UnderCurrent's London-based Cockney uncle 'arry UnderC'ent Aye is very excited about the start of the 2012 London Olympics tonight.

Over the next two weeks, 'arry UnderC'ent Aye will be posting stories about the Games and its effect on the local industry, including its own representative, as well as highlighting some new products that will assist in watching as many minutes of action as possible over the next two weeks.

The Opening Ceremony for the Olympics starts in the early hours of tomorrow morning (Saturday 28 July 2012), with Channel Nine and affiliates broadcasting the extravaganza exclusively from 5:30am (AEST) on its main channel (SD) and Gem (HD). That's 5am in South Australia and the Northern Territory and 3:30am in Western Australia.

Come the weekend, Fox Sports coverage will also commence with the Games proper, with 8 live channels dedicated to Olympics goodness. These channels are located in the 180s and 190s, depending on what type of Foxtel box is being used.

'Arry UnderC'ent Aye is particularly impressed with the coverage in Australia, which is spread across 11 channels, nine in HD and one in 3D. This is much better than the coverage in America, where UnderCurrent's guntoting capitalist cousin U!S!A!Current reports that NBC is persisting with its policy of showing major events on delay in prime time.

Regardless of where you are, the Olympics covers so many channels and so much time, often in the early morning hours, that a personal video recorder is a must. 'Arry UnderC'ent Aye recommends you take a Captain Cook at this new device from Strong (SRT5500, RRP $299).

The SRT500 has a 500GB built-in hard drive with twin tuners, meaning you can record two channels of Olympics action, such as the Dressage and the Synchronised Swimming, while watching a third, such as the Badminton. There's a USB out port so you can expand storage by up to 1TB, as well as HDMI, Component and Coaxial ports. With the Pause and Rewind feature, users have the ability to play to go back and check whether the ball did cross the line when Team Great Britain is inevitably knocked out of the Football tournament.

Do you know a product to help 'Arry UnderC'ent Aye enjoy the Olympics even more? Get in touch

As regular readers will know, all stories on UnderCurrent are commentary or opinion, and are always 100 per cent editorial.