All posts by MB
Below are all of MB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Peter: All the UHF frequencies in use for Freeview in Scotland are already fully co-ordinated with the rest of the UK and the rest of Europe - if Scotland gains independance the ITU/EBU will simply transfer the usage agreement to the new Scottish government. They will not withdraw and then attempt to reallocate channels that are already fully co-ordinated. Frequency allocation will remain the same.
As for whether the BBC will maintain its presence, or whether any other organisation will be able to take over, thats altogether a different issue!
| link to this comment |
Robin St.Clair: I'm sorry, but DVB-H was first broadcast in the UK in 1998. The technology was developed in the 1980s and during the early 90s the standards were agreed and Blue Books were developed. So it is 1980's tech, no matter what you may think.
The protocol was developed in the 1980s, the equipment now in use is 21st c technology, so you are most certainly wrong there
My television is capable of 4K @ 60fps. Having to watch BBC4 in SD from a transmitter that is still configured to broadcast BBC3 is more than irritating. The BBC were planning to be broadcasting in 4K by now, but that has been shelved.
No transmitter is 'configured' for this - the transmitter puts out what is given to it on the transport stream, which is decided at the multiplexing center. The decisions as to what goes on or not are at corporate level, and decided by viewing and revenue figures
If it is worth broadcasting BBC4 HD on satellite, its worth doing it terrestrially.
A satellite feed has a much larger footprint than a terrestrial transmitter. It is therefore more economic to do so. It is not 'worth doing' at small relays for the very reasons of viewing population figures previously referred to
Why should people living 200 metres away be able to receive a channel I cannot receive, yet pay the same licence fee? And if anybody tries to excuse this by saying the fee is a licence to use a TV, I call them something worse than a pedant.
Oh dear. You seem adament that you know better than others as to TV technologies, but clearly you have no knowledge of RF propagation. Those people '200 meters' away are able to receive a main station. You chose to live where you have, if that means your served by a small 'lite' fill-in relay, well thats pretty much hard luck.
Oh, and yes, I shall be pedantic and you call call me anything you wish, it doesnt change the actual letter of the law - read the back of your license! Your license allows you to own and use equipment to receive off air TV signals - it does not, and never has, implied any guarentee that there is anything to watch.
Rather than ranting on here and then abusing people who reply, why dont you actually get satellite to watch BBC4 HD on? Commercial decisions based on large surveys, along with spectrum planning constraints, decided which transmitters carry full service. Sorry if youve been unlucky, but neither the BBC nor the regulators owe you anything. Theres plenty of ways to watch BBC4 HD available
| link to this comment |
Robin St.Clair: No I do not represent this site.
I am however, one of the engineers who operate, monitor and control the DTV network. I post on this site occasionally where my knowledge of the system may help a viewer, however I am not representing the company when I do so here.
| link to this comment |
Robin St.Clair: The Turnpike Hill relay is what we term an 'RBR' fed site, this means it relays on off-air received signal, in this case originating from the Dover main station. It is a 'lite' station carrying only the three public service multiplexes. As you will be aware the PSB1 multiplex carries BBC4 in SD. All 'lite' transmitters are small area coverage and limited due to spectrum planning constraints, and therefore there are no plans to increase the number of multiplexes transmitted from them. As to changing the lineup of the HD transmitter to include BBC4 HD, this is a decision for the broadcaster, and they have made the decision that currently this is not to be.
The equipment at the transmitter site is not 'provisioned in software' - it can only rebroadcast what content is carried on the multiplexes it receives. As none of the three multiplexes it rebroadcasts carry BBC4 HD, it is not possible for this site to transmit it!
What I can tell you is that all three transmitters at Turnpike Hill are operating normally at present.
If you would refrain from ranting at us, and provision us with your postcode, I will be happy to take a look at the transmitter coverage maps and the terrain profiles and see if it would be possible for you to receive a main station from your location with some adjustment to your antenna system. It would also help if you could tell us what type of antenna system you had and whether it is mounted externally on the roof, as is required to meet the standards for reception.
Some people do find that with adjustment to the antenna, or a new better antenna, they are able to receive a full service from a main station despite being officially outside the coverage area (we are very generous with these coverage areas!), assuming the proviso that such reception outside the intended coverage is not guarenteed and may be intermittent or of a lower quality.
| link to this comment |
Nicholas, you are entirely wrong, on all levels! Firstly, no manufacturer in their right mind would include any circuit to create additional noise, secondly, if they wanted to do so, they would just create the noise digitally within the processing! I have yet to see you provide ANY evidence of this circuit you say exists - why dont you post a link to an actual circuit diagram? Then we could look at this 'circuit', but you havent even provided that much evidence! Come on, post the circuit.
The effects you describe are caused by only two things - 1- poor received signal quality, due to your antenna and system and its relation to the transmitter. 2- they are natural effects of the limited bandwidth of the SD channels, where bitrate is limited to allow for more services. Motion requires greater bitrate than what is available, and hence the encoded video is restricted. This is part of how the video coding works in MPEG-2 and how the broadcaster wishes to choose their bitrates. If there was any conspiracy to degrade SD, then it would be done from the encoding end before transmission. I work in transmission and can assure you this is not done, and all what you are describing are natural effects of limited bitrate available on the 16QAM 8k modulation used for SD. HD uses 256QAM 32k modulation and so can carry much greater bitrates, at the cost of lower resiliance to over the air degradation.
You are arguing your case with no valid evidence, against people who are experienced engineers in the television industry, ranging across all aspects from studio and post production, encoding and muxing, transmission, and consumer maintenance/repair, and antenna installers. And they are ALL telling you you are wrong.
Either post valid and convincing evidence (not just your warped opinion) or accept that you are wrong
| link to this comment |
Patricia Clements:
And its also clear that your insufficient research has led you to comment on a technical assistance site that has no connection whatsoever with either the broadcaster nor the production company.
Try posting on Channel 5s own website?
| link to this comment |
Rob Mac: Have you considered having your aerial and cable repaired?
What makes you think that the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of transmitter are at fault, rather than your couple of hundred quid telly and aerial?
Have you any idea the penalties that the operators would be liable for to the broadcaster if the transmitter was going off during prime time tv?
You do know that the transmitter operator has 24/7 live monitoring of the transmitters as well, dont you?
| link to this comment |
Kingshuk: You have plugged an aerial in, haven't you?
Which is your transmitter? or provide a postcode
| link to this comment |
Page 1
Saturday 6 September 2014 5:16PM
Luca: This is not unusual. After dark, the ionosphere's D layer dissipates. This layer normally absorbs MW signals meaning that the only go a few miles. Without this layer, at night, the signals can reach the F layers higher in the atmosphere, and hence be refracted back to earth many hundreds to thousands of miles distant. Tune around MW or LW after dark and you will find many stations from other countries that are not receivable during the day. This is a common cause of interference on MW