oono MiniDAB One MP3 Player

How the heck did we miss the launch of this? The oono MiniDAB One MP3 Player is a pretty powerful little gadget, which fits in with our remit to cover neat little gadgets.

This is a combined DAB radio / MP3 player / Voice Recorder / FM radio. It's small (10cm tall), has a built-in spreaker, unlike many DAB radios, and can record in the MP3 format (pretty unique). It also has a "Line in" socket, which copes with recording in from a hi-fi or from a mic (supplied). Recorded radio, voice or music are all encoded to MP3 (so there's no need for conversion). It's powered by a rechargeable battery, and takes SD cards.

Impressive, and we've found a supplier offering a free 2Gig SD card too. More at www.radioandtelly.co.uk/oonominidab.html

National DAB Jazz Station launches

As of Christmas Day, the UK now has a national digital jazz station, called "thejazz".
The station is available on DAB Digital Radio as well as on Sky Digital channel 0113, NTL cable channel 961 and online at www.thejazz.com.

Top Up TV Anytime Reviewed

The Radio & Telly Team has now uploaded its review of the Top Up TV Anytime service, and the Thomson DTI-6300 set-top box. We'll be updating this review with extra information and answers to our regular's questions in the coming days.

For our first impressions, and some screenshots, please see www.radioandtelly.co.uk/topuptvanytime.html

FrequencyCast Show #09 Online

The ninth Frequencycast podcast has just gone online. This latest show features the following:

• BT Vision - At the start of December 2006, full details of BT's new home TV service were released. We take a look at what BT Vision has to offer


• Top Up TV - Boxes now beginning to ship.


• DAB Radio - News of a new DAB radio format coming soon, and a possible new range of national digital radio stations


• BT Home Hub - For our focus section, we look at BT's Home Hub wireless broadband router, and whether your house can live without one.


• Loc8tor - We look at a new gadget to solve the age-old problems... where did I leave my keys (and where's the cat...)


• Tea Dunking - We also dunk a garibaldi

All this, plus a summary of news, and a stack of our listener's questions answered.

You can listen to show 09 online, or download it to your MP3 player from www.frequencycast.co.uk/cast09.html

Share and enjoy!

BT Vision has launched

Today (4th December 2006), details of the BT Vision home TV service have finally been released.

BT Vision provides you with a special set-top box, called a V-Box that connects to the BT Home Hub and BT Total Broadband, to offer the following:

• Freeview - Over 35 TV channels and over 20 radio stations


• On-demand content over the Internet, including a huge library of blockbuster movies and classic films, TV shows, kids TV shows and music videos


• The BT Vision V-Box set-top box lets you pause and rewind live TV, record up to 80 hours on the built-in hard-disk and select live and on-demand content via the easy-to-use on-screen 14-day programme guide. You can also set the box to record your favourite series without missing an episode, just like with Sky+'s Series Link

There's no subscription for BT Vision, and all you pay for is the one-off installation/connection fee. You do need a BT Total Broadband account. For the downloadable content, you can pay in two ways:

• Per-item: Films from £1.99, music videos from 29p, TV shows from 79p and kids programmes from 49p


• Packages: You can subscribe to special packages, such as the TV Shows, Kids and Music packages, each one costing £6 a month. There's no annual contract, so you're not tied in

The BT Vision V-box (worth £199) is being supplied FREE to
BT Total Broadband customers. There's a connection fee of £30, and as the installation requires an engineer's visit, there's an installation fee of £60 - including V-Box, Home Hub and PC/laptop adapter setup.

More details: Sign up to BT Total Broadband , BT Vision information, our BT Vision Mailing List.