HD on Digital Terrestrial - On Air

The Beeb could assist the Freesat situation by reorganising the 2D transponder carrying BBC HD. (10847 V).

Currently it carries BBC HD, and SD services BBC 1 Cambs, and BBC 1 CI. They could attempt to squeeze the SD services in elsewhere on 2D, and convert the t/p to DVB-S2 operation. Seeing as the Beeb insist on only running the HD service at just 9 Mb/s, that would provide enough space to carry ITV HD, C4 HD, and S4C HD.

Far fetched ? Not really, remember they already carry C5 SD on one of their other transponders, for the benefit of Freesat.

I think that will very much depend on whether ITV and C4 want to pay the BBC for carriage, as Five presumably are...

Currently C4 seems to have some deal with Sky that means Sky provide uplink facilities to a 2A/B transponder - which thus requires encryption meaning the channel is Sky HD/Freesat from Sky on a Sky HD box-exclusive. Wonder if this means Sky are not charging a 'full market rate' for uplink services as a result, and how long the contract they've signed is?

I guess the ITV HD situation depends on how long the contract is with Arqiva for Eurobird 1 capacity on the Freesat EPG transponder.

If they have multi-year contracts for these, I don't see them breaking them or paying them off early to pay the BBC for carriage, particularly not C4 if they are effectively being subsidised by Sky (as some believe)

Of course the BBC may also have other plans for the 2D bandwith they have freed already...

I don't think the BBC are carrying 'five' purely for the benefit of Freesat either - I suspect 'five' are paying for the spectrum (and it is for the benefit of 'five' just as much!)

Indeed. It's worth noting that the Astra 2B t/p that carries encrypted versions of Five and its siblings for the Sky platform has now dropped the encrypted version of Region 2. Sky boxes in the Region 2 postcode areas, (very broadly the Central, HTV, WC, Mer,and Anglia regions) now map Ch 105 to the FTA version on the Beeb's 2D t/p.

Annoyingly, removing a Sky viewing card, causes Ch105 to default to (I think) Region 1 mapping, which is a shame, because you still need to have a card inserted to keep Five on the EPG. The other FTA channels are now visible without a card on the EPG, albeit the wrong regional versions of course.

Hmm - I wonder if the Freesat variant (Midlands, East and South excluding London) is on Freesat as it is the most populous, rather than London? Would make sense for them to switch the default Sky variant to the FTA version though... Wonder if Sky would resist that move (unlikely - it could put them in a position where Ofcom accuse them of monopolistic control over the EPG) - or charge extra for the change (as it requires a bouquet change?) ? Suspect Five want to spend as little as possible - though with the card swap there could soon be a lot of Sky boxes with cards that no longer work as FTV and become FTA?

Being cynical, it would be in Sky's interest to manipulate circumstances so that their FTV card is still required to keep 'Five' visible on the Sky EPG. Without Five there's no little point for most people to have an FTV card, the 'draw' of the only remaining FTVs; Sky Three, Five US, and Fiver is pretty low I'd think ?

Yep. Presumably the only other issue is that C4HD is also FTV - though how many people are using Sky HD boxes without subscriptions and thus no PVR functionality?

(Probably fewer people than using FTV cards with non-Sky boxes and unofficial CAMs to get C4HD...)

Exactly - and that was the DTG's group proposal, with an offering of 12-16 HD channels, which is what is required. Why bother investing in HD when you can only receive the analogue channels in HD, especially if you spend a significant amount of time watching content on digital channels?

I still don't understand what made the broadcasters role over and accept OFCOM's proposals - one day they were all quite publicly opposed to them, then all of a sudden they seemed to agree, with no notable concession.

Also it's absolute bollocks that the general public would prefer the spectrum to be put to use enabling us to watch 4 inch squared videos on our mobiles over watching HD TV on a 40 inch plasma.


Trouble is then cost becomes involved, along with a further digital divide. I'll believe it when I see it that we even get 2MB here, never mind 20MB!

I agree though certain red button services would be better served by broadband (or push VOD), essentially anything which is just looped content. Live content I think needs to continue being broadcast on a channel, but of course access to extra streams via broadband would do no harm.

