Transmitter work this week?
http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/help_and_advice/engineering_works
Anyone know what kind of work this is?
I suppose it's too much to hope it will fix my COM7 reception problem?
Anyone know what kind of work this is?
I suppose it's too much to hope it will fix my COM7 reception problem?
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Comments
All it means is Sutton Coldfield is on reduced power. As for why, that could be anything from fixing a problem with the antenna system to greasing the mast stays. Basically anything that might require men working close to the antenna can require reduced power working for safety reasons. Doesn't mean they are actually working on anything to do with TV transmission though.
COM 7 on Sutton Coldfield is transmitted at about 45% of the power of the main muxes which probably explains your reception problems. Most of the reason for that is probably down to preventing possible interference to other transmitters due to the frequency used. There is probably not a lot that they can do about that.
Thanks for the reply. Not just here, I thought it odd they were working on so many transmitters at the same time. Something to do with installing COM8 perhaps?
Pretty academic where I live as if I can't get COM7 I most certainly won't be able to get COM8.
The network is over 1100 sites, so maintenance is rather like painting the Forth Bridge !
Also COM8 is already installed, it just needs switching on, which shouldn't require any outages.
Indeed it is, certainly at CP, Winter Hill (or was it Sutton C?) and Black Hill, because the COM 8 Txs at those sites were used for 4kUHD tests in June.
Sutton Coldfield wasn't part of the tests, unfortunately, but COM8 is likely to be ready and waiting to be activated.
Most of the COM8 kit was being sourced in the same way that COM7 was - reusing old pre-DSO kit, some of which was (planned to be) shipped between transmitters. There is an arqiva pdf at http://www.arqiva.com/documentation/reference-offers/600mhz-national-dtt-interim-proposals/OFCOM%20Interim%20600%20doc%20July%202013%20start%20v9.pdf documenting where it was all coming from though reality may have varied from that proposal.
WH COM8 was blogged about by BBC R&D at http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/blog/2014/07/how-to-deliver-uhd-over-dtt-and-ip - specifically though that doesn't say if that was a temporary tx only for the UHD test and that the tx that might have come from Croydon isn't in place for COM8's next few years at WH.
If COM8 does come up again for more than 10 minutes from WH I should get a notification, and will start it a new thread this time since it does seem like there may be something significant going on.
UHD1 phase 1 is very unlikly ... And UHD1phase 2 is more likely but some say10 years away .. And thus is unlikly to be a format widely used inany case by "all" channels and by terrestrial emission even less likely.
I think in the case of the June 2014 broadcasts, it was simply a means to test how to broadcast 8k, it was a closed test for industry use (obviously)
8k is going to appear domestically via broadband (for some of us) very soon now, or actually isn't it already here ?
In particular when they are utilising old inefficient transmitters.
This is a result of allowing one Freeview transmission company having a monopoly .
All this gross extra cost is coming out of our pockets and the regulator needs to do something about this.
What extra cost ? The COM 7 and 8 kit uses ex pre DSO transmission equipment, and in some cases recent ex analogue kit (from this century), in both cases it would have ended up in a skip, instead it's being used for a few more years.
You just seem to have one humungus chip on your shoulder about Arqiva
Does any country actually broadcast in 4k yet
I'm not sure exact standards for 4k transmission on DVB-* formats have been ratified yet ?
Just about for UHD1 Ph1 which is just added more pixels I.e looks lie HD
Unless you are under 1.5 H from the screen I.e about 1 m
But without HDR HFR Wide Gamut .... White Level which you can see accross the room. And then things like. OETF EOTF getting rid of fractional frame rates and other techy things etc and not forgetting. audio
all of which need standardising at base band
SMPTE gave a very good teach in on that about a month ago...
It's reported in broadcast and TVB Europe March edition.
Wasn't test transmissions supposed to start this year at Winter Hill and from memory Crystal Palace .
First had a butchers at UHD at NAB in 2006 .
Don't see a huge benefit other than on very large screens ,but I hope I am wrong .
I can't remember if a different codec is to be used other than MPEG 4 ?
Must have a read of the TVB March Edition you refer to .
Doesn't it take 144mgbits before compression , for 4K ?
If I seems I am like a numpty it's because I need to get up to speed on UHD transmission, multiplexing and encoding .
They do and they did.
Just have a look at their access charges !
and thus 24Gbit/sec for 100 Hz as a SDI signal.
BUT this is only 10 bit ( as HDSDI is) and a minimum of 12 bit will be needed for HDR.
Also is 4:2:2 colour good enough ??????
Yes, they were the only applicant.
I don't see what their access charges have to do with it, if anybody was that bothered they could have looked at alternative transmitter sites - there's no obligation to use Arqiva's sites, they just happen to be where everybody's aerials are pointing. Some cheap "in line" sites as used on the analogue RSLs would have been an option for these temporary muxes, especially with Ofcom's very relaxed coverage requirements for them.
My view is there really should have been a single transmission supplier from day one in 1936, and there was until 1955 !
The BBC should have been handed the job of transmitting ITV, it would have mirrored many other countries, where often the PTT (in our case the GPO) handles/d the task for the national TV broadcasters.
The eventual merger of Arqiva/NTL with NGW in 2007, was about 50 years late in my opinion.