Info and forum posts by 'Robber'

RE: 60 day Free Unlimited DVD Rental Trial

Lovefilm have recently taken over Tesco DVD from Video Island and the service has dropped of the edge of the world, I have been on the tree disc package for six months, with tesco almost a year and will be switching to a different supplier next month.

By all means use the free trial up (could try quidco as well) but I would seriously advise against subscribing as the turnaround is now so slow, I am receiving less discs than I was on the single disc package at the start of the year, and tihs is on a list of just under 200 titles, so god knows what it is like if you only have a few in your wants list.

DEFINATELY one to avoid!

R

This item was edited on Saturday, 18th November 2006, 09:51

RE: Panasonic RAM Player DVD S27 £35 delivered

I Bought the older but better slightly reviewed S35 Panny from them a couple of weeks ago so I could watch my RAM discs in bed. Bit dissapointed that it came in a non standard box, but it did have the manuals and RCA cable with it, even sealed batteries for the remote. The only damage was a light scratch on the front corner.

Having used it, I am very impressed, £40 including shipping seems pretty damn good to me, especially given that the Maxim piece of S*** it replaced gave out after just 6 months.

I could have had the S27 from Richer sounds for £50, bout would have to have gone over to Brighton to get it and would frankly have paid double just to avoid that

If you need a RAM compatible player, this has to be the cheapest around at the moment, although if you have to have a brand new one, you can get the S27 from richer for a bit more if you can get into one of their stores.

EDIT - Non multi region S27 is £40 at Ritcher

R

This item was edited on Thursday, 17th February 2005, 07:57

RE: Sony 20gb portable music player £149.99

I May be wrong, but I bbelieve that everythig goes through Sonicstage, you can drag and drop on to the hard drive, but the unit runs from some sort of database, and I think this is where Sonicstage comes in, as it must run the database

This is the situation with the NW-HD1 and if you grill the MP3 update page for the unit, it seems not to change this fact

Anyone with half a brain would have made the HD3 drag and drop, but who has faith in Sony`s half a brain? I think you should be able to do what you want with SS, but it is a nightmare to use

Grab the Manual here:

www.sonydigital-link.com/manuals/manuals.asp?l=en&m=NW-HD3

Hope it is of some use!

R

RE: Sony 20gb portable music player £149.99

I quite agree with you, rights management will be the thing holding back the growth of the download music stores, when you think about it, they charge you more for a CD than somewhere like CD Wow, despite the fact that it costs them next to sweet FA to supply, and then want you to repeatedly pay for the privilege! All the while stopping you from trading or even lending CDs with mates.

It will be interesting to see how they react to the first person to have a simultaneous PC and NW-HD1 death with £10,000 worth of tunes on it.

if you could register a one or two devices with the provider, which each track bought would be permanently valid on and edit them as you renewed them, then there might be a bit of value in this, but as things stand, by limiting the number of times you can tranfer a track, they are hanging themselves, it is cheaper to buy a CD, rip it and throw it away

If you could buy the tune, pair it with a single device, which you could redefine say, once a year, and redownload anytime forever, it might be worth the extotionate prices they expect, but personally, since MP3, people are so much less precious about the music they own (or do`nt as the case may be) I cant see this 99p per track BS lasting long.

Another possibility is a monthly subscription, pay £10 for a maximum of 100 tracks for example and have each track play a maximum of twenty or thirty times then erase. Bandwidth bill would go through the roof, but it`s a guaranteed revenue stream and a captive audience....

Of course, that would require software that worked, which does not seem to be Sony`s strong suit at the moment...

Methinks that Apple is propping things up at the moment, as Itunes has set buy and sell prices which give it a reportedly tiny profit, so thus has no room to move, so any price skirmish should kill Itunes pretty quickly. If Sony wants to push Atrac, perhaps they should dip their prices to a more realistic level related to what they are pushing? Personally, I think you will end up with the existing model online, so the HMV website, will have portals for each player, and you will be able to buy tracks from any record company in the appropriate format as you currently do from Itunes EtAl, as Apple cant make a profit and Sony apparently cant tie their shoelaces in this area, this will happen if only because a situation where certain recordings are only available in certain formats is an invitation to the piracy that the record companies are so desperate to avoid.

Sony also need to release their Atrac Codecs so people can develop player and management software, as the one thing noone likes about their HD players seems to be Sonicstage.

I have heard of a prog called Iopener, which apparently strips out the rights info from Itunes downloads, but until someone comes up with the same thing for the Sony, I will stick with CDs

sorry for the rant - Do love me NW-HD1 though!

R

RE: Sony 20gb portable music player £149.99

"Yes, that`s really very useful. Argos have the new player on their website for £250, so £150 plus £15 for the upgrade doesn`t look too bad."

