Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, Net Work looks at the jargon-loaded mess that greets TV users when trying to
decide what to watch and how to record it.
H
utber’s Law suggests that,
‘improvement means deterioration,’ and good examples
might include some aspects of Britain’s digital TV service, coupled with
an apparent dearth of dependable personal video recorder (PVR) machines
for storing programmes on a hard
disk. This month’s Net Work takes
another look at Freeview, Britain’s
Live on Demand digital terrestrial TV
service that is beamed for free into
millions of homes via their aerials.
Scores of standard definition and HD
programmes are aired through half
a dozen multiplexes, and some 20
million viewers currently suffer the
endless need to retune their receivers due to the ‘700MHz clearance’ as
bandwidth gets sold off for mobile
telephony, and TV channel numbers keep being shuffled around or
dropped altogether.
Guide to jargon
These days, having an on-screen EPG
(Electronic Programme Guide) isn’t
enough, so a Freeview app, downloadable separately, offers viewers an EPG
on their smartphones or tablets. The
app has been roundly criticised for
merely being something that points
to all the other ‘on-demand’ apps that
would have to be installed separately
in any case. Many viewers expected
a seamless live TV and on-demand
TV service streamed to their mobile
device: ‘[The Freeview app] is just
visual TV pages and you have to download another app per broadcaster to
watch anything,’ said one, but it works
well enough for many other users. You
can try the online Freeview EPG at:
www.freeview.co.uk/tv-guide but you
may have to download the Freeview
mobile app or log into the respective
players from the main broadcasters.
The jargon gets worse – not forgetting
the industry mix-up over ‘HD Ready’
and ‘Full HD’, and ordinary consumers can be forgiven for confusing ‘live
TV on demand’ with ‘on-demand’ or
‘catch-up’ TV, expressions that are
used interchangeably. Free services
for satellite dish users are offered by
Freesat, and then there’s Freeview
Play, which provides live TV through
an antenna plus catch-up TV, which
needs broadband and a Freeview Play
TV or recorder to host the catch-up
player apps. Over half of all new TV
sets now have Freeview Play built in.
Alternatively, a Youview recorder
adds pause and future programme
recording, along with 7-day catchup TV. Some Youview TVs, such as
certain Sony Bravia Android TVs can
connect to an external hard disk to
store recordings.
As for planning one’s TV entertainment, things start to unravel: Youview
offers a mobile app it describes as: ‘a
perfect companion to your [Youview]
box. It lets you browse the [TV] guide
and set recordings all on the go. You
can even play available programmes
straight from the guide.’ However,
those who like this mobile app will
shortly be disappointed: Youview
is dropping it entirely on 31 March,
stating that they are refocusing on
working with their industry partners
(BT, TalkTalk, Humax and Sony) instead of dealing with the end-users
who pay for it all in the first place. Only
BT TV users have an app that allows
them to set up recordings remotely.
Withdrawal symptoms
It’s becoming harder for TV users to
confidently make buying decisions that
are reasonably future-proof. Many of
us already know the feeling of being
short-changed when apps or services
are withdrawn or equipment is rendered obsolete almost overnight: the
author’s Samsung Smart TV started to
suffer these ‘withdrawal symptoms’
straight out of the box, and it currently sulks when trying to launch BBC
iPlayer or My5 using its native apps,
to the extent that last night I gave up
on it altogether.
Online user reviews are handy for
highlighting emerging problems with
set-top boxes and digital TV recorders
before you buy. The market-leading
DTV-recorder maker Humax has been
well regarded for its PVRs in the past
and currently lists just one Youview
box, the DTR-T2000. Many buyers
seem delighted with it, but a worrying number cite very noisy hard
disks, fans and clunky menus, along
with a shopping list of lock-ups and
other problems. Strangely, Humax was
out of stock at the time of writing, although many refurbished ones were
available from other online sources.
The other mainstream choice of PVR
seems to be the Humax Freeview Play
recorder FVP-5000 (500GB-2TB, Wi-Fi/
Ethernet). Browsing user feedback on
Amazon, many recent buyers praised
its performance but others equally
slated its slow response, complaining
of noisy hard drives again, heating
problems, very slow EPG interfaces
and sub-standard apps.
To err is Humax
The Youview DTR-T2000 by Humax plays digital TV, 7-day catch-up TV and scheduled
recordings. The Youview mobile app is being discontinued on 31 March and will no longer
be available in the App store or Google Play.
12
These negative ‘vibes’ bring me to problems I’ve had with my own Freeview
recorder, a Humax HDR-Fox T2 that
over the years has been one of the
Practical Electronics | May | 2020
instead, another overnight
session. Next morning,
feeling very smug I marvelled at a PC drive full of
files but then I hit another
problem: I couldn’t do anything with them. My PC
video software complained
of, ‘no PIDs when trying
to open transport system’
among several other cryptic messages.
