Well they already had access to the feeds, and (presumably) had already sorted out transport from the IBC to Salford(?) for the already announced red button and website feeds, along with the ability to handle / switch / present that many feeds to the internet, so I wonder if this is actually costing the BBC anything at all to do. It sounds like someone's gone, "if we've got all these feeds, I wonder if Sky / Virgin would like access to them on their platforms?", few enquiries later it's found out there's sufficient capacity for them, agreements signed, job done.
On the other hand, the comments are already coming in to the BBC's website about how it's not fair that this isn't going to be available on Freeview and that the BBC are just pandering to Branson and Murdoch, and that because of the TV tax it should be available to everyone, even if you're watching on the end of a bit of wet string.
You can always get a satellite dish and Freesat HD receiver, covers 99% of the UK and you can get all 24 streams for free plus many more channels.
There's also internet streaming, obviously.
<Internet ranty TV tax hating hat on>YEah, BUT if IVE got
FREE
view I have to Get everythig the loooopy lony left toRI run BBC make FOR
FREE
. Theys juts beiug diffcuylt for sakes fo it and makiung me get EVIL mURDOch SKY
If thy didt pay jonathan Wossssy so muchg they coudl afford to di ot.</cretin>
The channels will be coming out of OBS anyway, so there;'s just the distribution costs to consider. I am expecting these channels to be available on the limited number of You View receivers, that should start coming to market next month in addition.
This is by no meand unique, a similar number of channels were made available (albeit not in HD) via the EBU site online for the past summer games.
Last edited by DVB Cornwall on 3 April 2012 3:49pm
Freeview will have BBC1, BBC3 and 301 24/7, and then BBC Parliament in the evenings (BBC3 going 24/7 for the games means CBBC will use BBC Parliaments daytime capacity). It is really frustrating that the BBC have done absolutely nothing to address the issue of the dropped interactive streams over the last two years - in that time ITV, C4 and C5 have all launched at least one extra stream.
Now somebody technical will come along and quash this argument but surely in areas where DSO has occurred there is potential for at least one pre-DSO commercial muxes (or the C4/C5 signal) which were turned off at DSO to be used on a temporary basis to provide at least some of the extra channels in HD.
As for Sky/Freesat - if the BBC were not cutting it back to one interactive stream after the games I'd be seriously tempted. A good move as well to put them on the EPG, though I think rather than BBC Olympics 1-24 it would be better if they could brand them by sport to make things that little bit easier to find. As a Freeview fella with **** broadband though I'd only just about accepted that 3-4 streams would just about cover most things in comparison to the 6-8 I expected on Sky - but in comparison to 24 (+ BBC1/BBC3) it's a pittance.
A good move as well to put them on the EPG, though I think rather than BBC Olympics 1-24 it would be better if they could brand them by sport to make things that little bit easier to find. As a Freeview fella with **** broadband though I'd only just about accepted that 3-4 streams would just about cover most things in comparison to the 6-8 I expected on Sky - but in comparison to 24 (+ BBC1/BBC3) it's a pittance.
The channels will be showing different events on different days, so Olympics 1-24 is the best way to do it. Hopefully the EPG will be accurate with regards to programme names and times, although with 26 different channels of live overrunning and underrunning sport, updating the EPG will be a full time job in itself. I wonder how Sky are going to fit 48 channels on to the EPG, especially the SD EPG. I thought they were pretty much full up, I'm surprised they have room for as many as 48 channels unless they are going to sacrifice some Box Office EPG positions for the duration.
That's a point - they've been saying their EPG is full for a couple of years. Looking at the BBC schedule there are at most 23 sports on any given day - not necessarily at the same time of course, and also some sports could fill more than one channel. Hopefully the BBC will attempt to keep the same sports on the same channels as much as possible and then via the red button have a quick overview of what to expect where.
Back to Freeview and in the HD thread here it is mentioned the BBC will launch a third HD stream for the Olympics simulcasting 301 and are advertising the space for either a sixth HD channel or multiple SD channels. With very little lateral thinking these channels could be put to use during the Olympics to provide 6-8 of the Olympic Channels in SD, which enables FreeviewHD to offer up to 12 streams during the Olympics. This would be a much better use of the HD space for the period IMO and although regular Freeview folk will only have the 3-4 channels, asking viewers to upgrade to FreeviewHD for the games is much less of an ask than switching to Sky/Freesat and is something viewers will be expected to do sooner or later anyway.
I know this is the BBC 2012 thread, but a bit of releated news this morning - Sky 3D will be showing Eurosport's coverage in 3D, eight hours a day of live coverage plus four hours of highlights.
It was already announced that BBC HD will be showing the opening and closing ceremonies and the men's 100m final in 3D along with nightly highlights.