Not sure I am even going to bother with that, you can always keep your mp3s backed up and the ATRAC conversion is very easy, if a tad slow if you are doing it by the GB, though you could probably fill it up overnight

Quality of converted MP3s is great - I think one major advantage of the ATRAC conversion may be that it normalizes the files at the same time as there is none of the volume jumps I had with my old MP3 player

thanks to the OP for a great little device!

R

RE: NTL broadband free Xbox offer & price cuts

Just phoned NTL threatening to withdraw my custom, (Phone TV & BB), long wait in the queue to be told that 150k is to be upped to 300K today,

pushed a little harder, said that ADSL is available for the same price, aurgued that BT line is more flexible for the money and was offered a £5 discount on my TV pack to equate to the £19.99 750K deal mentioned here.

Finally said that I would see how the 300K line goes before upgrading, which narked the guy a little, but I have near 600K speed anyway, due to the lack of BB installs in my street and now am £60 PA bettter off!

boonanza! great post

Cheers

R

RE: Free Motorola A835 - 500 minutes any time/any network - £12.50 pm on

Hi

I am very interested in this, just for the 500 free mins? but would rather keep my existing Nokia rather than carry around a phone that is twice the weight to accommodate a raft of features that I will not use

question is, can the 3 SIM be used in a non 3G phone such as my unlocked Nokia 5100?

ta

R

RE: Cheap DVD player

Great spot, grabbed the 21 inch Akai TV at £75 as well...

glad I missed out on that combo now!

many thanks

R

RE: JVC GRD30 Digital Camcorder for only £159

(sic) `Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.`

aint it always the way?

R

RE: SIMPSONS, FUTURAMA AND FAMILY GUY BOX SETS DIRT CHEAP!

Top spot, Ta V much

RE: £188 Pace Twin HD Freeview recorder

Hi, been thinking about one of these for a while, my setup is Ntl and I cannot get freeveiw here, will this record off Ntl in isolation?

thanks

R

RE: The Beatles Anthology 5 disc DVD boxset cheap

AV Voucher not working any more, at least for me, but on the Hong Kong site

www6.cd-wow.com.hk/

it came up at $215HK which according to XE.com is £15.15p at today``s rate, they are usually ppretty much on the button for my cards

this was after the UK site fgave me a price of £16.99 in Opera then £17.99 when I switched to IE to pay

many thanks for a Good Spot, a right effing bargain whichever way you look at it!

R

This item was edited on Monday, 2nd February 2004, 12:52

RE: MINOLTA DIMAGE Z1 - I`ve Been after one for ages - Its only £229! now from PC World

I looked at this a while ago but plumped for the Fuji s5000 which is very similarly specced and I am very happy with it.

The thing which made me pay the extra £50 (at the time) for the Fuji was the build quality, the Z1 just seemed very flimsy in comparison and it is obvious the function is following form in this instance

However, as far as I know, an S5000 will still cost you £300 minimum now, plus the cost of a decent sized xd card assuming you dont have one, so I think at £229, the Z1 looks like a winner

Unless you can find the S5000 at a simlar price, I would grab it, the reviews I read put naff all between the two in terms of performance

regards

R

RE: CHEEEEEEEEP Laptops

I Guess the OS is an extra expense, but as I already have a licence, I was specifically looking not to pay the extra for it

As for the PC world machines you mention, they are a bit so so in my opinion, the more expensive Compaq seems quite nice, but I don`t like chips which are rated faster than they are (AMD XP+) and i didn`t fancy a celery, so the fact that this has a P4 as well as Geforce 4 Go graphics for such a low price really turned my head,

Each to his own I guess!

BTW: www.simply.co.uk have a killer price on a Tosh at the moment, assuming they have any in stock!

Hopefully mine will arrive today and I will be able to let y`all know how it moves

R

Ps: as to PC world, I have a rule that I will not buy any item from anyone who knows less about it than I do and while I do not rate my self an expert on anything, I have never come accross a PC world salesperson who knew anything more than the price of an extended warranty

RE: CHEEEEEEEEP Laptops

If you can find the same spec cheaper, let me know and I will cancel my order, this seemed like a storming deal to me, I could not find a cheaper equivalent on ebay and (pukes) PC world come in at around £13-1500 for a similar machine, albeit a brand name

Hopefuly it will be here tommorrow, so I will let you know if its any good

R

RE: CHEEEEEEEEP Laptops

I bought the one from the first link, the X71 £854 inc VAT with warranty and delivery, seems like a storming deal compared even to Ebay prices

To calculate, just chuck one in the basket on the site

VAT is a p***er though, although it is standard format for computer stuff

R

RE: CHEEEEEEEEP Laptops

I was all set to go for that one, but It has no battery and an external one is around £50

