"One Box to View Them All"

The speedyrite award for "One Box to View Them All" goes to:

Roku 2 Streaming Media Player (4205E) with Faster Processor (2015 model)

The 2nd generation NOW TV box is a cut-down version of a Roku 2. But the Roku 2 is better because it is better featured.

Managed to pick up a Roku 2 recently on Amazon UK for £49 (versus the normal price of about £70).

Apps are available for all the main UK catch-up & on demand services:

• BBC iPlayer
• itv Hub
• All 4
• Demand 5

Also installed a couple of apps that provide access to TVCatchup and TVPlayer (effectively legitimately streaming Freeview channels over the internet), found courtesy of http://blog.artesea.co.uk/2016/01/tvplayer-on-roku-or-now-tv.html

There are also apps for all the popular streaming services:

• NOW TV
• Netflix
• Amazon Video
• Google Play Movies & TV
• YouTube

Installing the PLEX app has enabled streaming of content from a local iTunes library on a computer that also has the PLEX server app installed.

The Flixster app provides access to a small number of movies purchased on DVD in the past that came with an Ultra-Violet copy.

Radio is well served by the tunein radio app.

Finally, the Roku 2 has a USB port. So you can plug in a USB drive and access content from it via the Roku Media Player app.

So the NOW TV 2nd generation box, acquired a couple of months ago for £19 (together with a 6 month NOW TV Entertainment pass) from Amazon UK, has been replaced by the Roku 2.

What's not to like about Roku 2?!

Happy New Year & New TV Provider

The Sky TV subscription ended overnight.

Last night, we finished viewing the last few recordings and downloads that were still on the remaining Sky+HD set-top box.

Today's tasks are to disconnect and remove the Sky+HD from the "TV & LAN infrastructure" and pack it away. Will also attempt to rationalise and untangle the mass mess(!) of cables behind the cupboard whilst scrabbling about around the back.

The Humax BT Youview+ DTR-T2110 has been handling recordings from Freeview channels since before Christmas, in parallel with mainly downloads from Sky Catch-Up/On Demand (supplemented with the odd recording).

Over the same period, the TV (2nd Generation) has streamed NOW TV Movies, Netflix and some movies from our collection in iTunes on the Mac mini. Planning to replace it with the new TV 4th Generation soon.

So, Happy New Year! Or should that be Happy New TV Provider?

Coming soon: Pros and Cons, Economics, Picture Quality, Hardware Reviews etc.

Farewell Sky+HD

The last day of our Sky TV subscription looms near.

We shall soon be disconnecting the remaining Sky+HD box and packing it away, to join its sibling Sky+HD box that used to be our Multiroom box in the tech graveyard corner. 

We're going (mainly) "over the top" for a 12 month experimental period using NOW TV & Netflix (maybe also Amazon Video as some stage) and  a YouView+ recorder for recording stuff and watching Catch-Up from Freeview channels.

As far as our customer relationship with Sky is concerned, all is not lost.

We continue to be a Sky Fibre Pro broadband customer and, of course, Sky plc will continue to benefit from the re-direction of our (albeit reduced amounts of) entertainment spending into NOW TV.

No plans to sell my Sky shares at the present time. Why? Because I am confident that there are still plenty of people prepared to stick with Sky+HD, I'm sure there will be reasonable demand for Sky Q when it becomes available and Sky also have the somewhat unique proposition of NOW TV to mop up the rest.

But, in my opinion, the future of TV viewing will be non-linear. For various reasons, it won't be the right solution for everybody, but right now it looks like the right solution for us. 

We are excited to be (at least partially) cutting the cord!

Gone Fibre Pro

An upgrade from Sky Fibre Unlimited (up to 38Mbps) to Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro (up to 76Mbps) took effect overnight.

When the order was placed, the estimated maximum download speed given was 56.9Mbps.

This is about what I was expecting, taking into account the distance from the cabinet (about 250 metres), according to this (taken from a thinkbroadband guide):

After rebooting the SR101 this morning, downstream sync speed has gone from 39998kbps to 61971kbps and upstream sync has gone from 9999kbps to 19999kbps.

Over the past 12 months, the average downstream throughput speed has been 37.67Mbps and the average upstream throughput speed has been 9.12Mbps on Sky Fibre Unlimited (as measured by the "Whitebox").

I'm waiting for SamKnows to update the profile of the "Whitebox" so that some proper results can be observed over the next few days, weeks, months!

Thanks to a retention deal though, the cost is unchanged for 12 months.

Happy 29th Birthday to Speedyrite Limited

29 years ago today, on the 1st April 1985, was the first day of my very first freelance contract assignment (at Tesco Stores plc in Welwyn Garden City) - and Speedyrite Limited commenced trading!

A lot has changed over those 29 years.

