All posts by KMJ, Derby
Below are all of KMJ, Derby's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
trevorjharris: It will be interesting to see which channels are interested in transmitting in HD on what will be a more cost effective network than either of the existing PSB or COM freeview muxes. I suspect that Channel 5 intends to transmit eventually in HD replacing the current SD transmission. At present viewers to HD are in the minority, forcing a continuation of SD, which is why they declined a national HD slot. It is quite possible that HD will remain as a subscription service on satellite for commercial channels, in common with the situation in Germany where it is only the PSB services that transmit free-to-air in HD. It is a great pity that TV receivers are still being manufactured with DVB-T only tuners. It would appear that manufacturers are deliberately supplying equipment that needs to be upgraded to be fit for purpose. I would also include the abysmal loudspeakers that are fitted in that category!
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Julian: You are right about a switch to DVB-T2 being unpopular with viewers who only have DV-T tuners. Hence the need to encourage the purchase of DVT-2 equipment. Ofcom has the unenviable task of trying to balance the likely demand for spectrum for 4G/5G against maintaining services for traditional TV viewers. It is a technical requirement that DVB-T2 needs to be adopted if the COM muxes end up being squeezed onto 3 SFN frequencies. This would not necessarily give any HD channels on these muxes as the users, especially the shopping channels might prefer to remain in SD for cheaper carriage. Then there was a recent report from a House of Lords committee suggesting that all TV viewing should be on-line, with the entire UHF band given over (sold) for mobile broadband. Now that would definitely be unpopular with many viewers.
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Jeff Eastmond: Mux BBCA from Mendip changes to C49 0n 27th March 2013. This is taken from the Digital UK postcode checker site.
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Iain Davies: Fort William is the original VHF tv relay site. It is also not particularly high, which would explain why Cow Hill was chosen for UHF TV. Remember that it needed to be able to see a suitable parent mast (Torosay) for a feed as well as having a wider target area. The choice of Trislaig would have arisen as it is an existing mast in a higher location with suitable coverage area for a single FM transmitter. Another consideration for the choice of mast is sometimes whether there is room on the mast for the antenna or housing for the transmitter on the ground. Note how Kirk o'Shotts came to be used for the main BBC DAB transmitter in Central Scotland when TV and FM are all transmitted from Black Hill.
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BillNick: The problem could be the position of the aerial is one where the signal is messy, that is subject to multiple reflections which the receiver is unable to decode. Try moving the aerial a short distance to either side if space permits. Also try pointing it the wrong way, so the signal is received from behind the aerial and observe the signal strength/quality for each mux.
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Emily: No. Sadly scart and HDMI are not compatible without the aid of additional equipment. There is now a device available which converts signals from an HDMI source to a scart output, which costs around £40 from some on-line suppliers.
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Emily: I should have pointed out that there is another device (that you do not want to get by mistake) that converts a scart source to an HDMI signal for connecting older equipment VCR/DVD etc, to a TV with only HDMI input. This is slightly more expensive.
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RichardH: Not quite. The frequency of SDN from Salisbury changes to C50 in May 2013. There is incomplete information above for frequency changes in future years, partly because plans are still being worked on by Ofcom and Arqiva. There is a conference for worldwide spectrum planning in 2015, after which it should become clearer what changes to expect.
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Mike Dimmick: I would have expected the channels to be entirely made up of existing output to keep costs down. In due course the standard def. version on Freeview might be replaced by the HD versions in the event of the muxes becoming DVB-T2 only. Satellite could see the retention of free to air standard definition, with HD remaining as subscription services. There is a problem with following the lead of NHK on satellite, where the SD version was turned off in favour of the free to air HD version, in that there are too many standard definition satellite receivers that would lose the channel if this process was applied to main UK channels. There will no doubt be numerous complaints when Freeview changes to DVB-T2!
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Monday 26 November 2012 9:38AM
Julian: Yes, a switch to DVB-T2 does mean that existing standard definition tuners will be redundant. That is why this relatively low budget scheme has been proposed to encourage the majority of viewers to invest in DVB-T2 capable equipment. A partial switch to DVB-T2 would probably leave viewers with PSB1/PSB2 as the only muxes in standard def.