All posts by Michael
Below are all of Michael's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
The "Civilization" HD/35mm post has I hope given me the chance of an answer to a q that has puzzled me for years, long before there was any thought of digital or HD TV.
On reading an article then about how there was a struggle to continue shooting "epics" on film rather than cheaper tape, because of the better quality images it produced, I wondered how it could make a difference when it had to be converted to electronic signals anyway. The post must indicate that somebody here could explain; is film inherently better, or has electronic media caught up - would a film projected side by side directly and via electronic means look the same?
A related q is: why, even in the cinema but now better because you can see end to end films from different eras, is it possible for at least older folks to tell immediately from the colour whether a film they've never seen is from the 40s, 50s, 60s to maybe mid 70s, since when nothing seems to have changed?
| link to this comment |
Several reports predict that 4G will reduce Freeview to 20 basic channels. If that turns out to be so, what will the channels be?
| link to this comment |
The only channels I have "activated" on my TV and PVR are 1 to 15, 19, 24, 28, 80 and 82. These are all working now on TV and PVR.
Do I need to do anything?
Thanks.
| link to this comment |
I can see the Winter Hill mast from my house, 6.5 miles away. When, after digital changeover, with a new aerial, I automatically tuned my new Panasonic TV and Humax PVR and deleted all but 19 TV and 4 BBC Radio channels, I had to manually retune from BBC Wales to NW. Then everything was fine, until I did a manual retune to find 4seven, and ended up back with BBC Wales. I retuned the TV (which I only watch directly if the PVR is blocked by recording) to channels 1-7, 9-15, 19/25/28/47/80/82 and radio; all seem to be fine. 8 does not appear, and clicking it on the remote displays Invalid channel.
I then retuned the Humax but 5/C5, 6/ITV2 and 14/More4 are blank in the EPG and the channels dont show if I click on them (same in Channel list or by clicking the number on the remote), but display No or bad signal. The same applies to channel 8, which never appeared previously, making me think it was reserved for some special function, but now the EPG says its C4. I now have ITV2 and More4 on 801 and 802 and in the EPG. So also another Channel 5 on 800, which I don't need.
Can anyone tell me why the two should have retuned differently and what I can/should do about the Humax situation? Im obviously getting a signal from Wales (Moel-y-Parc?) much further away, especially as on Wednesday I got an on-screen warning about channel changes, which your email links to Freeview in Wales. This makes me wary of retuning again without advice. You also show that Winter Hill channels 61 and 62 will change in April; will that happen automatically or will it need a manual retune?
If I retune, should I start from 62 down rather than 55 up and which precisely (and how after Aprils changes)? Will that eliminate other/Moel-y-Parc transmitters signals? Why was it made so complicated by people necessarily clever enough to have done otherwise? Even the obviously very knowledgeable people commenting here have had problems.
Thanks so much.
| link to this comment |
Where has Film 4 gone (Winter Hill)? I've just come out of hospital and channel 15 carries a message saying F4 has moved but, doG knows why, not where to. Have there been other changes?
Thanks
| link to this comment |
I hope it's not out of order to ask qs about on-line services here. I (a pre-tv person) can't find answers on the web (probably because I'm no good at searching) and the bbc seem to have gone to great lengths not to be sent any, but the contributors on here seem between them to know everything. And, Briantist, my q may be one you'd be interested in yourself.
BBC Radio iPlayer certainly isn't just a way of accessing last week's programmes, which the TV version is (unlike 4oD), although it wasn't announced as just a short-term catch-up . Why the difference? (I understand the non-BBC copyright restriction.) Is there a long term plan. The BBC, in particular, must have an enormous archive of programmes (I have a few on tape), many of which need to be kept but are most unlikely (eg B&W) ever to be rebroadcast or to attract much custom as DVDs/CDs (why didn't the old Radio/Tv broadcasts of Under Milk Wood accompany the recent version?). Licence-payers paid for them and they ought to be able to access them still. If it's a q of money, why isn't the BBC suggesting an x-pence addition to the licence fee for y years to fund their digitisation, etc? There are miles of shelves of print material from much longer ago, stored at much greater expense, still freely available in public libraries; what's the difference?
I was also sure that the BBC said some while ago that it was making the whole of its own (classical?) music archive freely available, but I appear to be wrong?
There is much that I listened to/watched in the 50s-70s that would be enjoyed and valued by my children and also now or soon by their children.
Finally, what is the difference between listening to a radio programme on-line, live or at a later date or listening to 'the podcast'?
Thanks.
| link to this comment |
Michael,
I'm too tech-unaware to understand fully what you're getting at (perhaps you could elaborate for readers like me), but I'll use this opportunity to make the comment that occurred to me while reading the article: I assume that there has been coast-to-coast <i>terrestrial</i> TV in the States (+Canada, maybe) for decades, with a plethora of broadcasters, so why has there not been even the slightest hint of this for Europe? Is it because, as you suggest, there is money in it for the satellite businesses and none for terrestrial provision? Or are there technical reasons?
| link to this comment |
I simply meant having their terrestrial broadcasts available here. We could be like my fellow- students in France decades ago, who were mostly from Luxemburg, who could get broadcasts from their neighbours across their several borders and, besides their mother-tongue, could all at least understand French, German and English. I first saw the blockbuster "The Longest Day" in a cinema there, which enhanced realism by having the French, German, Russian and English (and - it was a long time ago - perhaps other) characters speak their own languages but wasn't subtitled. There was more foreign language material on TV in the several other European countries I spent time in than there is in UK, and especially England
Multilingual TV would have been very good for the 100s of Modern Language students I taught in my lifetime.
| link to this comment |
Monday 17 January 2011 4:11PM
HD info is v confusing. Panasonic says the tv I bought last year is HD Ready, meaning that the television is able to handle a High Definition signal. It produces 720 lines of information across the screen which is not Full HD. It does not have a High Definition tuner built in, so the HD services would come from an external source such as a recorder with HD built in. This seems to mean, even with a HD recorder, I would not get HD, but that seems to make "HD ready" pointless. Am I wrong?