All posts by Michael Perry
Below are all of Michael Perry's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
nick:
Satellite is also transmitted as a digital stream, but at frequencies in the Ku band that are not affected by high pressure weather systems (but can be affected by snow and heavy rain due to water absorption).
Sudbury, like many other areas are being affected by 'tropospheric ducting' due to the high pressure weather systems. People should *not* retune their equipment as they are likely to lose more than they gain.
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Furkin
I suggest you check the signal strength display on your TV sets. You do *not* want 100% strength, there is a page on this website about 'Too much of a good thing' referring to too much signal.
If you have more than 80% then you 'may' benefit from reducing the signal strength with an attenuator. You would probably do best to get a variable type and adjust it to reduce the strength so you do not get regular interruptions - but do allow for the high pressure areas that are known to cause signal loss.
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Carl:
One of the things many people like about watching BBC TV services is the complete lack of commercial advertising. Their own adverts are not commercials but some still don't like how many there are.
Funding by advertising has a limited 'pot' to share out and the cost is added to the price you pay for the products shown.
It's never an easy balance to strike between how much advertising is done and the cost of that advertising. Firms go to great lengths to calculate the 'cost/benefit' of different forms of advertising on on different media, TV is just one of many competing for what funds may be made available by the advertisers. As there is a limit to the 'pot of gold' if the BBC were to try taking advertising revenue then some other medium will lose out.
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Adele
I can't agree as some of us just can't get broadband that is fast enough for TV viewing without constant 'buffering'.
There is also the problem that a great many people will not want to watch TV via broadband as they do not intend to have it installed, partly due to the expense and partly due to their lack of desire to use it. I suspect it could be as much as 50 years before the vast majority will want/have viable broadband (and not because of the technology either).
I speak as someone who has been in the technical business of TV all my working life and more.
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MikeB:
That's pretty much the experience in Wiltshire. Trowbridge has several new developments on-going and one is planned to be over 10,000 dwellings and currently stands at around 5,500. But there is no fibre laid! Strikes me as daft that the infrastructure being installed leaves out the key future needs. The best they can get currently is about 1 Mbps ADSL - not even 2+!
If new developments don't get it, what hope for use rural 'moonrakers' who are some 4.5 km from a small exchange via o/h copper (it was installed in the fifties so is copper and not aluminium!)? If they were to string fibre alongside the copper, using that as support, they could do the job far cheaper than digging trenches or using a 'mole'.
And Wiltshire is not unusual, just look at stories on ThinkBroadband.
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Charles Stuart:
One major problem with ideas that require unlocking an encrypted service is that almost no TV sets nor Freeview PVRs are equipped with the facility to unlock and then decrypt the transmissions. Sky equipment has such systems built-in so they can allow or disallow a particular receiver from decrypting the data stream.
The other problem is that if it became necessary the systems used would have to be agreed in advance by ALL broadcasters (or imposed) and everyone would have to buy new equipment - just putting some 'decoder' box in the signal feed does not resolve the problem as they can easily distribute the output to other users who would normally require a separate licence.
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The addition of COM 7 & 8 also means that a great many people who may wish to receive the programmes carried on these muxes later this year will need to change their receiving aerials. The current signals are transmitted in group C/D (covers channels 48-68 but channels 61-68 no longer used for DTTV) but the new ones will be in group A (channels 21-37) so a suitable wide band aerial will be needed. I would strongly advise using a log-periodic aerial as they have a fairly 'flat' response across the spectrum of TV signals whereas the 'traditional' wide band designs are not so good at the lower channel numbers.
A good log-periodic (they are the same for digital and analogue signals so don't be fooled by the marketing hype) will be adequate for any changes that may happen over the next several years, so an investment this year will last well if of good quality and well installed.
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James
Older people use the internet so would pay a 'broadband tax' as well.
Anyone who has a mobile phone would pay a mobile phone tax irrespective of age.
Tax on TV subscriptions would be payable by everyone using the service and not just those receiving via mobile or broadband.
Council tax currently is based on a property valuation done in 1991 and is so outdated. It also takes no account of household income so can be unfair to the unwaged and people on only a State Pension.
Licence fee is still workable but needs updating to cater for newer means of delivery and viewing.
The subscription model, like that used by Sky, is very expensive and unwieldy and no DTTV equipment has the facilities built in as yet.
Electricity tax would be a nightmare to implement and why should those without the facilities to view pay anything?
Your other points are, as you suggest, unbalanced as they penalise one section over another or is politically a nightmare.
What we need is a scheme that has minimal bureaucracy, so that leaves out local councils and HMRC.
IMHO we are better off with an updated TV Licence scheme that is simple to understand and simple to administer and does not allow any particular section of society to have any controlling influence over other in terms of editorial policy or output of the broadcasters.
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MikeB:
Hear Hear! The current method of paying for the BBC (TV and radio as well as internet websites) is reasonably good. But it is in need of modernisation to allow for the newer and different ways of receiving programmes and of watching them on different equipments. It does not need to be scrapped at all, just brought into line with how people watch programming on a screen these days and the different methods now available to deliver the entertainment, news information, education, etc.
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Sunday 16 March 2014 8:25PM
Moo moo and Coach:
Please see the response from KJM, Derby given above your posts. He explains what is happening.
Please do *not* try to retune your equipment in these circumstances, younwill lose more channels and gain none.