You Ask Freeview thread #1

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Ultimate Geek

#167735 29-Sep-2008 12:42

Hi.

Since freeview is "free" (apart from the setup costs) can you give a laypersons summary of how freeviews Business Model works?

This in itself could help us understand what to expect from this service into the medium/long term

Lastly, thanks for finally bringing Hi Definition into my home!

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darreljnz

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Geek

#168653 2-Oct-2008 15:37

Are there any plans for a standard definition, DVB-S PVR?

freitasm

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#176364 6-Nov-2008 18:30

I have received the answers from Freeview and have now posted here.

Please discuss the answer in this thread and any questions you raise we will foward to Freeview for follow up, later in the month.

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#176387 6-Nov-2008 20:02

Thanks a lot for the answers.
I really wish sky would be more up front about prime, however i suppose it's in their interest not to attract attention to freeview so they don't loose customers.

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#176388 6-Nov-2008 20:09

There are some good answers in there from Freeview.

lchiu7

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#176456 6-Nov-2008 23:45

• Is there an intention to bring back Dolby Digital AC3 audio for TV1 and TV2? This was great during the games on TV1 and has been sorely missed since, when it was stripped without reason. Also, it's hard to understand why the HD Demo channel, which is surely there to captivate an audience, is using a basic AAC soundtrack only. I realise this takes some bandwidth away from the video, but I was under the impression that AC3 would be used when available.

We will follow up with TVNZ on this.

This is the most interesting to me. I wonder what TVNZ say. In another response Freeview there are no bandwidth issues so there is no need to consider DVB-T2. So if that is the case, there is no reason for TV1/2 not to transmit DD - they already did it for the Olympics so they have the gear and clearly they have the content also

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#176484 7-Nov-2008 06:46

I guess it depends what Freeview define as a "bandwidth" issue. They do have plenty of bandwidth available on the Kordia MUX and still have space for at least 2 more MUX's before the analogue shutdown date. In this respect they have plenty of bandwidth available, but maybe there are bandwidth issues with the TVNZ MUX?

Has anybody actually looked at the total bitrate for all the channels on the TVNZ MUX?

ToPGuNZ

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#176497 7-Nov-2008 08:26

Very good questions and responses. Thanks to those who asked the questions and to Freeview for the response.

I like that a satellite PVR is planned. That is excellent.

sbiddle

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#176501 7-Nov-2008 08:39

ToPGuNZ:
Very good questions and responses. Thanks to those who asked the questions and to Freeview for the response.

I like that a satellite PVR is planned. That is excellent.

There are already plenty of DVB-S PVR's available already though. The Topfield TF6000 is a very nice unit and has the ability to hook it up via ethernet to transfer recordings which is something no Freeview approved box will ever reastically have.

ToPGuNZ

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#176525 7-Nov-2008 09:11

sbiddle:There are already plenty of DVB-S PVR's available already though. The Topfield TF6000 is a very nice unit and has the ability to hook it up via ethernet to transfer recordings which is something no Freeview approved box will ever reastically have.

Thanks for the info. Will have a look.

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#176547 7-Nov-2008 10:05

sbiddle: I guess it depends what Freeview define as a "bandwidth" issue. They do have plenty of bandwidth available on the Kordia MUX and still have space for at least 2 more MUX's before the analogue shutdown date. In this respect they have plenty of bandwidth available, but maybe there are bandwidth issues with the TVNZ MUX?

Has anybody actually looked at the total bitrate for all the channels on the TVNZ MUX?

It would be good to get a definitive answer to that question. As noted by many folks stereo sound on HD broadcasts just cut it!

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#176573 7-Nov-2008 11:28

Sports extra can't use much band width, it's just a still picture most of time, Also would 720p use less then 1080i? Do realise TVNZ has two HD channels to Media works one.

There was no band width issue with Olympics and all TVNZ channels had programs on them then, so for 1 channel to be DD5.1 clearly not band width issue..

lchiu7

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#176580 7-Nov-2008 11:59

rugrat: Sports extra can't use much band width, it's just a still picture most of time, Also would 720p use less then 1080i? Do realise TVNZ has two HD channels to Media works one.

There was no band width issue with Olympics and all TVNZ channels had programs on them then, so for 1 channel to be DD5.1 clearly not band width issue..

Sounds logical. The only unknown is, when TV1 was broadcasting the Olympics, TVNZ had not rolled out HD to TV2 so they would have had spare bandwidth. When TV1 showed its first HD programme (some Australian cop show) I recall it went out in AC3 in the first week and then changed to AAC only in the second.

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#176592 7-Nov-2008 12:22

lchiu7:
rugrat: Sports extra can't use much band width, it's just a still picture most of time, Also would 720p use less then 1080i? Do realise TVNZ has two HD channels to Media works one.

There was no band width issue with Olympics and all TVNZ channels had programs on them then, so for 1 channel to be DD5.1 clearly not band width issue..

Sounds logical. The only unknown is, when TV1 was broadcasting the Olympics, TVNZ had not rolled out HD to TV2 so they would have had spare bandwidth. When TV1 showed its first HD programme (some Australian cop show) I recall it went out in AC3 in the first week and then changed to AAC only in the second.

TV2 was still transmitting in 720p (upscaled HD) so the bandwidth requirements are no different now from what they were then.

I had heard some time ago it was a case of TVNZ simply not having the capability to transmit 5.1 due to their ongoing upgrade to digital based storage. The Olympics were directly from a live feed.

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#176665 7-Nov-2008 16:19

Mauricio - Since you seem to be so good at organising interviews and Q&A, how about try and get one setup for TVNZ and Mediaworks, or even Sky? That is, if people have things to ask them.

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