OFCOM is an economic regulator ..
And to make all broadcasters pay for universal coverage would have sunk the platform ... As on D nearly did....
Thus removing the signal from about 80% of UK TVs ... So the UK would be at the same level as DTT in the USA ....
In more recent times it has been proved that even a PSB cannot afford carriage on a PSB mux ..... And no one bid for the space when it was offered as a commercial opportunity ..
Also there would not have been the spectrum for 6 muxes within the economic constraints imposed by government, ... I.e minimum changing of receive antennas
Relay transmitters and sub-relays cannot be modified to carry all Freeview services, it's technologically impossible due to bandwidth and frequency restrictions so they have to carry half the number of services available or even fewer on a sub-relay.
Only for the commercial broadcasters. The PSBs would have carried on as they did after the OnDigital collapse.
But would it pass a PVT for the BBC if everyone was watching another platform.....
And if ch5 record is to go by they would have been off DTT like a shot ....
And ITV would have problem ......
And ch 4 would go with the bbc in the sky platform.
Even with the excellence of UK PSB content ... Would you have a box just to Receive it ?
Which is where I think the OP came in.....
And would there be any FTA content to view????
The UK has DTT as the predominant platform as it can be viewed by more people than any other platform and has roughly 4 out if 5 tvs on it.... While DSAT to has just over half the main TV sets on it...... Would Freesat have been there 6 years before it was...
The amount of channels crammed into a MUX now can hold more than transmitted at present if they want. And Freeview Lite should have no HD services and additional content live DAVE, Drama, etc added.
The amount of channels crammed into a MUX now can hold more than transmitted at present if they want. And Freeview Lite should have no HD services and additional content live DAVE, Drama, etc added.
The issue is ..as has been proved .... commercial broadcasters cannot afford being in a mux with PSB coverage.
Simple business.... It costs roughly twice as much to get the extra 7% coverage .
Bearing in mind that at. DSO 2 no major PSB channel will be emitted in SD ..
It seems reasonable t have PSB in HD and comm 7 ... ,
and after all the BBC would not be meeting its public purpose 6 if it was not in HD when others were. ...
IT's a shame that after the DSO and cost to the nation in new digital TV's and boxes etc that in 2015 NOT ALL of the UK has all the TV channels by DTT......
They should have just switched everyone over to Freesat instead.
Almost total coverage, easy to fill in any gaps with a downlink and local repeater, potentially huge savings on transmission costs (all local transmitters can be shut down - that's literally hundreds), millions generated from local site sales + savings on maintenance costs and room in the bandwidth for future expansion.
Expanding Freeview Lite (or indeed even full fat Freeview) seems very expensive and wasteful in RF terms when there's satellite or even IP streaming that can do so much more, so much more inexpensively and much more quickly
You may think IP might be a good answer but not so much for freeview lite areas as these tend to be rural areas with limited BB speed and higher pricing than inner city areas upto around £15 a month more than standard offers for all providers! This fact is shocking when you take it all into account with freeview lite, you really are limited in these areas.
Yes there is satellite but at a cost! Freesat though is an option but still the full freeview offering is in my opinion better!
My end point would be I agree with you about IP use, but Ofcom should be forcing BB providers to up their game in these areas to bring them up to speed (not pun intended) and prices brought in line to other areas instead of trying to fix up freeview lite first
You may think IP might be a good answer but not so much for freeview lite areas as these tend to be rural areas with limited BB speed and higher pricing than inner city areas upto around £15 a month more than standard offers for all providers! This fact is shocking when you take it all into account with freeview lite, you really are limited in these areas.
Yes there is satellite but at a cost! Freesat though is an option but still the full freeview offering is in my opinion better!
My end point would be I agree with you about IP use, but Ofcom should be forcing BB providers to up their game in these areas to bring them up to speed (not pun intended) and prices brought in line to other areas instead of trying to fix up freeview lite first
The only way Freeview and Freeview Lite can carry more channels is to switch ALL channels to DVB-T2 standard for transmission (and the transmitters) which would mean Freeview HD tv's and Freeview HD set-top boxes for all users (and they ARE affordable these days) OR a total switch to MPEG4 transmission altogether (requiring new MPEG4 capable stb's and TV's).
