SD interactive streams on HD Mux

JackRussellJackRussell Posts: 14
Forum Member
With the demise last year of 302 :cry: and the News multi-screen and given now that the HD mux is up and running could the BBC not add an extra 1 (or more) interactive streams in SD but in DVB-T2 H.264/AVC/MPEG-4 format?:)

Comments

  • jxpjxp Posts: 550
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Five and C4 were recently turned down for the space for a 4th HD channel. BBC have it until 2012 when it will be re-tendered.

    Until then BBC could put 3 extra SD channels in the space.
    This would seem like the best thing to put in here (rather than BBC HD+1)
  • nwhitfieldnwhitfield Posts: 4,556
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Putting streams in place is one thing; making it all work in the MHEG is another.

    It will depend, for example, if an MHEG app can tell if it's running on a FreeviewHD box, and then display a different list of options. Otherwise, you'd have apps on existing boxes trying to jump to a stream that they couldn't find, and perhaps not behaving very well when that happens.

    Or you might have to have different apps on the HD stream, with options to jump to channels on that mux - and that would potentially confuse viewers with HD boxes, who might see different menus depending on which channel they're tuned to when they press red.

    It's probably not insurmountable (I don't know enough about MHEG to be sure), but it's very likely not as straightforward as it first appears, too.

    Incidentally, I don't know where the idea of BBC HD+1 comes from.
  • reslfjreslfj Posts: 1,832
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    jxp wrote: »
    Five and C4 were recently turned down for the space for a 4th HD channel. BBC have it until 2012 when it will be re-tendered.

    In/after 2012 MPEG-4 five HD slots are expected (hoped for) on PSB-3. The BBC will - AFAIK - still have 2 HD slots after 2012 on PSB-3 (but only 8 Mbit/sec slots)

    BBC capacity now 2/4 * 40.2 Mbit/sec = 20.1 Mbit/sec
    BBC capacity 2012 2/5 * 40.2 Mbit/sec = 16.08 Mbit/sec.

    Lars :)
  • prkingprking Posts: 9,791
    Forum Member
    nwhitfield wrote: »
    Putting streams in place is one thing; making it all work in the MHEG is another.

    It will depend, for example, if an MHEG app can tell if it's running on a FreeviewHD box, and then display a different list of options. Otherwise, you'd have apps on existing boxes trying to jump to a stream that they couldn't find, and perhaps not behaving very well when that happens.

    Or you might have to have different apps on the HD stream, with options to jump to channels on that mux - and that would potentially confuse viewers with HD boxes, who might see different menus depending on which channel they're tuned to when they press red.

    It's probably not insurmountable (I don't know enough about MHEG to be sure), but it's very likely not as straightforward as it first appears, too.

    Incidentally, I don't know where the idea of BBC HD+1 comes from.

    An MHEG app can tell which make and model of box its running on.
    In the past this has been used to prevent certain features from crashing poorly coded boxes.
    The old hidden Freeview testcard, would show you the identifier string for your box.
Sign In or Register to comment.