Thanks, understood.

Not only that, but my understanding is that they are not allowed to.

If the BBC don't return the BBC Three, CBBC and BBC Four to 720x576i picture resolution on Freeview after the Olympics is over, I will set up a petition saying that we will boycott watching the channels until the picture resolution on those channels are returned to 720x576i!

BBC News still looks a lot better than Russia Today!

The Ofcom document which insists "Qualifying Services" have to be broadcast in at least 704x576i, does not apply to multiplex 1, as it is not an Ofcom licensed multiplex.

That's not to say there isn't a restriction elsewhere.

Remember people, it's YOUR Olympics!

Bah humbug! There's so much being broadcast, how can anyone possibly chose what to watch? I just about have time for one hour per day of highlights, but there doesn't appear to be anything that short. I may just have to watch the main BBC 10pm News.

Looking at the state of the Olympic rings on the currently fairly static 302, I don't think they've gone far enough. I hate to think what it will look like when 301, 302, BBC1 and BBC3 are all showing live sport.

Was that breaking news...?

To those whom believe the BBC will put everything back as they were, has the BBC made any confirmation that resolutions and bitrates will be restored?

From previous experience, when the BBC makes a change like this, unless there is a mass number of complaints, the changes stay for good.

At least I have Freeview HD!

How can it possibly stay like this? 302 isn't permanent and BBC Parliament needs to return. They will quite obviously restore the previous configuration since it was working fine.

And so it should be!

The BBC have long held aspirations to make BBC THREE a 24 hour channel. But there isn't enough capacity on SD for Parliament as well without a FEC change.

Agreed, so either they change FEC and make it 24 hours (without needing to squeeze bit rates) or it goes back to how it was before. Either way, it won't stay like this (with lots of 544x576 streams).

And it is highly unlikely that it would go 24-hr in the light of the DQF changes and budget cuts.

Really - the cost of doing this are not inconsiderable from Commissioning through Red Bee and To ATOS .... ??? DQF rules OK !

Are you suggesting the BBC changed from 1440 to 1920 due to complaints? I think not.

They had better change it back! I watch on a 4:3 set, and on BBC channels, except Parliament and 301, and ITV channels, there has always been some permanent flag being broadcast that tells my Panasonic DVD recorder to zoom a 16:9 letterbox picture to 14:9, with no means of overriding it, which I can tolerate. However I noticed last night the change in resolution on BBC News and BBC Four has had an unfortunate effect when it zooms to 14:9 - the picture is now squashed up to two thirds of the screen (presumably the first 544 pixels), leaving a thick black bar on the right hand side (the remaining 176). In fact this is how 4Music is always broadcast. The only way to watch properly is to record whilst watching, when it always reverts to proper 16:9 letterbox. These Olympics are nothing but trouble!

Well they managed OK today somehow especially on other platforms where Parliament is still on air.

Are the Freeview channel bitrates/resolutions actually officially (or unofficially) published anywhere?

Thanks

I should have said permanently .... rather than the repatching and "ad hocs" ing done for Olympics...

I've been aware of this for as long as channels started switching to 544 pixels.

You may also find that the 14:9 mode which BBC One etc use, is shown is not correctly either, its a 4:3 picture squashed to 14:9.

Together with the dumb tuning routine on Panasonics, it's disappointing for a big name brand.

But isn't it time to get a new telly Robert?

BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three all looked normal when I last checked last night. I know I'm behind the times with my 4:3 telly, but I just don't like flat screens, I much prefer the way the pictures looks on CRT sets, particularly with the low bitrates on many Freeview channels. Plus a large proportion of my viewing is still made up of 4:3 material, either on DVD or old programmes on television like Top of the Pops or Going for Gold.

Get a 16:9 CRT set? There are loads of working ones being scrapped all over the country, should be easy to get one.

No they changed to 1920 to be able to broadcast some of the Olympics in 3D. This happened for the first Wimbledon 3D trial over a year ago, the BBC HD channel changed to 1920 x 1080 and then when Wimbledon was over it changed back to 1440 x 1080.

I'd support a FEC change on the BBC SD mux (and D3&4). I'm not aware of anyone having problems with the COM muxes as a result of the FEC changes.

Mind you that would mean Freeview Lite transmitters using the less robust FEC for the first time. There's no evidence either way whether this would be satisfactory since they don't broadcast COM muxes.