Considering though ITV and C4 are expected to squeeze eight channels into a single mux (and take on those forced out by the HD mux), I see no reason why the BBC can't have an extra channel on their mux and reinstate 302.

Yes. There's simply not enough bandwidth on DTT to allow a proper range of HD services, all the time Ofcom insist and/or allow having the platform crammed full of junk and +1 channels, at the same time as flogging off 72 MHz ( 6 UHF channels) worth of bandwidth after DSO is complete. Satellite is of course the answer, but again for FTA broadcasts, there's not enough space available on narrow band transponders. Frankly Freesat's offering of just 1.25 HD channels is a joke. If you want a decent range of HD content, then you have to pay Sky to see it.



The speed of connection is not so much of an issue, I watched (streamed not downloaded in advance) a BBCi player prog the other day on my PS3, via my 2 Mb/s internet connection (data rate was 1.5 Mb/s). It was excellent, and the quality better than some shopping channels on DTT. However the hour show consumed 750 Megs of download capacity. Do that every day, and without considering any other internet traffic used for surfing, e-mails et, that 's 22.5 GB/month. That's way over many people's download limits for their ADSL accounts, and that's actually the issue. I'm fortunate enough to be on an LLU service which is uncapped, but many in small towns and rural areas do not, and never will have that option.

Pragmatism I think. The Treasury had made it VERY clear that they were not going to forego the income that digital dividend spectrum was going to provide when sold off. It became VERY clear this was not up for negotiation. However much the broadcasters lobbied they were going to get nowhere.

What changed was that Ofcom woke up and realised HD wasn't going to go away, and the compromise proposal of allowing HD to go ahead (previously Ofcom were not convinced it was an issue for Freeview) with a rejig of the current mux set-up (from 4x18+2x24 =120Mbs to 5x24=120Mbs - i.e. the same basic payload for SD serviced before and after - possibly an increase if we go to 5x27Mbs = 135Mbs with a tweak of the basic UK DVB-T params as trialled in the Borders) However the PSB vs COM issue has caused the issues as there are only 2 SD PSB muxes now, hence ITV having to shift some of their non-PSB stuff off PSB2 and Five moving onto it.

I am still surprised that the BBC haven't taken up Ofcom's offer of a slot on Mux 2...



Not totally - it is a driving force in some countries - but is tricky to get right. Japan's 1-seg system (where 12/13th of each COFDM mux is used for HD MPEG2 and 1/13th for mobile H264) is not great...


The provision of universal 2Mbs is tied up with using some of the digital dividend spectrum though - so it is kind of interlinked!

To be fair it isn't entirely Ofcom's fault. Parliament decided not to set any PSB requirements on the Freeview platform other than those existing for the terrestrials - probably just as well at the time as they were trying to relaunch a dead-duck system inherited from ITVDigital...

The shopping and +1 channels are an inevitable result - they make more commercial sense than quality (I.e. expensive) content... The broadcasters love the +1 channels as they bump up the ratings for programmes on the mainstream channels that are losing them... I'm sure we'd all love a fantastic line-up on Freeview (no shopping channels, no need for +1s with PVRs and VOD etc.) however the reality is that original content costs a lot of money - and the cost of the scarce slots on Freeview, coupled with the costs of original (or even repeated) quality content is prohibitive.

Looks likely that it will only be BBC HD on DTT from next week in Granadaland.

ITV and 4 HD to follow next spring;

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=36981869&postcount=118

Like all of the other users of the spectrum and any interested third parties, all of the broadcasters were asked for their feedback on Ofcom's proposals for the "Digital Dividend Review" (DDR). It was at this time that they were quite public in their critisism of the proposals. Once Ofcom completed their consultation process, and published their plans though, no more consultation was available, and anyone who didn't agree with Ofcom had no recourse to complain - the decision to sell off the spectrum had been made, complaints would not be listened to, and everyone had to start working with what Ofcom had decided.

The problems with the DDR are still ongoing, especially in the realms of radio mics, as Ofcom have decided (after the initial DDR) to move the available frequencies to an area of spectrum which virtually no equipment will tune to, requiring the replacement of virtually every piece of radio mic kit (or kit which uses those frequencies) in the entire country. There's more info on the Save Our Sound website.