You Ask Freeview

Forums › Freeview (DVB-T/DVB-S) › You Ask Freeview

freitasm

BDFL - Memuneh
79025 posts

Uber Geek

Administrator

ID Verified

Trusted

Geekzone

Lifetime subscriber

#58646 16-Mar-2010 16:35

Hello folks. We have previouslt arranged with Freeview to have a series of regular Q&A discussions here on Geekzone.

The idea is that we will have this discussion open for a couple of weeks or so (through 26th March) and lock this discussion while Freeview answers the questions.

We will then re-open the thread with their reply and leave it open for people to discuss. We will then follow with another discussion thread some time later and so on.

Remember folks - questions only, comments after the Freeview answers are posted. Start with your questions below for this round...

UPDATE: Freeview answers to these questions now posted here.

My technology disclosure

1 | 2 | 3 | 4

4053 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#307883 16-Mar-2010 16:39

TVNZ CEO made a comment that one reason for putting the new Heartland Channel on Sky is because there is no room left on freeview (I assume he means the TVNZ mux is full), how much room is left for additional channels with current capacity?

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

rlevis

347 posts

Ultimate Geek

#307893 16-Mar-2010 16:52

You may delete this message if it's not relevent, but that statement doesn't make sense to me. TVNZ had a Sports Extra channel for at least 12 months on Freeview terrestrial. Now that it not operating, there should be room for another SD channel.

I suspect it's more a matter of cost and some deal done with Sky.

patatrat

261 posts

Ultimate Geek

#307895 16-Mar-2010 16:54

Freeview has a TV3 Plus one channel that shows TV3 one hour behind. Its a great idea for people without PVRs as it means I can catch a show I've just missed or watch one that clashes with another one.

There there any plans to have this for other channels (1, 2, 4 and Prime)?

Are there any plans to extend this to 'Plus two' or 'Plus three' channels as well?

What are the technical, political and economic road blocks to extending the 'plus' channels?

Jed

35 posts

Geek

#307898 16-Mar-2010 16:58

MHEG-5 adoption hasn't taken off as quickly as most of us would have liked, with products such as EyeTV and Windows Media Centre providing limited, broken, or no support for it. Many of us have resorted to tools that scrape data from websites and/or MPEG streams, which then mangles it in to one of many formats.

Was / Is / Will Freeview look at either extending the time reach of the DVB native EPG data, or providing native listings in XMLTV / MXF format ready for use with our software media centers?

I accept that we aren't buying an official Freeview product and have no reason to expect support for it. But the flexibility of how, when and on what screen a person wants to watch is a major advantage Freeview has over Sky. A few times I've had to explain how I watch Freeview on my Xbox 360 and iPhone; neither of which is difficult to set up, except for the EPG.

wellygary

8206 posts

Uber Geek

#307902 16-Mar-2010 17:09

+1 on a machine usable EPG.
They go to the trouble of putting up a human readable version, so how about some geeklove :)

System

521 posts

Ultimate Geek

#307904 16-Mar-2010 17:13

For us users outside of range of Freeview|HD is there any current plan for expanding the availability of this service and if so what areas are you looking at expanding it to?

PC: 3.3ghz Core i5-2500, 8gb DDR3, ATI Radeon 5850, 27" QHD IPS Monitor

Mobile Phone: iPhone 5 32gb Graphite.

tomgeeknz

923 posts

Ultimate Geek

#307915 16-Mar-2010 17:48

Is there any chance in the future that you will lift the restrictions on transfering content from PVR's to a PC. Also when is interactive tv (MHEG 5 content) and Digi Text being planned for launch?

old3eyes

9111 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#307938 16-Mar-2010 18:51

Any timeline on when Hidef will be available on the satellite feeds??

Regards,

Old3eyes

System

521 posts

Ultimate Geek

#307955 16-Mar-2010 19:35

old3eyes: Any timeline on when Hidef will be available on the satellite feeds??

That is a good question, i second that one, if more areas are not getting Terrestrial soon then is there any plans for HD on Satellite?

PC: 3.3ghz Core i5-2500, 8gb DDR3, ATI Radeon 5850, 27" QHD IPS Monitor

Mobile Phone: iPhone 5 32gb Graphite.

VinLew

210 posts

Master Geek

#307962 16-Mar-2010 19:57

@system, from my knowledge there will not be HD on sattelite due to lack of bandwidth on the freeview sattelite - sky bought out so much bandwidth that no other company could screen in HD. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I am positive that is the reasoning.

eXDee

4032 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#308005 16-Mar-2010 21:16

Last week Sky Television sent a number of cease and desist letters to various online EPG providers which HTPC users had as the source of their programme scheduling. The basis of this is that the EPG is their IP and therefore should not be distributed without permission.

My question is - Does freeview take the same stance as sky on this issue and see programming guides in the same light?

mikerussellnz

283 posts

Ultimate Geek

#308018 16-Mar-2010 21:41

When will we see AC-3 audio on TV1, TV2?

When are we likely to see something replace the "HD Demo" channel other than the demo loop repeated over and over 24 hours a day?

Why is there much security on the STB (HDCP, low res component out, restrictions on copying to USB etc.) when the signal is transmitted over the air un-encrypted anyway? Any DVB-S or DVB-T adapter and software can capture it anyway.

eXDee

4032 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#308023 16-Mar-2010 21:51

mikerussellnz:Why is there much security on the STB (HDCP, low res component out, restrictions on copying to USB etc.) when the signal is transmitted over the air un-encrypted anyway? Any DVB-S or DVB-T adapter and software can capture it anyway.

I can guess the answer. The content providers for TVNZ/Mediaworks etc want these security measures put in place, which as you said is totally pointless because its unencrypted.

richms

27972 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#308070 16-Mar-2010 23:38

My question is simply how can freeview be content with the low quality broadcasts on the -S service? and are there any plans to get more capacity on the service so that they are able to increase the number of channels shown without making it look even worse than it already does?

Richard rich.ms

Jaxson

8006 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#308176 17-Mar-2010 10:12

+yet one more for the EPG debacle...

With products such as windows media centre and sony's playtv now developed to work with the specific broadcast formats of NZ freeview, why can't freeview offer up more of the EIT data on the UHF service?!

It makes very little sense in so many ways it's just not funny. More viewers means more advertising dollars. It's information that is already broadcast free on the satellite service which has opened this service up to outside set top boxes with no major problems to date.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4