Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

I never found TV tuner cards for your PC that appealing and never heard any that were really outstanding from anyone i knew, but this little number caught my attention and seems to do away with the need for a card in your PC at all. Basically a networked Tuner card. Plug your external or i guess internal aerial (if you’ve got one of those good ones) into the back and it can send out the Freeview love to any PC or Mac on your network.

“Well what else does it do?” you might ask. Once connected to your aerial, connect it to your router whether it be a standard ethernet router or wireless (Elgato recommend a standard N Router for efficient usage) then the TV signal can be picked up on any computer hooked up to it. Then like Sky+, you can pause it as you watch or record onto the computers HDD and watched at a later date all whilst someone else can watch a different channel in a different location on the network.

Available this week in the UK it’s priced at £229.95

For all of those waiting for free HD TV, Freeview HD is set to be launched before the end of the year. The service will start first in the North of England and then will then unfortunately roll out to the rest of the country across the next 2 or 3 years.

Graham Plumb, Head of Distribution Technology at BBC Operations that transmission will start at Granada’s Winter Hill transmitter from 2nd December 2009, not long after the Granada region’s digital switchover.  “The plan has always been to roll Freeview HD out around the country following switchover and Winter Hill was selected as the first achievable transmitter. There will need to be a retrospective upgrade of regions that have already switched.”

For those in London, the Crystal Palace transmitter is due to be updated in December, then four other transmitters covering urban areas by spring 2010. However it hasn’t been made clear if these upgrades mean immediate switch on to the service and it’s said that London as a whole won’t get complete service till 2012 (just in time for those Olympics)

It has also been said that most people wanting to take up the service will more than likely have to buy a new set top box or TV to take the service which when it starts will only have 4 channels, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The service will also only broadcast in 720p(still good in my opinion)

Amazon have revealed that the PlayTV add-on for the PS3 will arrive in the UK on July 31st.

For those not in the know the PlayTV is a small box packing dual tuners with a seven day EPG allowing you to record shows onto your PS3 hard drive.

Granted if you have a 40 Gb PS3 it is not the most space for a PVR but it is more than enough to store a few episodes of your favourite show, and you can always upgrade your HD.

Pricing is not to bad at a reasonable £60.