All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.M
Pontop Pike (County Durham, England) Full Freeview transmitter Monday 9 November 2015 7:53PM
Macclesfield
Paul: If your getting 'no signal', it means just that - your either getting nowt or a signal too low for the TV tuner to make use of it. Classic problem is a loose connection or broken cable somewhere in your system. Start at the back of the TV, and work your way back.
Now its true that there have been problems caused by weather for the past week or so, but thats pretty unusual. I'd look at your system first.
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Dave: The CPI increase was supposedly part of the agreement that Osborne agreed with the BBC last year. Of course CPI is actually a smaller amount than RPI, so its not exactly generous. The BBC is possibly doing two things by announcing this. A) They are going by the agreement last year, and are showing that they are being good about it, respecting the deal, etc. If the government welches on the deal, they can say they accepted the deal in good faith, and made plans accordingly. The ball is in the governments court.
B) By announcing the figure, they make it 'offical'. Any change by Whittingdale, etc would look like lying, and the BBC has the moral high ground.
They are right to do this. Whitingdale's remarks on the Radio4 'debate' made it clear that the deal was made by the government with its fingers crossed, which might mean there wasn't any real deal at all, and the BBC got played, having made lots of concessions, which they might have to eat when negotiating the Charter renewal. Its a good idea to pin down what the government promised - it makes it much harder for them to back out.
RichardW - I suspect that your philosophical viewpoint is getting in the way of practicalities.
Firstly, the BBC did try a subscription system via Itunes, but obviously its didn't work very well. You will now be able to buy content from the BBC, such as Dr Who, but firstly, the huge archive is not totally accessable (the system to make it all digital didn't really work and cost a lot of money, as every newspaper pointed out). The BBC does sell a lot of its older content, on VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray and of course to othe channels, both here and abroad. You cannot, however, sell a series to PBS in the States (which they might cofinance) and then expect them to be happy that your selling the digital rights worldwide. What if they want to do that within the US?
Remember that the bulk of people do not stream programmes - in the UK 69% of programming is watched live, and 25% is recorded. In the US its 28%, but that not surprising - its very largely a cable based market, has a large number of channels, often using a subscription model, and so streaming is simply easier. However, even there, 39% of viewing is still done live. Most people in the UK dont stream, or even (in many cases) know how to stream.
'Content distribution has been revolutionised by the Internet. 'Live' broadcasting of pre-recorded content is dying fast and, in it's own interests, the BBC needs to get with the times.'
If its dying, its got a funny way of showing it - over 90% is non streamed. And the idea that we can all just use the net is a bit like we can all 'eat cake' - broadband access and speeds are not universally acceptable, and what if you dont want the net?
The same goes for Spotify, etc - it might possibly be profitable in the UK, but worldwide it loses money.
And while Spotify's playlist is huge, what it largely plays is what you might like. Its not suddenly going to play something totally random or different. Its not going to play a band for the hell of it and give them a big break. Radio 6 Music does, as does the excellent KCRW and KEXP. Both of those US stations are non commercial - one is NPR, whilst the other is community supported. And I bet far more people listen to the radio at any one time than use all the streaming services.
And Spotify premium costs a tenner a month. Thats fine, but BBC radio doesn't have ads either, and you'll get everything (including radio) for £145.50 a year. The BBC does support the sort of music which the commercial stations will not, as well as the Proms, etc. Without the BBC, would UK music be so rich?
'The BBC World Service - I've never heard or seen it, have you?' Are you joking? The World Service is the jewel in the crown of the BBC, and a fantastic resource. Its also one of the best forms of 'soft power' the UK has - its trusted the world over. Yes, the Russian/China/Swahili service is of little use to us in the UK directly, but blame the government for the switch to being paid by the licence fee. A decent chunk of the running costs used to be paid by the Foriegn Office, until Jeremy Hunt put a gun to the BBC's head 5 years ago.
