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All posts by Trevor Harris

Below are all of Trevor Harris's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.


Boy am I glad I have got all Sky boxes which I never had to "retune". To me this is a big failure of freeview especially for non technical people.

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I think it is very confusing for customers today. You can by an HD Ready TV without a DVB T2 tuner. I suspect many people have bought these sets believing they will be able to receive HD programmes.

When 625 transmissions started all new TVs had to have a UHF tuner. I guess if the government made such a law today the EU would object.

About 44% of sky subscritions include HD. I understand that about 80% of Freesat boxes are HD boxes. So HD will soon be in the majority on satellite. Freeview will never be able to compete in the long term with over 60 HD channels available on satellite. During the Olympics 25 extra free to air HD channels will be added.

I am suprised that so many people put up with SD picture quality. When the BBC did some viewing tests with BBC staff they found a significant number of people needed to go to an optition. So I suspect poor eye sight is one factor. The human brain also seems to compensate for low definition. After all many people found the 32 line Baird system quite entertaining. It does not help that freeview uses an inferior 1440x1080 pixels.

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The Independent stations were originally conceived as regional companys. This made it possible to change regions not considered to be performing. Now ITV is a national station things are very different. When regional stations closed they had no other way of transmitting. In this multi channel age ITV could carry on if it lost it's PSB licence. The value of having a PSB licence has certainly been reducing. In fact ITV has been moving away from free to air broadcasting with ITV 2,3,4 HD being part of the Sky package. Ofcom might have trouble finding a company to replace ITV in any case.

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I like you background picture of 2 satalite aerials. Clearly one was installed by a cowboy with unsupported and loops of cables.

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I believe the 24 channels are also avalable on virgin but I am not sure about HD.
Sky is using 6 transponders for 24 HD channels which is a good sign that we will get a higher bitrate than the low bitrate BBC satellite pictures. I suspect they will also be 1920x1080 as opposed to the BBC's substandard 1440x1920 pixels.

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BBC Olym 14 is showing the torch going through Brent. Unfortunatly in SD and awfull quality.

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This is how they should have done it.

Eyes In The Sky – How the Tour de France is Broadcast To the World | Cycling Tips

It has always amaized me how the Tour De France is broadcast in top quality HD from the back of motorbikes.

I guess it was too expensive for the BBC.

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As I thought the 24 Sky channels are 1920x1080 as opposed to BBC's 1440x1080. The odd thing is BBC One HD is in dolby 5.1 and the 24 channels are in stereo. So you have a choice of a sharper picture or dolby 5.1. Very odd.

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The only downside to this is a less robust signal so some people in fringe areas of satellite coverage may have problems. Having 5 channels will also mean a very limited bitrate for BBC HD channels. What make this even worst is that most of the BBC 1 HD channels will be transmiting the same programe most of the time. This will make statistical multiplexing ineffective.

So overal this will mean a reduction in picture quality.

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According to this it is the 27th September.

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