Is this Freeview|HD STB legit?

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › Is this Freeview|HD STB legit?

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wiredr

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#126856 28-Apr-2008 18:00

i think you guys are going a little bit off topic, the original post was. is the dtt unit being sold on trade me auct # 151122776 legit. ?

now we seem to discuussing the merits of dtt and dts boxes with or without hd signal on the component out terminals .

judgeing by the number of hits on that auction and the fact that the coship dtt stb sold for $340 recomended retail $275 . there seems to be a lot of interest in dtt boxes that arent freeview aproved. another post on another forum site about the zinwell stb has attracted over 11,000 hits since starting in feb.
the undelining theme from most of the posts is being able to record in hdmi.

lchiu7

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#127375 30-Apr-2008 19:29

sbiddle:
old3eyes:
sbiddle:
It's not Freeview's fault that they are having to impliment copy protection - this is something being enforced by the content providers.

I disagree. Freeview has said that any certified boxes will be HD on HDMI only. If it were the content providers then why is the rest of the world espcially the US allowed to se HD over component. Sounds like us Kiwis are being screwed again.

You are correct in that other countries aren't enforcing ICT (and neither is Bluray or HD-DVD) - and they've been given until 2012 to do so.

NZ implementing it from day 1 was the best option - imagine if we didn't and suddenly in 3 years time your box just stops working one day because new firmware had enforced the ICT flag. This is one of the main reasons Freeview toed the line and implimented ICT from the start. Other countries are going to have a huge mess on their hands in a few years time when they have to enforce ICT and have disgruntled customers to deal with.

I could be wrong here but HDCP and ICT are quite different things. All HD and BR players enforce HDCP which is why if your TV isn't HDCP compliant you won't be able to view any content from those players over HDMI. Not having any experience with the DVB-T boxes here from what I have been reading they seem to enforce HDCP also, so no picture over HDMI if your set can't do the HDCP handshaking.

ICT on the other hand is a flag set in software (or the video stream) which when enforced, won't allow a STB or HD player to output HD content over component. What it will do is down rez the output to something less. All the current HD players (HD-DVD or BR) can enforce ICT (Image Constraint Token) but (at least in the US) no software currently has the enforce flag set.

Let's say the local DVB-T boxes can enforce ICT but the content provider doesn't set the flag in the video stream. Then you can watch the HD content over component. When they decided to turn on the flag, you won't go dark - your PQ will just drop down from an HD resolution to something less. From the reading I have been doing it's mean the content will down rez to 960x540 from I guess 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

Larry

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.

eXDee

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#127436 1-May-2008 00:26

lchiu7: From the reading I have been doing it's mean the content will down rez to 960x540 from I guess 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

Larry

It drops it to SD 576i - 720x576

lchiu7

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#127448 1-May-2008 07:33

Not that Wikipedia is the ultimate source of truth but this citing says 960x540

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Constraint_Token

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.

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#127451 1-May-2008 07:47

lchiu7: Not that Wikipedia is the ultimate source of truth but this citing says 960x540

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_Constraint_Token

That is 1080p content since it would effectively half the resolution.

For our Freeview STB's the content is definately 720x576i which is standard PAL.

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