If you wanted to listen to it on FM, you had to wait until Radio 4 had gone off air in the night (I used to listen to it when my kids were babies, since it would keep me awake when they were), but thanks to DAB and the net, its now available 24 hours a day. A great way to find out whats inportant in the world, and not just the Westminster bubble, and their daily reports on Ebola were facinating. And the TV service stopped my wife and I going mad in the US some years back - watch US news and you'll have little idea what going on beyond America. The World TV Service was a godsend.
People always come up with 'The Voice' when they want the BBC to stop making 'Entertainment'. Any other shows? Frankly, the Voice only caused problems because the BBC paid for the format. Considering the graveyard of shows that have failed on Saturday night on both channels, getting a format which works would seem very sensible (The Generation Game's format was also copied from another country).
Here is the reality - people like the Voice, and since they pay their licence fee, they are entitled to watch it. And ITV could have bought the format at the time (they now own the company that owns it). They didn't.
If you want a Saturday night full of high minded culture (that the commercial world does not do), you might want to look at what happened at the LWT franchise in 1968. They started out with stuff like a drama from Jean-Luc Godard, a tribute to Jacques Brel, a programme about Kurt Weill and a musical drama by Stravinsky. Nobody wanted to watch the channel, and other franchises refused to show their programmes - the BBC had a field day. LWT did not recover for years.
Everyone pays for the BBC, and everyone gets something that they might like. And as for the likes of Strictly - if anyone had pitched a contest about ballroom dancing to ITV, would they have gone for it? Sky? Now its a blockbuster. The BBC hopefully makes 'the good popular and the popular good'. If someone can supply a list of a nights viewing that fits their highbrow ambitions, which does not impinge on any commercial broadcaster, and people might like to actually watch, let us know. I suspect that the Sun would immediately denounce it for being elitist and boring.
I'm not a sports fan, but many are. The BBC is realistic about what it can afford, and if ITV/C4 wants to show sport, good luck to it. That does not means that the BBC cannot show sport either.
The idea of the BBC being subsidised and therefore crowding out the market is one beloved of certain newspapers and commentators, but there is little evidence of it. ITV and C5 (and of course Sky) all had increased profits this year, so they are not missing out financially. All three have no BBC competition with regards to advertising revenue, and although they could argue that they might get more viewers without BBC competition, they would also lose out on the talent that the BBC nurtures, which they then take advantage of. And besides - thanks to PVR's and catchup, why not watch more than one thing? Its not a zero sum game anymore.
And although Sky would love the BBC to be a basic PBS style service, it certainly would not be in favour of the BBC becoming a subscription service, any more than ITV would like it if the BBC accepted advertising. They should be careful what they wish for.
As an ecosystem, it works. Its certainly isn't crippling the market - there are 70 plus channels out there. And many of them bascially recycle old BBC content anyway. If someone wants to launch a station showing high quality UK all original drama and documentaries, I'm for it - but I suspect the reason why they dont is thats its not profitable.
I have no intention of letting Sky anywhere near me, and why should I have to stream, when I have no need? Its not broke (unless you are possibly one of the 3%), and there is no need to fix it. As for the idea of 'choice', 'freedum', or whatever - tough. As someone commented the other day online in answer to this idea - 'I'm not getting any use from Trident at the moment, so I'll let someone else pay for it'. That arguement is not going to work with the Inland Revenue, and since 97% of licence fee payers use the BBC in any one week, it pretty much doesn't work with regard to the licence fee either.
What depresses me is that same derp comes up again and again. Its fine to have a philosophocal viewpoint, but the vast majority (90% or more) of licence fee payers are happy with it or would pay more, judging by the recent 'BBC deprivation test'. 'Choice' sound atrractive, but the reality of such changes to allow such choice is actually less choice, less quality and higher prices.
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M
Ridge Hill (County of Herefordshire, England) Full Freeview traTuesday 10 November 2015 8:31PM
Macclesfield
philip lambley: The panasonic is probably a 130 or something similar, so has an HD (T2) tuner. The Logik certainly doesn't (HD Ready means the panel, not the tuner). Since Talking Pictures etc can only be picked up via T2 tuner, the TV wont do it.
