Free 14 day TV guide on your PC (digiguide.com)

Member Name: mikeb

Product:	digiguide.com
Date:	16/02/01 (1528 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free when unregistered, easy to use and up to date.

Disadvantages: Can't think of any.

I’ve been using the free download of Digiguide for a couple of months now and have been really impressed with it.

For anyone not familiar with this download, it is a windows program that gives you 14 days TV listings for the UK and Ireland which their website likens to the Sky EPG. Other features it recommends are advanced searching and reminders for over 200 channels, world wide web integration and numerous links to websites, although I’ve mainly just used it as replacement for a newspaper TV guide.

The current version of Digiguide is 4.02, although version 5.00 is to be available soon. There are two ways of using it, either registered or unregistered. The main benefit of registering appears to be that it stops a slightly annoying registration reminder window popping up on screen every so often and it also gives you free software upgrades. Registration is currently priced at £4.99 per year, reduced from the normal £19.99. You can register online or by post but my advice would be to download the unregistered version first because you can always upgrade at a later date if you wish.

There are several other features of the Digiguide website which I will describe in brief before concentrating on the download itself. The site has an online TV guide which is very simple to use but also very comprehensive. At the top of the screen is a drop down menu which has a huge list of TV channels to choose from, together with some of the popular radio stations. The list caters for all the regional versions of ITV and BBC. If you want you can setup a free login name for this part of the site which then allows you to customize this list and also receive an occasional newsletter. From the menu you just choose the channel you’re interested in to see a schedule of all the days programes, with the current show highlighted. Every show is also a clickable link and doing so brings up a new smaller window with a summary of the selected programme a
nd yet more links. On the main guide there is even an option to request an e-mail to be sent to you when a show is about to begin which is pretty impressive.

Other menu options on the website include a list of things available with Digiguide, a preview of what extra features will be available with version 5.00 and an option to become a Beta tester for upcoming versions. There is also a discussion forum on a variety of TV and Digiguide related subjects and other support and general links but as I’ve not used these a great deal, I will leave it up to you to decide if you want to investigate these further.

Once you have made the decision to download the Digiguide, it is a reletively small file of about 1.3 MB which will take around 5 minutes on a 56k modem. When the downloaded Digiguide first starts up you are presented with the registration reminder which cannot be cancelled until a few seconds have passed. After cancelling this screen you then have the option to customize the channels you want to have information for. This is a fairly simple procedure and allows you to add or remove channels from all terrestrial and satellite broadcasters to produce a TV guide which matches the stations you have available to you. You can also select radio stations in your listings. There are options to change the colour scheme which Digiguide uses, how the guide operates at startup and several other display options.

The main screen is usualy viewed in one of two ways, planner view or daily view. The main features of each are as follows:-


Planner View.

This is the one that is said to resemble the Sky EPG but as I do not currently have Sky, I’ll take their word for it. This style of display lists the channels you have selected verically down the left hand side of the Digiguide, the time along the top of the screen and the available programmes horizontally across the screen in a grid. If you move the mouse over the name o
f a programme a summary of the show is displayed, along with the stars or presenters in it. You can scroll the grid to the left and right to change the time shown and the programmes in the grid so that you can see what is on at different times of the day. You can swap between the days to be displayed using anothe simple click of the mouse. To the right of the grid is also a menu to allow you to customize the guide further including changing channels, setting reminders for programmes and other available features. There is also a link in the bottom corner of the screen to get a listings update which is a short update to the Digiguide . This update is only available online, but all the other Digiguide listings can be viewed offline.


Daily View.

This is similar to the planner view on both the left hand side channel menu and the right hand options menu. The main programme guide is displayed between these two and is a complete days lsting from morning to night of any selected channel. Click on BBC1 and you can scroll down that days shows, then click UK Gold and this channels programmes are listed. With this display the summary screen showing plots, stars etc is always visible.

There are two other possible options on the top menu which allow you to view favourite shows or search for a particular show but these are not features I’ve had the occasion to use so far.


Occasionally when starting up the Digiguide you are prompted to request a download of updated listings and provided you accept this every so often the Digiguide will always be up to date an available for around 14 days ahead.


In conclusion, this guide does not have to cost you a penny and is an easy way to keep up to date with what’s on now and next on TV while using your PC, without the need to reach for the newspaper. I’ve had absolutely no problems since installing this or using it and the updates are very straightforward. If in an
y doubt about wanting to install it, just bookmark the Digiguide site and use the online guide instead.

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