Selective trials of HDTV over aerial are set to begin tomorrow by a consortium representing the four terrestrial broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel4, and Five)
As we've reported before, only 450 viewers, who have picked up specially adapted HD set-top boxes this week, will be allowed to take part in the closed trials to see whether HD is a viable option to broadcast to Freeview once the UK's analgoue service has been switched off by 2012.
"We calculate that there could be room for up to six high-definition channels in the freed-up spectrum," a BBC spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, Sky's chief executive Dawn Airey has been playing down DTT (digital terrestrial television) saying that anyone option for it is getting 'dumb digital'. In Broadcast magazine she said:
HD is a bandwidth-hungry proposition and DTT is a bandwidth-starved technology. It therefore seems slightly incongruous that if you are planning to go big with HD, you would continue to hit the fast-forward button on the rollout of DTT. An unsophisticated parallel with Dr Dolittle’s two-headed llama springs to mind.
So what will happen a couple of years down the track? The things we all want - HD, interactivity, broadband and time-shifting - are only available to those with the more advanced, high-bandwidth platforms, such as satellite, cable and broadband. Doesn’t this mean that the people who took up DTT under duress of compulsory switchover risk being stuck in a digital underclass?
Let’s hope HD will bring many things into focus. DTT might just be a bit of a lemon - it’s not really a fully fledged digital technology at all, it is like “Fisher Price” digital, or analogue with go-faster stripes. Whatever you call it, those tasked with delivering analogue switch-off should be wary they are not flogging a 20th century technology to a 21st century audience.
Of course she's not going to talk positively about Freeview, though she does at least mention the current methods of getting HD content, and not just Sky HD.
What do you think?
The 'Fisher-Price' comment is typical of those employed by $ky when figures have just been released that show Freeview as having penetrated 7m homes compared to 7.7m for $ky's paid-for service. It strikes me therefore that the DTT service is anything but 'Fisher-Price'. C4 is going great guns with E4, More4 and soon Film4; C5 is to launch 2 new channels soon, again on Freeview. These companies don't invest where they won't see a [big] return. The bottom line is that $ky is starting to see their potential customer base eroding before their very eyes. Sure, HD is a big driver now, but for the vast majority of the viewing public, it isn't. Come the digital switchover, 98% of homes are expected to have access to DTT and at that point, $ky for many becomes an irrelevance.
If $ky actually embraced DTT rather than slating it as it does now (not forgetting it's pretty poor showing on the platform) it could well see it's viewing figures (and thus advertising revenue) increase. I firmly believe that over time $ky will be compelled to transmute Sky Three on Freeview into a Sky One of sorts. It only needs a couple more high profile channels to start-up on Freeview (and two slots are currently available, as released by TopUP TV) for $ky to be quite badly wounded, in my opinion.
There's a place for free and subscription TV in this country. $ky don't like free because they can't earn any money from it. Based on current Ofcom figures, it's clear that 'Fisher Price' TV isn't going to go away. As such $ky need to adapt to it or wither on the vine.
Clem Dye
"The things we all want - HD, interactivity, broadband and time-shifting - are only available to those with the more advanced, high-bandwidth platforms"
Wrong:
HD - Available via DVB-T
interactivity - MHEG works on DVB-T boxes.
Broadband - This has nothing to do with either Sky or Freeview - it's just another channel of delivery.
Time-shifting - There are HDD-based DVB-T PVRs.
So -
I only want the HD broadcast itself, couldn't care less about interactivity (we have it with cable but never use it) or time-shifting.
I've found time-shifting to be useful - you just know the phone is going to ring or the cat is going to throw up on the carpet halfway through your favourite programme. Being able to pause and resume live TV is great (though of course it can mess things up if you need to watch two things in a row on different channels) - but that's not the exclusive domain of Sky.
Sky's ITV pictures are very poor compared to Freeview, and until Sky transmit higher resolution SD pictures on ITV1, etc, I can never take their platform seriously. And if time-shifting is all-important, where are the +1's for the main channels 1 to 5?
Hang on... don't Sky have a share in Freeview?? It was a joint venture between Sky, BBC and Crown Castle. hmmmmm.....
Freeview is bandwidth-starved? That's funny, since I don't see nearly as many artifacts on a Freeview signal as I do on the over-compressed Sky one.
I concur. I was at a friend's house watching Sky Digital the other day and I was shocked at how shoddy the pictire looked compared to the same channel on my own Freeview box. I half-suspect that Sky may be deliberately downgrading their SD signal to free up bandwidth for HD and to make their "upscaled" (ie Fisher-Price) HD look comparatively more impressive than it is. I like HD as much as anyone, but television is sold on content. By 2010, people will have just about got used to Digital TV as a norm. I hardly expect that it will be easy for them to then be persuaded to ditch the license fee in favour of a subscription technology that provides a lot of content that nobody wants to watch.
At least with Freeview you are free to choose your PVR from a range of manufacturers and you don't then have to pay a premium to use it's facilities.
I would rather have Good SD over DTT than shoddy HD (when the clouds don't obscure the satellite).
The only single vendor solution for an interactive service is cable.
These are the reasons I've just dropped Sky.
Call me a silly american twit, but Airey is off his rocker. Or rather, is just trying to keep customers for sky. In the US with a standard UHF arial it is not uncommon (if you are within 60-100 miles of a major city) to receive 6 HD channels (abc, cbs, nbc, fox, wb, PBS). Have to say that means that BBC HD and at least a few other HD channels should be techically feasable for the UK public free of charge if the broadcasters are willing.
Personally, I'm going to start my Telly life in the UK with a freeview capable PC capture card.
The quality and quantity of HD services which we eventually recieve on DTT will depend for a large part, on what the government decide to do with the freed up bandwidth from the analogue switch off. Will they keep the frequencies for TV or make a mint selling them off to communications companies?
The only real way ahead for fully featured HD in the UK is for the major cable companies to keep upgrading their services and to also expand their service areas.