The Newsroom

BBC News Interactive on Freeview

Looks like it is going on Oct 27th (October 2009)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
SP
Spencer
I'd be interested to know how popular the news multiscreen is. Personally I can't say it's something I ever bother with.

Are there any figures about anywhere? I just wonder how many people will really miss it.
NG
noggin Founding member
Interactive services on Freesat and Sky Digital use the same core video streams (just as the main TV stations do) - but the actual applications that deliver the menus and digital text, user interface etc. are different as Freesat uses MHEG5 (same system as Freeview) and Sky use OpenTV (a proprietary and commercial middle-ware application) (In the same way subtitles on Sky and Freesat boxes are different as are the EPG streams)

This means that for the BBC to deliver the same services on Sky and Freesat they have to write the same application twice. Many of the current interactive services are delivered using applications written from a library of OpenTV code AIUI (for the Sky platform) developed over the last 10-or-so years. They are working their way through rewriting these applications into MHEG5 - but have to balance the cost of this with the popularity of the service I guess.

AIUI the Sport Interactive stuff is now available on Freesat, but some of the less-frequent and more niche apps are still Sky only?

I think the BBC are keen to avoid using the word "Sky" to describe the stuff that is only receivable on Sky boxes, as you don't need a Sky subscription or a Sky viewing card to access them - just a Sky Digibox. It is confusing though when they describe a service as Digital Satellite when it isn't on Freesat.
IS
Inspector Sands

I think the BBC are keen to avoid using the word "Sky" to describe the stuff that is only receivable on Sky boxes, as you don't need a Sky subscription or a Sky viewing card to access them - just a Sky Digibox. It is confusing though when they describe a service as Digital Satellite when it isn't on Freesat.

Yes, when they broke away from Sky and went free to air about 6 or 7 years ago references to 'being on Sky' became a no-no
NG
noggin Founding member

I think the BBC are keen to avoid using the word "Sky" to describe the stuff that is only receivable on Sky boxes, as you don't need a Sky subscription or a Sky viewing card to access them - just a Sky Digibox. It is confusing though when they describe a service as Digital Satellite when it isn't on Freesat.

Yes, when they broke away from Sky and went free to air about 6 or 7 years ago references to 'being on Sky' became a no-no


I think even before that they tried not to refer to the Sky brand, and also any in-vision remote was supposed to be a dummy, platform-neutral model.
BH
Bvsh Hovse
AIUI the Sport Interactive stuff is now available on Freesat, but some of the less-frequent and more niche apps are still Sky only?


Last time I checked the sports interactive video was there, but the news interactive was not. The rest of the popular general pages (news/weather/sports etc.) were all there, only noticable exception was the 'BBC Staff Info' page was missing. Of course, it's still not as complete as Ceefax, but then no digital platform is.

In defence of Freesat, Freesat HD (ethernet ports are not mandatory in the SD spec) boxes will get iPlayer soon. I had a play with the alpha version very recently and was very impressed with the speed and ease of use, given it's all written in MHEG. This will make the Freesat BBC interactive experience potentially much better than on Sky when it launches. As the vast majority of Sky boxes cannot be connected to broadband, it will not be possible to provide iPlayer to them. Virgin Media already have iPlayer, and I believe it has proven very popular.
NG
noggin Founding member

In defence of Freesat, Freesat HD (ethernet ports are not mandatory in the SD spec) boxes will get iPlayer soon. I had a play with the alpha version very recently and was very impressed with the speed and ease of use, given it's all written in MHEG. This will make the Freesat BBC interactive experience potentially much better than on Sky when it launches. As the vast majority of Sky boxes cannot be connected to broadband, it will not be possible to provide iPlayer to them. Virgin Media already have iPlayer, and I believe it has proven very popular.


That's slightly unfair. All Sky HD boxes have an Ethernet connection, just as all Freesat HD boxes do - and AIUI there are well over a million Sky HD boxes now in homes (quite a lot more than Freesat HD?)! Sky are readying their own broadband VOD system for Sky HD boxes.

