Free-to-air digital TV from next year

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#40948 13-Jul-2006 12:14

lj,

Thanks for reply. I now wonder why on earth people will want a "TV" any more (once analogue/terrestral reception is decomissioned) ... surely just a "monitor" will be required to watch TV in the very near future?

R.

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#40979 13-Jul-2006 18:03

Rickles: lj,

Thanks for reply. I now wonder why on earth people will want a "TV" any more (once analogue/terrestral reception is decomissioned) ... surely just a "monitor" will be required to watch TV in the very near future?

R.

A large number of Plasma & LCD's available in European markets now have DVB-T tuners built in since this has become the norm for TV reception in many parts of Europe. There are a handful of TV's with built in DVB-T tuners now being imported into Australia and I would imagine we will start to see the same thing happen in NZ over time.

Rickles

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#40996 13-Jul-2006 20:46

sb,

>There are a handful of TV's with built in DVB-T tuners now being imported into Australia and I would imagine we will start to see the same thing happen in NZ over time.<

Hmmm, sounds like retailers will sock it to us and some time after FTA digital starts. Meantime we have to buy a $200 STB for each and every TV in the house?

R.

Wing

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#42945 31-Jul-2006 15:50

I have just bought this Acer LCD TV with integrated digital tuner.

http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/en/product/G6642

I did a digital scan of Saturn's cable for any digital RF signals with no signal success. The analogue tuner picked up the FTA signals from Saturn cable though. Haven't tried scanning via UHF aerial as I don't have an external aerial.

cyril7

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#42949 31-Jul-2006 15:58

The cable service uses DVB-C as opposed to Terrestial transmitters that use DVB-T. The tuner in your TV will tune into the DVB-T service currently from Waiatarua if you connect an antenna. DVB-C uses direct QAM, whereas DVB-T uses COFDM which may be sub modulated with either QPSK or QAM, regardless the systems require appropriate demodulators in each case.

Cyril

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#42952 31-Jul-2006 16:05

I hear unofficial statements that TCL will probably send the FreeView channels down the cable also. They already do that for TV1, TV2 and DWTV. So for those of us who have TCL digital cable, maybe we don't need to do anything at all? It would make sense and save us having to get decoders.

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cyril7

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#42954 31-Jul-2006 16:08

I would be sure that TCL will put them on the cable, however they will be in DVB-C format not DVB-T, thus you will require their STB.

Sky have still to anounce what deal they are coming to with FreeView, but I would well expect that some if not all the FreeView channels will appear on Sky's system as well, once again saving you from getting a FreeVeiw box if you have Sky. This all of course assumes that lawyers can bash their heads together and make a deal, heres hoping.

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#42957 31-Jul-2006 16:10

Thanks Cyril

Wing

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#42961 31-Jul-2006 16:14

cond't ....

So for those with integrated digital tuners, there is no avoiding either getting an external UHF aerial or a new Saturn STB. Would TCL have to broadcast two types of digital signals - Freeview digital and current Saturn digital?

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#42970 31-Jul-2006 16:34

I am assuming that TCL do not fully demod each of Skys channels and re mpeg encode them for the digital service, this would be plain silly and not wise as concatenation errors would mount up and give some pretty dire results. It is standard practice to recieve the Sky transmissions off Optus B1, demod the QPSK muxs down to transport stream (ASI) level, transport each of the ASI transport streams down the fibre to each cable head end where they are modulated back on to QAM DVB-C carriers.

I would therefore assume the same would happen for the FreeVeiw mux's, the issue being that they are remodulated onto DVB-C QAM carriers, not QPSK DVB-S or COFDM DVB-T ones, therefore you will need to use TCL's digital STB to recieve them. So to answer you question, to recieve teh FreeView service you will either need to get a UHF antenna and use your integrated DVB-T tuner, or use the digital STB's provided by TCL to recieve the digital FreeView service, TCL will not be transmitting two signals, there are infact serveral QAM carrier carriying the current digital services on the cable, the FreeView ones are just more of these.

Other things I guess that TCL are currently doing on the Sky services, is stripping and reinserting SI and CA info (as they use different Conditional Access to Sky) , and possibly even some programs. There is ASI transport kit about that will pull a transport stream appart (but leave the original mpeg coding in tact so as not to further degrade picture quality) and allow various sub elements (vid, aud, SI and CA) to be inserted as required.

Cyril

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#42977 31-Jul-2006 16:45

I have difficulty getting terrestial signal, so I am quite reliant on TCL. It would be such a shame for TVNZ to go to all that trouble to improve picture quality, and then for that to be compromised by limitations of Saturn's current STB. Hopefully TCL will come out with a better one or for one (if at all possible) to acquire a DVB-C decoder with some decent outputs.

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#43009 1-Aug-2006 08:45

I had Telstra up about their digital STB last week and got a reply to say that they are looking at other STB's that have better outputs but would not commit on when we might see them.

I will not be switching to Digital until they replace their STB with something reasonable.

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#43010 1-Aug-2006 09:36

Nety:
I had Telstra up about their digital STB last week and got a reply to say that they are looking at other STB's that have better outputs but would not commit on when we might see them.
I will not be switching to Digital until they replace their STB with something reasonable.

While it's obvious there are issues with composite outputs on large screen displays and many of us on here could see such flaws the simple fact is that 99% of customers wouldn't be able to spot this.

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#43011 1-Aug-2006 09:39

cyril7: So to answer you question, to recieve teh FreeView service you will either need to get a UHF antenna and use your integrated DVB-T tuner, or use the digital STB's provided by TCL to recieve the digital FreeView service, TCL will not be transmitting two signals, there are infact serveral QAM carrier carriying the current digital services on the cable, the FreeView ones are just more of these.

Hrm. Might have to try that on my Acer 3705-DTV aswell. I normally use Sky with their STB, but I did plug the UHF antenna into the standard UHF tuner as a fallback if sky dies, might try plugging it into the digital tuner and see what I can see. : )

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lchiu7

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#43012 1-Aug-2006 09:42

sbiddle:
Nety:
I had Telstra up about their digital STB last week and got a reply to say that they are looking at other STB's that have better outputs but would not commit on when we might see them.
I will not be switching to Digital until they replace their STB with something reasonable.

While it's obvious there are issues with composite outputs on large screen displays and many of us on here could see such flaws the simple fact is that 99% of customers wouldn't be able to spot this.

I doubt if a better interface to the set will make much difference to the picture. Most of the channels on TCL cable are not great quality. Now when Freeview comes and perhaps they do increase the bit rate and quality, then maybe a better interface (at least component video) might help.

Also it's very unlikely that Freeview will be available over analogue cable so irrespective of quality issues, to get Freeview without having to purchase a STB might mean going to digital cable.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

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