Mark Dalton

After being Duty Manager last weekend I had Friday off as a day in Lieu and thought I would book Monday off and enjoy a long weekend. I dropped the car off for its annual service first thing Friday morning and then headed into town for a coffee and some window shopping. I sat in Costa Coffee for about two hours, chilling out with the laptop and looking at potential holiday destinations, but didn’t arrive at any conclusions. I then wandered around the town, only buying another 500 GB USB Hard Drive, before walking home.

It wasn’t particularly warm but I did enjoy the walk. One of the problems with commuting every day is that I don”t really have the energy or time to get any real exercise, and this time of year only really see daylight out of the office window. I had a couple of PodCasts to catch up on so wrapped up warm and plugged into my iPhone

After a spot of lunch Mum dropped by as I had agreed to go TV shopping with her. She had seen my new Samsung and set her heart on one. So we headed up to Curry”s only to find that they didn’t have any in stock but said they could order one for delivery, but there would be a delivery charge. I asked if they could order it in and we would collect it but they said they couldn’t, if it was ordered it had to be delivered. Mum had really set her heart on walking away with the TV, so we headed over to Comet. They also didn’t have any in stock, but said they could order one and have it delivered Sunday with no delivery charge. It wasn’t walking away with one, but at least she would get one before the weekend was out. Mum then dropped my back at the garage to pick up my car. I drove home not noticing the software update they had performed to the Engine Management System, as they said I probably wouldn’t.

Saturday I got on with the normal chores and started to make a list of the job”s that need doing around the house. This weekend was supposed to be the weekend I started getting people round to quote for some of the bigger jobs, but after a crappy couple of weeks, I just wasn’t in the mood, so settled on writing lists. Saturday evening I was sad and ironed while watching TV.

Sunday I headed round to Mum and Dad”s to setup the TV on the promise of a roast dinner. The TV was delivered around midday and I was set straight to work setting it up. Now I believed that it had a Free View receiver built in, but quickly found that it didn’t. I then spent several hours trying to get it to work with there existing Thomson Free View box. In the end I was pretty sure it was the ariel but Mum came up with the idea of trying the portable ariel that she uses in the dinning room. This quickly proved it was the ariel and once we had swapped out the ariel cable, the setup was a breeze. We tided up and I connected the TV to their home network and showed them the Internet interaction, and then connected up the DVD player and tested that out by watching the BBC”s Earth Series.

Today I enjoyed a nice long lay in and then popped round to Mum & Dad”s as Mum looks after Eleanor on Mondays, and I hadn”t seen her or Katrina for a couple of weeks. Returning home I did the last few chores before plonking myself on the sofa where I spent the rest of the day.

So I have been spending a lot of time over the last week editing some video for work and working on the “Family Photo Archive Project” (Family Photo Archive Project Part One & Family Photo Archive Project Part Two) and found myself torn between getting on with the work I had to do and catching up with some of the TV I actually like to watch. This coupled with the amount I travel I do prompted me to start looking at a device I had been considering for a while, the SlingBox Pro from SlingMedia.

This device basically sits between the receiving device, and your home network. In my particular example between my Sky Satellite box and my home LAN. Using the SlingPlayer software you can then watch your TV from any computer on your LAN or via the Internet.

You have full control over your device via the software representation of your remote control and can set-up shortcut buttons for your favourite channels or functions. The SlingPlayer software even allows you to record a TV show although stops short of allowing you to set-up scheduled recordings, but I am sure there is something out there that works around this.

The SlingBox Pro allows you to connect up to four devices, so for example, as well as my Sky TV it can also be connected to say my DVD player/recorder, my Apple TV, or even my home video/security cameras.

I purchased my Apple TV going through Heathrow Airport early last year as I wanted to be able to listen to my Music, Podcasts, and Audio Books, via my TV.

I was on my way back to my apartment in Gurgaon, India at the time and the apartment was comfortable but pretty basic if I am honest. I wanted to be able to chill out on the couch with a very expensive bottle of imported vino and listen to what was going on in my other world.

