Up to now in the Burden household we’ve had an AT&T conventional telephone line, Comcast cable broadband and DirecTV satellite. On paper the offer of consolidating to one service certainly made sense, I figure I’ll be saving around $1000 over 12 months going to U-verse, but would the service and offerings stack up?

The service has just been offered in my area as AT&T expand the network. Are you less than three miles from one of these VRADs (Video ready access devices?) If so, you’re in luck.

Firstly, I did not cancel my existing service and took advantage of the AT&T no-questions asked 30 day trial. I wanted to check the phone, internet and TV was working well, if not better, before cancelling other services – so I planned an overlap of service. AT&T also do a $200 cashback offer and free installation for certain packages.

We picked the full package, top tier TV, 24Mbps internet and digital telephone service.

I did my research before the install and read some horror stories, but I have to say the engineer and the install was great. Ordering the service online was easy, the porting of my home phone number to the digital service was painless (I did nothing) and tracking the progress of the order was simple.

Installation day

• 8am – automated web message to me saying that the engineer has been dispatched (hopefully that’s not in the mafia sense). I could even track his location online… I bet these engineers are thrilled about that…
• 8.50 – jolly installation engineer calls: telling me he’s doing something down the street at the VRAD, then he’ll be at the property shortly. Told me if I was using AT&T DSL or phone, the signal would drop out – which it did. I’m now cut off from the outside world!
• 9.15 – walked through my current house setup with the engineer so he could understand what services we currently have, how it is configured. Friendly and helpful guy gave options on the install. To minimise new holes etc, trying to leverage as much current house wiring as we can. I originally thought we’d have to rewire, but he is going to leverage existing cable in the house
• 10 – install well underway. The residential gateway will be in the garage and all the wiring will come from there – also a lead from the residential gateway will go straight into the phone line so we can still use our current phone jack in the kitchen – without putting the residential gateway inside the house
• 10.05 – three TV’s to be wired to U-verse (we only have one wired at the front of the house at present) – figuring out the best way to do this without wiring all over the house – again leveraging cable already in the house, some crawl space action required
• 10.40 – installation going strong. He’s moving pretty fast. The UPS and residential gateway is now getting switched on
• The rest of the day and install went fine with the install finishing just after lunch. Once finished, was walked through the setup and feature functionality

Residential gateway

The service is wired from the street to enter into your telephone box normally at the side of your house. I didn’t want the residential gateway (the main hub) or UPS in the house, and wanted in the garage. He ran a wire from the RG into the main phone box so we could use the existing phone sockets in the house. The install was very clean.

The RG is large and also has a UPS to power the RG for around six hours in the event of an emergency or power-cut. This is probably the only downfall of the system. If your RG fails – your TV, internet and home phone (after 6 hours) will die. However, I see this as a very small risk. If the power fails I would not be able to use the internet or TV anyway – and the landline would last for a while. I have my cell – and you can even program a ‘backup’ number for your landline should people not be able to get through the call is diverted.

This is the setup in my garage. To the left is the RG which has power supplied through the UPS, which in turn, plugs into the power. The RG runs the whole house – and wires come out of it to the TV’s (via existing cable) and to the telephone. I opted not to use AT&T’s wireless signal and switched it off. I run the house of my D-Link wireless N router (top right) to keep the N speeds as U-verse runs G. The white box on the bottom right is my NAS – which is the main storage for the house, my photo and video backup and streams movies via DNLA to my Playstation. All in all, a tidy setup.

The TV signal flows to three boxes in the house. One master box in the lounge with full functionality and the hard-disk for recording programs. The other two remote boxes stream content from the master and are all hard wired. The added advantage of these remote boxes is that they also carry the internet signal. There is a cat5 connector at the back of each – so in lounge the AT&T box connects by wire to my Playstation 3 and one of my other boxes connects via wire to my Apple TV. This gives a great signal to each instead of running them wirelessly.

Television

The television service is great. The UI is terrific and the speed of response when pressing a button is pretty much instant. DirecTV was terrible for button lag, and Comcast Cable a few years ago no better. This is clean, slick and looks nice. We now have true On-Demand and the selection is pretty good. The movies and programs stream instantly to the box. Couple the television service with the ability to access and set recordings via your iPhone, iPad and the web – it’s a very compelling offering. You can even watch selected programmes on your iPhone.

The technology is similar to any other DVR service to be honest, but the speed of the box and the UI helps a lot. As the box can take a lot of capacity you can record up to four channels at once and there are some cool features such as a news wall where you can watch all the news channels live in one place and select. Moving up and down the channels is good too as you can continue to watch your programme, but as you scroll through the menu you see live previews of all the stations.