The Freesat iPlayer is a great development though - probably the best way of getting iPlayer onto tellies after the PS3 and Wii version. I wonder what video encoding it will use. Presumably H264 - as that is part of the Freesat HD spec but not the Freesat SD one? (And is what is used for the higher quality streaming on the PC streaming iPlayer these days, as well as the iPhone/iPodTouch version?)
BH
Bvsh Hovse
The Freesat iPlayer is a great development though - probably the best way of getting iPlayer onto tellies after the PS3 and Wii version. I wonder what video encoding it will use. Presumably H264 - as that is part of the Freesat HD spec but not the Freesat SD one?

As things stand, development firmware is only available for the two Humax receivers AFAIK. But ethernet ports were put on the first generation Goodmans/Alba/Grundig Freesat SD boxes, so if these boxes are ever to be supported then H264 will be difficult because SD boxes are unlikely to support that codec. There would be nothing to stop a 'play in high quality' option being provided though, to gve the option for a higher bitrate and better codec for those that have the bandwidth and hardware to support it. But it would be unfortunate if video was limited to MPEG2 because of the SD boxes.
NG
noggin Founding member
The Freesat iPlayer is a great development though - probably the best way of getting iPlayer onto tellies after the PS3 and Wii version. I wonder what video encoding it will use. Presumably H264 - as that is part of the Freesat HD spec but not the Freesat SD one?

As things stand, development firmware is only available for the two Humax receivers AFAIK. But ethernet ports were put on the first generation Goodmans/Alba/Grundig Freesat SD boxes, so if these boxes are ever to be supported then H264 will be difficult because SD boxes are unlikely to support that codec. There would be nothing to stop a 'play in high quality' option being provided though, to gve the option for a higher bitrate and better codec for those that have the bandwidth and hardware to support it. But it would be unfortunate if video was limited to MPEG2 because of the SD boxes.


I guess they could run 352x288 MPEG2 for SD boxes and 704x576 H264 for HD boxes? Let's hope they finally properly support interlaced content natively as well. (Even the HD PC iPlayer is permanently 25p - so 50i stuff like Strictly looks jerky)
DE
deejay
Unfortunately for Wii owners, the iPlayer stopped working last month after Nintendo upgraded their Opera powered browser. Haven't checked since if the BBC has caught up and reworked their software. iPlayer via the Wii wasn't bad but did require a bit of jiggery-pokery to get the pictures to properly fill the TV screen and even after that I never got it quite right...

Looking forward to an upgrade to my Foxsat HDR though. Humax have been promising it for months (there are one or two very annoying, albeit minor, bugs with the box). If it fixes them and adds iPlayer support it'll make the box a very, very attractive piece of kit considering it's now available at less than £250.
BR
Brekkie
Wouldn't be surprised if some body somewhere blocked iPlayer on Freesat as not in the interest of the licence fee payer or something stupid.
DE
deejay
Erm ... well don't quite understand the last post. Freesat is jointly owned and run by the BBC and ITV. The satellite it comes from is relatively tightly focussed on the British Isles and freesat boxes are only sold in the UK, though I'm sure you could get hold of one in Europe if you really wanted. The majority of people using Freesat will therefore be License Fee payers because they are likely to be resident in the UK. Freesat boasting the iPlayer therefore shouldn't be a problem. In any case, the set top boxes will connect to the iPlayer via home broadband networks - if you try and connect to iPlayer from somewhere other than the UK it won't work AFIK - there is some sort of IP filtering AIUI.

So all in all, Freesat boxes with iPlayer shouldn't be a problem as far as the License is concerned.

Not my most eloquent post ... but I've been kind of typing as I've thought of things...!
PE
Pete Founding member
I think Brekkie was taking a shot at the BBC Trust and their odd decision over Open iPlayer the other week.

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