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Sony LocationFree LF-PK1
Price: £229 inc VAT

Features
Performance
Ease of use
Value for money
Overall

Reviewed By: Robert Irvine

This review updated: 06/08/2006
Featured in magazine:
Issue 140
Manufacturer Contacts:
Supplier: Sony
Tel: 0870 511 1999
Web Address: www.sony.co.uk


With the British summer as unpredictable as ever, it's a shame to waste sunny days stuck indoors in front of the telly. But when there are programmes or sporting events you're desperate not to miss, then you don't really have much choice. Sony's LocationFree aims to kick open the door of the living room and let you watch television wherever you want, even if you don't have a TV with you.

Features
When you're at home or in the garden, LocationFree works by wirelessly streaming television content to your PC, laptop or Sony PSP. It does this through its paperback book-sized Base Station, which plugs into the audio and video ports of your set-top box or PVR. It also features a tiny device called an IR Blaster that emulates a remote control, allowing you to operate your AV equipment over a distance of up to 30 metres (100 feet). When you're away, the Base Station is accessed remotely over the internet via your home broadband line on a correctly configured computer. This enables you to enjoy local programming from abroad and even record shows onto a DVD/HDD recorder connected to the unit.

Performance
As with most wireless entertainment devices, the output quality of streamed content is adversely affected by factors such as walls and interference from other electronic equipment. Sony suggests experimenting with the position of the Base Station to remedy this: the higher up the better. While the picture delivered to your PC isn't perfect, it's certainly better than most streaming web TV; on the smaller screen of a PSP it should look great. When accessing the unit remotely, the performance depends on the connection speed at both ends, which should be at least 300Kbps. At times of heavy network traffic, LocationFree automatically optimises the quality of the video stream according to available bandwidth to obtain the best possible picture.

Ease of use
Provided you have a Wi-Fi-enabled PC, or better still an existing UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) wireless network, setting up LocationFree for use in your home shouldn't be too difficult. Colour-coded ports on the unit connect logically to their counterparts on your set-top box using the supplied cables, and the LocationFree Player software automatically detects and creates a link to the base unit. You may need to adjust your firewall settings first though. On the road, connection is much trickier, requiring you to register and configure the machine you want to stream video to. Documentation for this aspect of LocationFree is frustratingly inadequate.

Value for money
Given that you can now buy portable digital TVs for under £100, the LocationFree offers a comparatively expensive means of watching programmes on the go. Digital TV tuners for laptops are also widely available, eliminating the need to connect with a Base Station at home. While the ability to view live telly on a PSP will appeal to some, the fact that LocationFree costs £50 more than the console itself makes it less attractive. Note too that to install the software on more than one PC you'll need to pay another £20 for a second CD-ROM, though this does cover up to eight machines.

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