Returning to the UK however I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it and it ended up in the bedroom. I did start out falling asleep to music but before long it just started to gather dust. No way to treat a shiny white box!

I had the Mac Mini downstairs hooked up to the 42″ LCD which was supposed to act as an Apple TV and some, but I found myself playing with the Mac more than listening / watching any content. So there was only one thing to do!

I moved the Apple TV downstairs and was immediately frustrated. I mean Mac Mini +Keyboard +mouse meant surfing, meant tweaking, meant…….Hold on! I sit on the sofa to absorb content! No, I sit on the sofa to absorb my content, the stuff that I want to listen to or watch. I do it in some way’s to get away from sitting in front of keyboards.

So I decided to explore a little more, like you do! The first thing I really noticed was how cool it was listening to my tunes while taking a look over my photo library. I then moved on to my home video’s and really started to understand what this device did for me.

It was a couple of days later I actually sat down and juggled the various remote controls (Project?). I finally figured out that the 900+ channels I have had nothing showing that I wanted to watch. As I juggled the remotes I found I was left with the Apple TV remote in my hands.

I then decided to move to the next level and rented a movie via iTunes. I was a little apprehensive to start with but decided to give it ago. Luckily I have a fast Internet connection (22 Mbps) and by the time I had made myself something to eat the movie had downloaded. It was a great experience and better still I didn’t need to return any DVD’s.

A few day’s later I found myself in the same position, really must think why I am paying for Sky. This time I decided to buy a movie. “Get Smart” was the chosen title and I opted for the standard definition version. Once again a very smooth experience and I liked the fact that I didn’t have to find a home for yet another DVD.

It was a couple of day’s later when I was upstairs in my study that it really hit me. I was downloading another album via iTunes and clicked on the Movies listing. There it was. The movie that I had purchased via my TV. I clicked play and the movie immediately started to play on my MacBook Pro and the sound started blaring out of my Bose Companion 5 speakers. Awesome! I went back to the iTunes store and purchased “Taken” in High Definition to watch that evening, and it immediately started downloading and I went back to my inbox.

That evening as I sat down in front of the TV I didn’t even bother to check what was on Sky. I switched to the Apple TV and selected My Movies. There it was, just sitting there waiting for me.

Since then I have purchased a couple more titles and the Skins TV Series as I had watched the first two episodes but it’s on to late for a school night.

All in all I have really started to appreciate my Apple TV but I would warn others that if you have a slow Internet connection your experience may not be as smooth. I did make the mistake on one occasion of trying to download a movie while my off site backup was running and it was painful. Why I had my backup’s starting at 6pm however is a different story and something I have since resolved.

I would like to see the next version of the Apple TV include PVR functionality, but am not sure it that is a realistic expectation given the iTunes store model, but you can but hope. I can also see myself needing to invest in more external storage if I continue down this path as the movie titles aren’t exactly small, and am going to have to find an unlimited offsite backup plan that doesn’t involve remortgaging the house to fund, as backing up to external disks is not totally bullet proof and I don’t really want to turn the house into a mini data-center.

Sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself with only day time TV and my MacBook Air to keep my company I took a closer look today at the BBC’s iPlayer site. I am still getting to grips with everything it has to offer, but so far I am pretty impressed. According to the BBC’s web site iPlayer allows you to view BBC TV and listen to BBC radio broadcasts that have been shown over the last seven days. The BBC’s iPlayer web site allows states that you can download and watch shows for up to 30 days after. However this feature is only available Microsoft Windows XP & Vista users.

Well that sucks as I am a Mac user, but I have found an alternative solution in the iPlayer Downloader. Now I am not sure if this is subject to the same time limits as the iPlayer’s Download Manager, but have downloaded a few shows and will see how long they play for.

All in all a pretty good service, and one that I think show’s the future of broadcasting and the Internet.