All posts by Pete
Below are all of Pete's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Doesn't look like the BBC will have enough dosh to flood Britain with DAB transmitters after all, giving poorer sound quality than the current FM broadcasts. They are so strapped for cash they are now butchering the BBC World Service : 5 language networks going and a quater of their staff. Is this just the beginning I ask myself.
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How come you can press GREEN to get rid of the PRESS RED button on BBC ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, NEWS & PARLIAMENT but not CHANNEL 301 on Freeview. Why does the PRESS RED/SPORT HOME button have to stay on for the full duration of NEWS & SPORTS programmes on Freeview but goes away after a few secoinds on FREESAT ? This makes it impossible to make a remote recording on Freeview without the blasted thing being burned into your picture on playback !!
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Yes so do I Brian, and I find the programmes much much more enjoyable without DOGS. In a moody drama set in a dark location there is nothing worse than having a bright white logo in the top left corner to distract you, or the latest stupid practice of having a bright coloured (usually yellow) ticker-tape banner telling you what's coming next, while you are trying to watch what's happening NOW!! CRAZY !! and a real switch off. I never watch the NEXT as a protest to having by NOW spoilt. DOGS also sometimes cover up notes, newspaper clippings or text essential to a drama / plot.
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At least you got served Lutonfan, most "Comet" salespeople are too busy talking verbal hogwash amongst themselves to be bothered with us mere customers.
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Why do they have to cut programmes when they can just extend the time slot. It's not as though they have any live programmes to squeeze up to ? Once upon a time ITV had to restrict ad breaks to a max of 4 mins and 10 secs with only a max of two breaks within an hour long programme, such a great shame this rule was changed.
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Quiz, old gameshows, whatever, still a total waste of bits. I cannot enjoy any HD channel until the DOGS are removed and will stick with standard Freeview non-DOG channels and DVDs until such time as they drop the DOGS or standard Freeview is switched off, with the possible exception of BBC FOUR which has some pretty decent programmes (even BBC FOUR used to remove their DOG from time to time but have sadly given up recently - not sure why ? Not sure why the first repeat of THE AVENGERS & THE PRISONER on BBC FOUR had no DOG but subsequent repeats did). Why should I waste £ hundreds on HD, when their DOGS & LOGOS infuriate me ? Each to his own Brian.
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Panasonic equipment seems to struggle with the switchover. My recorder's tuner was useless after switchover with the colour fading up and down and the disc recording section collapsing. It ended up on the local tip after I took a lump hammer to it when it failed to record the last episode of FROST, which thankfully ITV1 repeated the other week. My new Toshiba hardrive & disc recorder had no such problems and allowed me to chop all the adverts out post recording.
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What was the reason for the move Brian ? Has its bit rate increased at all. It sounds better than DAB but still appears to be in mono whereas overnight on BBC Radio 4 FM it is definitely in ((( STEREO ))).
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Tuesday 25 January 2011 11:18PM
If you don't believe me Brian I can show you the same programme I recorded on disc from analogue pre switch over, compared with a recent repeat on a digital standard Freeview broadcast, the difference is staggering. Analogue knoocking the spots off digital in terms of picture quality (even with 90% digital signal strength). The only gain since switchover being so called "choice". But what a choice, generally poor quality old programmes repeated and repeated and repeated in cycles that can only bore you to tears, they are repeated so often. ITV4 must be on its twentieth round of repeats of THE CHAMPIONS & THE SAINT by now. My old VHS tapes are better with much shorter ad breaks and uninterupted end credits and more original content. ITV4 chopping significant chunks out of original programmes to allow longer ad breaks in the same time slot. Some BBC repreats have been really butchered as they had no ad breaks but still last an hour. I compared a Who Do You Think You are on the "Yesterday" channel with Jeremy Paxman recently. Compared with the BBC TWO original, "Yesterday" cut one side of the Paxman family out altogether making a nonesense of the story !! Nevada Smith ran from 14:15 to 17:00 last Saturday 2 hrs 45 minutes (without the dverts the film lasted 1 hr 45 minutes. You lose the will to live waiting for it to restart by which time you've totally lost the plot and the will to live. Thank God for the Toshiba hard drive recorder with post recording edit facility which allows you to chop the adverts out post recordings !!