All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
M
New Freeview TVs and boxes to be HD only from 2016 | free and Friday 25 September 2015 8:21AM
Macclesfield
Chris Shaw: Not at the moment - until T2 tuners become standard a fair number of people would be without those channels at all. As Brianist writes:
'However the BBC's universal service obligation can't do this until 100% of homes can use DVB-T2, and the same applies to ITV and Channel 4. The commercial multiplexes also will not wish to drop homes for their viewers, so the upgrade may be many, many years away.
This is similar to the reasons that DAB+ stations can't be broadcast: such a transmission would be invisible to any home with "classic" equipment.'
I suspect that the upgrade might be sooner than they think. Most of my customers are upgrading their main TV's on a roughly 5-8 year cycle. Digital switch over on out area was in 2011, and that was the point where many TV started to have HD tuners. Within 2 years they pretty much all did, so consumers have had roughly 3 years of HD tuners as large standard. With PVR's being replaced on a slightly more frequent basis (and HD tuners becoming standard even quicker), HD tuners should be on the majority of main TV's (one way or another) within a year or two. And retro fitting a 5 year or older TV with an external HD box is pretty easy.
However, I'm glad they are finally taking this step. How many times have people asked the question 'why can't I get HD channels on my new HD TV?', and where you have to tell them that they can't, because its only got a Freeview tuner, even though the retailer has 'Full HD' in big letters to trap the unwary.
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Lindsey Thomas: Ae you in a block of flats? There is seemingly no problem with the transmitter, so it would be most likely its at your end, perhaps the main splitter in your block. Time to call out the letting company!
BTW - why use Poole? Its a light transmitter, and looking at the Digital UK predictor, your no worse trying Rowridge - you will certainly get no fewer channels, and possibly a lot more.
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M
New Freeview TVs and boxes to be HD only from 2016 | free and Monday 28 September 2015 8:16AM
Macclesfield
MikeP: I think the market will go a long way to sort that out - once pretty much all the CRT TV's and early flat screens (DVI imputs) are out of the way, everything will have at least one HDMI. Since the majority of TV's (at least of the four big brands) have been HD equiped for at least 2-3 years, there will be a natural 'wave' as these become the main TV, etc. And as long as a TV has an HDMI or two, then a T2 equiped box is easy to hook up. In fact I've done just that, to upgrade an 'hand-me-down' Freeview flatscreen, with a box which cost be less than forty pounds.
As long as there is some education and a realistic time scale (3 years?), then its pretty doable.
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M
New Freeview TVs and boxes to be HD only from 2016 | free and Monday 28 September 2015 6:44PM
Macclesfield
James Livinstone: While TV's are not 'cheap', they are much cheaper in real terms than ever before. In the 1960's TV were expensive and often broke down, hence the reason why so many were rented. The first colour sets in the UK in 1967 cost about four thousand pounds in todays money - and that was a 24in TV!
The first flat screens cost the equivalent of twelve and a half thousand pounds. 6 years ago, a Freeview equiped Samsung 32in TV, with just 2 HDMI's and nothing fancy would have cost £450. Right now, you can buy the perfectly decent 2D Samsung 32J5500, with Freeview HD, possibly a better panel, 3 HDMI's and smart for £279.
That £450 would now get you the excellent mid range Samsung 40H6400 with change (last years version, and very good value for money), or if you got it at the right time, the very decent LG 630 49in 2D smart TV for about £459.
Even if you have an old TV (so even a CRT with a scart), you can just use an HD box, in exactly the same way I've just done, for not a lot of outlay. Freeview isn't exploiting anyone - to be honest, the whole thing has generally moved at the pace of the slowest, and they could have changed to a T2 tuner during analogue switchoff. Because the tuners were only just coming onto the market and the millions of non T2 boxes out there, they rightly left things alone, but by not using T2 tuners, it means a poorer service, higher operating costs, etc. At some point they have to change.
When you next buy a TV, you can be sure that the TV has an actual HD tuner built in, rather than being conned. You will of course get HD, more HD channels and probably more channels if your in a (now) poorly served area.
As for the idea of using H.265 as well, its possible, but on cost grounds (and the fact that there are now millions of T2 tuners out there) its unlikely.
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Alison Day: Check which channels and programmes. If you have a widescreen TV, then you'll get black bars top and bottom for a modern widescreen film - the film wouldn't fit the screen otherwise. If you watch something made in the 1970's (like Dads Army), you'll get bars at each side, for much the same reason. Most Tv's do this automatically, but some boxes/channels/TV's can be a bit random.