MPEG4/h.264 standard transmissions can carry even MORE channels due to it's more generous bandwidth and compression which means you can easily carry lots more HD and SD channels together than DVB-T2 and DVB-T (AND in a much better quality than these two systems put together) within all 21-68 channel muxes of the present system and ALL channels SD and HD transmitted in MPEG4 format can also carry full Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks in dolby digital mono 1.0/dolby digital surround 2.0/dolby digital stereo 2.0/dolby digital bi-lingual 2.0 and full fat dolby digital surround 5.1 for the home cinema enthusiasts among us All in all, a win win situation for viewer and broadcaster.
It's certainly way better than the Freeview-lite 'service' and I don't foresee any post-May 7 government improving Freeview-lite, unfortunately.
I don't think you understood the post did you, I only included satellite to acknowledge the option. IP was the real topic in relation to youview and freeview play. Highlighting the state of BB offering due to area, cost and speed at a time where people who live in rural areas suffer from all choices which others take for granted.
I understand you like freesat but it does not mean everyone wants it or enjoys it! When saying satellite cost I did mean Sky not Freesat, thats my bad. When I said freesat I did say it was my opinion.
They should have just switched everyone over to Freesat instead.
Almost total coverage, easy to fill in any gaps with a downlink and local repeater, potentially huge savings on transmission costs (all local transmitters can be shut down - that's literally hundreds), millions generated from local site sales + savings on maintenance costs and room in the bandwidth for future expansion.
I totally agree and to top that DVB-S2 sat tps on a UK beam have the potential for 26 SD channels at good quality 1.5-2Mbps MPEG 4/AVC/h.264 (equivalent of 3-4Mbps at MPEG 2) or 30-50 if the quality is lowered or about 6-7 HD channels on each.
Even an ordinary DVB-S tp which would be needed for the SD PSBs for a while to come yet, can carry more channels at good quality 3-3.5Mbps MPEG2 than a freeview MUX, and if a viewer wants they can watch different regions to their own re BBC and channel 3 regions.
Satellite reception costs a lot more for the viewer. TV's don't generally have satellite tuners so a STB is required for every set. The home has to be wired to the dish for every point, no more indoor aerials.
Not sure about local repeaters either. They couldn't use the same frequencies due to interference issues so once again special tuners would be required in those areas.
Satellites can fail as well leaving no one with a service. As far as I know no country relies totally on satellite for TV distribution. Ever wondered why?
Then convert the whole DTH sat setup at 28 degrees east to IP use to supplement lack of fibre to the home and use a multicast system on that for IP tv delivery of every channel possible.
For those who can't get the signal though satellite upgrade the areas to FTTH with a Fibre Node that splits into TV, Internet and Phone and rip out the copper lines so that is the home owners only choices in that area.
As the TV point would be separate on the fibre node it could be charged separately to the internet and phone and only active if you pay your TV licence.
As the cost of broadcasting would be brought down paying for the lines to have this TV service included could be part funded by any broadcasters who previously were on freeview especially share holders.
As time goes on more places could convert to FTTH with the help of broadcasters only having to broadcast over Fibre lines and ip sat at 28 degrees east untill at some point there would be a balance of bigger places with FTTH and remoter places with ip tv over sat.
People could have basic FTA/FTV viewable on their TV sets or 'new' freeview boxes, or a separate set top box from companies like Sky, Virgin and BT that work over the same connection and use some of the same channel streams even but customers pay ether BT, Virgin or Sky as white label companies over the same infrastructure.
Indeed, the relay site near us is fairly large and there are other things broadcast from the same tower, and the second additional tower sited next to it. These other services inc bbc local radio on fm, and multiple mobile phone signals inc 3G (and 4g soon I think).