Internet

Internet is internet is internet really. Not much to say. It’s a little slower (if you can call 22Mb/s slow) than my Comcast service, but I expected that. However, what I like so far is the service seems to be more consistent and reliable at all times of the day. Comcast offered speed boost – the first few meg download artificially fast, the rest of the download slower. Not this. The ping rate is a little slower (which can lead to problems with online gaming) but I’ve not had any issues playing on my PS3 games such as FIFA11. A speed test result is below:

Telephone

You use your conventional telephones with AT&T U-verse, they plug in the wall in the same way, but after that it’s very different. AT&T U-verse voice carries your calls over their internet network with VoIP. Everything works in the same way, but you get some very strong online features to manage your calls and voicemail. There’s also an iPhone and Blackberry app that lets you access your voicemail while out and about.

As I had my traditional phone service with AT&T before the install, the move was straight forward. My number was easily ported with no issues.

My concern with AT&T voice over IP is that I had a bad experience with Vonage last year. Calls would echo, or some sides of the conversation could not be heard. I’ve not experienced any issues yet. Calling internationally is fine too – good clarity – and the cost is lower than previous offerings – 7c/min to the UK (I think I paid 12c previously)

Here’s a screen grab from my iPhone:

Mobile/iPhone/iPad

And finally, the iPhone and iPad apps work really well if you want to schedule recordings on the move. The site for U-verse at Yahoo! is great too for searching and managing your recording.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased with the result of the install.

I started looking for alternatives – and I have a solution even better than I originally expected. Netflix + a Roku box.

Everyone is aware that Netflix allows you to rent DVDs that are mailed to your house, no timelimit – and then you return them when ready. However, they also have a streaming video service. To access this, you need a $100 Roku box. This Roku box, which cannot be purchased in stores, has to be ordered direct from the Roku site. There’s a 30 day, no-risk return policy, so I thought I’d give it a go. I’ve been blown away.

I subscribed to the lowest Netflix monthly rate, $8.99. This allows you to rent one DVD at a time, but also have access to thousands of online movies to either stream via your PC or Mac, or via a box connected to your TV, which in turn is connected to your home network.

The box arrived today. It’s cool, it’s quiet and the user interface is great. I had concerns about picture quality, but they have been alleviated.

I have the box connected wirelessly to a wireless router which is around around 80ft away. I have hooked up the box to the wireless network and it has a medium signal strength. This is more than enough to enjoy fast start speeds, high quality pictures and HD.

I switched on the box, hooked it into my TV’s HDMI connection – all the available sockets to connect are on the back of the Roku box. The startup was easy. After a quick firmware check, the upgrade was done – and I was ready to go. The box gave me a code I had to punch into the Netflix.com site to authorise – and I was away. The only problem now is that I have around 90+ movies in my queue.

It gets very addictive just searching and adding to your list… I highly recommend this box and I expect more video and OnDemand suppliers will start to leverage this easy-to-use technology soon.

You can buy the box now, through Amazon at my store by clicking here.

With companies shelling out an average of $3m for 30 seconds, there were some great ones – and some not so great. NBC announced they had generated a record $261m for Superbowl ads. My favourite had to be the CareerBuilder.com one. Extremely funny.

I have a trusty original Sling box from a few years ago and credit to Sling, they still support and maintain it. In fact, I’ve just downloaded some new firmware.

The application itself for the Blackberry is a little on the large size at around 1.5MB. If you haven’t got a newer type of Blackberry, you should even go there. Once I installed, I was using it quite quickly. I had one hitch in that you have to use the Windows version of SlingPlayer to configure mobile viewing – you can’t do this with the Mac. So, I had to go and drag out my trusty laptop running Vista! Once I had configured the software, the Slingbox and my Blackberry – I was nearly there! A quick tweak of my router to allow the correct port through for remote viewing and I was there.

Sling make this really easy for you with great FAQs, online help, video – and specific walkthroughs for various routers. The application itself works like a dream over wifi – and also over 3G. It can even at a push with a full signal scrape by on EDGE/GPRS – but not well.

I’m extremely pleased with this and it was well worth the wait – I’m just waiting to see how long it is before mobile operators start getting grumpy about bandwidth…

I first had to pick my avatar. I was tempted to make it look dashing and cool, but my conscience got the better of me and I tried to keep it as true to life as possible.

Once in, I arrived at my private sea-side?apartment. Very relaxing overlooking the quay. I then ventured into the town, hit the stores, played pool, had a go at bowling, then looked at some of the art work.

It seemed pretty busy in the virtual world this evening and it looks to be very popular.

Here I am sat on a bench in the plaza watching the world go by… (if anyone is looking for me my handle is NMANSA)

You can find out more about Playstation Home here. Below there’s a short video clip of me in the Plaza for the first time having a boogie with some other randoms…!

I’ve been using it non-stop and getting great results. I’ve had the Sony DCR-PC9E MiniDV Handycam since 2001, it served the family well, but a change was needed. Moving from tape to memory card is a delight.

