Arqiva offers new radio/data capacity

Ray CathodeRay Cathode Posts: 13,231
Forum Member
✭✭
http://www.arqiva.com/corporate/pdf/regulatory/Data%20Advertisement%20-%20Feb%202013%20-%20FINAL.pdf
Following a strategic review of its scope to offer data capacity and the renewal of Arqiva’s multiplex licences to November 2026, Arqiva is pleased to invite offers from broadcasters for up to 1 Mbps capacity for Radio, Data or other non-TV services on one of its DTT multiplexes.

Arqiva Services Limited (Arqiva) is the licensed operator of multiplexes C and D, two of the six multiplexes which make up the UK’s DTT platform, Freeview. Freeview is the largest digital television service in the UK with more than 20 million homes equipped to receive over 50 TV and 24 radio channels through a conventional aerial.

Interested parties should register interest by 5pm UK time 22 February 2013 at auction.data@arqiva.com.

This news item does not qualify for inclusion in the Freeview changelog, as nothing has changed.
«1

Comments

  • DragonQDragonQ Posts: 4,807
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    "Squeeze. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze until they can't make out the actors' faces!"
  • Colin_LondonColin_London Posts: 12,658
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    http://www.arqiva.com/corporate/pdf/regulatory/Data%20Advertisement%20-%20Feb%202013%20-%20FINAL.pdf



    This news item does not qualify for inclusion in the Freeview changelog, as nothing has changed.

    A further income stream for Arqiva by squeezing their the video streams a bit more. I doubt this is presently unused bandwidth
  • marria01marria01 Posts: 437
    Forum Member
    Do they contract Stevie Wonder to do the PQ assessments now?
  • Ray CathodeRay Cathode Posts: 13,231
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    A further income stream for Arqiva by squeezing their the video streams a bit more. I doubt this is presently unused bandwidth

    This is probably on Arq A which is nowhere near full yet with 11 streams most of the time with 12 streams between midnight and 2am, plus 1 radio.

    Arq B has 12 streams and 9 radios, suggesting that 7-8 radios could be added to Arq A. 8 radios at 128kbps is about 1Mbps. So I'd say the 1Mbps is indeed new capacity.

    SDN in Wales has 13 video streams plus 3 radios and a number of data services which seems to be the current limit.
  • AJRevittAJRevitt Posts: 1,123
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    marria01 wrote: »
    Do they contract Stevie Wonder to do the PQ assessments now?

    :D:D:D
  • Ray CathodeRay Cathode Posts: 13,231
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    marria01 wrote: »
    Do they contract Stevie Wonder to do the PQ assessments now?

    There have never been any PQ assessments on COM muxes. Which is of course another Ofcon con job.
  • jj20xjj20x Posts: 2,079
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    A further income stream for Arqiva by squeezing their the video streams a bit more. I doubt this is presently unused bandwidth

    It will come from "spare capacity", which is currently padded out with null packets. At the moment the commercial multiplexes can carry up to 13 TV channels with extra headroom for a few radio and data channels. Arqiva don't carry 13 TV channels per multiplex, so it won't make the quality any worse.
  • cdon77cdon77 Posts: 464
    Forum Member
    What was the standard when Freeview launched 4 streams per mux wasn't it? With 6 on the old ITV/CH4 mux.
  • jj20xjj20x Posts: 2,079
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    cdon77 wrote: »
    What was the standard when Freeview launched 4 streams per mux wasn't it? With 6 on the old ITV/CH4 mux.

    Compression has improved since then and the multiplexes have been tweaked to increase the bandwidth.
  • BangersBangers Posts: 3,628
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    cdon77 wrote: »
    What was the standard when Freeview launched 4 streams per mux wasn't it? With 6 on the old ITV/CH4 mux.

    That's a good point. Four streams on a 16QAM multiplex at the start of Freeview.

    I can remember when DTT started in the UK, 15 years ago, that the BBC multiplex had just 4 channels at fixed bitrates using 64QAM! ONdigital had 6 channels per multiplex using stat muxing at 64QAM, and I can remember the uproar when this went to 7 channels!
  • DragonQDragonQ Posts: 4,807
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    jj20x wrote: »
    Compression has improved since then and the multiplexes have been tweaked to increase the bandwidth.
    I'm not sure compression has improved much. MPEG2 was created in 1996 and the last main version was 2000. It's just like how AVC has already matured now and we've pretty much squeezed as much out of it as possible.

    Capacity has increased though.
  • reslfjreslfj Posts: 1,832
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    DragonQ wrote: »
    I'm not sure compression has improved much. MPEG2 was created in 1996 and the last main version was 2000. It's just like how AVC has already matured now and we've pretty much squeezed as much out of it as possible.

    Capacity has increased though.

    The MPEG-2 standard has not changed.
    But the ability to analyse video and MPEG-2 encode it efficiently in realtime (using all the features of MPEG-2), has improved very much. Even as late as 2010/2011 major improvements were added to MPEG-2 encoders form companies like Tandberg (now CIsco).
    In addition the use af VBR and stat-muxing the channels in each mux has reduced the needed bandwidth/bitrate for a given video quality.

    The total bitrate is now 120 Mbps (DVB-T) and 40.2 Mbps (DVB-T2) or a total of 160 Mbps.

