[Jersey_boy]

I can receive 20 or so FTA French TV Channels in Jersey, and no doubt in other islands also.

I think also, depending on where you live in the UK (south-east england) you should also pick up these stations if you have a french tv aerial.

Channels I get include TF1, France 2-5, M6, Arte, Direct8, W9, NT1, NRJ12, iTele, BFMtv, Paris Premier, TPS Star, Canal +, TMC, Gulli and LCP

As mentioned before SECAM picture quality is probably on par with what you are likely to see with SKY HD. Its so clear and makes PAL look sick and colourless in comparison.

Any one else picking up French Freeview ? Its called TNT incidentally.

Jersey_Boy
Saint Helier

[elpaw]

I thought French DTT used PAL DVB (as there is no SECAM DVB spec), the same as we do?

French channel.I am shocked at why there is not a French Freeview channel on British Freeview?

I dont think France use Pal.They use SECAM.

[marbles316]

I want some french channels on freeview too. But it's pretty unlikely. lol.

[Frank1]

Originally Posted by Jersey_boy

I can receive 20 or so FTA French TV Channels in Jersey, and no doubt in other islands also.

I think also, depending on where you live in the UK (south-east england) you should also pick up these stations if you have a french tv aerial.

Channels I get include TF1, France 2-5, M6, Arte, Direct8, W9, NT1, NRJ12, iTele, BFMtv, Paris Premier, TPS Star, Canal +, TMC, Gulli and LCP

As mentioned before SECAM picture quality is probably on par with what you are likely to see with SKY HD. Its so clear and makes PAL look sick and colourless in comparison.

Any one else picking up French Freeview ? Its called TNT incidentally.

Jersey_Boy
Saint Helier

I think you are mistaken with SECAM.

The French (like us) use DVB-T for terrestrial digital.
SECAM is a method of colour coding for the analogue network.

Frank

[soulboy77]

Jersey_boy - What STB are you using?

[Fudge]

Originally Posted by Jersey_boy

As mentioned before SECAM picture quality is probably on par with what you are likely to see with SKY HD. Its so clear and makes PAL look sick and colourless in comparison.

The resolution of PAL and SECAM is the same http://stjarnhimlen.se/tv/tv.html#HDTV , which ties in with what I've read about most French TV being originated in PAL at the studio and only converted to SECAM for transmission, due to the poor range/high cost of available SECAM production equipment http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/W...are.html#secam

[Nick{D}vB]

SECAM has nothing to do with DVB, it looks better because it has a much higher bitrate that freeview, some channels in Paris are also using SD H.264 but I think most of those channels are encrypted.

[Jersey_boy]

Soulboy,

My STB is cheap - about 40 euro.
Can get cheaper but you can of course some come with slots (like Sky receivers)

Jersey_Boy

[Jersey_boy]

The resolution of PAL and SECAM is the same http://stjarnhimlen.se/tv/tv.html#HDTV , which ties in with what I've read about most French TV being originated in PAL at the studio and only converted to SECAM for transmission, due to the poor range/high cost of available SECAM production equipment http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/...pare.html#secam

I think the gentlemen here who wrote this is very pro-PAL because and may never have seen a SECAM signal. There is got to be more than two advantages to having SECAM - the picture quality is excellent on Freeview as well as analouge.

Jersey_Boy

[Dessy]

Originally Posted by Jersey_boy

The resolution of PAL and SECAM is the same http://stjarnhimlen.se/tv/tv.html#HDTV , which ties in with what I've read about most French TV being originated in PAL at the studio and only converted to SECAM for transmission, due to the poor range/high cost of available SECAM production equipment http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/...pare.html#secam

I think the gentlemen here who wrote this is very pro-PAL because and may never have seen a SECAM signal. There is got to be more than two advantages to having SECAM - the picture quality is excellent on Freeview as well as analouge.

Jersey_Boy

Actually Fudge is correct. PAL and SECAM do have the same resolution. Put simply, the difference between PAL and SECAM is just in the way the colour information is encoded.

Historically SECAM was adopted by France, for political reasons, inorder to protect the French television manufacturing companies.

The good picture that you are receiving from France, is most probably down to the higher bitrate that they use compared to our commercial mulitpliexes.

The French broadcast in a 64 QAM, 8K mode fitting in typically 5 or 6 channels per mux, where our 64 QAM muxes cram in 9 channels - thats a 50% reduction in resolution for us (put simply!)

I do a lot of work in France, in TV, and we often use PAL cameras and monitors at French TV sports events, but thats by the by.

[ney]

I be going to Jersey(St Helier) in May for a few days. I think the guest house I been staying in may only have channels 1-4 in the bedrooms. All 65 rooms have a shower or bath, phone, colour TV and clock radio but it only says the main sitting room and small bar have sat TV. Theres a small room next to the bar it says that serves breakfast and a light lunch. Whatever a light lunch is. Theres also a place were you can sit out in the sun and have your drinks the brochure says. They do have evening meals at an exta cost and you have to tell them that day if you will be having an evening meal. I dont think I will be in much to watch the TV but will have a look and may also try the radio.

Darren

[zombie woof]

Originally Posted by Dessy

Historically SECAM was adopted by France, for political reasons, inorder to protect the French television manufacturing companies.

Now there's a surprise.

[SteveMcK]

Originally Posted by Jersey_boy

The resolution of PAL and SECAM is the same http://stjarnhimlen.se/tv/tv.html#HDTV , which ties in with what I've read about most French TV being originated in PAL at the studio and only converted to SECAM for transmission, due to the poor range/high cost of available SECAM production equipment http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Contrib/...pare.html#secam

That is correct. It is more difficult to do video editing in SECAM since you need to handle 8 frames at a time, so studio origination is all PAL.

