Because Crave leads such an active social life (read: we can’t stop playing World of Warcraft), we’re very rarely around to watch TV. This means Freeview hard-drive recorders are absolutely invaluable. One of our faves was the excellent Panasonic DMR-EX75, so we’re overjoyed to see an upgrade: the EX77, which allows digital recording to either …

One scary night in the dead of winter, our hero, let’s call him Nate, is settling down for an evening of entertainment with the latest movie in his favourite book-to-movie franchise, Harry Potter. But he’s afraid, he doesn’t want to watch a movie as scary as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix alone. He needs a friend, but …

Despite concerted pleas for its axing from politicians, media commentators and the general public, Big Brother will be back to entertain — and no doubt disgust — the nation in 2008. Auditions for the eighth season of the reality series are now open, with potential housemates required to submit a biographical video to the official show Web site. But given …

No one could argue that when it comes to decoding surround sound Denon has an excellent track record. Its AV receivers are built like battleships and sound amazing. The latest effort from the company, the AVR-3808, includes support for every format known to man and every input ever invented. The 3808 supports up to 7.1 channels, but you’d need a …

We’ve long been keen to see some high-definition material on Freeview, but we understand the issues surrounding available bandwidth — although we’re a little upset that our constant calls for shopping channels to be removed are being ignored. But it now appears that under new proposals announced today, Ofcom wants to do some spectrum jiggling to get HD on Freeview …

If you’re just dying to sacrifice even more trees, we’ve got a treat for you: brand new LCD TVs made from the finest trees Swedx could lay its hands and chainsaws on. Although it’ll tick off Britain’s squirrels, it’ll also help you keep your carbon footprint that all-important notch lower, as it’s partly made from a renewable resource. The new …

So you’ve got all that wonderful home cinema gear installed in your house, everything is looking rosy, but then you make a horrifying discovery. You installed the screen too far away from the HD DVD player and moving it would mess up your whole setup. Enter the HXC5, a box that can send HDMI-compliant video over Cat 5 cable. Crave …

After years of the chunky monkey CRT dominating the living room, LCD and plasma screens have enormously reduced the space needed to house a TV. There’s still an unsightly thick plastic frame round most screens, though — because big frames increase the structural strength of the TV. But now Toshiba has overcome this engineering challenge with the X Series Picture …

When the Toshiba HD-EP30 HD DVD player landed on our doormat yesterday, we were keen to put it next to our long-term loan sample HD-E1 and see how the two players differ. This is especially important because if you’re an American (the EP30 is called the A30 in the US and the E1 is known as the A2), or you …

The pre-Christmas battlegrounds have been drawn as Toshiba announces an AU$400 drop on its budget HD DVD player, the HD-E1. Toshiba is running a $100 cashback offer which reduces the price of the player to $499. The other models to get a discount are the two full 1080p players, which are the HD-EP10 ($699 after $100 cashback) and the HD-XE1 …

We are looking at buying a new DVD player for our new LCD 1080p TV and are looking for recommendations on a model that would provide all of the following: – HDMI Output – 1080 capability / upscaling capability – All regions playing capability (NTSC/PAL) – Will work on European power (220V) – Card-Reader (SD or CF) for digital camera/computer …

Television body Free TV has announced that Networks Nine and TEN will transmit a free seven-day guide for all digital TV viewers from November 19 2007. In what is a win for consumers, most digital receivers and PVRs on the market should be able to receive and use the guides. Initially, Free TV announced that tuners would need to be …

In the latest skirmish in the hi-def format war, the HD DVD promotion group announced on Monday that in Europe, HD DVD is the king of the ‘attach rate’ — the average number of discs each person buys for their player. The headline number was that HD DVD owners are buying, on average, 3.8 movies each, with Blu-ray owners buying …

If you want the best picture from your DVD player, you’ll want to spend more than the £20 some companies charge for their players. Oppo, a company not especially well known in the UK but popular in the US, is bringing its range of upscaling DVD players to the UK, starting with the DV-981HD. So, what’s the big attraction of …

BT has a Vision. You can tell it’s important because of the capital V. It’s going to be a revolution in television — in BT’s words it will be ‘the next generation of television’. Crave tootled along to the launch this morning. The reality, as always, was somewhat more prosaic. BT Vision, it turns out, is a service that uses …