    The capacity increased by 6 Mbps on 4 muxes (BBC1, BBCB, MUX C and MUX D) at DSO for at total of 24 Mbps extra capacity.
    These 24 Mbps is just 15% of the current UK DTT capacity.

    Lars :)
  • DragonQDragonQ Posts: 4,807
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Most of the channels still look like arse.
  • reslfjreslfj Posts: 1,832
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    DragonQ wrote: »
    Most of the channels still look like arse.

    Not the PSB-1/PSB-2 channels and surely not the PSB-3 HD channels (MPEG-4 encoded).

    I don't know which generation MPEG-2 encoders the COM channels are using.
    But the MPEG-2 PSB channels are much better encoded and stat-muxed now than they were 3 or 5 years ago.

    Lars :)
  • chrisychrisy Posts: 9,418
    Forum Member
    The MPEG encoders have definitely improved. I see nothing wrong with using these advances to provide more channels per mux, if the picture quality remains the same. The problem is that in addition to encoding improvements, most channels have been reduced to "3/4 resolution" in order to squeeze in even more channels, and the bit-rate has gone down too far in addition to that for the encoders to do their job properly.
  • jj20xjj20x Posts: 2,079
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    DragonQ wrote: »
    Most of the channels still look like arse.

    Is that a technical term? :p

    The 3/4 resolution channels on the COM muxes don't look too great but that's their decision.
  • MeMeMeIMeMeMeI Posts: 990
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    I have a 46 inch LCD TV and the picture quality on new programmes filmed with modern equipment is fine through the inbuilt tuner and just as good through my old Sagem twin tuner pvr..

    I don't get these quality problems others speak about?
  • marria01marria01 Posts: 437
    Forum Member
    MeMeMeI wrote: »
    I don't get these quality problems others speak about?
    With the greatest of respect, you can't be looking very hard.

    Scrolling titles, text on a plain background, moving backgrounds with stationary objects in the foreground, fast moving action, full screen dissolves, focus pulls, anything with high frequency content (ie. sharp lines with contrasty edges). They can all generate quite nasty artifacts on the densely packed COM muxes.
  • MeMeMeIMeMeMeI Posts: 990
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    marria01 wrote: »
    With the greatest of respect, you can't be looking very hard.

    Scrolling titles, text on a plain background, moving backgrounds with stationary objects in the foreground, fast moving action, full screen dissolves, focus pulls, anything with high frequency content (ie. sharp lines with contrasty edges). They can all generate quite nasty artifacts on the densely packed COM muxes.

    With respect I am looking hard all those problems, nope I don't get them.. Must be your set up or location maybe..
  • marria01marria01 Posts: 437
    Forum Member
    MeMeMeI wrote: »
    With respect I am looking hard all those problems, nope I don't get them.. Must be your set up or location maybe..

    No, it's not.
  • DragonQDragonQ Posts: 4,807
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    MeMeMeI wrote: »
    Must be your set up or location maybe..
    No...
  • MeMeMeIMeMeMeI Posts: 990
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    With respect as I said I don't get them and I have normal equipment... There is nothing that can be done if you choose to ignore the truth I say......
  • DragonQDragonQ Posts: 4,807
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    MeMeMeI wrote: »
    With respect as I said I don't get them and I have normal equipment... There is nothing that can be done if you choose to ignore the truth I say......
    So either quite a lot of us have dodgy eyesight or dodgy equipment, or you don't really know what to look for and/or don't think it's as bad as others. Which do you think is more likely? FYI my equipment delivers as "raw" an image as possible (more or less) - an HTPC with no post-processing enabled.

    I can take screencaps for proof if you really want it. It is possible that your TV does MPEG noise reduction and other kinds of post-processing, but these often just lead to different artefacts rather than fixing the problem properly, e.g. excessive "smoothness", smearing, weird colour blocking, etc.

    Are you sure you're looking at what we're looking at? i.e. channels on the Freeview COM muxes?
  • marria01marria01 Posts: 437
    Forum Member
    DragonQ wrote: »
    So either quite a lot of us have dodgy eyesight or dodgy equipment, or you don't really know what to look for and/or don't think it's as bad as others. Which do you think is more likely?
    Given the post count, I smell troll. However, it could just as easily be they simply don't know a bad picture when they see it.
  • MeMeMeIMeMeMeI Posts: 990
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    DragonQ wrote: »
    So either quite a lot of us have dodgy eyesight or dodgy equipment, or you don't really know what to look for and/or don't think it's as bad as others. Which do you think is more likely? FYI my equipment delivers as "raw" an image as possible (more or less) - an HTPC with no post-processing enabled.

    I can take screencaps for proof if you really want it. It is possible that your TV does MPEG noise reduction and other kinds of post-processing, but these often just lead to different artefacts rather than fixing the problem properly, e.g. excessive "smoothness", smearing, weird colour blocking, etc.

    Calling my abilities into doubt will not make the truth go away..

    And the nosie reduction etc is turned off...

    I am not being baited into a flame or slanging match, you don't like to hear what I say is true because you have already assumed your answers....

    I do not get the problems you do... I hope you sort your quality problems out, I cannot help you as I don't suffer the problem..:)

    This discussion is taking this topic of thread and I will say no more.
Sign In or Register to comment.