Mobile phones were in their infancy - they were about the size of a house brick and had quite a short battery life. Video cameras were massive and shot onto tape - I remember once seeing a Japanese tourist wheeling around what looked like a small car battery mounted on a trolley and connected by a long cable to his VCR camera! Now all replaced by a smartphone more powerful than the computer that sent astronauts to the moon.

Legacy application systems are still around though. The front end access to them may have changed though. Gone are the green screens (mostly), replaced by GUI front ends (not so much screen-scraping as there once was, now developed using more versatile tools). And, of course, access to all that data via a browser interface over the intranet & internet.

I'm still here though...

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

Just been surveying the price of VDSL2 fibre broadband service, from what I consider to be the four leading mass-market providers in the UK, as I'm looking to maximise the value for money. Current provider is Sky on their "40/10" product.

I have ignored the cost of call packages and any one-off joining discounts, and I have assumed that both voice & data services will both be switched to the new provider (giving free activation in all cases, except BT Infinity 1 Unlimited which is £30).

First of all, the annualised cost of an "80/20" product:

VDSL2 “80/20”	Sky	BT	PlusNet	TalkTalk
Line Rental	£184.80	£141.00	£131.88	£141.00
Broadband	£360.00	£312.00	£239.88	£222.00
TOTAL	£544.80	£453.00	£371.76	£363.00
	* No Upfront LR

And the annualised cost of a "40/10" product:

VDSL2 “40/10”	Sky	BT	PlusNet	TalkTalk
Line Rental	£184.80	£141.00	£131.88	£141.00
Broadband	£240.00	£276.00	£191.88	£162.00
TOTAL	£424.80	£417.00	£323.76	£303.00
	* No Upfront LR			* BB is “40/2”

In both cases, there's quite a big cost difference between my current provider and the cheapest mass-market provider.

If I wanted to stay on a "40/10" product, I would from £100 to £120 a year just by switching to another provider.

If I move up from the "40/10" product to the "80/20" product with Sky, it will cost me £120 a year more than it does now.

But if I switch to another provider's "80/20" product, it will save me at least £53 a year over the cost of my "40/10" product from Sky - and I will get higher throughput speed!

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

Year 1 of Fibre Broadband Performance Measurement

Here are the results of the first year's performance measurement using a SamKnows "Whitebox"on a Sky Fibre Unlimited VDSL2 (FTTC) broadband connection.

Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average download throughput as 37.67Mbps.

Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average upload throughput as 9.12Mbps.

One Year on Sky Fibre

At 7:52 AM on Friday 13 April 2012, I placed my order to upgrade my broadband service to the long awaited and newly launched Sky Fibre Broadband. Not a bad Friday the Thirteenth.

Two weeks later, on 27 April 2012, an Openreach engineer phoned me from the street cabinet to say he was about to connect my line to the fibre cabinet. Ten minutes later, he turned up to install a vDSL faceplate on the master phone socket and fix the Openreach fibre modem (the Huawei HG612) to the wall.

We chatted and had a cup of tea while he worked. Finally he ran some tests and showed me the results on his gizmo (JDSU). “Should be good for about 70Mbps max” he said. He waited while I connected the Sky router and got online, and he insisted on seeing the result of a speed test. About 36Mbps. Bit of a speed bump from the 3.5Mbps download speed on ADSL. Wowwww!

Wind forward to today - one year later. What has it been like to have a “superfast” broadband connection?

The obvious thing is that file downloads, software upgrades, movie rentals and Catch Up TV all download much faster. No more buffering - movies and on demand viewing is ready to watch almost immediately.

Upload is much faster too. Sky Fibre began as a “40/2” service, providing an up to 2Mbps upload speed. After a few weeks was upgraded to a “40/10” service, giving an up to 10Mbps upload speed. Sharing files and documents to “cloud” based services is now much more feasible.

Reliability has been excellent, throughput speed has been steady. To date, I have not been affected by the two major issues that have been hot topics on the Sky Help Forum: the “half-speed”/slow throughput problem that has been affecting some fibre users, and backhaul network congestion (which has been a problem for both fibre and ADSL users at some exchanges).

What about the future outlook for Sky Fibre?

Hopefully:

• Successful completion of the fix rollout for he “half-speed”/slow throughput problem.
• Faster resolution of backhaul network congestion problems.
• A product/price restructuring to match Sky’s popular competitors.

Happy 1st Birthday to Sky Fibre.

Reporting payroll information to HMRC in real time

From 6 April 2013, employers will have to start reporting PAYE information to HMRC in real time. You may see this referred to as Real Time Information - or RTI.

This means that employers (or their accountant, bookkeeper or payroll bureau) will have to:

• send details to HMRC every time they pay an employee, at the time they pay them.

• use payroll software to send this information electronically as part of their routine payroll process.

Is your business ready yet?

