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BBC considering putting BBC Alba on freeview in Scotland
AS the title says. The BBC have just announced that the BBC trust is seeking viewers opinions on the possibility of putting BBC Alba on freeview in Scotland.
What I don't understand is they are saying it would be in place of the BBC radio stations.
So are they really saying that by removing the BBC radio stations from freeview in the evenings, what would free up enough bandwidth for an extra video stream?
That doesn't seem to add up to me. Sounds more likely that as well as removing the radio stations, they would also have to compress everything else still further to fit this in.
I just wanted some opinions of the feasibility of this proposal. IF the only way of fitting BBC Alba onto freeview was to reduce bitrates to everything else, then I for one will be objecting to this proposal.
What I don't understand is they are saying it would be in place of the BBC radio stations.
So are they really saying that by removing the BBC radio stations from freeview in the evenings, what would free up enough bandwidth for an extra video stream?
That doesn't seem to add up to me. Sounds more likely that as well as removing the radio stations, they would also have to compress everything else still further to fit this in.
I just wanted some opinions of the feasibility of this proposal. IF the only way of fitting BBC Alba onto freeview was to reduce bitrates to everything else, then I for one will be objecting to this proposal.
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There is an illustration here http://www.10ash.info/Regional_variations_DTT_post_DSO.pdf
http://www.linowsat.de/0282/bitrate/201311954/6736.html
I responded to the BBC Trust consultation and said that BBC Alba would be better placed timesharing on a new 302 stream using the Ofcon allocated Channel Four stream that has not been taken up by the BBC Executive.
more to the point, is this not something the BBC could do with the former BBC Red Button space
That is what the BBC Trust are doing at the moment. I have seen a number of announcements over the last few days asking for people to contact the Trust with their views about which they would prefer.
Taking all the radio stations off frees up 1850kbps but the required bandwidth is 2133kbps.
So either BBC Alba will be compressed a lot more (with the same over compression being applied to the satellite version to ensure "platform neutrality" or all the rest of the channels on MUX A will be compressed a bit more to make room.
It sickens me the continued and gradual degredation of SD picture quality.
And just to highlight BBC's platform neutraity. I was watching the snooker yesterday. Now there's only 1 interactive stream on freeview, there was only 1 table available under the red button. So I thought I'd go and look on satellite, and lo and behold, only 1 table showing there as well. The satellite interactive has been dumbed down to match the restricted space on freeview.
I will be contacting the BBC Trust to say I am against the proposal because it will not work without also reducing the bitrate and hence picture quality of of all channels on MUX A. That's quaite seperate from the issue of whether you prefer the radio stations or BBC Alba.
We are pushed into this mess of limited space and over compression by the barmy Freeview HD service nicking a whole mux, and that in itself is going to provide an inferior HD service (but not inferior for long as the satellite version will be degraded to match)
It was only a year ago that the broadcasters were hoping to run their HD mux as an SFN.
How times change!
I share your anger at "platform neutrality" when it means needlessly wrecking the satellite service to match the crippled Freeview one.
Cheers,
David.
Whoopee. That'll please the 50 people in the Hebridies who still think it is a valid language.
It's not like Welsh, which is spoken quite a lot in north Wales... Gaelic is a language used primarily in the far Noth of Scotland by few people. It is not used in cities or popular culture.
Minority interest only. Why give it a channel??
Yes, they are tonight, but most definitely there was only one table on there yesterday. Perhaps there were too many other sports being covered.
The Sky red button menu's are a right PITA. I much preferred using freeview where you can access the interactive streams as a normal channel, and channel up or channel down would have toggled between the two tables.
Let them know what you think by 18th January.
Most Gaelic speakers in Scotland are in Glasgow I believe which is the biggest city in Scotland
I'm not sure it's quite got to that stage yet; the Bord na Gaidhlig says: Gaelic is still strongest in the Western Isles and West Highlands. However, there are a significant number of Gaelic speakers in some of Scotland’s cities such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness and almost half of the Gaelic speakers in Scotland now stay out with the traditional heartland areas
The balance seems to be shifting towards the major cities, but it's not quite there yet. Those in the cities who speak Gaelic almost certainly do so as a second language. In any case, the number of Gaelic speakers has been on a continuous decline for at least the last 100 years. At the 2001 census the figure was 58,652. It doesn't seem that there is anyone left who speaks Gaelic as their only language. Note that that figure is 1/10th of the absolute number of people in Wales who speak Welsh; the proportion of native language speakers is 1.2% in Scotland vs 20.8% in Wales.
