Broadcasters agree plan for Freeview HD

The story so far...

OFCOM won't free up extra space from the sale of Analogue spectrum to enable a decent HD service on the platform, claiming instead newer technologies should be used to make better use of existing bandwidth.

The BBC suggest using an overnight download service to download HD programmes using the combined downtime of BBC Parliament, BBC Four and the BBC interactive streams. This week the BBC Trust quite correctly rejected that idea, but approved plans for BBC HD and indicated it should be made available on Freeview when it is possible to do so.

So now the main player in Freeview - BBC, ITV and C4, along with Five, have agreed a non-binding solution (so it might not happen), which would see the BBC's second mux be used to broadcast HD channels from the BBC, ITV and C4 by 2009, and from Five by 2012.


This means the five channels on the mux - BBC4/CBeebies, BBC Parliament and three BBCi streams - will have to be rehoused elsewhere on Freeview. Now, two of them should fit easily on the BBC's other mux - or possibly all five if they switch to the same system as Mux 2 and Mux A. However, this means in order for the BBC to provide one HD quality stream the picture quality of the remaining channels is likely to suffer.


In addition, Mux B - the BBC mux planned for this service - is pretty much the Freeview dumping ground and as the third Public Service mux (to be rebrand PSB3 after DSO), space on it is earmarked for broadcasting Five and S4C too after DSO. It's also the place where many BBC Radio stations have recently been relocated.


Now, I do pretty much agree HD needs to be available on Freeview so it's not out of date just as it really launches, but will the price be worth paying. I'd personally rather see an extra few streams be made available for interactive content, especially with London 2012 and Glasgow 2014 following DSO - it would be great to have the BBC's full range of additional streams available. Likewise of course though people would like to have HD coverage available too.


My main concern though is that space will be squeezed out of Freeview to make room for the HD channels, and that the solution to that problem will be a switch to the more efficient MP4 broadcasting system. I can't see the public being willing to upgrade their equipment once again within a decade.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/20/digitaltvradio.television
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a80265/broadcasters-announce-freeview-hd-plan.html


Anyhow, the best thing about this IMO is that if the main broadcasters are now concentrating on finding space for HD, it probably means an end to launching additional channels just for the sake of it. I think the BBC, ITV, C4 and even Five have probably got all the channels they require for now.

This isn't new news.

The whole system could work well enough -- switching all six muxes over to 64QAM would be the first step. This would allow all the current channels to co-exist with a single HD mux with no loss of quality.

Eventually the end-game is likely to be that there is only one, or maybe two, muxes available for traditional Freeview. These would carry the PSB channels.

The other muxes would be moved to MPEG4, allowing much more efficient use of space. A 20-channel MPEG4, plus 4 HD and 15-channel MPEG2 service is feasible.

We should get the options tomorrow (21-Nov-2007) from OFCOM.

AIUI the four 2k 16QAM muxes are expected to switch to 8k 64QAM at some point at analogue switch off - and it is also expected that the two 2k 64QAM muxes will also switch to 8k. (Rendering some 2k only first generation OnDigital boxes obsolete - the early Philips models?) The advantage of 8k over 2k is that it is somewhat more resilient (the BBC HD trial in London was 8k 64QAM) and delivers many of the advantages previously achieved by using 16QAM.

It is also hoped that H264 encoding will have improved such that two HD streams can be carried in a single 8k 64QAM mux - though this may mean 720/50p rather than 1080/50i. (SVT HD in Sweden is around 13Mbs 720/50p in H264) In the US some MPEG4 H264 stuff is as low as 8Mbs - though it isn't being raved about as "high quality"... (Some of their MPEG2 HD stuff is pretty terrible - very compressed and blocky)

Be interesting to see how this pans out. With 3 full HD services launching - BBC HD, ITV HD and C4 HD - Freeview has to at least try to keep up.

When I saw my mates HD TV showing BBC HD, it didn't impress much. Is there really any point?

Not sure what your mate's telly set-up was - but BBC HD vs BBC One SD is like night and day when watching shows shot in HD like Strictly Come Dancing, Cranford, Bleak House, Wimbledon, the Six Nations rugby, the Eurovision Song Contest, Planet Earth, Antiques Roadshow etc.