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M
My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank on FIVE, ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+Tuesday 10 November 2015 11:45PM
Macclesfield
Paul: MikeP and others have posted about possible temp inversions, etc, which have messed up a lot of peoples reception. Its doesn't happen very often, but its is very warm for the time of year, so its just one of those things. By Friday its going to get a lot colder, and hopefully things will be back to normal by then.
Freeview Play is online, and has nothing at all to do with TV reception.
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Briantist: As far as I can remember, (decent) Freesat boxes have had an HDMI in the back for more than 7 years, so if you could get HD on them, it was fine. In fact Freesat was promoted as somethign which you could get HD on, when Freeview HD was just a possibility.
Sorry to hear about the Humax - what happened?
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Briantist: Of course the amounts the BBC spends per head in NI, Scotland and Wales, plus the special language services is also a weapon.
NI and Welsh politicans know that any savage cutting of the BBC's budget due to charter renewal will hit them hard. So they are unlikely to support it. The Scots are more torn, considering that the SNP was most unhappy about the Independence Vote coverage, and that they would like their own Scottish Broadcasting Corporation. On the other hand, they also know that the BBC is a) Popular, b) Any Tory government trying to be really horrible to the BBC will have problems, and c) if the BBC goes (or massively cut), nobody else is going to pay for this stuff. They certainly don't.
Nicola Sturgeon is very clever, and isn't going to vote for the dismembering of the BBC, when they can get more for keeping it as it is, at least for now. Since the Labour Party isn't about to allow the BBC to be destroyed either (certainly not under Jeremy Corbyn), the Tories are left by themselves. They have a majority of 12, many of which are looking nervously at their majorities already, and the Lords have shown that they are not afraid to think about voting down government legislation. Its going to be interesting what Whittingdale is going to come with next, since that 'deal' seems to be no more than a possible bluff.
Tony Nicolson: Can you please explain 'The biggest problem facing the licence payer is the inappropriate use of the money for political ends and the burden of increasingly large numbers of 'non-job managers',. Tony hall is slimming down the number of managers (although the BBC does more on more platforms than it 20-30 years ago), and I have no idea what 'political ends' means. The biggest problem with BBC finance is simple - the BBC has been starved with funds over the last 5 year, given extra costs and responsibilities, had to pay for things it has nothing to do with, and constantly hassled by government.
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Paul: What about signal strength? If its going from 0 -10 a lot, then that sounds about right. The quality should be 100%, if the strength is OK.
An variable attenuator can be had for less than four quid from Screwfix, and fixed one are less than two quid each on Amazon.
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Barney: Wow - that is old school!
In addition to the advice given by jb38, there is one other thing thats occurs to me - when you changed the attenna, did you swap over the aerial lead as well? If your losing a mux, then it could be a dodgy aerial lead or something. If you used the same one, then the problem continues. If you did swap over, then its the reset, I'm afraid.
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Paul: Did you read the article about 'too much of a good thing' that Brianist linked to?
You've got a Panasonic PZ80A (good set, BTW, and I'm sure is totally fine), a brand which is known for having sensitive tuners. So basically, Sandy Heath is shouting at your TV, and its going deaf. If your attentuator is not quite bringing down the signal level enough, then (in the words of Chief Brody), your 'going to need a bigger boat!' Get another attenuator (perhaps 6db if you already bought a 12), and put them in series. 80% is evidently still too high, so perhaps aim for 70%.
I have no idea why your signal strength has gone up slightly - could be something as simple as all the leaves finally falling off the tree's, and the strength just going up enough to screw up the quality. However, just get a nother attenuator to kill the signal a little more (play about with it), and everything should be fine.
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Tuesday 3 November 2015 11:26PM
Macclesfield
John Clark: Glad its OK. We all experienced one of those odd weather problems that happen every so often, and I'm glad everything is back to normal.
The reason why I went through that little checklist is thats normally the problem. Weather/ transmitter problems tend to be far less usual than a breakdown at the household end.