Introducing Suzi Heath, MyFreeview|HD reviewer

As you all know the lovely folk at Freeview have given us three MyFreeview|HD approved DTR devices to be reviewed. I was approached by Mauricio and jumped at the chance to be reviewing the high end Magic TV 3500 DTR model.

Freeview is the name given to New Zealand’s free-to-air digital television and radio service. There is a one off initial cost to this service though which is the setup of a UHF aerial, if your house is not already equipped, and a set top box. I will not go into any more detail as my fellow reviewers have already done such a brilliant job.

I love technology, but I sometimes feel like it’s a bit of a love/hate relationship. Up until now I have only had one (unsuccessful) attempt at getting Freeview. I tried going through a computer PVR (Personal Video Recorder) setup and after a confusing session of downloading software, codecs and goodness knows what else I discovered that half of my house is not wired for the UHF aerial! After this rather unsuccessful attempt I have been pondering buying a UHF aerial for my part of the house but never got round to it, and once Prime came to Freeview my better half laid claim to my unused TV Tuner card.

As a busy university student I always find that the programs I want to watch are on at the times you are never really home and am looking forward to having access to a program guide and pre-booking my shows.

Also Friday night television is fantastic at the moment, but there is always a dilemma at 8.30pm as to whether I should be watching Rove on TV3 or “Thank God you’re Here” on TV One. At the moment Rove normally wins, but once I have the DTR up and running I can watch one and record the other. Or if I feel so inclined record both.

I am hoping that the Magic TV’s “Step-by-step guided setup, clear menus, 8-day electronic programme guide (EPG) and 'at-a-glance' front panel display, all combine to provide easy operation for the whole family” will prove true. Although I have a couple of offers for help already (I think Sbiddle is eying up my unit already) I plan to go it alone from day 1.

The idea of set and forget time slot record option really appeals to me and I will be interested to see if it looks for the program name to record, or just the time slot i.e. if a program has a 2 hour special will it pick this up? This may be a hard one to test, so if anyone knows of any 2 hour specials, or changing of a television series time slot give me a heads up so I can put it through its paces.

About the author: Suzi Heath is a 20 year old university student studying towards a Bachelor of Commerce and Administration majoring in Information Systems and E-Commerce. As a retail electronics sales consultant, she has spent many an hour explaining the finer points of Freeview to customers, but up until now has not dabbled much in it herself. Suzi is looking forward to feeding her currently dormant trashy television habit and also showing everyone that you don’t need an abundance of testosterone and long career in IT to take charge of some technology!



Other related posts:
The Magic that keeps giving...
Testing the Magic TV DTR: grandparents
The Magic MTV3600TD arrives!