Terrestrial Vs Satellite Freeview coverage

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cleggy2

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#41723 22-Sep-2009 09:15

Hi all. Excuse my ignorance, but I would like a few questions answered regarding Terrestrial and Satellite Freeview coverage, quality etc.

First, why is Terrestrial Freeview more advanced than Satellite with Freeview? Isn't Satellite best for digital?

When is Southland getting Terrestrial Freeview?

When is Satellite Freeview going HD?

Cheers

garvani

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#257496 22-Sep-2009 09:22

Terrestrial uses a more advanced codec (mp4) than satellite, it can compress the audio and video to a greater extent but still be far superior to mpeg2 (satellite) hence why they can get away with HD on terrestrial. This is a very basic laymans explanation and theres more to it than this.

You will be waiting some time for southland to get terrestrial freeview, the goverment/kordia/whoever is responsible are in no hurry to expand the exsisting footprint. Im in the same boat, i live in blenheim and we dont get coverage here either.

Satellite Freeview is not going to happen, they stated this from the outset that it was always going to be a SD only option

freitasm

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#257498 22-Sep-2009 09:26

Also because the bandwidth required to transmit the higher definitions over satellite would be a lot more expensive than terrestrial.

The alternative to keep the costs for satellite down would be to have less channels...

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cleggy2

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#257499 22-Sep-2009 09:26

Thanks garvani for your reply.

Fraktul

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#257503 22-Sep-2009 09:36

Yet if you used a codec with higher compression then you would have less bandwidth usage all things being equal - or higher quality and/or higher res transmissions in the same bandwidth.

grolschie

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#257510 22-Sep-2009 10:03

Fraktul: Yet if you used a codec with higher compression then you would have less bandwidth usage all things being equal - or higher quality and/or higher res transmissions in the same bandwidth.

One problem with changing the codec on the satellite broadcast is that some people would need to replace their existing satellite boxes.

Jaxson

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#257521 22-Sep-2009 10:42

cleggy2: Hi all. Excuse my ignorance, but I would like a few questions answered regarding Terrestrial and Satellite Freeview coverage, quality etc.
No problem, we're all keen to help each other out around here.

First, why is Terrestrial Freeview more advanced than Satellite with Freeview? Isn't Satellite best for digital?
Digital signals can be sent just as well over both systems, you just receive them in different ways for each.
Terrestrial Freeview is more advanced as it uses a newer compression format. There is also more cheaper space available on the land based system, so they can send higher quality signals/more information and not have to cram this into a set amount of space. (simple terms here)

When is Southland getting Terrestrial Freeview?
Don't hold your breath sorry. There are many areas in NZ set for phase 2 of the rollout. This is IT industry speak for not going to happen for a long time until someone else funds it later.

When is Satellite Freeview going HD?
Don't hold your breath sorry. It can be done, (see SBS channel One in HD free to air currently, and Sky TV HD as well), but it requires more of the available space for the same channel, so there are no immediate plans for this. It would require most users to upgrade their set top boxes as well. Best you can do is get an upscaling freeview set top box to approximate a higher resolution output.

Cheers
No worries.