Future of Analogue TV and radio?

[Harrison]

Freesat is definitely interesting and I will be continuing to watch its progress closely. It may also be of interest to European countries being unencrypted and with a footprint wider than Sky's Astra 2 satellites.

I actually think Freesat is a bit of last minute idea though because Freeview isn't going to be good enough for much longer. It doesn't have the bandwidth to carry HD programs, and so satellite was the only other option to explore (as cable isn't possible in most areas). It will be good to have a competing satellite service in the UK again as this might force Sky to lower their subscription prices to compete. At the moment Sky don't really have any competition outside of Cable enabled inner cities so hold the monopoly if you want the range of channels they offer.

Freesat could definitely be a great alternative for those just wanting to receive the standard range of channels and go HD, but not require the channels Sky have to offer.

BTW, if anyone wants informaton on FreeSat then the official website is at http://www.astra2d.com/freesat.htm

[AlexJ]

Freesat is definitely interesting and I will be continuing to watch its progress closely. It may also be of interest to European countries being unencrypted and with a footprint wider than Sky's Astra 2 satellites.

I actually think Freesat is a bit of last minute idea though because Freeview isn't going to be good enough for much longer. It doesn't have the bandwidth to carry HD programs, and so satellite was the only other option to explore (as cable isn't possible in most areas). It will be good to have a competing satellite service in the UK again as this might force Sky to lower their subscription prices to compete. At the moment Sky don't really have any competition outside of Cable enabled inner cities so hold the monopoly if you want the range of channels they offer.

Freesat could definitely be a great alternative for those just wanting to receive the standard range of channels and go HD, but not require the channels Sky have to offer.

BTW, if anyone wants informaton on FreeSat then the official website is at http://www.astra2d.com/freesat.htm

Technically Freesat has been running for ages, the thing launching next year is just a brand to promote the service and a standardised EPG and interactive platform (probably MHEG). The BBC have been broadcasting free-to-air since 2003 and ITV since 2005. C4 still have a contract with Sky until sometime in 2008 after which they'll be going FTA (except Filmfour which is already FTA) while C5 say they have no intention of going on Freesat, which to me seems like commercial suicide when your 4 major rival channels are going to be, along with some of the big digital rivals (ITV2, E4 etc.)

Freesat could bring benefits even for Sky subscribers IMO - instead of multiroom, you could just put a standard Freesat box in another room and get a lot of the basic channels in HD without paying the £10 extra a month.

As for the HD channels, the launch dates are

BBC HD (Variety of content from across the Beeb) - Already launched - FTA
ITV HD (Variety from all ITV channels) - Spring 2008 - FTA
Channel 4 HD (C4 simulcast, no content from E4/M4/F4) - 10th December 2007 - FTV

With three big channels going HD without needing subscription to Sky HD service (just a Sky HD box), Sky may have to reduce the price of their HD package.

Finally, after a year of false promises, 2008 really could be the year HDTV takes off in the UK.

[Harrison]

I think it will have to end up being like Sky Digital. When that first came out people has to buy the box (I did on launch to upgrade from analogue), but for the past couple of years the box has been completely free when you join. In a couple more years the SkyHD box is going to become the normal sky box as more and more HD channels role out, and as Sky slowly move some more of their most popular channels over to HD. Then the HD box and the subscription charges will hopefully drop.

[Stephen Coates]

How are they going to broadcast the fireworks at new year after the digital switchover?

After watching them on analogue BBC1 today, I really fail to see how Freeview (and probably also Sky) could cope with it, even if it wasn't compressed as much. I expect in the future we will see various coloured squares on the screen which will be delayed by a second or two.

How that kind of technology is 'better' than the current system I don't know.

Another thing I was thinking of recently if how complex the digital systems are. I'm not really sure about television, but when you think about AM radio, you need only and ariel, a coil, a diode and a variable capacitor to recieve those signals. Just think about how complex a digital radio is compared to that.

Going back to TV, what is the point in freeview if we are already starting to get HD? Are we supposed to ditch out new digital TVs in 10 years time to recieve the HD signals?

