Watch and learn

Posted on 16 Jan 2009 at 15:42

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A small number of satellite tuners are also starting to appear, allowing you to watch Freesat broadcasts using a dish and even pay for extra satellite channels using a CAM (conditional access module). However, the limited compatibility of these units limits their appeal; you'll want support for DVB-S2, the new HD standard for satellite broadcasts, to avoid your box becoming obsolete almost immediately.

The one annoyance is that if you already have a digital TV service such as Sky or Virgin Media, there's currently no way to integrate it with your PC. You can feed its output into a USB TV tuner to watch the currently selected channel on your PC screen, but you can't channel surf from PC software or preset programmes to record.

Without any subscription, however, you can watch a huge variety of TV shows on your PC via the Internet, and you don't even need a TV tuner or any other special hardware. The BBC's iPlayer (www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer) lets users in the UK watch hundreds of TV and radio programmes broadcast within the last week, with most shows becoming available a few minutes after they finish broadcasting, and a few appearing simultaneously on the Internet. A high quality option makes online video look even sharper, though you'll need to make sure you don't max out your broadband package's traffic limits. You can even download programmes to watch later, though they expire after 30 days.

All four ITV channels are available to watch 'near live' at www.itv.com, with recent shows also available on the Catch Up service, which requires the free Microsoft Silverlight 2 player software. Channel 4 offers recent shows, classics and films on its 4oD service (www.channel4.com/4od); most content is free, but films cost from £1.99 to rent, and some US shows cost 99p. Sky users can also watch selected channels via the Internet (skyplayer.sky.com), and non Sky customers can pay per view or take out a monthly subscription starting from £7.50.

Copy right

MP3 downloads have become so popular because of their convenience: just select the track from your jukebox software, whether iTunes or one of the many independent music organiser programs available, and you're in business. Whether you buy tracks online or 'rip' them from your CDs, once they're on your hard disk you can easily find and play them any time.

If you insert an audio CD into your PC and open it using Windows Explorer, you'll find one file per track that looks as if you can simply drag it onto your hard disk, just like photos from a digital camera. However, if you do this, double-clicking on the files you've copied to your PC won't play any music. If you look at the files' details, you'll see why: rather than the several megabytes required to store a song, each file contains just 44 bytes. In fact, it's just a header referencing audio data on the CD that your PC doesn't see.

To copy the tracks properly, you need to use ripping software such as Windows Media Player. On the File menu, go to Copy > Copy from Audio CD and select the name of the disc. Choose the tracks you want to copy and then press the red Copy Music button. The tracks are copied to your My Music folder; if you want them saved somewhere else, first go to Tools > Options > Copy Music and specify a destination. Media Player will even go to an online database of albums and find an image of the relevant album cover, which you'll see when you browse your music folder. J River's free Media Jukebox (www.mediajukebox.com) also lets you rip and play back CD tracks, and is a better tool if you're serious about your music.