Guided by users on
Hummy.TV, I learned that
by default the Humax PVR
encrypts and locks all rePanopticlick by EFF will reveal any browser
cordings to that individual
fingerprinting vulnerabilities in your system.
PVR. The consensus was
to copy them to a USB
drive (my heroic FTP
effort had been in vain)
The HD HomeRun network-attached TV receiver promises which decrypts them, but
live TV all around the home. Twin and quad tuners are
over the next day or two,
available, along with an extra paid-for PVR solution.
things started unravelling
and suddenly the PVR file
most rewarding devices I ever owned. system got stuck into its infamous
This 2011-era box has the usual pause/ ‘delete loop’, a warning sign of file
rewind features controlling live TV, system corruption that I had sufits searchable EPG has been superior fered before.
to many and series recordings have
To repair that problem, I tried to
generally worked perfectly, allowing Telnet into the PVR using Putty and
me to binge-watch popular TV series run a disk-repair option with custom
many months later. Sadly, Humax PVR firmware provided by the Humax
failed to deliver on some promised user community, another long job,
catch-up apps, which would be a which on the surface seemed successsign of things to come, and its limit- ful. Long story short, unfortunately
ed choice of Internet-powered apps the very recordings that I hoped to
has been mediocre. Nevertheless,
rescue were damaged in the process as
this popular recorder played a key their corresponding .hmt files became
role in our in-house entertainment, corrupted when I was FTPing them
but signs of trouble emerged recent- to and fro, and the PVR stubbornly
ly when the player suddenly started refused to play any of my favourite
to ‘green screen’ on the TV’s HDMI
recordings. I could reformat the disk,
port. The player did the same when losing everything and maybe FTP the
tested on other TVs. The excellent original files back again, or I could
online forum Hummy.TV, probably spend days trying another technical
the best Humax resource out there, approach that would appeal to power
suggested that I was not alone and users with time on their hands! And
it was probably an HDMI handshak- then the HDMI port failed anyway.
ing problem. Eventually, the HDMI
failed altogether, rendering the disk Here comes the future
inaccessible unless a fuzzy Scart lead Tackling such a challenge becomes a
was used instead. The quest to fix it hobby in itself, but sadly the repair
of this device has been relegated to
would not end well.
a rainy day. The search was on for a
There may be trouble ahead
replacement Freeview recorder. I outThe next task was to back up some lined earlier some choices that buyers
cherished recordings before the re- currently face when shopping for a new
corder failed altogether. Copying them Freeview PVR. Boxes are mostly made
onto a fan-cooled, external EXT3-for- by Humax and seem to boil down to
matted hard drive would be a long an (out of stock) Humax-built Youview
and laborious job, but undeterred I unit with no mobile app, or a Freeview
queued up a large batch of files and Play unit which has some worrying
left the PVR running overnight. That reviews about usability. Issues with
was my first mistake: checking it over, EPGs and missing search features add
I wasn’t convinced that this had been to the dilemma. Overall, none of the
successful so I then tried using FTP contenders seemed to come close to
to copy files over the LAN onto a PC the well-built Humax HDR-FOX T2
Practical Electronics | May | 2020
dating back to my December 2011
column; it seems that today’s PVRs
are becoming lightweight, disposable
bits of kit to be written off after a few
short years.
Network Freeview receiver
Late last year, for the first time, more
than 50% of UK homes subscribed to
a streaming video service like Amazon
Prime and Netflix, demonstrating the
unstoppable move towards video entertainment delivered by broadband.
Another approach to consider is a
dedicated network-attached Freeview
adaptor. My thanks to reader Brian
Hoskins who emailed following my
December 2019 column when I discussed some Freeview HD TV woes.
Brian says: ‘Have you considered
installing a network Freeview receiver? I use the HD HomeRun receiver,
which receives Freeview channels
via my home aerial (quad tuner) and
then distributes the feed over my
home network. I can pick it up on my
mobile phone, my PC and even other
televisions in and around my home.
To receive it on televisions you need
a cheap device such as an Amazon
Fire TV Stick with the HD HomeRun
app installed on it. The beauty is you
can receive HD channels and display
them on your TV regardless of its own
Freeview reception capabilities, even
if it can’t display the broadcast at full
resolution. If your TV is in Wi-Fi range
of your home network, you’re good to
go. You can even pick up your home
Freeview feed from anywhere in the
world by extending the idea a bit. A
PLEX server can, for example, use a
DVR. It’s compatible with the HD HomeRun, and that means I can access
my PLEX server from anywhere in the
world and view my home Freeview
feed. I can even view a live TV guide
and set PLEX to record programmes
for me. I can watch my home feed
while away from home on my mobile,
a laptop PC, or even another television provided I have a device that can
host the PLEX client (Fire TV again).’
