All posts by Christopher Webber
Below are all of Christopher Webber's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Hi StevensOnin1,
Thanks for the explanation, the table is somewhat misleading as the date is 2018 but like you say it shows the mux allocation post 700mhz clearance.
If there are no changes to the basic 6 muxes post 2020 then that means Freeview viewers will see a huge drop in HD channels, with COM7 and COM8 disappearing we will loose BBC News HD, BBC4 HD, 4Seven HD (not concerned with C4+1HD, QVC HD, RT HD or Cbeebies HD) they are a waste of precious bandwidth already :)
There will be no capacity on BBCB for those channels in HD and that is shocking,
Looks like the whole DSO has been a huge con, imo as Freeview will essentially be not fit for purpose and people will be forced to get Sky or Virgin just to get HD :(
Looks like the DSO was just a huge con to get the TX's enabled for 4G & 5G at taxpayers expense.
I am seriously considering cancelling my TV license and just subscribing to Netflix :)
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By the time Freeview finally gets plenty of HD content Netflix and other services will be offering 16K or 8K at minimum lol, even Youtubers are shooting in 8K and uploading in 4K (using Red cameras @ $35,000 each lol) - LinusTechTips being a prime example.
Long term there is no way Freeview will ever have the capacity to support 4K let alone 8K, this is why I think the DSO has been a con, now the 800 and 700mhz bands are being sold it just leaves the 600mhz band, even at QAM256, even with all 6 muxes transmitting at that rate, it only equates to 240MB/s maximum for all channels and radio services.
I think Freeview will eventually cease and all TV will be IPTV, probably within 20 years, it's inevitable, but during this time so many households had to upgrade aerials, TV's, set-top boxes, once to get DVB-T with so-called HD ready and again to get DVB-T2 so-called FullHD
To me it seems like it's been a con, but I'm a grumpy old git who dislikes parting with my hard-earned money !
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MikeB said:
If DSO is such a failure, why is it so popular?
I never claimed the DSO was a failure, I stated, that in my opinion, it was a con and is most likely antiquated and at pretty much full capacity already :)
as MikeP stated, eventually all that will remain will be the 600mhz band,
It will never support enough bandwidth going forward as 4K is now emerging (4K tv's are everywhere, Sky offer UHD and so do BT, Netflix etc)
Of course the DSO was not a failure, it was never going to be because millions still rely on basic FTA TV and the fact that the system changed to digital meant everyone had to either:
1. replace their aerial
2. replace their TV
3. purchase a digital set-top box
4 (or even all of the above)
5. subscribe to Sky/Virgin
Any, or even a few of the above had to be implemented by EVERYONE just to get the basic FTA channels, that's like saying the government bans petrol and diesel, forces everyone to get an electric car conversion and then claim electric cars are a huge success #lol
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Quite telling MikeB has no rebuttal for my post :) Only joking!
Another point I wish to make: why did the BBC not adopt encryption at the DSO, which would of course killed all tv license evasion? I find that incredibly strange, the cost of encryption against the cost of outsourcing tv licenses to capita would surely have made more sense? I am not technically minded, but even I can see that encryption would have put a stop to any kind of license evasion overnight, this would have saved the BBC millions a year in contracts with capita.
I am literally at a loss to explain the BBC's decision to make all STB's 'dumb', if Sky can use NLD and have watertight encryption, then why cannot the BBC implement the same?
As I have stated so many times before, the DSO was/is a con, the BBC could have made license evasion impossible, yet here we are 8 years later with Freeview which is open to easy license evasion, full to capacity and pretty much dead in the water moving forward with bandwidth limitations and frequency limitations.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it still appears that the DSO was a con, can anyone explain the thinking behind these decisions?
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Reply to MikeB
Thank you for such a comprehensive and detailed post, you do make some very good points, and as you are obviously of a technical background you understand the DSO more than I, I will happily redact my comment the DSO was a con and rephrase it as we were conned during the DSO (two aerials, an STB and new TV) to get to today where we have Digital and HD.
One point I have to bring you up on, you mentioned 'how would encryption work for radio) - As you must surely be aware, no TV licence is required for Radio, so no encryption would even be required.
I think we have exhausted this exchange, and I thank you for all your replies and explanations.
Until June 2018, when no doubt we will need another aerial upgrade - joke!
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Tuesday 1 August 2017 10:23PM
The table above does not show COM7 or COM8 on C55 & C56.
No one answered my previous question as to whether any muxes will be changed to DVB-T2 next year to increase capacity and bring more HD channels.
Some h.264 channels are already being transmitted but they are all 544x576 anamorphic at pathetic 1MB/s avg, is this what we can expect for Freeview in the future?
Ofcom have already stated they are to lift the minimum bit-rates for the main channels.
I guess we will see more channels crammed in at stupid SVCD frame sizes with bit-rates worse than Youtube just so broadcasters can maximize ad-revenues.
It matters not how good your 4K TV's upscaler is, the picture quality is going to look a mess with a 544x576 1MB/s h.264 source