uk-motss: gay life online, before the web

The uk-motss logo, created by Jimmy Egerton

Something of a diversion from the usual topics of this blog, but I thought I’d write a few words about something that happened twenty years ago. That’s before the world wide web, and in fact before most people in the UK could even access the internet.

Back then, TCP/IP connections were pipe-dreams for most people, and email was transferred over the JANet network or via UUCP. Online communities took the form of newsgroups or email lists, and the main resource for gay people was a newsgroup called soc.motss.

In the summer of 1990, after a few UK posters to soc.motss – then primarily a US group – had met for drinks in London a few times, most frequently at the now closed Brief Encounter, I created the uk-motss mailing list. I think it qualifies as the first gay resource on the internet for people in the UK (there were gay areas on systems like Cix, Compuserve and so on, but they required subscriptions to specific systems).

Back then, we had to give the list address in four or five email formats, to ensure people could reach us whether they were connected to UKNet, JANet, BITNET or the slowly developing commercial internet – Demon’s home internet service, bringing affordable internet to ordinary people didn’t appear for two more years, and it was a while longer before the internet gained mass acceptance.

Launched on the 27^th of June 1990, and kindly hosted by the now defunct IBM PC User Group (before later moving to various other hosts), uk-motss lasted for sixteen years in all; I did the day to day admin for the first seven years, writing software that was designed to help maintain the privacy of members as much as possible. After that, I passed on the work to a team of volunteers.

Back then, privacy was very important; twenty years ago, far fewer people were out and open about their sexuality. Public attitudes were tremendously different, and few people would have considered discussing aspects of their gay lives with colleagues, for example.

We talked about everything; for some it was the first contact they’d had with other gay people. For others, it was simply a space to chat with friends – or occasionally have furious arguments – and for me, for a long while, it was a labour of love.

Over the years, the list peaked at around 400 members, and I met a huge number of great people; I know some people met partners through the list, and found it an invaluable aid in coming out, or coming to terms with aspects of their lives, at a time when there was so much less support.

It seems remarkable now, when there are sites like Gaydar to provide dating and chat, and politicians who are openly gay, that there was a time when few of us would have dreamed of those changes happening in such a relatively short time.

I’m tremendously proud to have created uk-motss back in 1990, and to have met so many people through it. And I’ve gone on to be involved in other online communities, since, first creating more mailing lists under the Digital Diversity umbrella, then the Toppy.org.uk forum in 2005 and most recently taking over the running of BLUF a year ago this month.

I shall post a little more on the 27^th. But in the meantime, if anyone was a member and wishes to get in touch, please do drop me a line, or post a comment here.

Satellite TV on your PC

Originally published in Personal Computer World

If you’ve not gone digital yet, you’ve only got a few years before it’s unavoidable. Nigel Whitfield explores the options for satellite TV on your PC.

TV on your PC isn’t anything new; there have been tuner cards around for years, allowing you to pick up analogue stations and record them on your hard drive. But broadcasting is changing to digital, and the existing analogue signal is set to switch off by 2012. There’ll be more channels, high definition and exciting new services.

While many people will just choose a set top box, digital TV and the PC are natural bedfellows, allowing you to use the PC to record programmes, and put it at the heart of an entertainment system. Take a look around the PC stores, though, and you’ll get the impression that where TV on your PC is concerned, terrestrial reception is the only game in town, with tuners for analogue or Freeview easily available. But what if you want channels that aren’t available on Freeview, or you can’t even get a signal? You could be forgiven for thinking that you can’t do satellite TV on your PC – but you’d be wrong. And in this article we’ll explain how you can tune in.

To many people in the UK, satellite is synonymous with Sky’s subscription package; in most of the rest of Europe, however, that’s not the case – in many countries, free satellite services are much better established, partly because there isn’t the extensive analogue terrestrial coverage that most people in the UK take for granted. And, even in the UK, a subscription isn’t a necessary part of satellite television. Both the BBC and ITV broadcast their channels ‘Free to air’ or FTA, which means there’s no encryption needed – and that includes the BBC’s HD trial channel, and the ‘extra’ digital channels like BBC3, BBC4 and CBBC.

And just as terrestrial broadcasting is a standard, so too is digital satellite, using a system known as DVB-S; so a DVB-S receiver, whether stand-alone or PC-based, is all you need to be able to pick up extra FTA channels. Why pay Sky then? They provide an electronic programme guide, and also ‘regionalisation,’ which ensures, for example, that people who watch ITV via Sky automatically see the correct version for their area on channel 103.

