming, you don’t suffer from some of the more annoying issues of a CRT, like circles being out of shape. It’s largely a matter of making sure black and white are set up properly, and then the colours adjusted, in that order. You can then adjust some of the other options, such as ‘sharpness’ and tinker with any additional features the set provides such as noise reduction or frame interpolation, though as a rule any ‘enhancement’ or ‘noise reduction’ options are best turned off.

To set the screen up, you’ll need patience, and test patterns. And you need to do it in the same sort of lighting as you’ll be viewing the TV. Lighting an patience are easy; what about the test patterns?

You can buy a test DVD or BluRay, like Digital Video Essentials, which will set you back less than £20, but in fact you don’t even really need to spend that much, as test signals – for HD at any rate – are widely available online.

If you do want to get Digital Video Essentials, click this link to buy it from Amazon: Digital Video Essentials – HD Basics [Blu-ray] [2008]

For free patterns, it’s worth registering on the US-based AVS Forum. Once you’ve done that, you’ll be able to download disc images that can be burnt to a BluRay or DVD and used in your BluRay player, together with detailed instructions.

Another source of test screens is the test images that are included on many Sony BluRay releases; press 7669 (S-O-N-Y) when the disc’s main menu appears.

If it’s the performance of a built in tuner you’re after, then things are a little trickier, as there aren’t many testcards broadcast – but BBC HD does transmit one, as part of its daytime preview loop, and you can find more details, and instructions on how to use it on the BBC Internet blog – it’s well worth reading that post; and again, if you have a media player that you want to calibrate from a still image, then you can download the testcard from Flickr.

The BBC testcard is broadcast on the HD channel, as part of the preview loop

If you want to try and set things up to display correctly from a Freeview receiver, then you can summon a test card on demand, provided your box has an up to date interactive (MHEG) engine. Tune to channel 105 (BBC red button) and wait for the logos and images to appear, then press the Yellow key on the remote. Tune to a different channel, then go back to 105, and this time press Green. When the status page appears, press Green again to display the testcard – though on one of my Freeview receivers, all that was displayed was the centre section, rather than the whole card. Note that the compression on this test card means that it’s not as accurate as one from a DVD or other source, but it should at least point you in the right direction.

If you’re lucky enough to have a FreeviewHD receiver, whether standalone or built into your TV, you can of course use the test patterns broadcast on the BBC HD channel, which will make sure you’re getting the best possible pictures when you tune in.

Adjusting the display

The brightness control is responsible for the black levels in the picture

Whatever test patterns you have, the first, most basic adjustments, are the same. Turn off noise reduction, and turn the sharpness control of your TV right down. Make sure you turn off any automatic adjustments that compensate for things like changing light in the room, and set the picture mode to ‘normal’ if there’s a choice of settings.

Stage one of lining up your set is adjusting the black levels, which is what the brightness control is for. On the BBC testcard, just to the left of the centre circle, is a set of grey boxes; the top white one contains two dots, and so does the bottom black one. Turn the brightness up so that you can see both the dots in the bottom box; if you’re using a different test pattern, there will usually be a series of black boxes, the darkest of which has the same purpose as the darkest dot on the BBC pattern – it’s ‘below black.’

Slowly turn down the brightness, until the ‘below black’ bar or dot is not visible, but you can make out the next one up. So, on the BBC test card, you’ll be able to see the left dot in the box; if you’re using the first test pattern on the AVS Forums disc image, then you should adjust the settings so that bars from 17 upwards are visibly flashing.

This screen shows both black levels and maximum white

The contrast control determines the white levels of the display; with the BBC testcard, you need to adjust the settings so that you can still see the left hand dot in the top box, and the levels don’t blend into each other – though note the information regarding the accuracy on the BBC blog about this setting; with the AVS test signals, you need to adjust the contrast so that bars 230 to 234 are flashing.

A grey ‘ramps’ test pattern – white to black on the top, and black to white below – is a good way of setting the contrast too. Make sure that you can see all the gradations between the different boxes.

You may also need to turn the contrast down a little if there’s a colour cast at high levels, until that disappears – fixing it completely is something that usually requires access to the service menus of the set, and a colorimeter, with associated software tools.

The markers show ‘below black’ and ‘above white’ points; if there’s a colour cast, ease back on the contrast

Colour and sharpness

If you want a simple straightforward adjustment of colour, then that’s what the girl in the BBC testcard is for; make her skin tones look natural, and you’re almost there. It’s not the most scientific way, though.

Most test pattern sets will include a set of colour bars, designed to be used with a blue filter, like the ones shown in the screenshot just below. The blue used is typically ‘Tokyo Blue’, or code 071 for lighting gels; a swatch book of filters, or a set of small sheets costs around £10, so it’s probably just as cheap to buy a test DVD that comes with a filter.

Look through the blue filter paying particular attention to the sections with the blue and white patches. The filter strips out the other primary colours, and the colour is set correctly when it appears that the blue and the white patches on the screen have the same brightness – though you may need to tweak to personal taste.

Colour bars are used with a blue filter to set the colour correctly

After colour, turn your attention to sharpness; on the BBC testcard, the gratings to the right are used to check this; other discs have specific patterns. Turn down the sharpness to avoid the blurring round the edges of fine lines, such as those in the gratings, and the worst of the moiré effects (where the straight lines seem to turn into curving patterns) in large shaded areas. But keep an eye on the edge of solid blacks, to make sure they’re still well defined – turn sharpness down too much, and they’ll become fuzzy.

Some of the tests for this – such as the one on Sony BluRay discs – also include markers for overscan; you can use this if your TV has settings to control the picture size, or a simple on/off for overscan, to check that everything is being displayed and no bits of the picture are being cut off.

If you’re using a standard flat planel, that’s more or less it for DIY setup. A colorimeter like the SpyderTV can help you achieve more accurate colour setup – but at around £100, plus your time, if you only have one set to adjust, it may be better value to invest in a professional ISF calibration, if you feel that a visual setup isn’t good enough.

For more advice on that, I recommend the UK-based AV Forums site, which has a specific discussion area dedicated to calibration, and also plenty of people who will be able to help you with specific settings for your particular TV set. There are also some useful video tutorials covering calibration on AV Forums.

Icecrypt T2200 FreeviewHD photo gallery

Finally my pre-production sample of the Icecrypt T2200 has arrived, so I’ve taken a few photographs to show. The front panel is the same as in the pictures available elsewhere, with a few tweaks to the logos. The rear panel has changed substantially from the prototype unit that I was using – now the only sockets are HDMI, Ethernet, optical digital, twin SCARTs and the aerial connectors – the prototype also had composite, component and stereo audio.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the photos I took this afternoon. In most cases, the captions should be pretty self-explantory, but feel free to raise any points in the comments below.

In all cases, just click the image to see it full size.

For comparison, top to bottom: Icecrypt T2200, Humax HD-Fox T2, Humax Foxsat HDR

Front of the Icecrypt T2200

The rear view of the T2200 reveals the bare minimum of sockets

The remote control for the T2200 is the same as for Topfield's TF5810 PVR

The main menu has a simple row of icons

The channel scan screen will be familiar to Topfield users

The main view of the T2200 programme guide; you can alter the opacity

Press red, and you see this newspaper-like EPG view

The channel list will show only favourite channels, if you've set them up

You can create multiple favourite channel lists

A close-up showing the T2200's USB port in action

The T2200 plays media files from USB drives - here a DivX HD clip