Mendip DSO

I think the issue here is that people think the COM muxes are in some way "public service" - they're not. They are pretty much entirely commercial - if there is no profit to be made in upgrading other sites - they won't be upgraded.

You have more channels than you did before switchover though.

It's no different a situation than a large chunk of the population have had for the last 12 years - get some channels terrestrially (via analogue) and subscribe to cable or satellite to get more. The difference now is that everyone will get more channels as a basic free service

Its just that not everyone gets the same free basic service that makes it irksome, it feels two tier.
I realise it comes down to commercial issues and don't expec there to be any improvement.

Ah - but nothing is 'free', that's the mistake you're making.

It all has to be paid for - it just appears that the model that pays for the three PSB muxes provides funding for more transmitters/relays etc. than the the model that pays for the three COM muxes.

But everyone does get the same basic service - everyone gets the 3 PSB MUXs

Yes - the three PSB Public Service Muxes are the basic service. The three additional COM muxes are commercial additions - and funded on an entirely commercial basis with very little public service remit (just some stuff about not encrypting everything and staying DVB-T SD MPEG2 - at the moment - I think, unless the Sky request for H264/MPEG4 is still being processed, even though they've shelved their Picnic service) If they can't make a commercial case for upgrading relays to carry the 3 COM muxes - then they can't. Someone has to pay for the work - and I don't think the licence-fee should be used for providing extra reach for home shopping channels should it?

I don't see how the "removal" of ITV 3 and ITV 4 from the relays (where DSO had already happened) can be justified. To be honest, there are more channels available following switchover, rather than the basic four. But it makes no sense, if only three muxes are available, to take up space on them with plus 1 channels. The bottom line is, viewers using relays do feel shortchanged following switchover. Granted many had to wait for Channel 4 back in the 80s (it took between four and five years to equip every relay), but it did eventually appear. Channel 5 on analogue was never possible from every transmitter, including a fair number of main sites, because of a lack of available frequencies. But that was one channel which, to be honest, was pretty dire for much of its early life. Don't forget, SKY or Freesat isn't always an option. There are areas where trees, hills and other obstacles make satellite reception impossible. And, of course, people living in listed buildings and/or conservation areas are sometimes forbidden to erect a dish or an outside TV aerial.

To be quite honest, the only channels I tend to watch on Freeview are the original analogue five. With one or two exceptions like Dave or BBC News I very rarely, if ever, watch any others. Let's be honest, a lot of it is repeats. It even says in the Radio Times under the digital section "All programmes are repeats unless indicated", which in my opinion says it all. As for the +1 channels, I have never seen the point in those and they really are a waste of space. Although I can get all 6 MUXES, I would be very happy with just the basic 3. In fact, I would go further than that and say I would prefer it if the whole of the PSBs were all HD channels - even if that is much smaller than the number of SD channels.

True although the only +1 that ITV have in their allocation is ITV2+1, so one would have had to have gone anyway and you can't expect C4 to give them a bit of their space. The two +1's on there are of popular channels so I suspect they get more viewers than ITV3 and 4

Also remember that part of the reason why they moved MUX was to fit in Channel 5 and (in some areas) S4C, both worthwhile additions... and the first time Five would have been available on those relays

So it looks like mux PSB2 will carry ITV1, Channel 4, Five, ITV2, Channel 4+1, More 4, E4 and ITV2+1. That's eight channels. If they are using 64QAM, and the enhanced MHEG mode, won't that allow more than 8 SD TV channels (say 10 or 12) on one mux?

ITV3 should be on PSB2 in the stream wasted by ITV2+1.

Seconded.

Don't think MHEG (the digital text standard) has anything to do with this.

The standard UK 8k 64QAM mux that is currently used post-DSO delivers 24Mbs of payload (post-FEC etc.) With 8 channels this averages about 3Mbs per service - which is not great, but if some services use the reduced resolution 544x576 standard it is OKish, and statmuxing will help sometimes. If you tried to get 12 services in then you'd be down to about 2Mbs per channel on average - which even with new MPEG2 encoders isn't going to deliver anything approaching a decent picture...

There have been trials of a different DVB-T modulation combination (I think reducing the FEC slightly to exploit the greater robustness of 8k over 2k) which could deliver 27-28Mbs rather than 24Mbs - but that is still pushing it for 12 MPEG2 services.

MPEG4 pt.10/H264/AVC could deliver significant improvements - but would require a swap out of almost every Freeview set-top box and PVR and all but the most recent IDTVs. (Some recent IDTVs now have H264 compatibility because Ireland, Sweden, Norway, France, Slovenia, New Zealand and possibly some other countries like Latvia etc. are also using H264 with DVB-T for SD and/or HD broadcasts)



I think that ITV have taken the view that ITV2 gets a much bigger audience than ITV3, and thus ITV2+1 is likely to deliver more viewers to adverts than ITV3, and thus make them more money. Less choice - but ITV only care about the bottom line unless Ofcom force them to care about something else.