Software

It takes a minute or two to scan for channels if you select the country you are in. If you choose to scan all frequencies this takes significantly longer. However this is only useful when you live close to the border of a neighboring country and you want to receive the channels from that country as well.

After the scanning process has been completed the user is asked if he wants to save the scanning information in a file that is automatically loaded every time the software is started. This file can be opened with a text editor if you want to manually edit frequency information and the like, though I can't see a use for this since the scanning process works flawlessly.


The software also has an electronic programming guide and it features working Teletext including subtitles for people with hearing problems. Looking up Teletext pages goes quickly with this device. It is obvious that the device buffers pages the moment Teletext is put to use.


The best feature that this device offers is undoubtedly scheduled recording. Hard disk recorders are often expensive and don't offer a whole lot more than the AirTV. The one advantage that these recorders offer is the ability to record more channels. This is just because DVB-T doesn't offer as many channels as cable TV and other alternatives. The AirTV has the advantage of an easy scheduling of recording and the ability to utilize a much bigger storage capacity since disk storage is very cheap these days. The user can choose to schedule up to 99 recording sessions. I tried to schedule a couple of recording sessions and this worked very well.

The device also features instant recording which can be activated by a a button on the RC or by clicking on a button in the player with your mouse. Instant recording also works great.

One thing that does not work flawlessly is the use of time-shift. For some reason the image tends to show a fair amount of artifacts when TS is used and also stuttering is visible.
Another thing that I noticed during testing is that the program sometimes becomes unstable when TS is enabled or disabled. It is possible that the two problems that I faced when using TS can be fixed by playing with the buffer size or TS time limit. The user can choose to select either a time limit or a buffer limit, but both do essentially the same. The user can also choose on which partition the temporary buffer file should be stored.


If you get a good signal, the image quality is nothing short of excellent! The slight artifact in the upper left corner is a problem of the broadcaster since when I watched this channel later it was gone. In the Netherlands most programs are broadcast in a 704 x 576 resolution. The AirTV puts out a slightly lower resolution video on screen. Maybe this technology is similar to digital anti-shake on cameras. The difference is really only a few pixels in both axis so it isn't a limitation at all, I only included this information for the readers that find the technology behind this device interesting.

When you choose to record video it seems that the video is recorded in its broadcast resolution rather than having some pixels cut off. Honestly I don't know the reason for this but it is really of no importance. The video is recorded in the MPEG-II format and takes up roughly 2GB of data for every hour of video. It would have been nice to be able to change recording resolution, audio/video bit rate and format settings, however you can't have it all. Videos can be easily transcoded with appropriate software for this job. When using the recording function of this device I highly recommend to have a few GB of free space available on the storage medium that you want to record on. The AirTV is capable of receiving and recording a high definition signal but I had no way to test this since such signal isn't broadcast yet.

You may also view the available channels in a grid view. This shows snapshots of every channel and gives you the choice to navigate directly to one. This should make finding that one show much easier, than having to channel surf to it.


The quality and strength of the DVB-T signal differs from place to place. Something significant to note is that the AirTV does not function if you move it around, then the image gets completely scrambled. This is a normal restriction of DVB-T technology but the effect when moving around is a little worse than with a normal DVB-T home box, probably because the AirTV has a smaller 'antenna'. This is not a flaw of the AirLive product but rather a flaw of (current) DVB-T technology and coverage. Viewing your favorite programs live in the train is thus not possible. DVB-H is the standard if you are moving, but this version of DVB is just starting to appear and the first cell phones (like the Nokia N77) are offering the technology to receive this signal.