LITTLE BOX OF TRICKS
It’s been a year since DStv’s Explora was launched, with its array of innovative and handy features – and the romance is still burning bright
HAPPY first birthday to DStv Explora. Not only has the year flown by, but can you believe it’s already August? Downhill all the way from here…
When I became the proud partner of an Explora 12 months ago, it was very exciting. I held on to my old Pace decoder (one should always keep a spare) and will continue to do so until it explodes in flames because it is ancient enough to be one of those that still records two channels simultaneously. This is the only feature lacking in the Explora, as well as later-model “normal” PVRs.
It’s a small annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. Managing single-channel recording must surely give viewers an appreciation for repeat programming; without multiple airings it would be impossible to watch everything you want to see. At least the Explora has a handy function that shows you all the other times a series or movie will be on during the upcoming seven-day period, easily allowing you to schedule recordings that don’t conflict. The same function also allows you to quickly resolve similar conflicts with series recordings.
Going hand in hand with this is that your scheduled recordings can be seen up to eight days in advance, as opposed to only 24 hours on the old decoders.
This is useful for people like me who want everything to be neat and tidy (I can’t stand seeing little triangles containing exclamation marks on my screen), as well as if you are going away and want to be absolutely sure the magic box will do what it is supposed to in your absence. No nasty surprises when you come home eager to watch something and it’s not there.
The expanded catch-up feature on Explora – more series than other PVRs, movies, documentaries, sport, children’s shows and more from multiple channels, all arranged into genres, as well as series box sets, movie collections (according to subject or stars) – is a big selling point, as is the fast turnaround time following live broadcast. This doesn’t always work as smoothly as it should, however. Sometimes an episode can take longer than 30 seconds to appear in the catch-up menu (or worse – like on Monday, when The Good Wife, Klondike, and double episodes of
Supernatural and Nashville failed to appear), but it does eventually arrive.
This can also lead to frustration when you’ve become accustomed to the efficiency, but it happens rarely and should affect only the most superior of television viewers who operate at an Olympic level.
If you simply cannot bear the thought of missing a moment, the massive memory of the Explora allows you to store 220 hours of your recordings. This is both wonderful (with so many channels now in HD you need increased capacity) and silly – because who the heck has the time to watch so much stuff ? Even I – and trust me, I watch a lot more than most people – can barely keep up week by week. I have a lovely library of favourite movies that keep piling up for rainy days. It just never seems to rain for long enough.
There are many more lovely little details that make the Explora a pleasure to own, from being able to pause live TV for up to two hours as well as a two-hour buffer, poster art in the catch-up menus, and a much more powerful and easy to use title search function. Despite all this, I have to say the thing I love the most is the remote control. Its reaction times are so much quicker, especially when fast forwarding and rewinding, and it’s become an extension of my hand to the point that the other remote feels clumsy and awkward.
Also, it’s robust; it’s been inadvertently tossed across the room and kicked to the floor (what happens when viewing takes place under blankets), but survived unscathed.
I am happy to say that one year on, the romance in this relationship is still burning bright.
IN THE WEEK
RICK STEIN’S INDIA
BBC Lifestyle, Tuesday at 9pm
Rick Stein is such a lovely man and he has taken us on his journeys around the world for years, whether it’s countries or cuisines. In this series Stein goes on an Indian odyssey, beginning with an exploration of the regions in which the Empire’s love of curry began, Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
Stein’s own love of fish and seafood is well known, and in Kolkata and Chennai he enjoys both. Part-travel, part-food, the series includes Stein learning the art of temple cooking in the southern town of Madurai in Tamil Nadu, taking a road trip across the spice-laden Western Ghats to Kerala, visiting a five-star hotel that employs housewives for genuine home-cooked dishes, and meeting the country’s first MasterChef winner.
SOUTH BEACH TOW
Sony Max, Wednesday at 8.30pm
Is there anything that can’t be made into a reality TV show any more? This one, which will premiere its fourth season in the US this month, is about a family-run tow-truck company operating in Florida’s South Beach.
Illegal parking and not making the monthly payments, as well as a wanton disregard for the law mean towing cars is big business.
As in multimillion-dollar business.
Tremont Towing is owned by Robert Ashenoff, and his team comprise son Bobby jr, “wildly tattooed” daughter Christie, and drivers Frankie, Eddie, Jerome and Bernice.
“It’s highly entertaining. Viewers see real people doing a very difficult job. Everything you see in the series has really happened to us. That’s what makes it exciting and has viewers tuning in to see what happens next,” says Ashenoff sr.
The part about real people and real jobs is not strictly true; according to online research South Beach Tow“depicts actors performing re-enactments of events”. Questioned about the programme’s veracity, a spokesman said the show “features real people and is based on real situations”.
Due to production needs, some scenes are “re-enacted”.
In the first episode, repossession of a rapper’s pimped-out car leads to a high-speed chase. The show is produced by Jennifer Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions, and airs every week night.
THE KILLING M-Net Series Showcase, Wednesday at 9pm
This series limped on from a season two cancellation to a third season revival, and will now conclude with six episodes that air on Netflix from today – although, with a new plot, I’m not quite sure why this is necessary.
Detectives Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) are handling the fallout of their actions from the previous season while investigating the murder of a family whose only survivor is a member of an all-boys military academy. MICHAEL JOHNSON: SURVIVAL OF THE FASTEST
BBC Knowledge, Thursday at 9pm
Going back to 2008 and the Beijing Olympics, all the men who lined up for the 100m final could trace their ancestry back to the transatlantic slave trade. This is not a good thing because apparently slavery may have had a role in altering the genomes of its descendants.
The documentary is hosted by Olympian Michael Johnson, who embarks on a personal genealogical and scientific journey in a bid to understand whether he and other world-class African-American and Caribbean athletes are successful as a result of slavery.