Reception from the main mendip mast is not possible in the worst effected parts of the area, and remains tricky or unreliable further out. We are in then latter, and a neighbour recently switched from the relay to mendip, but they have problems. The aerial installed is a log periodic and no mast head amp visible. This type of aerial may of been picked to try and block out distant signals from wenvoe (only about 10deg off mendip bearing at this location) and even from the s.west of England. I know this is also an issue as we did have a large high gain aerial for mendip which after DSO picked up these unwanted signals (yet mendip was always weak). Or, the log periodic may have been chosen simply because it's refered to as a "professional digital aerial"........but either way, then lower gain of this type of aerial means it's just not upto the job of receiving a weakened mendip signal. End result, in the last few days they have turned the aerial round to face the relay signal.
I also see that from the old analogue signal foot print maps, there is a spike in one direction which reaches quite a bit further, it seems it reaches the edge of another village where one side of the hill is shielded 100% from mendip while the further part that village is situated on top or down the other side of the same hill and has line of sight with mendip.
Even before DSO, over half the houses had sky. Now, I would suggest about 80% have a dish for sky or freesat.
Yes it would be nice to transfer to DVB-S2 on a UK beam and gain the newly possible bandwidth of 55Mbps an actual net gain of 66% if you go from SD MPEG 2 on a DVB-S tp at 33Mbps to DVB-S2 at 55Mbps SD MPEG4/AVC/h.264.
The only issue is the PSBs would be unlikely to switch them yet, even though the commercial PSBs could likely do it without Ofcom even blinking an eyelid. The BBC on the other hand would likely be told not to by the BBC Trust.
Still it is a great net increase for SD channels and if none PSBs saw it as a potential we might see a few actually appear, on top of the fact sky would likely let them launch wheras MPEG 2 SD channels can't currently launch on sky unless they replace another one due to limitations on the older boxes. I'm sure freesat and fta dsat boxes would cope though.
OFCOM is an economic regulator ..
And to make all broadcasters pay for universal coverage would have sunk the platform ... As on D nearly did....
Thus removing the signal from about 80% of UK TVs ... So the UK would be at the same level as DTT in the USA ....
In more recent times it has been proved that even a PSB cannot afford carriage on a PSB mux ..... And no one bid for the space when it was offered as a commercial opportunity ..
Also there would not have been the spectrum for 6 muxes within the economic constraints imposed by government, ... I.e minimum changing of receive antennas
With the greatest respect ,you are completely wrong with regards to spectrum restraints, including the lack of gain in rooftop antennas at other frequencies.
With the correct engineering knowledge , there should never have been a problem with providing six multiplexes and sometimes more on all relays.
In addition the additional equipment cost is extremely small ,and I do mean small,
when you compare the overall costs the TV stations are paying it is less than 1%.
Modern technology in linear devices and the simplification this has brought about in the construction cost of medium and low power relays ,plus the huge increase in semiconductor efficiency results in real terms savings that makes it more economical to replace old equipment at relay sites broadcasting 3 multiplexes ,with new broadcasting 6 multiplexes.
The cause of this lack of expertise is in some respects due to the lack of understanding by the planners and those making decisions in Ofcom of the progress of technology in finding solutions.
This didn't happen in the days of IBA and the BBC ,who had their own engineering departments capable of transmitter construction and or design working closely with UK manufacturers and consequently understood all the technical aspects.
In fact these people were the very best in the world.
I am afraid all or nearly all that expertise has been lost ,since privatisation .
The regulators failed to regulate and allowed that expertise to be exported ,as 100% of transmitter procurment is now purchased from outside the UK and has been going on for years ,due to the monopoly of our TV broadcast operator.
This doesn't happen in other countries .
This is happening in the ship building sector ,aircraft manufacturing ,in fact all technology sectors ,perhaps with the exception of micro processors.
All that expertise and jobs lost,it makes me weep !