On a standard satellite receiver, not having a programme guide can be annoying – most channels simply broadcast Now and Next info – and it’s not always easy to move channels around. But on a PC, it’s much easier to overcome those issues; you can download programme information from the internet, organise channels how you like, and even record directly to the hard drive. So whether you can’t get Freeview,  you want to sample the BBC’s HD service, or you just fancy a few extra channels, a satellite receiver for your PC could be the solution.

First steps

First, you need a dish; if there’s not one set up already, don’t despair – they’re actually quite simple to set up, with a compass and a £20 satellite finder, and you don’t even need to fit it to the side of your building; you can site a small dish on the patio if you like, as long as it faces in the right direction. Our sister magazine ActiveHome explained exactly how to install and align a dish – an article that I’ll be adding to GoneDigital soon; there are plenty of web sites that will help you calculate the alignment, such as www.satsig.net/ssazelm.htm. If you do have a dish, remember to check out ‘Satellite basics’ – it’s not as simple to share it between an existing receiver and your PC as you might think.

You’ll also need to decide what sort of receiver you want to use; although in our visits to retailers all we could find on the high street was a PCI satellite card, there are also receivers available that can connect via USB or FireWire, which may be easier for some installations, and essential if you’re using a laptop.

Choosing the right card or adaptor isn’t just a matter of deciding if you want internal or external, though – there are other things to bear in mind too. For example, some cards will come with a remote control, or with AV inputs, so that you can pass signals from a DVD player or VCR through them, giving your PC more of a media-centre feel.

There are also two other key factors. First is encryption – it’s used to protect pay channels, and in the satellite world, what looks like a PC card slot on a receiver or adaptor is known as a Common Interface slot; equipment with one of these can accept a CAM, or Conditional Access Module, into which the smart card for a subscription package works. It means, essentially, that you can pick the CAM for the service you want to subscribe to, and you’re not forced to buy a receiver from the TV company.

The big fly in the ointment – and a potential stumbling block for UK users – is Sky; there’s no official CAM available for Sky’s encryption, so you usually need to have one of their receivers and a card, even for free to view channels, like Channel 4 or five. We say ‘usually,’ because a programmable CAM, called the Dragon CAM, can emulate Sky’s encryption, but the card still needs to be put in a genuine Sky box from time to time for regular updates, even if it’s a free card. For most people in the UK, this really means that it’s best not to bother with a CI slot and CAM, and simply use satellite on your PC for Free To Air channels.

The second factor you need to consider is High Definition. We said earlier that the satellite standard is called DVB-S; that’s true, but only half the story. There’s a newer standard called DVB-S2, which is so far used by only a few channels, but is likely to be used by more in future, as they move to HD; the BBC’s HD service uses DVB-S right now, but may switch, so if you want to be futureproof, you should invest in a card or add-on receiver than supports DVB-S2.

Software considerations

It’s also worth considering the software you want to use on your PC – we’ll look at some of the options later. But for now, keep in mind that if you want to use a particular piece of software, rather than just accepting what comes with a satellite card or adaptor, check the compatibility list first – some programs are very picky, and having the ‘BDA’ drivers necessary for Windows Media Centre is no guarantee that a card will work with other software. In many cases, it may be best to decide which software you want to use and choose a card or external satellite adaptor that’s known to be compatible.

If you want to watch HD channels, remember that you’ll also need a codec that understands the H.264 MPEG4/AVC format used on many of them; and that goes hand in hand with a powerful PC. It’s hard to give a definite figure for how powerful a PC you’ll need – it will depend on the satellite card you have, and the graphics card – but it’s likely you’ll need at least a 3Ghz Pentium 4 for smooth playback; dual core machines will perform better.

There are three main choices of codec for playing back the HD streams – CoreAVC (www.coreavc.com), Cyberlink’s H.264 codec, included with PowerDVD 7 (www.cyberlink.com), and Elecard’s Moonlight H.264 (www.elecard.com); expect to pay around £30 for a codec if you don’t have one already – if you’ve already equipped your computer for playback of HD discs, it should be capable of managing satellite, since the broadcast bit rate is lower than you’ll find on a disc; August’s Hands On Hardware and Performance columns cover the requirements for HD in more detail.