As TVs get larger and larger (with flat screen LCDs and Plasmas being far less "bulky" than smaller screen CRTs), the benefits of HD become greater (partially because people don't sit further away from larger screens when they replace smaller ones!)

HD isn't hugely beneficial at average viewing distances on small screens - but the minute you get to screens larger than 32" you really do notice a difference.

I'm increasingly waiting for HD-DVD or BluRay releases rather than buying DVDs for the same reason.

The OFCOM consultation:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/news/2007/11/nr_20071121
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consult/condocs/dttfuture/


Basically they claim that due to a combination of factors over the next few years DTT capacity could be doubled, allowing space for new HD services (up to five on the HD PSB mux) and new channels.


The 2012 Olympics in HD on Freeview seems to be the focus - but I just hope interactive coverage doesn't suffer for it.


Also, what do we think might happen with S4C?

OK - seems the plan basically is to move BBC Four/CBeebies and the three BBCi streams, along with BBC Radio, to Mux 1 with the other BBC channels, with BBC Parliament and Five moving to Mux 2 - along with S4C.

A more optimistic scenario has BBC Parliament with the other BBC channels on Mux 1, with E4+1 and Film4 moving to Mux 2 along with Five and S4C.


This clears Mux B for up to five HDTV channels - though it's possible rather than being handed to the BBC to do what they want with that the BBC's licence for Mux B would be revoked and go out to tender, which knowing OFCOM will result in QVC HD launching in time for the London Olympics.


Another possibility raised, but thought unlikely, is allocating all regionalised channels on one mux and aligning the BBC and ITV regional boundaries.


Equipment wise viewers should only need new equipment to receive services from Mux B - which you might expect for HDTV, but if anything other than HD services remain on Mux B - such as radio channels or the odd TV channel, a new box would be required to view them.



The main problem with this proposal though is there is little thought put into the growth of the platform. Existing channels may fit into their plans, but there is little room for the possible launch of future services from what I can see.


And of course the other main issue is the squeezing everything you can get into each mux undoubtedly affects quality - and will continue to do so even with improvements. That issue was one of the factors which led to the downfall of ITV Digital, and with Freeview it still affects Mux 2 and Mux A especially.


IMO they definately need an extra public service mux, but this plan does kind of convince me that could come from the current six muxes, with 4 - rather than 3 - being dedicated PSB muxes and the remaining two being capable of take the shopping and Top Up TV channels from Mux A, especially if ITV and C4's channels on Mux C and D move to the PSB muxes.

to be honest this just proves that "freeview" should exist in a totally different manner after DSO. It should remain a BBC, ITV, C4 and Five (the PSB channels) dominated platform without all this QVC and auctionworld crap on it.

This would also allow Ofcom to tighten the screws on ITV to keep up with its public remit to remain on the "main tv platform" (because lets face it, IDTVs of the future will be DTT based).

Not that this will happen, Ofcom just seem to live in their own loopy world where they hope the mobile companies will throw money at them again like with the 3G auction.

The thing is nobody is interested in mobile video really. I'm sure if OFCOM asked the public what they wanted, most would opt for the option of viewing content on a 42" HDTV than a 4" mobile screen.


The only company who'd be likely to be able to afford to buy space to operate an additional DTT mux is Sky - though whether they'd be allowed to is another question. I think though most people would object less to their proposed "Picnic" service running on a new mux in addition to Freeview (even if Sky withdraw their channels) than the current plans to replace Sky News etc. as the loss of these channels would be offset by the arrival of some new ones - even if they are basically crap.


As for the shopping channels - we all hate them, yet unfortunately most seem to have now secured long term deals to remain on Freeview.


The one thing I want on Freeview more than anything is more space for interactive channels - at least one more BBC stream plus at least one for ITV and C4.

The problem of course is that with space being tight, ITV and C4 especially can't really justify dedicating a stream to a service that only runs limited hours - but I'm sure this could be addressed with some third-party agreements to run certain channels - such as shopping and travel channels - during the downtime.

I don't know if I am going to sound completely stupid or not but can they not just make new muxes?

I was thinking that myself, why can't they just create a new mux?