Spectrum restrictions are not a major reason for Freeview lite finance is. 82 transmitters cover over 90% of the population, to get it past 98% requires the remaining, over 1000 transmitters to be upgraded and that isn't ever going to happen. Freesat was introduced to solve the problem, it is not expensive to install.
Spectrum restrictions are not a major reason for Freeview lite finance is. 82 transmitters cover over 90% of the population, to get it past 98% requires the remaining, over 1000 transmitters to be upgraded and that isn't ever going to happen. Freesat was introduced to solve the problem, it is not expensive to install.
Most had to be upgraded to three multipllexes and it was or is a totally insignificant cost to provide six multiplexes ,and as I have mentioned no technical limitations at all .
I suspect another agenda why this was the case .
But there was certainly in my opinion a lot of spin and PR peddled to the regulators( and those working in the industry ) at the time and of course most took the bait.
Terrestrial coverage is really important apart for national security reasons it is the only practical platform for local TV .
Terrestrial coverage will morph together with hi speed internet and remove the need for copper or fibre to the home.
Spectrum restrictions are not a major reason for Freeview lite finance is. 82 transmitters cover over 90% of the population
That may be true but there are many areas which cannot get the programmes intended for their particular region now whereas they could back in analogue days. Yes, they can swing their aerial around and watch programmes intended for a neighbouring region but it must be very annoying. Thankfully I'm not one of them.
In my opinion Freeview-Lite coverage should be at least as good as analogue coverage was otherwise DTT is a step backwards, not a step forwards.
Spectrum restrictions are not a major reason for Freeview lite finance is. 82 transmitters cover over 90% of the population, to get it past 98% requires the remaining, over 1000 transmitters to be upgraded and that isn't ever going to happen. Freesat was introduced to solve the problem, it is not expensive to install.
It's not a cost efficient operation to do that so it's Freesat or Freeview + online content (although many of the Freeview-lite areas are remote and rural ones too where broadband speeds are poor and intermittent).
Comments
And to make all broadcasters pay for universal coverage would have sunk the platform ... As on D nearly did....
Thus removing the signal from about 80% of UK TVs ... So the UK would be at the same level as DTT in the USA ....
In more recent times it has been proved that even a PSB cannot afford carriage on a PSB mux ..... And no one bid for the space when it was offered as a commercial opportunity ..
Also there would not have been the spectrum for 6 muxes within the economic constraints imposed by government, ... I.e minimum changing of receive antennas
But would it pass a PVT for the BBC if everyone was watching another platform.....
And if ch5 record is to go by they would have been off DTT like a shot ....
And ITV would have problem ......
And ch 4 would go with the bbc in the sky platform.
Even with the excellence of UK PSB content ... Would you have a box just to Receive it ?
Which is where I think the OP came in.....
And would there be any FTA content to view????
The UK has DTT as the predominant platform as it can be viewed by more people than any other platform and has roughly 4 out if 5 tvs on it.... While DSAT to has just over half the main TV sets on it...... Would Freesat have been there 6 years before it was...
The issue is ..as has been proved .... commercial broadcasters cannot afford being in a mux with PSB coverage.
Simple business.... It costs roughly twice as much to get the extra 7% coverage .
Bearing in mind that at. DSO 2 no major PSB channel will be emitted in SD ..
It seems reasonable t have PSB in HD and comm 7 ... ,
and after all the BBC would not be meeting its public purpose 6 if it was not in HD when others were. ...
They should have just switched everyone over to Freesat instead.
Almost total coverage, easy to fill in any gaps with a downlink and local repeater, potentially huge savings on transmission costs (all local transmitters can be shut down - that's literally hundreds), millions generated from local site sales + savings on maintenance costs and room in the bandwidth for future expansion.
You may think IP might be a good answer but not so much for freeview lite areas as these tend to be rural areas with limited BB speed and higher pricing than inner city areas upto around £15 a month more than standard offers for all providers! This fact is shocking when you take it all into account with freeview lite, you really are limited in these areas.