To take the flash memory out of the camera, download and edit on the PC in full HD has to be seen to be believed. The camera is well spec’d with:

• 30p progressive
• AVCHD
• HDMI sockets
• Full HD 1080 (1920×1080 recording)
• Dolby Digital
• Cinema mode – 24p

I’ve created a very quick clip in the cool Cinema 24 mode, downloaded it to my iMac and edited it in iMovie and then uploaded it to Vimeo.com (which I highly recommend – if you haven’t got an account yet, get one!)

Here’s an embedded test clip. For full HD, you need to visit the Vimeo.com site.

First trial of my new Canon Vixia HF100 – in HD from David Burden on Vimeo.

My old Harmony 880 has given up the ghost, so today I bought the new Harmony One remote. So far, so good, it’s a great remote control.

Setup was very easy via the Logitech web interface – and I just transferred my old remote control settings over. I lost my customisations, but within a few minutes, I’d put them back on.

A very nice remote. I’d highly recommend it. You can find out more about it, by visiting the Logitech website by clicking here.

I am now going to encode all my DVDs into DivX and store them on my home PC’s external hard-drive. Now I have my own media center DVD library that can stream from my PC to my PS3. I’ve never used my PS3 so much since I bought it. The ability to just select any DVD or film I have from a menu and play it is superb.

Other functions the firmware update offers are voice changer and a new pattern for the visual player.

Find out more from the Sony PS3 site here

Nonetheless, I have very fond memories of working at such a prestigious and ground-breaking company. Something it still is 25 years on.

Channel Four Television 25 years microsite

Channel Four News looks back at the last 25 years here

If you are interested, the fantastic building I used to work in, is on this home page and I was on the second floor to the left! The structure is still recognised as a great landmark in London. It’s something that is completely endearing and you can find out more about the building from the link above, or on this dedicated site:

About Channel Four

Lastly, here is a terrible picture of me outside my place of work in 1996. Thankfully style and dress have progressed from 11 years ago…

Can you think of an employer that put you on a certain path, or shaped you into what you do now? Which employer has left the biggest impact on you from your past? I’d be interested to know. All the best Channel Four – here’s to the next 25 years…

He was addressing the annual Conservative Party Conference as a warm up for a live satellite link with the Governor of California. The audio of Arnold waiting in turn has leaked and you can hear him critiquing Boris’ delivery.

An Austrian-American giving feedback on English pronunciation and presentation hits a raw nerve – but Arnold is completely right! Good stuff.

A quick search of the interwebnetworksuperhighway showed that this little devil belonged to Kontiki, the service that many VOD services use – and I have installed - such as 4OD, BBC iPlayer and Sky Anytime.

The problem is, this little unit works in a peer-to-peer fashion so that even when you’re not watching, or using the application, it’s trying to share your downloaded files with others. There’s no way to throttle the bandwidth or CPU usage – so your computer dies. Well, mine did anyway. Viewing my bandwidth logs, BBC iPlayer has exchanged around 130MB of data over a 24 hour period. It’s a good job I have an unlimited usage cable broadband account.

So, all of these applications have been uninstalled this evening. But it doesn’t end there – kservice.exe lingered on even when the applications were removed.

To truly uninstall it you need to follow some complicated guidelines. Alternatively, you can use a tool that Sky have hidden in its pages. You can download it here.

All is now ship-shape and Bristol fashion

What seems a clever touch is that Apple are teaming up with Starbucks for their WiFi connections. However, it doesn’t stop there. If you stroll into a Starbucks, the iPod touch will automatically detect the WiFi connection and sign you on with no fuss.

Here’s the clever stuff – if you go to the iPod store menu option, you’ll actually see the track that is currently playing in the Bucks coffee shop – and you can do a one-click to buy it. This functionality will be rolled out slowly across the US over time. You can find out more at http://www.apple.com/itunes/starbucks/

New York: October 2, 2007

Seattle: October 2, 2007

San Francisco Bay Area: November 7, 2007

Los Angeles: February 2008

Chicago: March 2008

There has been some controversy with the BBC only supporting Microsoft Media Player, but I’m sure in time, this will be overcome. You can sign up to the beta here http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayerbeta/

You do not need Windows Media Centre to run it, just the latest version of Windows Media Player – infact as long as you have a DLNA enabled device/PC you should be good to go. This is how I got it going:

• On my Windows XP machine, I made sure I had the latest version of Windows Media Player. You can download it here
• Library > Media Sharing – then click Share My Media
• On your PS3, ensure that you have Media Sharing enabled under your Settings
• Your should then be able to see “Search for Media Servers” on your Pictures, Video and Music options which you should click to search for your PC
• The rest should be easy and you should be able to connect to your PC and view everything in your Shared Videos and Shared Music folders

There are a few quirks right now, such as the delay in getting the video to start, some pictures do not appear, there seems to be a maximum amount of pictures that can be displayed in a folder – apart from that, it’s very useable.