I think the gentlemen here who wrote this is very pro-PAL because and may never have seen a SECAM signal. There is got to be more than two advantages to having SECAM - the picture quality is excellent on Freeview as well as analouge.

I think you may be confusing it with RGB, the direct signal output by digital boxes in both the UK (Freeview) and France (TNT)
No French Freeview box outputs in SECAM, the digital signal is MPEG-encoded YUV, and is converted to RGB and PAL for output to the TV. RGB will give a much clearer picture than either PAL or SECAM.

Quality-wise the only time you'll see a difference between PAL and SECAM is when the signal is poor, where SECAM signals can show very slightly more streaking on colours ('silverfish'). Both PAL and SECAM were designed as a way to improve on the original american NTSC, and technically there is little difference. Most modern SECAM TV sets work by converting the SECAM signal to PAL, and then decoding the PAL signal.

[Mark.]

Originally Posted by soulboy77

Jersey_boy - What STB are you using?

You don't need a French STB - you can watch DTT stations from any country with a PC DVB-T adaptor.

Of course, you still need a line of sight to a foreign transmitter!!

[David (2)]

Originally Posted by Jersey_boy

I can receive 20 or so FTA French TV Channels in Jersey, and no doubt in other islands also.

I think also, depending on where you live in the UK (south-east england) you should also pick up these stations if you have a french tv aerial.

Channels I get include TF1, France 2-5, M6, Arte, Direct8, W9, NT1, NRJ12, iTele, BFMtv, Paris Premier, TPS Star, Canal +, TMC, Gulli and LCP

As mentioned before SECAM picture quality is probably on par with what you are likely to see with SKY HD. Its so clear and makes PAL look sick and colourless in comparison.

Any one else picking up French Freeview ? Its called TNT incidentally.

Jersey_Boy
Saint Helier

Back in the days of analogue tv, SECAM quality was identical to the UK PAL pictures. The only diference between them is the colour system. You used to be able to use an analogue satellite decoder box to pick up both, and both worked on a regular UK PAL tv - just that the SECAM pictures lost their colour due to the difference in colour system. The close design of these 2 systems is reflected in VHS tape's - most tapes have printed on them for "PAL/SECAM" use.

Dave

[television2004]

Originally Posted by Frank1

I think you are mistaken with SECAM.

The French (like us) use DVB-T for terrestrial digital.
SECAM is a method of colour coding for the analogue network.

Frank

I think the real reason is the cramming of all the UK channels into a restricted bandwidth resulting in poorer picture quality. I was also led to beleive the French would be using MPEG4 which is twice as efficient with bandwidth than MPEG2 which we are stuck with!

[yBSy]

Does NRJ12 have AC3 audio on DVBT?

[Dessy]

Originally Posted by television2004

I think the real reason is the cramming of all the UK channels into a restricted bandwidth resulting in poorer picture quality. I was also led to beleive the French would be using MPEG4 which is twice as efficient with bandwidth than MPEG2 which we are stuck with!

The French use 2 systems - MPEG2 for their FTA channels and MPEG4 for the PAY TV channels.

[Andy Herne]

Originally Posted by television2004

I think the real reason is the cramming of all the UK channels into a restricted bandwidth resulting in poorer picture quality. I was also led to beleive the French would be using MPEG4 which is twice as efficient with bandwidth than MPEG2 which we are stuck with!

Why are we stuck with MPEG2? What's stopping the UK from using/adpoting MPEG4 now/later ?

Sorry about my complete lack of knowledge, just curious.

Used to work/live in Jersey for three years. I remember the quality of UHF analogue pictures being not quite as sharp as at home on the mainland, very poor in extreme high pressure too.

Can anyone explain how analogue TV gets to the islands these days and why ITV Channel still only uses the 4:3 format on satellite? I know the old UHF / Microwave link was made redundant by satellite and fibre a few years ago.

I recall that all the channels from Stockland Hill used to be received off air at the SABRE reception facility in Alderney, then microwaved over to Fremont Point for rebroadcast? Also that ITV/C4 moved from the Stockland Hill / SABRE facility to a microwave link at Cherbourg which received TVS / Meridian (replacing Westward / TSW) and C4 from Rowridge which were then sent on to Fremont?

Perhaps someone could provide the whole story?

[Mark.]

Originally Posted by Andy Herne

Why are we stuck with MPEG2? What's stopping the UK from using/adpoting MPEG4 now/later?

No current boxes or IDTV's can recieve MPEG4.

[Andy Herne]

I see, so wouldn't it be wise to start selling dual standard boxes / IDTVs with a view to migrate to MPEG4 in 10/15 years time?

Or am I being naive?

Technology moves so fast that I suppose by the time we get to 2016 we may be wondering why we didn't adpot MPEG12!!!!

[marbles316]

What would be wise would be to make a standard box o/s or at least some kind of common platform, that would support the downloading of codecs, in the same way you can get a regular pc to play MPEG, MPEG4 and any other video format. Granted older slower boxes wouldn't be able to cope, but it'd help make newer ones future proof.

[pioneer_dtr]

ha ha
If there's one thing that tv and stb manufacturers dont want is for their kit to be future proof! That's how they make a living

[SimonBlackham]

Originally Posted by SteveMcK

Quality-wise the only time you'll see a difference between PAL and SECAM is when the signal is poor, where SECAM signals can show very slightly more streaking on colours ('silverfish')...

Isn't SECAM transmitted with low threshold =black as opposed to PAL with low threshold =white - thus interference tends to white rather than black ?
NTSC has colour changing problems - the whole point of Phase Alternating Lines is to eliminate these NTSC colour distortions. Just think about it when you next watch analogue with interference - PAL has the right colour (assuming the right colour was transmitted!!) - or none. SECAM doesn't have these hue problems either.