Yes there is satellite but at a cost! Freesat though is an option but still the full freeview offering is in my opinion better!
My end point would be I agree with you about IP use, but Ofcom should be forcing BB providers to up their game in these areas to bring them up to speed (not pun intended) and prices brought in line to other areas instead of trying to fix up freeview lite first
Yes, but it's a one off cost for installation and I find that the channel choice is wider on Freesat and that the standard definition picture quality is better overall. It also doesn't suffer from picture degradation in summer due to high pressure weather.
It's certainly way better than the Freeview-lite 'service' and I don't foresee any post-May 7 government improving Freeview-lite, unfortunately.
MPEG4/h.264 standard transmissions can carry even MORE channels due to it's more generous bandwidth and compression which means you can easily carry lots more HD and SD channels together than DVB-T2 and DVB-T (AND in a much better quality than these two systems put together) within all 21-68 channel muxes of the present system and ALL channels SD and HD transmitted in MPEG4 format can also carry full Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks in dolby digital mono 1.0/dolby digital surround 2.0/dolby digital stereo 2.0/dolby digital bi-lingual 2.0 and full fat dolby digital surround 5.1 for the home cinema enthusiasts among us
I don't think you understood the post did you, I only included satellite to acknowledge the option. IP was the real topic in relation to youview and freeview play. Highlighting the state of BB offering due to area, cost and speed at a time where people who live in rural areas suffer from all choices which others take for granted.
I understand you like freesat but it does not mean everyone wants it or enjoys it! When saying satellite cost I did mean Sky not Freesat, thats my bad. When I said freesat I did say it was my opinion.
I totally agree and to top that DVB-S2 sat tps on a UK beam have the potential for 26 SD channels at good quality 1.5-2Mbps MPEG 4/AVC/h.264 (equivalent of 3-4Mbps at MPEG 2) or 30-50 if the quality is lowered or about 6-7 HD channels on each.
Even an ordinary DVB-S tp which would be needed for the SD PSBs for a while to come yet, can carry more channels at good quality 3-3.5Mbps MPEG2 than a freeview MUX, and if a viewer wants they can watch different regions to their own re BBC and channel 3 regions.
Then convert the whole DTH sat setup at 28 degrees east to IP use to supplement lack of fibre to the home and use a multicast system on that for IP tv delivery of every channel possible.
For those who can't get the signal though satellite upgrade the areas to FTTH with a Fibre Node that splits into TV, Internet and Phone and rip out the copper lines so that is the home owners only choices in that area.
As the TV point would be separate on the fibre node it could be charged separately to the internet and phone and only active if you pay your TV licence.
As the cost of broadcasting would be brought down paying for the lines to have this TV service included could be part funded by any broadcasters who previously were on freeview especially share holders.
As time goes on more places could convert to FTTH with the help of broadcasters only having to broadcast over Fibre lines and ip sat at 28 degrees east untill at some point there would be a balance of bigger places with FTTH and remoter places with ip tv over sat.
People could have basic FTA/FTV viewable on their TV sets or 'new' freeview boxes, or a separate set top box from companies like Sky, Virgin and BT that work over the same connection and use some of the same channel streams even but customers pay ether BT, Virgin or Sky as white label companies over the same infrastructure.
Reception from the main mendip mast is not possible in the worst effected parts of the area, and remains tricky or unreliable further out. We are in then latter, and a neighbour recently switched from the relay to mendip, but they have problems. The aerial installed is a log periodic and no mast head amp visible. This type of aerial may of been picked to try and block out distant signals from wenvoe (only about 10deg off mendip bearing at this location) and even from the s.west of England. I know this is also an issue as we did have a large high gain aerial for mendip which after DSO picked up these unwanted signals (yet mendip was always weak). Or, the log periodic may have been chosen simply because it's refered to as a "professional digital aerial"........but either way, then lower gain of this type of aerial means it's just not upto the job of receiving a weakened mendip signal. End result, in the last few days they have turned the aerial round to face the relay signal.
