OT: PVRs

[Guy King]

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

I'd like some proper in-depth science/technology/maths programmes. Ones where the graphics actually tell you something instead of being visual wallpaper to distract you from how little information is actually being transferred.

A programme that doesn't have me shouting "But that's only part of the story" at it would be great. Bronowski's "Ascent of Man" was repeated a while back - smashing stuff. Erudite, dense, thought provoking. Jonathon Miller's another one. The World at War was about the last thing that had an appreciable amount of content.

Bring back the OU on BBC2!

[Mark]

Very little at present. I think "Dr Who" and "Green Wing" are about the only things I'll try not to miss this week.

Mark

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you like Green Wing surely there are dozens of similar programmes on FreeView although not UK made?

[Steve Firth]

I'm tired by the never ending race downward. Horizon in particular is getting up my wick at the moment because they ploay the same bloody music with a sequence of rising, and increasingly strident chords when some arse thinks that the narrative has reach a suitable moment.

You know, "this fossil represented a transition to a thinking human"

Da daaaaaa DA da deeeeeee DAAAAAAA DAAAA DAAAAAAA DEEE DA DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Like a bad version of the theme from Terminator 2.

[Steve Firth]

And there you have the reason that UK TV is so s**te at present. The people making the programs can't tell the difference between good and bad.

[tim (back at home)]

I was watching the repeat this week of the story of drilling through the Antarctic ice to reach lake

They explained that the drill has to be lubricated with oil which contains microbes and to perform the experiments that they want, they cannot allow this oil to contaminate the water below.

Finishing with "currently there is no scientific solution to this problem" and I instantly thought: can't they cut through the ice with a heated tip?

40 minutes later they said that the engineers had come up with a revolutionary idea. To use a drill lubricated by hot water.

Wow, you mean that there are some scientists who have been 20 years trying to solve a problem that took me 1 second.

Can I have a job please.

tim

[John Rowland]

Why watch the news live? TiVo it, watch the headlines, then delete it or fast-forward to the interesting article(s).

[John Cartmell]

PVR it. Ignore the headlines but watch the *original* events/statements as the come in and be far better informed than believe the lies that the broadcasters tell you.

[Mark]

We are not in a Freeview area.

Mark

[Chris Bacon]

Neither are many people who can get Freeview. Either try Freesat (if it's "here" yet), or borrow a Freeview box to try it out (you may need a new aerial, but see whether you can get anything at all, first).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Ah. Perhaps you should have stated that earlier, since much of the discussion was of the 'minority' channels.

However, many of those are available from Sky without subscription.

[Mark]

Freesat -- I've got better things to spend £150 on (like DIY ;-) Freeview -- already changed ariel and tried out an IDTV - which did not work.

Mark

[Mark]

I thought this thread was about PVRs.

Mark

[Dave Liquorice]

Well DIY Freesat then. Should be able to get a Digibox and complete wok =

kit (brand new wok, fixings, LNB, cable, connectors) from eBay for aroun= d =A360 or less all in. The only mainstream channels that your need a card= for are channel 4 and five. All the BBC and ITV offerings are free to air, no card.

Plenty of guides on the net on how to install a wok, were to point it et= c (a rough guide is the sun illuminates a place at about 1020GMT (1120BST)). Digiboxes have a basic signal strength meter built in for final alignment.

You can get a card from Sky for a one off payment of =A320, lasts at lea= st three years. After that it's no more than =A320 for new one.

[Roger]

The message from F contains these words:

I had a look yesterday as I too am toying with the idea of getting a PVR but the 250G one is listed as available soon while the 160G is available now (and cheaper). Is it worthwhile waiting for the larger drive to become available? 160G is already twice the size of most PVRs at the cheaper end of the market.