Turn on, tune in

If you just want to dip your toe in the waters with satellite TV, without worrying about HD – or you plan to upgrade to a graphics card that will do it justice later – you don’t need to worry about a codec; you just need software that will tune in your satellite card or adaptor, and play the MPEG2 video streams, and maybe record them on your hard drive.

We experimented with the Kworld DVB-S 100 card, available from Maplin (www.maplin.co.uk) for around £60. Other manufacturers making cards and adaptors include ElGato, Hauppage, Technisat and TwinHan. The Kworld is a basic card which comes with its own software and a copy of CyberLink’s PowerCinema 5, which effectively turns your PC into a media centre, so you can record from satellite, and play back music, video and photos on the PC, without needing Microsoft’s Media Centre.

In use, however, we found configuration a nightmare; to successfully scan all the channels, it was necessary to power the computer off completely if an error occurred – otherwise PowerCinema would claim to find over 200 channels, but actually duplicate the first nine many times! We had better luck with ProgDVB (www.progdvb.com),  which can be downloaded free, though it’s a more bare-bones application, without the slick interface of PowerCinema – but it can still record shows, display TV full screen, and will decode HD streams, as long as you have a suitable codec installed; Elecard will sell you a version bundled with a H.264 codec for

Setup is a little bewildering for newcomers; you need to use the Diseqc settings screen to specify what sort of LNB you have – the defaults should be ok for the UK – and which satellite it’s pointing at, before you can scan for channels. Diseqc is a satellite standard that’s used to select between multiple LNBs, or control movable dishes; for a single-dish setup, you’ll typically choose ‘None’ for the Diseqc option, then add an LNB pointing at the Astra 2 satellites, at 28.2 East.

Another solution is the $99 (£50) TS Reader (www.coolstf.com) which is notable for its ability to stream a channel to the VLC media player (www.videolan.org); that opens up the possibility of having the satellite card on one system, and watching a channel on laptop elsewhere in your house – but it’s a much more technical application; for a free media-centre type system, check out GBPVR (www.gbpvr.com), though as with other packages, you’ll find limited compatibility with satellite cards.

All this, of course, is largely academic if you want to watch channels that are Free To View on Sky’s system; by the time you’ve obtained a Dragon CAM, and paid for a satellite PCI card or adaptor with a CI slot, the costs will soon be mounting up – and you still won’t have a programme guide without hunting around on the net. One alternative, if you do want to be able to record from channel’s on Sky’s system is CielPlus (www.cielplus.com), and add-on card for some Sky boxes that provides a USB port and lets you access the data using TS Reader – and even schedule recordings via the Sky programme guide.

Ultimately, of course, the big question is “Is it worth it?” And there’s no clear answer to that – for a future-proof card that can receive DVB-S2, you could pay over £100, plus the cost of your dish and LNB. And you still won’t be able to receive Channel 4 and five easily; but on the other hand, if you simply want HD, and have a powerful enough PC, or would like access to a range of foreign TV stations, using your PC to record satellite TV is likely to be cheaper than buying a stand-alone satellite PVR – and potentially a lot more flexible.

TopUpTV Anytime PVR

Originally published in Active Home magazine

TopUpTV Anytime Thomson DTR: An innovative way of bringing extra choice to Freeview

TopUpTV has been broadcasting a few extra channels on the digital terrestrial platform for a couple of years, at £7.99; now, however, they’ve launched their own PVR, which they call a Digital Television Recorder, the Thomson DTI 6300-16. Priced at £180 a month, this is a twin tuner PVR with an extra trick up its sleeve. Add a subscription card and a monthly sub to TopUpTV Anytime and the box will record programmes broadcast overnight, from a selection of channels, giving you around 100 programmes to view when you want; most programmes are replaced within a week, so in theory there’s always something for you to see – and around 15-20 hours space to record things you want to watch from Freeview. The paid for programmes are accessed by a special button on the remote, which has a look and feel not dissimilar to the Sky one.

As a PVR, there are all the things you’d expect – pause live TV, record two shows simultaneously – except between about 11pm and 8am, when the box will be busy recording the paid for content – and a 14 day EPG, provided by InView. When the box is first plugged in, it uses the 8 day Freeview EPG, and then receives the 14 day one overnight; setup is simple and painless.