Brian kindly sent a video demonstrating his HD HomeRun box and how
it sits discretely out of sight, needing
just power, an antenna and an Ethernet
cable. Its US maker, Silicon Dust, also
offers a low-cost subscription-based
DVR service with 14-day EPG (it’s a
24-hour EPG out of the box), which records to your NAS and can be viewed
on any smart device around the home,
they say. The HD HomeRun sounds an
excellent way of viewing TV that would
appeal to the home network enthusiast. Devices tuned for other countries
are available; not available in the UK
13
www.poscope.com/epe
Friends Against Scams is designed to encourage grassroots recognition of fraud, including
online scams, as well as supporting victims of scams.
is a ‘Servio’ PVR version. Thanks again
to Brian for the tip: more details of the
HD HomeRun are on the Silicon Dust
website at: www.silicondust.com
Finally this month
- USB
- Ethernet
- Web server
- Modbus
- CNC (Mach3/4)
- IO
- PWM
- Encoders
- LCD
- Analog inputs
- Compact PLC
- up to 256
- up to 32
microsteps
microsteps
- 50 V / 6 A
- 30 V / 2.5 A
- USB configuration
- Isolated
PoScope Mega1+
PoScope Mega50
- up to 50MS/s
- resolution up to 12bit
- Lowest power consumption
- Smallest and lightest
- 7 in 1: Oscilloscope, FFT, X/Y,
Recorder, Logic Analyzer, Protocol
decoder, Signal generator
14
A scheme called ‘Friends against Scams’
produced by Britain’s National Trading Standards scam team is designed
to empower people at grass roots level
to take a tough stand against common
forms of fraud, including smishing
and phishing scams, bogus lottery,
pharma and fake goods scams and Internet romance fraud. It has produced
a useful 20-minute video explaining
various ruses used by scammers, and
also helps individuals to identify and
help vulnerable people who may have
fallen victim to them. You can become
a Friend against Scams online at: www.
friendsagainstscams.org.uk – and you
can go further by volunteering to be a
SCAMchampion, helping your local
community to beat the scammers.
During recent storms that swept
across Britain, a 400-year-old oak tree
blew down into the path of two cars
that were driving in opposite directions. By co-incidence both cars were
Teslas, and one car’s automatic braking
system detected the falling tree ahead
and brought it to an emergency halt
with milliseconds to spare. The tree
fell onto both cars’ bonnets (hoods) instead of the passenger compartments
and Tesla’s array of safety features
saved their occupants’ lives, they say.
Lincolnshire Police in Britain has
added two new members to its crime
squad, dedicated to fighting cyber
crime and digital fraud. Police Dogs
Flurry and Henry are being trained to
sniff out old hard drives, discarded
SIM cards, phones and other electronic gadgetry. Searches that would take
days for humans can now be done
in an hour, say Police Specialist Ops
dog handlers. Meet Flurry on: https://
youtu.be/sEbXsuaolyY
A gang of eight crooks from Hampshire in southern England were jailed
for more than 18 years in February after
they netted over £350,000 ($455,000)
by accessing over 2,000 BT customer
accounts. They created call diverts and
redirected customers’ emails. Then,
using stolen bank and PayPal details
they bought luxury goods online for
delivery to their own addresses. The
true scope of the fraud is likely to be
much higher and probably runs nationwide, Portsmouth Police think.
BT Openreach is trialling its proposed new VoIP service designed to
replace Britain’s PSTN telephony by
2025. How IP telephony is handled by
equipment that relies on PSTN links
such as alarms and care call systems
has yet to be fully assessed. As the industry slowly migrates towards FTTP,
ultra high-speed fibre could eventually
be delivered direct to UK consumers
and small businesses by independent
suppliers such as Internetty (www.
internetty.uk), which plans to deliver up to 1Gb hyperfast broadband in
select areas.
BBC Television’s ‘Click’ gadget program has questioned whether some
popular ‘food hack’ videos posted
onto Facebook are actually any good
or simply (whisper) click bait instead. Their verdict is shown in the
BBC’s ‘Fake Bakes’ report at: http://
bit.ly/pe-may20-gard1. The world of
gardening ‘hack’ videos is similarly
scrutinised by MiGardener, see: http://
bit.ly/pe-may20-gard2
See you next month for more from
Net Work!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
Practical Electronics | May | 2020
