BBC Parliament to be dropped on Freeview for Olympics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/14/bbc.olympicsandthemedia



A great way to enhance the Olympic coverage for us lowly Freeview viewers

Does Freeview have Multi-Screen capabilities on Interactive?

Or is this just another channel that there really is no need for?

Don't get me wrong, sounds a good idea - but necessary?

Sounds like a reasonable enough idea to me. Parliament's audience must be extremely limited, so to increase the Freeview Olympic coverage by temporarily using it's transmission space seems entirely sensible. It's not that long ago that BC Parliament on Freeview was only 1/4 screen anyway...

Isn't Parliament in recess during the Olympics anyway? So there wouldn't be any live House of Commons or House of Lords coverage to show?

Freeview currently has two full-screen BBCi video streams, plus the 1/4 screen BBCi News loops (headlines, sport, weather and an extra stream). Closing BBC Parliament will give them a third fill-screen video stream.

Historically Freeview hasn't had a multi-screen menu page - as this is very wasteful of bandwith - the multiscreen is a separate video stream produced by the BBC with shrunk versions of the other streams, it isn't created in the receiver (as most receivers can only decode one MPEG2 stream at a time)

I can't see them adding a multi-screen menu - this would be a waste of the 3rd stream which could carry another event.

my goodness, this is the smartest thing the BBC has done in years,

as the house of commons will not be active, this is a great use for empty space.

I take it there will have special own titles?

I would expect it just to be treated as a third interactive BBCi stream - so if there are bespoke edits of the Olympic titles for the interactive streams on DSat, DTT and DCab then I'd expect them to be used. Wouldn't expect the Parliament stream to be branded differently - unless they can't reprogram the coding and mux gear to label it something other than BBC Parliament and give it a new LCN. (Logical Channel Number)

Can I assume that the Community Channel won't be on air on Freeview during the Olympics as they time-share with the feed on Channel 302?

Fantastic news - that extra stream will really boost coverage, and when coverage is on BBC1 and BBC2 Freeview viewers will have the full range of options available to Sky viewers too, which usually get 5 screens including the main TV coverage.


I've always said they should do this, and think too it should be done at weekend when necessary too.

I believe that's the deal the BBC made with Community Channel when they gave them a (slightly) better timeshare time, that they could suspend relay of the channel when major events require use of interactive feed between 6am and 9am.

Last time when it was either the Winter Olympics or the Commonwealth Games, the Community Channel was on between 2pm and 5pm, so I guess this could happen again, ie when it's night time in Bejing.

Good use of space, Parliament is in recess anyway, and even then its usually the same stuff on loop.

You'll probably get to see the host broadcaster titles, same as Torino.

Yep - would think that is very likely.