Film4+1 Dropped from Freeview!

The latest round of channel changes has left us poor Freeview viewers without the benefits of being able to watch Film4 + 1 as it has been replaced by the new Channel 4 + 1. Here's the list of channel changes as of 20/8/2007…

• 13 Channel 4+1 (new)
• 14 More4 (was 13)
• 29 E4 (was 14)
• 30 E4+1 (no change)
• 32 Film4 (was 29)

Film4+1 is leaving Freeview, but will still be available on Sky and Virgin.

This is a total bummer as the signal strength we get with Film4 makes it unwatchable yet Film4 + 1 was perfectly okay. It's not even as if Film4 + 1 is dead as Sky and Virgin customers can still get it. Seems like a poor deal for Freeview users to me!

Stargate Lives On

Just spotted on the excellent Stargate site GateWorld is the news that a third Stargate series is in development and probably due for release in 2008. It's early days yet and they haven't yet revealed what the storyline is going to be about but I'm happy that the series will continue.

Stargate SG-1 was phenomenally successful, running for 10 seasons, and Stargate Atlantis is showing all the signs of continuing that success.

I've been a fan since the movie appeared in 1984 so, with a new series of Atlantis coming next year and a couple of movies also in the works, we should be well catered for in the Stargate universe for a few more years.

Free(View) At Last!

Well, after months of dithering around, we finally went out and bought a Topfield TF5800PVR so we could get Freeview and get rid of our VCR and the pile of VHS tapes cluttering up the living room. I was waiting to to see what Humax would come up with in their new pvr-9200T and to see if Topfield were going to release a network compatible model but they haven't and the Humax doesn't match up so a TF5800PVR it had to be.


The "Toppy" is a brilliant bit of television kit. It comes with two FreeView tuners, which means that you can watch one channel, while recording another. In fact you can watch one and record two others at the same time with it. It's also got a 160Gb hard drive, which translates to about 80 hours of recordings and that's equivalent to about 20 240 minute VHS tapes and that's a lot of tape. There's a 250Gb model available but I really couldn't see us filling it but I suppose if you were a TV series addict, you might. On top of all that, you can enhance the functionality of the box by installing Topfield Application Programs (TAPs).

Now if only FreeView was actually any good :-(