When is a tv not just a tv?

These days a TV becomes more than just a TV with an antenna and maybe a satellite receiver connected. Just on that simple bit first, many of the new TV’s have both Freeview and FreeSAT built in. Note: only FreeSAT is carrying HD channels until digital switchover, except in the London area where analogue and HD Freeview are all on together from the Crystal Palace transmitter.

FreeSAT can be obtained by sticking an extra cable in the SKY LNB (Low Noise Block converter) residing outside on the dish, and if you don’t have one of your own, it can even be from a neighbours system (by permission of course as it won’t cost your neighbour anything to let you do this), provided that it is a newer style LNB with spare sockets on the bottom. Huge long runs of cable are to be avoided but there are in line boosters you can get to help with that problem.

So that’s you receiving TV but what else can you do with a Smart Tv?

The Samsung comes with apps built in to use on the web. You can either connect your TV with a wired LAN connection or wirelessly to your broadband hub. Quite honestly the remote control is useless to do anything seriously on the web so Samsung have come out with a new remote control.

Also there is some AllShare software which has to be installed on each PC or laptop that is connected to your home network. You can download it from Samsung and for those with Macs there is TVmobili. This means that the Smart TV can connect to your computers on your network and stream movies stored on your hard drive(s) providing you have an up to date codec pack on your computer that can read all the video files in your desktop media player. Try playing them first on your computer. You might find stuttery playback problems though if someone else in the house wants to watch BBC iPlayer at the same time.

On the computer you choose which folders you want AllShare or TVmobili to be able to access
 
 

(ones that contain media). On the TV you simply go to the source button on your TV remote, scroll down to AllShare and your enabled computers and the folders you have decided to media share will show up. The TV can’t play anything and everything, and has been pointed at the PC market first, but the Macs are catching up. And of course you can update your TV built in software as a download from the web, do it on your computer by going to the manufacturers website and selecting the model number and downloading the software. This is best done with a USB memory stick plugged into the TV onto which you have transferred your download. I have bought a USB extension cable to save fiddling round the back of the TV as mine is wall mounted.

TV recording is done with a USB memory stick or USB disk drive attached. When you have attached it, press the record button on your remote control whilst watching your programme and a message will come up asking you if you would like to format the drive. No choice, select yes. ALL YOUR FILES WILL BE DELETED so use only a new empty drive or stick. Then the drive is tested by the TV for recording and if it is accepted you may now use it as a video recorder. The drive format comes up on a PC as RAW so you can’t look at the files on there and the TV is a Linux based operating system. Even if you find a way of mounting the drive the files are recorded in *.SRF format which contains a digital signature for digital content protection. In fact when the TV formats the hard drive or USB stick it is then tied to the system board serial number in the TV, and will not work on a friend’s TV. So if you want to take TV programmes away with you to watch, get a USB TV card for your Laptop, and it will record programmes onto your laptop hard drive without trying to find a way of cracking the system.

There are currently a lot of criticisms of the EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) being out of date now and again or not being able to cope with programme over runs so you may not get all you wanted to record or even the wrong thing entirely. That is I am afraid down to the broadcasters to get right.

By Mike Sanders