Freeview - Efforts to promote awareness (or lack of)

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Reply # 68680 27-Apr-2007 15:54

Grant17:
cyril7: I suspect that once FreeView is offically launched next Wednesday Sky will either immediately or soon shut down there own streams of TV1/2/3/C4 and MaoriTV and just point subscribers to the Freeview service...

It would be a bummer if that happens

We would no longer be able to record programmes from TV1/2/3 on MySky...

Is that what you meant Cyril?

The Freeview signals have a full EPG don't they. I got a non-MHEG-5 FTA decoder and there is a 7 day EPG when I go to the EPG viewer. Or is SKY's EPG in some proprietary format?

Freeview's TV3 signal doesn't have TVNZ's Teletext service!

cyril7

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Reply # 68683 27-Apr-2007 16:10

I dont know exactly what will happen, but I would be surprised if TVNZ and Canwest would want to continue to pay Sky to carry them when they have their own service.

As for the EPG, I am not totally sure of the ins and outs of the NDS EPG, but I think the basic STBs use pretty standard EIT EPG data streams, the MySky however does pickup a proprietary NDS stream. However it would not surprise me that it will not be an real issue. For some 3-4yrs until recently TV1/2 lower NI/SI and MaoriTV were carried on TVNZs 12483 mux (the same one that now carries TVNZ's part of the FreeView service) and an agreement had TVNZ carry appropriate EPG elements to allow both standard Sky STB's and MySky to operate. Some of you may remember the MySky issue when the Avalon uplink lost tracking of poor old wobbly B1 and all subs were directed back to the Auckland TV1/2 streams within Skys muxs.

So the long and short is I very much doubt you will not lose any functionality of MySky with respect to TV1/2/3 etc if Sky drop their streams and point subs to the FreeView one. Its just a matter of lawyers strutting there stuff and writting up agreements.

Cyril

grant_k

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Reply # 68707 27-Apr-2007 20:28

cyril7: ...if Sky drop their streams and point subs to the FreeView one...

So -- I'm guessing that when you say "point subs to the FreeView one" -- you don't just mean that Sky will tell their customers to go and buy a FreeView STB then???

Rather, you are meaning that Sky will download a new config. for MySky that tells it to tune into the appropriate channel directly from FreeView, which at the moment isn't possible, but will be when Sky moves to HPol?

Did I catch your drift correctly this time?

TomAckroyd

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Reply # 68711 27-Apr-2007 21:51

cyril7: I dont know exactly what will happen, but I would be surprised if TVNZ and Canwest would want to continue to pay Sky to carry them when they have their own service.

[...]

So the long and short is I very much doubt you will not lose any functionality of MySky with respect to TV1/2/3 etc if Sky drop their streams and point subs to the FreeView one. Its just a matter of lawyers strutting there stuff and writting up agreements.

Are you suggesting that people who want to watch the free-to-airs *and* SKY's channels (which is a lot of people) will eventually have to have two STBs?

Tom

lchiu7

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Reply # 68713 27-Apr-2007 22:04

I have a slightly similar problem in that I have a TCL STB and a DVB-S box. If TCL pass all the Freeview channels down the cable (and currently there is no indication that they won't) then I can watch a Freeview channel while recording any of the encrypted channels that TCL resends from Sky. Getting the Freeview box didn't give me any more channels but given I had an existing Sky dish (unused) the $100 investment in a DVD-S box was worthwhile since the STB box I got outputs progressive video (576p) over component which makes even OTA channels like TV1, TV2 and especially now TV3 is in widescreen, look pretty good.

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cyril7

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Reply # 68714 27-Apr-2007 22:05

No, No, No, I mean that they will point your Sky STB at the FreeView Mux to pickup the FreeView streams of TV1/2/3 etc. Rather than having to transmit there own copies of Tv1/2 etc. This is quite normal practice, just needs a legal agreement to allow it.

Cyril

pjamieson

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Reply # 68776 28-Apr-2007 18:43

I read (on the Herald I think) that TVNZ (and Canwest?) don't pay Sky anything for the current broadcasts on Sky's Satellite service as it attracts so many viewers it is in Sky's interest. They also feed (?) the EPG info for free.

This all came out over the spat Sky is having with MTS as they are supposed to pay, but haven't and Sky is carrying them on the Verticle Pol transmissions for free at the moment to save any further arguments as they said they would stop their own transmissions of 1, 2, 3, 4 & MTS and direct all Sky STB's to take the Freeview feeds so that it saves them the cost of transmitting their own signals etc.

I think it also said they would continue to carry (or allow) the EPG content, once again due to the benefit of having them on their service. Not sure of all the technicalities of the above, but it seems to make sense and to all companies benefit.

No idea how it affects My Sky though.

richms

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Reply # 68793 28-Apr-2007 22:38

Actually, the lack of teletext on 3 brings up a point, what will people do for subtitles on 3 when they move to freeview? Are they finally going to support the dvb subtitles like sky cant be bothered doing in NZ but do everywhere else?

Richard rich.ms

ZollyMonsta

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Reply # 68795 28-Apr-2007 23:18

richms: Actually, the lack of teletext on 3 brings up a point, what will people do for subtitles on 3 when they move to freeview? Are they finally going to support the dvb subtitles like sky cant be bothered doing in NZ but do everywhere else?

I don't believe subtitles have ever been available for TV3 programmes/

It's no different to Sky.. TV3 have never had teletext available on the Sky platform.
Teletext is only available on TV3 via the VHF frequency.

I bought up the teletext question on TV3 question with the techies at TVNZ.. but not sure if
it is going to appear on freeview or not.

Cheers,
Zollymonsta

Check out my LPFM Radio Station at www.thecheese.co.nz

richms

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Reply # 68797 29-Apr-2007 00:07

I know its not available on sky, and thats a major annoyance for a quite deaf friend of mine since his FTA 3 reception is crap, so that the captions dont work too well there, and there are none on sky. If they are going to go to the effort of making the captions they should at least move on from the 1980's looking teletext thing, and I would have thought that freeview would finally bring this.

Richard rich.ms

yitz

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Reply # 68819 29-Apr-2007 14:50

TV3's aspect ratio still not fixed >.<

Or has the aspect ratio thing got to do with TelstraClear screwing up their AR.

No teletext subtitles service is also getting annoying!

cyril7

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Reply # 68831 29-Apr-2007 16:59

My guess is it wont be fixed till normal shift hours tomorrow. Remember at this point it is a test transmission, no fire engines will run to the fire till its launched.

Cyril

TomAckroyd

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Reply # 68854 29-Apr-2007 19:22

yitz: TV3's aspect ratio still not fixed >.<

Or has the aspect ratio thing got to do with TelstraClear screwing up their AR.

No teletext subtitles service is also getting annoying!

I suggest that anyone affected by this call TelstraClear and complain. Also call TV3 and complain to them about TelstraClear's inability to on-feed correct pictures to their customers.

Tom

yitz

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Reply # 68859 29-Apr-2007 20:10

@TomAckroyd: Oh, I don't have TelstraClear Cable TV, just I thought that might have something to do with their problem.
@Cyril7: Yeah, true.

yitz

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Reply # 68953 30-Apr-2007 18:20

Yay TV3 on Freeview now has the TVNZ Teletext service!

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