It would be OK if you just want a portable to use inside, but I like the flexibility, also, the VAT & P&P shoots it up to around £550

If you type `I-Buddie into Google, you will find more details on the machine, that is what it is

Could be a bargain if you can live with the shortcomings though

R

PS Shipping: thay charged me £18 for 3 day delivery

CHEEEEEEEEP Laptops

Been searching for a bargain laptop for a while, Hopefully i have found it:

http://www.europc.co.uk/cgi-bin/web.filereader?3eeb3f4c08cea2a02740d43a3b3f0687+EN/products/50986

I have one coming early next week, so will let you know how i get on!

they also have a knee trembler version...

http://www.europc.co.uk/cgi-bin/web.filereader?3eeb3f4c08cea2a02740d43a3b3f0687+EN/products/51027


and a cheapie

http://www.europc.co.uk/cgi-bin/web.filereader?3eeb3f4c08cea2a02740d43a3b3f0687+EN/products/51065

Should have asked this before, but does anyone know of any better laptop deal currently?

R

This item was edited on Saturday, 14th June 2003, 16:56

RE: Umax/yamada 2100 Dvd Player 5.1 Multi Region Capable £49.67

I Believe this is the same player that they were peddling with a 5.1 speaker setup a while ago.

A lot of people round the forum (inc. moi) bought then had to return them with major problems

Personally I would not be tempted again, especially as Comet now sell an (admittedly not quite as niceley specced) DVD for the same price, with the bonus that you can throw it at them if it goes wrong

regards

R

RE: K-Pax, Monsters Ball & Novocane. All 3 for £5.50 (including P&P)!

Check out their price for Shawshank redemption (under action titles)

Bargain!

R

RE: £99-00.. Fuji Finepix 2 Million Pixels

Check out the Fuji 2600z at £149 with a reader they are giving it away, I have had one for a year and have found nothing to touch it for the £220 I paid for mine, it comes with 16mb Smartmedia and 2 ni-mh batteries and charger as standard, a real deal IMHO!

R

RE: Superdrug DVD Players £64.99

I bought one of these before Xmas and it gave manifold probs with the info screen popping up unnannounced, when I took it back I was told I was one of many...

still, it is macrovision crackable and I replaced it with the Umax 5.1 setup from Ebuyer so what do I know...

RE: Apocalypse Now - Redux

My local Tesco has been offering this at a tenner for months...

RE: Umax DVD Player inc. 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System £83.55 inc VAT

HAHA, I guess we`ll see...

RE: Umax DVD Player inc. 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System £83.55 inc VAT

If you read the ebuyer description closley, it does mention a scart,personally, I wouldnt care if it was a drainpipe at that price, anyway, I have ordered one and will let you know for sure next week

Also found a region hack (NOT tested yet!)

1) Press Eject to open Disc tray
2) Enter code `7777`
3) Press select repeatedly until `9` appears on screen
4) Validate by pressing `Play`

Your player should now be zone free

R

RE: W H Smith 1/2 Price special offers

I picked up:

Monsters Inc £8.49
Goldmenber £8.49
Shallow Hal £8.49

Ask them to check at the till as only Monsters Inc was displayed as Half price, sale apparently lasts another week

R

RE: Argos DVD sale - Futurama Season 1 £12.99

Just looked at my invoice and it has the total as £0.00

I did kick up a fuss when I finally got throught to entertainment, and was told by a manager that he would look at the phone logs and try to arrange some recompence for the trouble and phone calls, but I have heard nothing since

could this be my recompence? seems rather generous, what do others invoices say?

R

RE: Argos DVD sale - Futurama Season 1 £12.99

Just got home to find mine waiting, but I am still confused, they refunded me £12.99 instead of the promised £14.50 but have not rebilled me, is this the same with everybody???

BTC 32x10x40 IDE Internal CD-RW Drive @ 24.99

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=43247

VAT and P&P bump it up to £35(ish) but it still seems a bit of a deal to me, especially with underrun protection (justlink) but then I did need one pronto...

they have sold down from 150 in stock a couple of days ago but still have a few left at time of writing, I assume it is a clearance model

alternatively, LG 48x is £49.99 at my local Currys if you have a particularly good use for the 60 seconds per burn you save

Seems amazing that less than 12 months ago, I paid £23 for a 52 Speed CDROM at a computer fair and thought I got a real bargain on the £30+ the local puter shops were charging...

tata

R

PS, review = http://www.alltechbox.com/reviews/btc_bce3212im_eng_pg_1.php3

This item was edited on Sunday, 5th January 2003, 15:11

RE: Argos DVD sale - Futurama Season 1 £12.99

Got the email at last, no sign of a refund as yet though, this is getting really comical now...