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M
New Freeview TVs and boxes to be HD only from 2016 | free and Tuesday 29 September 2015 9:09AM
Macclesfield
MikeP: But people are not spending £450 to ' just to get a few more channels that they may not be interested in watching'. They are, for the most part, simply buying another TV (which, as I pointed out, is much cheaper in real terms than ever before). Its simply a shame that TV's without T2 tuners have been allowed to be sold (even though the tuners within them will be obsolete within 5 years) for so long, and even worse that many people buying them were not aware of that fact.
However, the bulk of TV's need nothing much doing to them to make them T2 compatible. Even an old CRT TV (which has not been made for a decade) can have a Freeview HD box attached via scart. Mine cost me £40. And exactly the same goes for any TV with an HDMI. In many cases, people have done that already, perhaps replacing the redundent VCR with a HD PVR.
Yes, there will be some kit that will no longer work, such as Freeview digiboxes, etc, but for things like recorders, they will have probably come to the end of their useful lives anyway, and so be replaced as part of the normal cycle. There is no more reason to panic than when there was digital switchover. Lots of people chose to replace their TV, but there was no need to. As long as they had a digital receiver attached, they could use whatever they liked. In exactly the same way, as long as the device has a T2 tuner, they are fine.
As for retuning, I suspect that this is overblown. Most kit retunes/updates itself, and if you look through the past comments about retunes, fewer and fewer people have problems. The ones that do tend to have other issues. The majority of people seemingly have no great problem.
I wish this change had come some years ago, because its allowed thousands of TV's, etc to be sold which will need to have an extra box, often without the customer understanding why. They have been possibly shortchanged, and has slowed down the move to T2 tuners being the standard.
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M
New Freeview TVs and boxes to be HD only from 2016 | free and Wednesday 30 September 2015 6:57PM
Macclesfield
James Livingston: Sorry for getting your name wrong due to a typo.
Your not reading what I actually wrote. If you want to convert a Freeview TV (be it HD Ready/Full HD or even a CRT) all you need to do is buy a Freeview HD receiver - the current cost of of which is around £44. Thats it. I know, because I bought one recently. To record, in theory you could do the same thing, but its probably not worth the hassle.
Since the whole move is probably not happening for a couple of years, there is no need to panic.
Ian: They are saving money by not putting in a scart to the bulk of PVR's, but thats quite sensible. The UK has the highest penetration of flat screen TV's in Europe, with apparently something like 70-80% of screens now being HD Ready or Full HD ( I can't find any up-to-date or exact figures). Why put in a connection which is analogue and dates back to 1977? Its a bit like equiping new cars with tape decks - the majority of people dont use them. Humax and Manhatten do have scarts though, but as older TV's are replaced, HDMI has become the standard connection. No Samsung 4K TV has scart connections - what would be the point?
Now Samsung has also taken them out of its J5500 range this year - a decent entry level 2D TV. That is almost certainly due to cost - the margins are very thin on TV's for manufacturers and retailers, and if the market isn't going to use something (or at least use it much), then you can leave it out at that price level.
So the answer to your question is not that they are trying to make you upgrade your TV, but they are pragmatically looking at the market, and deciding what connections they actually need to use. Since the bulk of TV's in peoples homes are equiped with HDMI's, the scart is largely redundent. However, there are brands that do cater for both HDMI and scarts.
Whay annoys me more is the Freeview PVR's that were on sale not so long ago which only had scarts, but not an HDMI - that was on grounds of cost!
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M
Preseli (Pembrokeshire, Wales) Full Freeview transmitterWednesday 30 September 2015 6:58PM
Macclesfield
keith worthing: It says why at the top of the page, and I'm sure someone will try to answer when or if there will be a change.
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shirley: You need to supply a postcode, because otherwise we dont know if you are 'under a hill', etc. However, what type of socket is in your flat? Is it the type you push in (like the one on the back of the TV), or is a screwin type? If its the latter, then you've got a connection to a dish, and your TV isn't going to work with it at all.
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Tuesday 22 September 2015 9:04PM
Macclesfield
Mrs B Bellas: The short answer is no. Look at the top of the page, where it says 'Are you trying to watch these 50 Freeview channels?', and then lists channels like the one your trying to watch. Its a light PSB transmitter, and those other channels cannot be bothered to pay to transmit to you - its not worth their while.
Since you put your postcode into the site, we can see what your local transmitters are like, and Calbeck is the only one that could do it, but Digital UK reckons thats next to impossible.
Best bet? Go Freesat. You ight not get all the channels, but you'd get more than your able to now.