All posts by John Gleeson
Below are all of John Gleeson's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Bang goes totally live TV. There will always now be a slight delay. Will that always be the case?
Due to the Digital Switchover, not that I'm experiencing any reception problems, I will still miss analogue teletext, as I'm able to access teletext pages far quicker there than I seem to be able to in Digital TV mode. As well as that I don't as far as I know think you can access text mixed with picture like you can on Ceefax. I found this very useful for keeping abreast of the latest sports results like cricket, football etc, while at the same time watching a programme such as a film. On Digital text you only get either split screen or a full page of text in which you are unable to see the TV picture that you want to see. You can only hear the TV sound. Do you know if this can be modified?
Recently I went to the England v India cricket Test Match @ Edgbaston in which I also took a DAB radio to listen to the commentary on 5Live Sports Extra. However it was rather disconcerting though to hear the live commentary up to nearly 2 seconds after witnessing the action in the flesh at the ground. Again is there no way around this happening with digital broadcasting?
Do you know if there's any likelyhood of BBC local radio stations ever appearing on Freeview? I know that stations like Radio Scotland, Wales, Cymru, Ulster do in their respective regions. I would like to see it happen. Radio stations don't use up anything like the bandwidth TV stations need, do they?
In a small way sad to see analogue broadcasting diappear.
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Hello again. Here in Birmigham everything appears to have gone ok. All multiplexs from Sutton Coldfield appeared to have come alive by about 04:00. All analogue services except for BBC1 were swiftly taken off the air by about 00:10. Why they decided not to take BBC1 off until 00:53, I don't know as the film that was being broadcast had still at least an hour to run.
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I know that I'm in the minority, but I have a non Sky, non Freesat satellite receiver where I need to input the exact frequencies to view any TV/Radio channels, the receiver will not automatically find these for me as those other receivers generally seem to. Is there any chance that you could do a listing of these frequencies on your web-site for the UK channels? I know from time to time that satellite frequencies do get altered. When this happens I can lose some of my channels & not be able to reinstate them until Im able to find out through other sources what these new frequencies are. Im particularly keen once available in knowing the frequencies the BBC will use for the various Olympic Games events coverage.
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At the moment I can't think of any useful ideas, but if I do I'll let you know. I just hope that I can pass on the following comments to you.
As it's the complete digital switchover later this year when the Northern Ireland region gets converted, switched over, do you know of any plans for the BBC to do a special programme commemorating the 70 odd years of analogue TV in the UK? I find a programme like this ought to be done. I dont expect ITV to do one. Perhaps there could be a very faint glimmer of hope that CH4 could! Maybe BBC Northern Island might be the place to look, which can be received throughout the rest of the UK via satellite, as that's where it all ends.
As the BBC has decided later this year to transfer all their childrens programmes to C-Beebies & CBBC to save money, why dont all their news programmes apart from the regional news, be transfered completely to their news channel, BBC News. I dont somehow see this happening as BBC1 is seen as their flag-ship channel & must still feel that they need to compete with ITV1.
Do you know if there can be, or likely to be any regional variations on BBC2 apart from those in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland? In the past when Wimbledon has been shown on both BBC1 & BBC2 when matches involving top British players have been on, the BBC in their infinite wisdom have decided that they must be shown, moved to BBC1, their so-called flagship channel. This has often happened at around 6pm when the national news, then followed by the respective regional news is on. If this were to happen now & the news programmes be moved over to BBC2 they would not be able to broadcast the regional news programmes, except in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland. I find it difficult to accept the BBC policy for this as for many, many years now, that people that can receive BBC1 can just as easily receive BBC2. Long gone are the days when people would have to buy converters, or another TV to watch BBC2 like in the old 405/625line days. The mind boggles.
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I watch the word game programme Countdown and I notice that exactly the same edition of the programme is broadcast only 2 hours after the original CH4 showing, 1 hour after the +1, which seems totally pointless. Why don't, can't they show that edition of the programme from a few days previous in case it was difficult to watch the original showing on that day. That seems to make more sense, but the broadcasters think they know best don't they! It might as well be CH4+2.
Actually they ought to get rid of all the +1 channels & make them at least +2 as if you have a programme clash a one hour time difference can very often still conflict with the first programme, whereas the majority of programmes are not going to last more than two hours in length, so less likely to conflict.
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Hi, thanks for giving out the full frequency parameters of all the BBC Olympic satellite services. I have a generic satellite receiver, so I'm a truly full FREE VIEW satellite TV & Radio viewer/listener, not a Sky or Freesat viewer who dictate to you in one form or another what services you can/can't watch/listen to. It really gets to me when you try to get this information from other sources. I once tried ringing Argos TV to get their frequency & it was like you're talking a foreign language to them. They hadn't a clue what I was talking about. Anyway there still are a few enlightened folk about like yourselves who know exactly what I'm talking about. Many thanks
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Can I just inform you all that as this coming Tuesday night/Wednesday morning will be digital switchover day where the switchover to digital TV will be complete & analogue TV in the United Kingdom will be no more, BBC 1 in Northern Ireland only along with UTV are presenting a programme The Magic Box starting at 22:35 on Tuesday October 23rd, which will be a special live broadcast on both channels hosted by Eamonn Holmes, celebrating the best of Northern Ireland television over the past 60 year and marking the occasion of the digital switchover. As Im sure most of you know BBC1 Northern Ireland can also be received in the rest of the UK if you have satellite TV. It seems the rest of the UK is doing little or nothing to acknowledge the passing of analogue TV. What a shame.
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I notice that on the BBC HD channels on Freesat there is digitext (whatever they call teletext now). However there doesn't appear to be any on the respective channels on Freeview apart from subtitles. Can you tell me why this is? It is really very irritating having to retune back to the same channels on SD if I wish do this.
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Yes, I totally agree that many of the programmes on BBC Alba are a lot more interesting than the general fair that the other broadcasters feel they want you to see. As well as that, almost all the programmes apart from the children's programmes can still be enjoyed by the majority as they are mostly subtitled in English.
Another very interesting thing I've noticed about BBC Alba is the use of the 24 hour clock to show the times of the programmes like they tend to do on the continent, unlike the rest of the UK TV & Radio services which still chooses to use AM & PM. Why do we still do it? What is the problem with using the 24 hour clock, less confusing? The EPG's use the 24 hour clock format, so does the clock on your computer. Wake up Britain! Power to BBC Alba I say.
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Sunday 14 August 2011 7:13PM
This place name is not spelt Edgebaston, but Edgbaston, as in the Edgbaston cricket ground,home of Warwickshire County Cricket club, where England recently got nominated no.1 test match cricketing team.