There are probably more people in Glasgow who speak Italian or Chinese - including many for whom it is their first language - than Gaelic. I wouldn't be surprised if that was true for the whole of Scotland, in fact. I have Italian as a second language and I would actually quite like to be able to watch Italian language TV occasionally. If I really wanted to do it then I could get myself a satellite dish and watch RAI. Gaelic speakers can do the same for BBC Alba. It doesn't seem reasonable to deny the vast majority of English speakers their radio programmes when there is very little to stop people who want Gaelic programmes from getting BBC Alba on satellite (which a lot of people in the Highlands and the Hebrides have anyway) or the Internet (which should suit the 'voluntary' Gaelic speakers in the major cities). Don't forget that there is already Gaelic programming on both BBC and ITV terrestrial channels in Scotland (and that same programming makes up a noticeable proportion of BBC Alba's content).
There is a statistic put forward that BBC Alba was watched by 650,000 people per week during its first two months of broadcasting. It truly does seem scarcely credible that more than half a million people watched a channel which they couldn't understand! BBC Alba doesn't seem to appear on BARB's viewing figures for some reason, so it's difficult to know how many viewers they get now. However, since the "Other Viewing" category on BARB only has a total weekly reach of about 50,000, that suggests that BBC Alba cannot possibly be getting anything like those audience figures. (For the weeks immediately after the launch of BBC Alba the "Other Viewing" category was actually lower than it is at the moment.)
If they had a selectable English or Gaelic sound track, that would be even better.
Don't miss understand me, I am not against BBC Alba as a channel. I merely object to it being put on freeview at the expense of all the radio stations and probably at the expense of reduced picture quality.
IF after DSO a mux 7 appears (if one or more of the broadcasters bid for some of the freed up bandwidth) then I would welcome Alba to freeview. Until or unless that happens it should stay off freeview, there's simply not enough space.
Despite the presence of TopUp TV, is there not enough free space during the night to broadcast then, and people who were interested could timeshift programmes? If available, I'd have thought that together with the regular TeleG hour, and a scattering of Gaelic programmes throughout the week, that would be very satisfactory.
Did start to learn Gaelic about 14 years ago via the 'Speaking Our Language' series, but gave up. Still know a few phrases which are useful to stop street salesmen in foreign holiday destinations from harrassing you, because you're speaking a language they don't understand!
The proposal would take down all BBC network radio on Freeview while Alba was on the air in the evenings in Scotland.
I'm not sure what gave you the impression that DAB has a poor reception in Scotland. I have a small Pure DAB radio and I get a great reception here in Ayrshire. I have also taken it to Glasgow and Edinburgh where the reception was no different.
I was only reporting what was being said by the MSPs. They may be wrong. I was under the impression that large areas of Scotland were not served by DAB, especially outside urban areas.
You are perfectly correct Ray Cathode. As you can see from this DAB coverage area map here http://www.ukdigitalradio.com/images/coverage-map.gif, the best DAB reception in Scotland is confined mostly to the central belt and the eastern coast thus leaving many areas in the highlands and west with little/no reception.
This does therefore leave the MSPs with a dilemma - BBC Alba or DAB stations?
That is a commercial mux (or will be 100% after 2012). They could use the C4 slot which was guaranteed by Ofcon for the HD reorganisation but has not been taken up by the BBC because "it is not in the best interests of BBC viewers". At least that has PSB status and will be available in Freeview Lite areas.
Did anyone in the debate also raise my other objection, that removing the radio stations alone does not free enough bandwidth, so the remaining tv channels would need further compression as well to make room for Alba on freeview?
P.S where I am, DAB is patchy to say the least. If (when) Analogue radio switch off happens, I'll need to keep a stock of cd's in my car, or listen to the hum of the engine instead.