I wonder if the new PS3 update 1.9 due out anytime soon will address these issues?

In the time I have found to play on the PS3, I’ve loved it. I have two games so far, Resistance: Fall of Man, which is awesome, and F1 Championship Edition which is so real on my high-definition TV, visitors to Chez Burden think the F1 on the telly is real. The PS3 is a great machine and I also love the online gaming functionality and the ability to play games via my PSP linked through to the PS3. Downloading HD trailers and demo games is pretty quick with the PS3 linked up to my Linksys wireless N router. Something that is changing the way we do things at home is that the PS3 is becoming a central media centre for pictures, video and browsing the web. My friend Paul who works at Microsoft has called me a traitor – I’m sorry Paul.

I am still trying to upload all my photos to my new Flickr account that I opened on April 20. Even though I have a very fast internet connection at home and most evenings I let the computer run overnight, I’m still around 2000+ photos away from completion. Flickr really needs to create a better way to upload multiple photos. I find the software uploader a little flaky and liable to break. It needs an FTP facility for sure, but reading the forums, people have been asking for this for a long time now.

As I write this, I’ve been saddened to hear that the 19th century boat, built in 1869, The Cutty Sark, has been pretty much destroyed by what looks like a suspicious fire. I have great memories of going out in Greenwich with friends with the fantastic Sark rising up from the dry dock for all to see. I hope much can be saved and renovated.

Compare and contrast if you will, UK versus the US:

http://www.apple.com/uk/getamac/ads/

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Little fat man who sold his soul, lyrics (c) Mr David Bowie, 2006

Little fat man who sold his soul

Little fat man who sold his dream

Chubby little loser

Chubby little loser

National joke

Pathetic little fat man

No-one’s bl**dy laughing

The clown that no-one laughs at

They all just wish he’d die

He’s so depressed at being useless

Fat man takes his own life

He so depressed at being hated

Fatty takes his own life {no…}

Fatso takes his own life

Blows his bloated face off {no…}

He blows his stupid brains out

He sold his soul for a shot at fame

Catchphrase the wig and jokes are lame

He’s got no style

He’s got no grace

He’s banal and facile, he’s a fat waste of space

See his pug-nosed face

{repeat to fade}

The service will cost you a monthly fee in addition to your current subscription and you won’t need an engineer to visit, it’ll be a remote automatic install. Let’s wait and see!

You can find loads of Comcast Tivo, or will it be Tivo Comcast UI images at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wahiggins3/sets/72157594469660371/detail/

Does this look cool or what?

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

I would expect battery life to be a problem. However, I love the way it lays out SMS conversations, the way you make calls, the web browsing techniques and the way you flip between the album covers and the track listing. It’s currently only going to be offered on the US Cingular EDGE network (2.75G) – and it also has WiFi. The specifications do not say as yet?if it will hook up with a corporate Exchange network.

Up to now, I always thought as Nokia having the most intuitive interface, now it looks as if it has serious competition.

On the news, shares in RIM (Blackberry) fell around 11% and Apple’s shares rose about 8%

It looks as if the 8GB will retail around $599 and the 4GB $499, the iPhone will be on sale in June in the US and end of the year in Europe. Probably not until 2008 in Asia.

The FCC have yet to approve the phone and this could take up to two months.

Other cool things in the announcement include:

• No stylus, multi-finger touches possible on the touch screen, the product/software controlling this has been patented, far more accurate than others
• iPhone runs on OS X
• 160 pixels per inch
• Device is thinner than Motorola Q or Blackjack
• Bottom speaker
• Advanced sensors throughout. It will know it’s own?rotation, it has a proximity sensor (when you bring it to your?ear it turns off the display and sound), ambient light sensor
• To unlock your phone “swish” your finger across the bottom of the screen?
• WiFi and Bluetooth
• Want to develop an app for the iPhone? Just build a widget – a lightweight mini-program based on Web 2.0 standards like Ajax and RSS
• Scroll through contract with finger “swish”
• QWERTY soft keyboard with automatic error correcting
• IMAP and POP, not sure about Exchange, however push IMAP will be available (similar to Blackberry)
• Yahoo is partnering with Apple to provide free push IMAP e-mail to iPhone users. This is a big blow for RIM (Blackberry) because RIM charges big monthly service fee for that same e-mail
• Google search built in

Just two last little issues. Linksys own the copyright to the name iPhone and Go Daddy Software Inc own the domain iphone.com – over to the lawyers.

And, of course, I must not forget the other exciting announcment today, Apple TV. I want Apple TV and an iPhone. The thought of getting hold of an iPhone takes me back to my nightmares of securing a Playstation 3!

http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page5323.asp