[AlexJ]

Digital radio/TV isn't much more complicated than analogue really. The way it's recieved is pretty much the same, it's just there's a decoder added in to the circuit.

As for the fireworks, they'll broadcast them the same way they have been since BBC launched on Sky Digital in 1998! From what I saw of it that was repeated on News 24 this morning, it coped pretty well with digital pixellation, far better than water spray does. They chose not to cover it in HD this year, but did last year so I'd imagine that looked better than analogue did.

[StuKeith]

is stephen really 17? or is he a 70 year old in disguise? lol

I had freeview for a while, but needed a booster to get it to work! Then I had multiview NTL which cost £80 a month! then Just normal NTL at £45 a month!

Then they peeded me off too much, and didnt have all the channels for the same money! So I went to sky!

Yes they arnt cheep, and I have so many problems with them in terms of miss billing and channels! but I get the most channels for the money!

I have two dishes here and two+ boxes, I use the 2nd box upstairs and use that as a freeview box! even on sky freeview you get more channels if not all the same ones as freeview.

[Buleste]

That's shocking you're happy to pay for bad service because you get more channel's. Thats why Sky feel they can rip people off. If you are getting shoddy service then complain or cancel with them but don't carry on.
As for the Digital switchover it's just another shoddy cock up by the government. For some reason in my area if i stay with a Central TV transmitter i will only ever get 22 channels when switchover happens (in the final phases of switchover i might add) whereas if i change to a Granada TV transmitter i'll be able to get 57 and rising channels. That's my first whinge of 2008.
If Stephen is 17 then I'm in trouble as i've got quite a few T-shirts that are oldeer than him.

[AlexJ]

That's shocking you're happy to pay for bad service because you get more channel's. Thats why Sky feel they can rip people off. If you are getting shoddy service then complain or cancel with them but don't carry on.

It's not as if there's much choice. If you want more than the basic channels then, after quickly discounting NTL/Virgin, Sky's the only option.

[Stephen Coates]

In the Broom area, I get a very good analogue signal fron the Emley Moor transmitter, which transmits Yorkshire TV, however, I can also get the five North East channels there as well, and the signal is quite goog. I'm not sure which transmitter it is though.

The signal isn't as good as the yorkshire one, but it is good enough to watch. This was good when there was a programme that was only on Tyne Tees TV. I remember that when I got my new portable TV in 1997, that automatically put TTTV on channel 3 and I was watching that most of the time instead of Yorkshire, which was on channel 6.

This also caused a little bit of confusion when my Amiga's new teletext adaptor was auto tuning, especially since it didn't know what Channel 5 was and wanted to put it on Channel 1.

Unfortunately the TV signal here in Flanderwell isn't as good and I can only get the Yorkshire channels, and that signal could be better.

Is there really much point to having all these extra channels avaliable? I find that the only channels I still watch are 1 and 3, and occaisionally 2, 4 and 5. I rarely watch any of the other digital channels. I probably would watch some of the Sky channels if I had Sky, but on Freeview, there isn't really anything that is very good. Maybe except for News 24 and the extra BBC/ITV channels which might have something good.

This lack of good stuff makes me wonder something else. Apparently, all the TV companies are loosing money. The BBC is supposed to be loosing money somehow, and the commercial channels (according to something that was on the radio news yesterday), are going to be loosing lots of advertising money. There was a quote in the newspaper a few months ago from someone saying that they should stop focussing on digital and internet based interactive stuff and concentrate on making good programmes. I'm sure we would all rather have a few channels with excellent programmes, than 100 channels with rubbish programmes.

[Submeg]

This lack of good stuff makes me wonder something else. Apparently, all the TV companies are loosing money. The BBC is supposed to be loosing money somehow, and the commercial channels (according to something that was on the radio news yesterday), are going to be loosing lots of advertising money. There was a quote in the newspaper a few months ago from someone saying that they should stop focussing on digital and internet based interactive stuff and concentrate on making good programmes. I'm sure we would all rather have a few channels with excellent programmes, than 100 channels with rubbish programmes.

That is the smartest thing I have heard all day. Good work Steve.