It's laughable isn't it that in a retune affecting only viewers receiving BBC North West that North West Today/Tonight is not on the HD channel. The excuse of services being universally available has long since disappeared (London 2012 made a mockery of that!). In taking an all or nothing approach English viewers have been left with nothing (in the context of regional content in HD).
There is no reason why in regions where the HD mapping mirrors that of the SD mux (i.e. London and the North West) they couldn't add the regional content in HD on Freeview at least - it in no way disadvantages those taking the service through Sky as they'd be getting no less of a service than they do now, and these steps would surely make it easier to begin rolling out HD regions as standard and scaling back on SD simulcasts than just doing nothing.
It's laughable isn't it that in a retune affecting only viewers receiving BBC North West that North West Today/Tonight is not on the HD channel. The excuse of services being universally available has long since disappeared (London 2012 made a mockery of that!). In taking an all or nothing approach English viewers have been left with nothing (in the context of regional content in HD).
There is no reason why in regions where the HD mapping mirrors that of the SD mux (i.e. London and the North West) they couldn't add the regional content in HD on Freeview at least - it in no way disadvantages those taking the service through Sky as they'd be getting no less of a service than they do now, and these steps would surely make it easier to begin rolling out HD regions as standard and scaling back on SD simulcasts than just doing nothing.
Too much detail to go into here, but the BBC would need to spend out on scores of codecs, and upgrade lots of distribution circuits in order to allow BBC Regional opts on Freeview. They don't have the cash for it, simple as that
This may sound odd but our main TV (the one all the family uses) seems to not pick up the HD/T2 channels (it's an older Panasonic built-in digital CRT) while my brother's one is a 2019 LG smart TV so it picks up the HD channels just fine (and the SD channels look utterly awful on it). I think it's the TV but I could be wrong. In any case the remote's on the blink so we should probably upgrade!
Simply put, despite my signature I can easily see quite a few people struggling with this (albeit probably not on the scale of DSO).
And yes, while I agree that the Beeb should broadcast the regional news in HD the cost is simply too high for a broadcaster already suffering heavy budget cuts.
I've lost all the HD channels, forcing me to retune my Sony Bravia KDL-32EX403 TV (I've had for just over 10 years with literally minimal retunes over that time) which means my custom channels setup is going to be reset.
Retuning takes about half an hour to find all available channels, and rearranging the channels takes at least another half an hour. So I've got to waste at least an hour with all this pissing about retuning and reconfiguring my TV for no good reason.
I've lost all the HD channels, forcing me to retune my Sony Bravia KDL-32EX403 TV (I've had for just over 10 years with literally minimal retunes over that time) which means my custom channels setup is going to be reset.
Retuning takes about half an hour to find all available channels, and rearranging the channels takes at least another half an hour. So I've got to waste at least an hour with all this pissing about retuning and reconfiguring my TV for no good reason.
It's 700 MHz clearance. Every region in the UK has undergone it at some point in the last three years, and every country in Europe has also done it. It's all because a third of the UHF band is being reallocated to 'mobile services'. That's how it is. Winter Hill is the last transmitter in Europe (never mind the UK) to apply the changes.
It is a pain I agree. When Hannington had its retune two years ago, I had to take the day off work to go and retune six 'friends and family' tellies !
It's laughable isn't it that in a retune affecting only viewers receiving BBC North West that North West Today/Tonight is not on the HD channel. The excuse of services being universally available has long since disappeared (London 2012 made a mockery of that!). In taking an all or nothing approach English viewers have been left with nothing (in the context of regional content in HD).
There is no reason why in regions where the HD mapping mirrors that of the SD mux (i.e. London and the North West) they couldn't add the regional content in HD on Freeview at least - it in no way disadvantages those taking the service through Sky as they'd be getting no less of a service than they do now, and these steps would surely make it easier to begin rolling out HD regions as standard and scaling back on SD simulcasts than just doing nothing.
Too much detail to go into here, but the BBC would need to spend out on scores of codecs, and upgrade lots of distribution circuits in order to allow BBC Regional opts on Freeview. They don't have the cash for it, simple as that
Circuits are HD capable but some kit in regions need upgrading...but that project is being started as it Is all very time expired .. and say a generous Dozen sites will take time
The major cost is about 200 coders for DTT and three transponders for DSAT ( they only have 6 now!) and say 20 coders for DSAT
the transponders are not required if DSAT SD is turned off but I cannot see SKY being helpful by removing its existing SD only receivers .....
There is no reason why in regions where the HD mapping mirrors that of the SD mux (i.e. London and the North West) they couldn't add the regional content in HD on Freeview at least - it in no way disadvantages those taking the service through Sky as they'd be getting no less of a service than they do now, and these steps would surely make it easier to begin rolling out HD regions as standard and scaling back on SD simulcasts than just doing nothing.
You'd still need SD simulcasts for those who don't have compatible receivers - those that are only DVB MPEG2 compatible
Also is it the case that the transmitters that carry ITV Granada HD mirrors the SD equivalent?
There is no reason why in regions where the HD mapping mirrors that of the SD mux (i.e. London and the North West) they couldn't add the regional content in HD on Freeview at least - it in no way disadvantages those taking the service through Sky as they'd be getting no less of a service than they do now, and these steps would surely make it easier to begin rolling out HD regions as standard and scaling back on SD simulcasts than just doing nothing.
You'd still need SD simulcasts for those who don't have compatible receivers - those that are only DVB MPEG2 compatible
What's needed are low cost [1] STBs that have T2 tuners, and output a down-converted SD version of the HD channels, on both HDMI and Scart <shudder> sockets to feed older non HD tellies.
[1] About the same cost as a Rishi Sunak Mon-Weds 'meal-deal'
the transponders are not required if DSAT SD is turned off but I cannot see SKY being helpful by removing its existing SD only receivers .....
Does anyone have an idea what the population n of active Sky legacy SD only boxes often in little used rooms of Sky households? Sky"s only intetest in these could be as a potential target for SkyQ upgrade, but presumably the BBC have an interest in so far as it marginally extends their reach, in depth rather than count of households.
Surely there"s a cheap technical solution to replacing these with something that removed the need for SD D-DAT of PSBs.
Surely the short term solution is you keep a simple SD simulcast (without regional news, so one stream) for no more than a year. Keeping the legacy SD system around to avoid the costs associated with switching everything to HD must ony be burning money in the long run.
The BBC have no problem in finding the costs to upgrade the iPlayer seemingly every year or so - I know it's easy to say on the outside but I just don't accept it as an excuse now. Ten years ago it may have been, but the BBC and Freeview have had a decade to sort this out now and seemingly we're no further forward than we were then. All that's largely happened is the squeezing in of more and more subquality SD channels.
The longer we retain T1/SD, the longer this pain will continue. You will never reach the stage of 0% usage of an old platform unless you force the issue by switching it off.
We kept 405 lines going probably 5 or so years longer than was sensible or desirable
Even DSO was dragged out at least a couple of years longer than it should have been, and arguably much more than that considering it was a 14 year process from the launch of digital terrestrial TV to the final analogue switch off, with the switchover dates themselves spreading across five years.