The good news is that there are now a couple of DVB-T2 tuner products for PCs. Here at Infomania Towers we’ve been testing the PCTV nanoStick T2 290e. This is a single-tuner USB tuner stick which can tune in both regular DVB-T transmissions as well as DVB-T2. It comes with a software disk, remote control, a short USB extension cable and a puny stick aerial which will be of little use unless you happen to live right next to a TV transmitter.

Rather than install the software we decided to see how far we could get with Windows Media Center on a Windows 7 PC. Tuners for Media Center need to work with BDA drivers, which the PCTV stick does. Happily there was no need to do anything other than connect a TV aerial to the stick and plug it into a USB port. Windows got to work finding the stick and sorting drivers out. All we had to do was to start Windows Media Center, tell it our postcode so it knew which region to get TV listings for and set it up to tune the channels in. Although everything worked fine, tuning was a very slow process – far slower than any TVs we have come across. In fact we thought the software might have crashed except that occasionally the progress indicator did actually increment.

The HD signals in this part of the world are a little weak, as the region has not switched to digital yet. Fortunately the stick seems to be quite sensitive and we receive all the HD channels without a problem. Programme guide listing are another issue however. Microsoft haven’t yet added listings for the HD channels to the EPG. It is possible to get listings to show up for BBC 1 HD, ITV 1 HD and Channel 4 HD by editing the guide setup for those channels and telling the EPG to use the listings for the regular versions of the channels. No solution for BBC HD as yet but we are investigating.

So our experience to date is quite positive except for the missing BBC HD listings. We have been able to successfully view, record and replay HD programmes, although sadly Microsoft seem blind to the benefits of Blu-ray DVD drives so it doesn’t appear possible to transfer HD recordings to Blu-ray disc.

Windows Vista 32-bit can address up to 4Gb of memory. Although that sounds a lot, some applications would benefit from more and – a crucial point here – that 4GB limit includes graphics card memory. So buying the latest graphics card with 1GB RAM onboard will seriously eat into the amount of RAM that can be addressed by a 32-bit processor.

In comparison the 64-bit version of Vista can address 16Tb of memory (yes 16,000 GB). Not only that but programs that have been written for 64-bit use will run faster and the system will make better use of the latest hyperthreaded multi-core processors.

The major drawback of the 64-bit version of XP was the poor level of support for device drivers. Things are now much improved with far fewer driver problems,although it is still true to say that it is best to check whether drivers are available if you need support for specific hardware devices. Beta versions of Windows 7 are available in 32 and 64 bit versions but the emphasis is likely to be on the 64-bit version, at least for PCs above entry level.

It may be a great relief to hear that Vista and Windows 7 64-bit versions work fine with 32-bit programmes. The only things to watch out for are 32-bit programmes that use a 16-bit program to install themselves (and which won’t run) and programmes that address hardware directly, rather than using a driver.

And here is a final thought – as many as 20% of new PCs sold in the US now come with a 64-bit version of Windows. The buyers can’t all be wrong!

You might be surprised to know that you can’t even be sure the CDs you burned of this year’s digital photographs will last five years, let alone the inkjet prints you made. They might have faded noticeably after 6 months, even if they’re not in bright light.

You may be wondering how best you can keep your photographs. Protecting your original files seems like the place to start. If you’ve got those at least you’ll be able to get the photographs printed out again. The trouble is nobody is even sure of the best way to do that. CDs are fairly good but Verbatim have suggested DVDs are a better bet. Because they are sealed on both sides they are thought to be less likely to suffer from external contamination – a major factor in optical storage deterioration. Stick to top quality brand-name disks. It’s also good idea to burn your files onto a couple of disks, ideally from different manufacturers. For years people have been saying that rewritable disks (CD-R/W, DVD-RW and DVD+RW) are much worse that burn-once disks (CD-R, DVD-R and DVD+R). In fact it turns out that some manufacturers CD-R disks have already become unusable while their CD-RW disks are still going strong.

Another problem with storing data files is the difficulty of knowing whether the technology to read the media or file format will still exist when you need it. How many of us have still got 5.25″ floppy disk drives or software capable of reading old Word or Wordstar files? According to the Image Permanence Institute “Color prints, not files are the best way to ensure that digital images will be preserved for future generations”.

Making your prints last longer means selecting the right materials (cheap replacement inks for instance are probably the worst thing to use) and displaying or storing them the right way. A major factor is the mix of chemicals in ink and paper. One advantage of buying a printer manufacturer’s own-brand ink and paper is that they’re usually formulated to work together. If you want to display prints put them in a glazed frame and hang them out of direct daylight. Ideally prints should be kept in the dark except when viewed – the old photo album isn’t that bad an idea, provided the pages don’t contain chemical contaminants.