Tag: Digital TV

Sony applauds Ofcom, extols BRAVIA TV's built-in Audio Description technology

audio_description_logo.gifIf you’ve watched any TV over the past few weeks, you’ve probably already seen the new push for awareness of Audio Description (AD) technology. AD is, effectively, the aural equivalent of subtitles / signing, allowing partially-sighted and blind people to access TV shows through a descriptive commentary.

The UK leads Europe in adoption of AD, with legislation that requires broadcasters to make a certain proportion of their programmes AD-compliant. The BBC must audio describe at least eight per cent of its programmes.

Both Ofcom and Sony believe that the rest of Europe should be catching up, and have called for similar legislation to be imposed that requires broadcasters to invest in the technology.

Andy Merrett TVs

Opinion: The Christmas Day TV movie premiere means nothing any more

shrek.jpgI remember a time, growing up in the 1980s, when there was real anticipation for what the BBC and ITV would pull out of the hat for the post-Queen’s Speech Christmas premiere or blockbuster.

In an age where video recorders had only just arrived, there were barely four terrestrial channels, and you had little choice but to watch the broadcasters’ choice, this worked quite well.

As video recorders took hold, I began to think that the channel wars were just a tad pathetic. After all, if you really wanted to watch two programmes that clashed, you just recorded one of them and played it back later.

I suppose broadcasters bank on the likelihood that most people will be stuffed and near-comatosed by 3pm on Christmas Day, but really, good though Finding Nemo and Shrek 2 are, they don’t feel like exclusives any more.

Andy Merrett Columns & Opinion

Ofcom survey: overall TV watching down, digital and HD up

tv.pngThe latest Communications Market Report from Ofcom shows that, overall, Britons are watching slightly less TV than last year, down 4% to 3 hours and 36 minutes per day, but that viewers are watching more digital terrestrial, satellite, and high definition content.

Digital TV of some kind is now in four out of five UK households, while for those 450,000 homes who have access to some kind of high definition content, 33% of their viewing time is spent watching it.

Echoing similar studies in the US, it seems that a significant proportion (43%) of those who do have high definition TV are viewing more as a result , particularly premium content such as films and sport.

Andy Merrett Digital set-top boxes, HDTV, TVs

Humax release PVR-9200TB: Freeview Playback dual tuner PVR

Humax has once again upgraded its PVR-9200T Freeview PVR, this time renaming it as the PVR-9200TB.

It claims to be one of the first Freeview Playback digital TV recorders on the market, sporting a 160GB hard drive, and comes with a number of nifty features including schedule tracking and auto-buffering.

It has two tuners, enabling two shows to be recorded, or one to be recorded while another is being watched live. Recording and scheduling is handled via the eight-day Electronic Programme Guide.

Andy Merrett Gadgets, Personal video players