BT Vision
BT Vision is based around a 160GB Freeview recorder and a connection to a BT line for a decent selection of on-demand titles, which play almost instantly, broadband speed allowing. The service includes catch-up TV from the main broadcasters; ESPN; on-demand films, some in HD; various archive programmes; and Sky Sports 1 and 2. You can pay as you go for most content or choose the £12.50-per-month "TV Unlimited" option, though movies and Sky Sports still cost extra. The hardware is due for an overhaul, especially with YouView looming - BT is a backer. The company’s rollout of the Infinity fibre-optic network means that, eventually, additional channels may be streamed through multicasting.
Digital Stream DPS-1000
Digital Stream’s internet TV box has been around for a while and consequently can be found selling for well below its original price. At the time of writing, it was under £50 at Currys. The user interface is based on the Onyx media player software. The above average selection of IPTV content ranges from BBC iPlayer and YouTube to Lovefilm for subscribers and Blinkbox pay-per-view movies. However, these are all standard definition so far. It’s a versatile media streamer but not as accomplished as the WD TV Live, for example, as it’s limited to 1080i resolution at best. The remote control is far from ideal and the system looks in need of bug fixes.
Next page: FetchTV SmartBox 8320HD
COMMENTS
It's not exactly an off the shelf option but I'm waiting to see how XBMC on RaspberryPi turns out...
You can't fix it at a Windows level because it's not a Windows problem - there are tens of millions of HDMI monitors out there that work just fine with Windows, and wake and resume properly. TVs, though, until recently, weren't built for that sort of thing, and tend not to cooperate as well with Windows as we all might like.
nothing here that cannot be done in xbmc. Infact right now I have 11 HD streaming channels via rtmp on a single addon. iplayer, itv player ,demand5, tvcatchup 4od too. thats a lot of streaming. Add it to XBMC's awesome library sauce. stick it all on a sub £200 nettop and hand the mrs the remote.
It's the fiddling that makes it so much fun! Oooer missus!
Apple, then Boxee, then BT Vision, etc, through to WDTV. It's alphabetical order, in case you hadn't noticed.
