Digital switchover in 2013

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#381504 18-Sep-2010 00:57

xarqi:
My apologies.
Such subtleties are lost on me, swamped as they are by ghosting from multiple reflections from hills and buildings, passing aircraft, general noise, and no UHF signal at all.

Well if you choose to live in the middle of nowhere, you get that sort of problem. The dvb-s service has serious picture quality issues that are even evident on a 10 year old 21" CRT connected via composite. Just because it is better than what you have there doesnt mean that it is a viable replacement for people that are in areas that get good analog reception and are not being considered for a freeviewHD rollout.

Richard rich.ms

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#381506 18-Sep-2010 01:01

richms:
xarqi:
My apologies.
Such subtleties are lost on me, swamped as they are by ghosting from multiple reflections from hills and buildings, passing aircraft, general noise, and no UHF signal at all.

Well if you choose to live in the middle of nowhere, you get that sort of problem.

Or even if you live in the suburbs, 20 minutes drive from the centre of Auckland, as I do.

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#381508 18-Sep-2010 01:05

Well you can only but hope that more infill gets installed in auckland then.

That $90 kogen box is very very tempting if it will deal with the proper channel spacing in NZ. someone who is a regular transtasman commuter want to get one and try it?

Richard rich.ms

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#381509 18-Sep-2010 01:16

richms: Well you can only but hope that more infill gets installed in auckland then.

Yup - a transmitter at the airport could work. I'm in 'shadow' as far as Waiatarua and the Sky Tower are concerned.
My best chance (maybe 1/500 in the next 5 years) for HD FTA (SBS aside) will be if Freeview can strike a deal with Sky to unlock Freeview HD content that they rebroadcast - I'd even pay a one-off $50 for a card.

I do wonder though just how tall an antenna would have to be where I am to get UHF. Tall enough to catch lightning too I expect.

Meanwhile, SD from Optus D1 is VASTLY better than the reception I was getting.
I had awful TV1, decent TV2, OK TV3, good C4, and that was it - no UHF, so no Prime.

Now I have all of that - crystal clear - all the other Freeview channels, and SBS HD and SBS 2 to boot.

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#381555 18-Sep-2010 10:09

bfginger: www.kogan.com.au/shop/freeview-hd-digital-set-top-box/

That's about NZ$90.

That's a good price.

bfginger

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#381625 18-Sep-2010 14:17

richms: Well you can only but hope that more infill gets installed in auckland then.

Some people in reception holes could use a long high-grade coax line to a place where an aerial can pick up reception. I doubt many people would bother doing that.

That $90 kogen box is very very tempting if it will deal with the proper channel spacing in NZ. someone who is a regular transtasman commuter want to get one and try it?

It may work but I doubt it'd support the MHEG-5 EPG.

sbiddle: That's a good price.

Freeview should have sold the basic STBs themselves instead of certifying a range of 3rd party units. The market dynamics of the Freeview model came from the UK where there're 65 million people.

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#381650 18-Sep-2010 17:30

bfginger: Some people in reception holes could use a long high-grade coax line to a place where an aerial can pick up reception. I doubt many people would bother doing that.

Sounds like how cable tv started in the 50s in the states.

Is infill done on a repeater basis or do they have a seperate feed to each site? I doubt it can cost that much for a low power site if they just repeat the strong one.

It may work but I doubt it'd support the MHEG-5 EPG.

I seldom use it since it takes so long to get to what you want on it. Faster to walk to the laptop and use that. for 1/3rd the price I can live without mheg anyway.

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#381783 19-Sep-2010 09:42

So with this roll out, by 2013 will our 29" crt tv in our bedroom need replacing, or will we still be able to watch sky through it? Cheers

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#381785 19-Sep-2010 09:46

This is about public free to air TV. Nothing to do with Sky.

Also, even if you still have an old analogue TV you can just go to Dick Smith, buy a Freeview receiver and you are receiving digital. No need to change TV.

You only need to change TVs if you want to go HD on Freeview DVB-T.

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#381789 19-Sep-2010 09:53

sbiddle:
bfginger: www.kogan.com.au/shop/freeview-hd-digital-set-top-box/

That's about NZ$90.

That's a good price.

It is indeed. So the price difference here is the Freeview NZ stamp on it??

Regards,

Old3eyes

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#381794 19-Sep-2010 10:02

old3eyes:
sbiddle:
bfginger: www.kogan.com.au/shop/freeview-hd-digital-set-top-box/

That's about NZ$90.

That's a good price.

It is indeed. So the price difference here is the Freeview NZ stamp on it??

There are significant differnces between certification in both countries. Australia has the most crippled MPEG2 DVB-T network in the world with it's legacy decisions and has once again shot itself in the foot with the launch of Freeview and the Phase1/Phase2 rollouts. Freeview H.264 devices don't require MHEG5 support to claim Phase1 certification, but will require MHEG5 to comply with Phase2 certification. They once again have cripped their network by not setting basic minimum standards that every device has to comply with.

There is a significant cost in getting products Freeview certified here in NZ as all testing is done in the UK. Ultimately that cost is going to be higher in NZ due to the smaller market.

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#381815 19-Sep-2010 11:03

Prices ramp up badly with smaller production runs and specialised requirements (MHEG-5).

You only need to change TVs if you want to go HD on Freeview DVB-T.

That is usually the case but some of the better CRTs sold in NZ in the 2000s did support high definition. Freeview certification requires a receiver to only allow HD over an HDCP connection, which is very rare among CRTs in NZ. So to run HD over component cables you need an uncertified STB. If your TV's manual mentions 1080i it should work.

Now HDCP has been cracked it may become easy to buy a good cheap HDMI to component transcoder.

richms

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#381940 19-Sep-2010 17:47

There already are good cheap HDMI to VGA converters - $50 on ebay now and it seemed to do the trick for a friend who was getting pixxed off at having things blank out when changing one tv between inputs with a HDMI splitter.

Richard rich.ms

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#381972 19-Sep-2010 18:57

So, in the article it says if you have a tv that was bought before 2007 it wont work. Will we be able to still use our crt tv with FREEVIEW/sky or will it not support some new format that is being used after 2013? Im a little confused or is there a little scaremongering going on. My inlaws are worried and are now talking about having to get new tvs because their crt tvs wont work after 2013, they have mysky and a 2nd decoder. What do I tell them. Cheers

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#381974 19-Sep-2010 19:09

mrgts4: So, in the article it says if you have a tv that was bought before 2007 it wont work. Will we be able to still use our crt tv with FREEVIEW/sky or will it not support some new format that is being used after 2013? Im a little confused or is there a little scaremongering going on. My inlaws are worried and are now talking about having to get new tvs because their crt tvs wont work after 2013, they have mysky and a 2nd decoder. What do I tell them. Cheers

The article is partially correct. Older TVs won't receive free-to-air (FTA) channels, but if you have a Freeview receiver most old TV will work just fine. You won't have HD (High Definition), that's all.

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