We have chosen Moneysoft as our payroll software provider and we have been using Payroll Manager 20 to process our payroll for a while now. It's easy to use and it's RTI compliant.

RTI Payroll Software from Moneysoft.

Sky Broadband Unlimited Fibre

I'm sure you will be pleased to hear that, on 31 January 2012, Sky finally announced the launch of a fibre broadband product.

http://corporate.sky.com/media/press_releases/2012/sky_builds_on_broadband_growth_with_increased_coverage_10000_wifi_hotspots_and_new_fibre_launch

The fibre broadband product launches in April, but Sky has already started contacting some customers (who have previously pre-registered an interest) to invite them to join a final trial. A few people are already connected and reporting massive speed improvement.

Obviously I am very keen to upgrade our internet connection to this product! I have pre-registered (both last year and this year) but I haven't heard anything yet. If they ever do call before the product launch, I will accept immediately. Otherwise, it's a case of waiting. In any case, hopefully by this summer, we will have a much faster internet connection.

Super-fast fibre broadband has been available where we live for at least a year now, but I have resisted changing to a different provider - mainly because initially it was quite expensive, but also because other providers restrict their service in many ways.

I'm quite keen to stay with Sky because their internet service is truly unlimited - both in terms of monthly usage and (allegedly) traffic management that can affect the speed of different types of traffic at certain times of day.

RIP TiVo UK Series 1

After almost 9 years of excellent service, we are retiring our TiVo UK Series 1 DVRs from active recording (there's still a backlog of unwatched TV so it will be a while before they are removed from the AV stacks).

TiVo service ceases in the UK on 1 June, so a couple of the latest Sky+HD (DRX-890C) DVRs have been installed in preparation for "the end of TiVo in the UK" and they take over active recording duty from today.

The Sky+HD EPG provides "Series Link" (but it's not an exact equivalent of TiVo's Season Pass) and there's no equivalent of TiVo's WishList facility. There is a facility to search the 7 day TV Guide in the Sky+HD EPG but Locate TV and myDigiguide will be providing some additional support to make sure that we get our own version of "Smart DVR, Brilliant TV".

What the Sky+HD lacks in sophistication when compared to the TiVo user interface is somewhat compensated by other useful features such as viewing and recording of HD channels (which have even better picture quality than that provided by the "Mode 0" hack), Remote Recording via an iPhone app and access to Sky Anytime+ downloads.

Gadget Show Live 2011

Another great "live" show today! And lots of interesting stuff to look at and play with, including NVIDIA demo of 3D gaming and a massive Sony 3D TV.

RIP iRobot Roomba 530

Sadly the iRobot Roomba 530 is now deceased. A victim of too much carpet dust and dog hairs. Despite "open Roomba surgery" to correct the problem (i.e.major dis-assembly and interior cleaning), the alleged problem persisted and could not be resolved. Mrs. S., therefore, has given it a final dis-assembly...

Free Sat Nav app for iPhone

I'm trying out "Navfree GPS UK & ROI" - it's a free Sat Nav app for iPhone. No charges, maps are stored on the iPhone and no data connection is required for map browsing/routing & address lookup. It uses map data from OpenStreetMap (OSM). Versions are available for many European countries, Canada and some US states.

World IPv6 Day

There's an event called World IPv6 Day on the 8th of June 2011 where there will be a number of tests across the Internet. It shouldn't affect the average web user. If you want to find out more, go to isoc.org/wp/worldipv6day/

Are you ready for IPv6? Test out your browser, router and Internet provider here: http://test-ipv6.com

CCNA - Cisco Certified Network Associate

I am pleased to announce that I passed the CCNA on 24 June 2010.

CPS Networking Technologies

What a great course this was at Birmingham City University TIC/TID/TEE! Four modules covered the Cisco CCNA syllabus, so ideal preparation for taking the certification exam (which is my next step)...

iPhone 3GS

Recently upgraded from the iPod touch (1st gen) to the iPhone 3GS. Wow! Together with the 3.0 software, it's a superb package. The 3GS is much faster than the old touch. The on-board camera is pretty average from what I've seen of it to date but the video functionality is quite neat. 3G reception on the O2 data network is not too bad at home and in town centres, but there are plenty of notspots when out and about in rural Worcestershire.

Boxee

Boxee is now installed on Apple TV.

See more info about Boxee at http://www.boxee.tv/

BBC iPlayer is now accessible on the Apple TV!

iRobot Roomba 530

Finally, it's here - the iRobot Roomba 530! An absolute bargain from Lakeland (compared to the official selling price). Here it is "earning its corn" in Robert's office.

The upstairs carpets have never been so clean. Annie loves it. It's currently ranked up there with TiVo and the (sadly now long gone) Psion Series 3 as "one of the best gadgets ever" and loved almost as much as her MacBook Pro...