In would hazard a guess that its viewing figures eclipse those of Film4+1.

Edit: not much in it actually, latest figures show average daily reach of 945,000 for 4Seven and 823,000 for Film4+1, genuinely surprised.

Ah, thanks for that.

Well they could have moved Ch4 + 1 to BBC B then put 4seven on the basic freeview service. Then Channel 4 could have all there channels (excluding +1 & HD) on Freeview lite and available to 98.5% of the UK

Channel 4+1 has nearly three times as many viewers as 4Seven and moving it to BBC B would, I don't know, maybe halve the number of viewers. It's all about the advertising revenue.

I suppose it is all about advertising money

and ratings, as +1 channels are often combined with the parent channel to gauge the success of a programme.

How are Channel 4 even allowed to put an SD stream on BBC B? I thought the BBC owned that mux. If the BBC offered the space voluntarily, why wouldn't they move BBC Four HD & Cbeebies HD there instead and sell space on COM 7?


Oh good, looking forward to the huge influx of 1 Mbps MEPG2 streams.

Freeview is just a mess and it's only been getting worse for the past couple of years. Yeah, we got two repeat HD channels from Channel 4 but that's it. Freeview is a waste of time for anyone interested in video quality.

It's probably to push the (unofficial) DSO2. I can see more SD services moving to DVB-T2 platforms.

Not everyone is obsessed with HD and I have always said that if they wish to push towards a move to DVB-T2 they need to do more than duplicate existing programming which is already available on the DVB-T muxes.

I'll drink to that. It is only for those with TVs bigger than around 32" and sound quality buffs. Joe public talks more about programme content - '"did you watch whatever last night?", not did you notice that bitrate, count those pixels, etc.

Bollocks ! It benefits any screen size, as long as the native resolution is 1920 x 1080

Very true HD is better, you just have to be the right distance from the screen to see the detail, which I think is 3 times the diagonal part of the screen in distance away from it, so for a 19" screen you need to be 57" away or less aka somewhere between 1.5-1.8 feet away.

I do think that SD channels on a DVB-T2 mux is good though and more should go that way so that there is a build up to dso2 rather than a sudden switch.
It should happen on Dsat too with SD channels moving to DVB-S2 transponders with MPEG4/AVC encoding, so manufactures cant get away with branding DVB-*2 boxes as HD, but have to start calling them something else, then stop selling DVB-*1 only boxes! To get past the hurdle of DVB-*2 only being HD.

(* being T or S type DVB.)

I would agree with that, but not if they are 544x576 resolution. It seems such a waste not to use the greater capacity of DVB-T2 muxes to at least provide decent SD pictures.

I don't think the powers that be want to work against market forces, to be honest. What I think we will see is the quality standing still as the number of channels significantly increases. Maybe once broadcasting costs have dropped significantly, HEVC or whatever hypothetical DSO3 uses, broadcasters will move to higher resolution.

In the analogue satellite days I remember buying a "future proof" satellite receiver --- what a joke !!
Seems the same applies now to any TV purchased in the UK.----- give it a couple of years and something else gets adopted which means updating.
Film 4+1 is still available FTA via a satellite receiver --- digital of course --- but not everyone has satellite.

Must dig out that old PYE VT4 tv from the attic and see if 405 BBC in black and white is still working .........
Regards

Lol you could always buy a 625 to 405 line convertor and connect a digital receiver with an analogue output (they all still have them) and you can watch any channel from that digital receiver in 405 line B&W!

Na --- it's an original on Band 1 -- thanks for the info !!
Regards

I believe the converters will modulate the signal as well, as that is the only way to send video to those TVs anyway.

all changes have taken place
film 4+1 has now be replaced by dave ja vu.

Is Film4+1 the same low resolution it was before or has it increased slightly?

I believe it is still 544x576, unfortunately.

Excellent informative MHEG on the old stream on LCN 791:

It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, UKTV does with this spot long- term. Twice now they've used Dave ja vu to hold space for something, and of course they've got LCN 25, quite valuable given new channels are now getting issued 60s and 70s.

The current UKTV lineup is fairly neat - you could break it down to younger entertainment (Dave), older entertainment (Drama), younger factual (Really) and older factual (Yesterday). You could also roughly compare the current channels to the original 1997 UKTV lineup -
Dave > UK Gold
Yesterday > UK Horizons
Really > UK Style
Drama > UK Arena

But now the channels are shifting from their original positions - Yesterday airing the likes of Flog It, Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road Trip; Really bringing back, for Freeview's benefit some of the home and food shows that went to Home when that launched, and airing some Watch shows (Alcatraz, Grimm) to DTT.

I think UKTV have something planned - when they moved their Sky channel numbers they put all their main channels ahead of their timeshift and HD/swap channels - except for Home, which ended up below GOLD +1 - this indicates a coming strategy. Here's my theory on how the five-slot UKTV could play out:
1. Mostly unscripted entertainment, comedy, some male-leaning drama & factual - basically Dave but with some shows from Watch/GOLD filling for those moved around
2. Mostly scripted drama and comedy, built on the current Drama
3. Female-skewed entertainment, lifestyle, factual, comedy and drama in the Sky Living/Lifetime/TLC mould, built on Really
4. Predominantly documentary and factual content, built on Yesterday with some factual shows gained from elsewhere in the group
5. Popular-factual, lifestyle, reality, food and home content - from HUTH to Bargain Hunt with shows from Home, Good Food, Really and Yesterday. Aimed at older, broader audience than Really.

That'd see Yesterday roll back to being a principally documentary channel and Really essentially becoming a female Dave with an entertainment/factual mix. Thoughts?

Might be better asking in a dedicated thread as that's all a bit off topic.

....I have a higher quality picture and sound than Freeview Film4 - forgive my ignorance, are they kind of using HD technology but with an SD channel on it, ready for when they can start an HD option?

On Freeview SD they were using MPEG2 at about 1.7Mb/s and MP2 audio at 128kb/s.

On Freeview HD they are using MPEG4 at about 1.2Mb/s and AAC at 96kb/s

Less bits, but the amount of efficiency gain with the newer codecs is greater, so it will look and sound better.