RSS Feeds
Gadgets
Foxtel Activating That 4th Tuner In Your iQ2
Posted by Nick Broughall at 1:04 PM on September 18, 2008
Back when the latest iteration of Foxtel's iQ launched, one of the most interesting aspects was that there was a 4th HD digital tuner inside, except it was just lying there like some kind of fairytale princess waiting to be woken up by a digital Prince Charming.
Well, the good news is that the digital prince will be rolling out to iQ2 boxes around the country starting next week to activate the sleeping 4th tuner. Once it's been woken up, Princess Tuner Number 4 will allow you to record two channels at the same time as watching a third channel live (at the moment you can only record two and either watch one of them, or watch something already recorded to the HDD or watch one of the On Demand movies or shows).
All iQ2 subscribers should be getting the update rolled out by December 1, but you won't be notified when it's been upgraded. It's also a staggered rollout, so you'll just have to keep trying to record Futurama at the same time as The Daily Show and Star Trek Voyager to see if you've been updated yet.
[Foxtel]
Comments
StevoTheDevo
Posted September 18, 2008 2:23 PM
I'm confused.. it's a 4th tuner but you can only use 3 simultaneously??
"Princess Tuner Number 4 will allow you to record two channels at the same time as watching a third channel live"
Surely you can record three channels simultaneously while watching a fourth live?? or is the 4th tuner for Picture-in-Picture live watching?
ie record 2 channels, watch one fullscreen live and another PiP live?
Nick Broughall
Posted September 18, 2008 3:23 PM
@StevoTheDevo - for clarification the 3rd (4th? Whatever) tuner is dedicated to On Demand - things like your Box Office movies and TV shows that you can watch whenever. It downloads stuff to a section of the hard drive while you watch TV, and can't be accessed or controlled by you - Foxtel decides what goes on your box.
Does that make sense?
James
Posted September 20, 2008 1:20 AM
Sounds like they are simply demultiplexing channels from a singal digital stream. DVB-T can do so with 4 channels per single frequency. Like you can have mulpitle calls on a mobile pone frequency.
PawelG
Posted September 22, 2008 4:19 PM
It should be mentioned that "enabling" extra tuners can be smooth in case of cable boxes (one signal feed for all tuners). But what about satelite boxes that require individual signal feeds to all 4 tuners??? Will we have visit from foxtel installer with quad LNB and extra cable?