I also see that from the old analogue signal foot print maps, there is a spike in one direction which reaches quite a bit further, it seems it reaches the edge of another village where one side of the hill is shielded 100% from mendip while the further part that village is situated on top or down the other side of the same hill and has line of sight with mendip.
Even before DSO, over half the houses had sky. Now, I would suggest about 80% have a dish for sky or freesat.
Yes it would be nice to transfer to DVB-S2 on a UK beam and gain the newly possible bandwidth of 55Mbps an actual net gain of 66% if you go from SD MPEG 2 on a DVB-S tp at 33Mbps to DVB-S2 at 55Mbps SD MPEG4/AVC/h.264.
The only issue is the PSBs would be unlikely to switch them yet, even though the commercial PSBs could likely do it without Ofcom even blinking an eyelid. The BBC on the other hand would likely be told not to by the BBC Trust.
Still it is a great net increase for SD channels and if none PSBs saw it as a potential we might see a few actually appear, on top of the fact sky would likely let them launch wheras MPEG 2 SD channels can't currently launch on sky unless they replace another one due to limitations on the older boxes. I'm sure freesat and fta dsat boxes would cope though.
With the greatest respect ,you are completely wrong with regards to spectrum restraints, including the lack of gain in rooftop antennas at other frequencies.
With the correct engineering knowledge , there should never have been a problem with providing six multiplexes and sometimes more on all relays.
In addition the additional equipment cost is extremely small ,and I do mean small,
when you compare the overall costs the TV stations are paying it is less than 1%.
Modern technology in linear devices and the simplification this has brought about in the construction cost of medium and low power relays ,plus the huge increase in semiconductor efficiency results in real terms savings that makes it more economical to replace old equipment at relay sites broadcasting 3 multiplexes ,with new broadcasting 6 multiplexes.
The cause of this lack of expertise is in some respects due to the lack of understanding by the planners and those making decisions in Ofcom of the progress of technology in finding solutions.
This didn't happen in the days of IBA and the BBC ,who had their own engineering departments capable of transmitter construction and or design working closely with UK manufacturers and consequently understood all the technical aspects.
In fact these people were the very best in the world.
I am afraid all or nearly all that expertise has been lost ,since privatisation .
The regulators failed to regulate and allowed that expertise to be exported ,as 100% of transmitter procurment is now purchased from outside the UK and has been going on for years ,due to the monopoly of our TV broadcast operator.
This doesn't happen in other countries .
This is happening in the ship building sector ,aircraft manufacturing ,in fact all technology sectors ,perhaps with the exception of micro processors.
All that expertise and jobs lost,it makes me weep !
In this country ,we are capable of being the very best ,after all we invented most things .
What we need is those who do the regulation to step to the mark and do thier job properly for no other reason other than the wish to do good public service.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2007124/Snouts-trough-Independent-media-regulator-costs-taxpayer-millions-holds-Middle-England-contempt.html
Sorry about the rant !
Most had to be upgraded to three multipllexes and it was or is a totally insignificant cost to provide six multiplexes ,and as I have mentioned no technical limitations at all .
I suspect another agenda why this was the case .
But there was certainly in my opinion a lot of spin and PR peddled to the regulators( and those working in the industry ) at the time and of course most took the bait.
Terrestrial coverage is really important apart for national security reasons it is the only practical platform for local TV .
Terrestrial coverage will morph together with hi speed internet and remove the need for copper or fibre to the home.
That may be true but there are many areas which cannot get the programmes intended for their particular region now whereas they could back in analogue days. Yes, they can swing their aerial around and watch programmes intended for a neighbouring region but it must be very annoying. Thankfully I'm not one of them.
In my opinion Freeview-Lite coverage should be at least as good as analogue coverage was otherwise DTT is a step backwards, not a step forwards.
It's not a cost efficient operation to do that so it's Freesat or Freeview + online content (although many of the Freeview-lite areas are remote and rural ones too where broadband speeds are poor and intermittent).