During our review, the box received a firmware update to address some serious bugs, but a few niggles remain. Changing channels, for example, often resulted in the screen briefly going black, and subtitles don’t work either – a major omission. We also had problems with the box not recognising 4:3 content and switching our TV correctly. TopUp TV tell us these should be resolved in a future update.

Besides those, there are niggles in the interface. The EPG navigation needs lots of scrolling and takes some time to get used to, and overall, the screens tend to look a little bland and uninspired. If you want to record two things simultaneously at night, you’ll be warned that you may not receive some of the Anytime content. And sometimes, you just have to wait for a screen display to time out, because pressing the button you want doesn’t seem to work otherwise. On the positive side, the new firmware we received provides a series link, so you can record every episode of a programme easily.

The remote control’s good, though; it will control the volume on many TVs, and is well laid out – but when there’s a perfectly good ‘Info’ button, why can’t that be used for programme info in the library, instead of pressing Yellow?

Of course, to an extent TopUpTV Anytime will stand or fall on the quality of the programming; and we weren’t overly impressed. If you want extra stuff for the kids, great. If you want ancient CSIs, great. Or ‘Badly dubbed porn.’ But what you don’t get is the cream of the programmes from the channels available; if there really are experts choosing the shows, they seem distinctly low-brow ones, and the list on the Programmes page of the TopUp website didn’t thrill either. Even the add-on Picture Box movie service, while it may show films without ads, tends to show ones that have an alarming habit of popping up on Freeview channels anyway.

All in all, while the idea of using overnight slots for pay TV is sound – and arguably a better use than quiz channels – we feel that the Thomson box needs its faults addressed and, for many people, the content available simply isn’t a compelling enough reason to choose this box over a competing PVR.

Topfield TF5800 PVR

This is, more or less, the article that started it all. I liked the ‘Toppy’ so much I bought one, and set up the Toppy.org.uk web site, and started to learn much more than previously about digital TV. Originally published in Computeractive.

Topfield TF5800PVR: Twin tuner Freeview hard disk recorder , with USB connection to PC

Recording from Freeview can be a hassle; unless you have two set-top boxes, you have to watch analogue TV while you record the digital channel. Not with Topfield’s TF5800PVR though. It’s got two tuners built in, and a 160Gb hard drive. So there’s no more hunting for tapes, and as well as watching one channel while recording another, you can record two at the same time and play back a previous recording as well. It’s not the only machine to do that, but it is the first in the UK that also has a USB connection to transfer recordings to your PC, a 160Gb hard drive – which is enough for around 80 hours recording – and a CAM slot, so you can use it with the TopUpTV  service,  which supplies a few extra pay TV channels.

The Topfield is slightly smaller than a video recorder, and very quiet in operation – though if you’re sensitive you might hear the disk clicking; there’s no fan. It has two SCART sockets, analogue and digital audio connectors for your HiFi, plus the USB 2.0 port, and a TV out for old sets with no SCART. Setup was easy, though it took around 5 minutes to scan for all the available channels, dividing them into TV and Radio (but with BBC Parliament oddly listed as Radio). You can create a favourite channels list, so you don’t scroll through all the channels you never watch, but the manual isn’t too helpful – it’s not been changed much from the continental version, which uses different buttons on the remote.

As a box for watching TV, the Topfield does what you’d expect, then some more. You can press Pause to stop a live TV programme, and then carry on up to an hour later, skipping the ads to catch up. And if you’ve done that, you can save the ‘time slip’ buffer to disk too, though the menu is a little fiddly to track down, and if you change channels before starting a recording, the buffer resets. There’s the full Freeview 7 day programme guide, though the display shows four channels at a time, so you have to scroll a lot to see it all. You can, though, download alternative ‘TAP’ programs from the net, to change features such as the guide, which is a nice touch.

We found recording works well, with weekly, weekday, weekend, and daily timer options, which you can set directly from the programme guide. You can also transfer recordings to your PC and convert them for burning to DVD. It’s not that quick though – around 1 minute for every five minutes of TV via USB2 or real time via USB 1.1.

There are a few niggles – some menu options are tucked away, and there are no bookmarks to help you go back to where you stopped watching a recording. And the maximum fast forward speed is only 6x. But on the whole, it’s simple to use, and after only a couple of days we found we watched TV when we wanted, instead of when the programmes were broadcast. And unlike Sky+, you don’t have to pay monthly for the privilege.