So far I've heard a lot more negative comments about MHEG5 (mainly from the htpc and unofficial pvr side of things which rely on EIT Data and playstation, windows mce & 7 that won't pay freeview for MHEG5) sure MHEG5 might be consistent but it doesn't make it the best epg, its much slower than EIT and doesn't look anywhere near as good as a nice unofficial EPG feed by EIT data. And where is the incentive to make the EPG better, if everyone is stuck with the same mediocre PG then it will very rarely be improved on as they are not competing with company?s developing better EPG's ? I understand the problem of some people not being able to read the EPG but with less restrictions the EPG could have options to change the layout and font size ie mediaportal etc. Consistency at the price of development = not really a good thing
What I mean by Freeview not being very good is that has reintroduced a monopoly into free to air NZ television and it's extremely hard for regional TV stations to continue after the analog switch off when the freeview group has such a strangle hold on the free to air digital broadcast in New Zealand, They are marketing Freeview is the only option for free to air digital TV in NZ, which it will be if they have their way.
As far as I know Australia Freeview feeds both MHEG5 and EIT and I haven't had any problems with the epg on unofficial set top boxes (cheap NewWave and a Topfield TFR7160) It would be nice if Freeview NZ was forced to provide both (EIT data is pretty small) So that people had a better choice and Stations like Mainland could compete fairly.
People need to realize Its Free to Air Television not just Freeview (which is just a platform owned by the major networks)
I haven't looked in to the specifics yet, but if they are saying remove a UHF reflector (after installing TX antennas for fm radio and data) , it sounds like their TX site will be behind antenna's facing to a Freeview TX site.
If it was off to the front left/right of the antenna direction facing Freeview, then they'd be more likely to ask to remove one or two directors off the antenna instead.
The front to back ratio is greatly effected by the removal of the reflector, so any interference from behind the antenna will be greatly increased, by perhaps as much 10-20dB. Keeping in mind 3dB is twice the signal strength.
It'll be more of a financial move than anything to go "along side".
I'm waiting for CUE to do something similar but since they are on both Sky and Freeview satellite, I'm not holding my breathe for terrestrial any time soon.
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