Technomate tm twin software

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With digital, Sky went from being a niche product, to something 20 per cent of the country owned, and it sort of lost a bit of its mystique. But now, there's a way to get excited about satellite TV again, while at the same time getting access to functionality that you can't with either Freesat or Sky boxes.

It will come as no surprise to Linux fans that a lot of cool stuff is possible when you use a bit of hardware built around the open-source operating system.

If it all sounds a bit much, consider that Android uses a Linux foundation, and you'll see it's not all that much to be scared about. Practically speaking, what Linux allows is a lot of flexibility, we'll get to the nuts and bolts of that within this review, but the core is you get a flexible filesystem, the ability to use plugins and apps to increase the usefulness of the box.

You also get a degree of openness that you don't tend to see with other set top boxes. In this case, Open VIX is the operating system, it's used in several different makes of set-top-box, and has a lot of good third-party plugins available, and a handy user community that is happy to help you learn how to get the best out of your box.

As you'd expect, there are two LNB inputs - and an output too, to send a signal to another receiver. For standard definition, there are scart sockets and composite RCA jacks. For adding hard drives, or other accessories, there are a pair of USB sockets, along with the Ethernet socket, to give the TM-Twin access to your network, to allow streaming.

On the front, there are two CI sockets, which can take PC cards for conditional access modules, and a single card slot.

To use these, you'll need two cables coming from your dish to the box. If you only have one, you can add another if your dish LNB can support it, or you can buy a new LNB that can have as many as eight outputs. This is very handy if you have a lot of rooms that you want to feed TV to from satellite sources. Two tuners mean you can record two channels at the same time, and actually, there's a lot more you can do here, because if you're recording two things on two different transponders, you can still watch the other channels that are on the same transponders you're recording from.

This gives you options, even if you're recording a lot of stuff. In fact, if you're using the permanent timeshift - allowing you to pause live TV - then you can record up to six channels at once, or seven with it switched off. Of course, those channels need to be on the same transponder, and polarisation as each other. But perhaps the most impressive trick, is if you have a compatible DVB USB tuner, you can connect this to your reciever, download a driver, and have access to freeview channels as well.

This is incredibly clever, and a smashing idea for full-on telly nerds. We didn't have a compatible stick, so couldn't test it, but there's information online about getting it all working. When you buy the Technomate TM-Twin-OE, if you do so from the company's own website, you'll also be given the opportunity to add some hard drive space.

This is essential if you want to use the box as a PVR, but you can also open the box and pop your own drive in. This is what we did, and it worked a treat. It's important to remember though, that most hard drive are not designed for use in set-top-boxes. This isn't really a problem, there's no incompatibility, but it's worth bearing in mind that a lot of PC hard drives are very loud. Those installed in set-top-boxes tend to be clocked a little slower, and a little less loud as a result.

Adding your own storage is a really great way to have control over your recorder too. Want a lot of space, no problem, just buy a bigger drive. You can support at least 2TB here if you need to, and there's no reason beyond cost that you can't go higher. While Sky and Freesat offer you a good number of channels, there are lots of reasons you might want to look elsewhere.

Across Europe, there are multiple broadcasters all offering different channels, and some of them are even free. Some might be pay TV like Sky, but you might also be able to buy a CI module, and subscribe if you want. Aside from that, the Technomate can move a positioner too, so if you have a motor on your dish, it can align it for the correct satellite with no hassle at all. This is a simple system to implement, and the box does all the necessary switching and controlling.

Sky boxes, obviously, don't support LNB switching in this way, but then tuning them to non-Sky channels is a royal pain anyway. All of this is fabulous if you're originally from another country, and want to catch up with channels in your native tongue, but it's also good for people who want to have a hunt around and find some free sport or TV shows. There's plenty out there, if you're prepared to spend some money getting something better than a Sky minidish installed.

As with a lot of set-top-boxes now, the Technomate can also stream video from your home network and get on-demand video from iPlayer and the like. These are not as slick as you might find on a smart TV, but they do the job, at least at a basic level.

The good thing is, development is always going on, so these things get changed and improved all the time. There's a Plex app that can use out much loved media server too, so that kept us happy, although it's not very responsive. Plugins can be used to do almost anything on the VIX platform used here, and the apps are installed either via an option on the box, or by uploading them via FTP. It sounds geeky, it's actually really easy to do.

This is our favourite feature, and it's the one you're never likely to see on a Sky box. If you connect your Technomate to your home network, you can browse through the channel lists, select a channel and stream it to your PC. HD streaming was no problem for us, and worked even on our BBC HD was delivered to our computer with no problems at all, and through the web interface, you can change channels and even trigger recordings on your box.

When you've made a recording, you can also stream that straight from the box to your computer as well. The web interface that comes as part of the Linux VIX operating system is very easy to navigate, and even allows you to download recorded programmes to your computer.

This is handy if you want to save them for later, or watch them on when you go on a long trip. Mobile phones can access both the live streams and the pre-recorded ones.

We found that HD channels were asking a bit much of either the decoder, or the They cut out at times, but were still watchable. Standard definition on the other hand presented no problems at all, and streamed brilliantly. The mobile app also allows you to access EPG data, see signal strength - you could use it for aligning a dish if you wanted - and loads of other features.

You can also watch a different channel to what's being watch on the box itself of course, with similar rules to recording about accessing transponders that are in use already. Lots of people are used to series-link now, which allows you to pick a show, and record all the episodes of that programme. This isn't an option on the Technomate, so there's no single button you can press to save a series.

This is replaced with an arguably better feature that allows the box to match titles on one or more channels, and record programmes with a name match. This is an incredibly powerful feature, and one that we comprehensively fell in love with. What makes it so good, is the ability to find a show on any channel, or to restrict recordings to one time period.

You can even tell the box to only record shows with a unique description, meaning you won't record the same show twice. Bear in mind when you use this though, that sometimes listings have broken descriptions. Take for example our series link of Ben and Holly. On other boxes, it would fail quite a bit. This is usually because episodes are shown randomly, and a "series" link does just that, records shows in a series.