[KennyT]

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcas...153126,00.html

Originally Posted by MG

There are two ways of achieving this. These broadcasters could simply be granted some of the highly-valued radio spectrum that will be freed-up when we complete the switch to all-digital television in 2012. Alternatively, HDTV could be delivered using the broadcasters' existing spectrum.
Ofcom believes that it is in the best interests of viewers and the broadcasters to pursue the second option.

OK, I'm no expert but how many existing channels would be replaced by one HD channel? I thought it was at least 4?

Which broadcaster is going to give up 4 channels to get 1 that only a small proportion of viewers can receive? None of the commercial broadcasters are going to do it alone.

So, I think we're left with a "consortium". The BBC could drop the interactive services, channel 4 and ITV could drop their "+1" channels. Would that be enough?

K

[Recharge]

I don't understand why the US has had OTA HD for years and we're stuck with Sky, years after them ...

[KennyT]

Probably because the US SD standard (525 lines, of which 486 are visible) is poor compared to our SD (625 lines - 576 visible?) so that the pressure to increase it was greater, sooner. However, I think we should be going beyond the current US HD and "leapfrogging" them, as we did when we went from 405 to 625 in the 80s. Probably not commercially viable, though!

K

[Magic Pants]

I doubt ITV would care about HD in all honesty. Picture quality ranks slightly lower than the type of biscuits available at the weekly scheduling meeting in their list of priorities.

[mossy2103]

Ofcom believes that it is in the best interests of viewers

I'd be interested in how they have reached that conclusion.

[Blake Connolly]

Ofcom believes that it is in the best interests of the Treasury

There you go, fixed it.

[The Phazer]

I've written a stinking letter to the MediaGuardian today about this rubbish.

What the hell are Ofcom thinking? Which broadcaster in their right mind would get rid of 3 - 4 terrestrial channels to put out one HD channel that would require new equipment and only a tiny percentage could receive? Nobody in their right mind would do that.

Another example of this regulator being frankly painfully incompetent.

Phazer

[nytramfilms]

I feel SD is very good allready, do we really need HD?

[DrCheese]

What the hell are Ofcom thinking? Which broadcaster in their right mind would get rid of 3 - 4 terrestrial channels to put out one HD channel

erm I'd bet that the viewing figures for a HD channel would be far greater than the dull +1 channels that currently clog up the airwaves and anyway.
But still, ofcom are a bunch of tools if they believe that using existing bandwidth and not dedicating extra bandwidth is the best way forward. What about long term when its expected every channel is HD? What then? whoops we've flogged off the bandwidth we could have used.

[tedjrr]

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcas...153126,00.html

Fraid I'm a little confused over this one as well! How is it that broadcasters could deliver HD over DTT utilising the existing spectrum, unless the current MPEG-2 broadcasts were replaced by MPEG-4 (probably 720p) in a straight swap-out.

The existing fleet of domestic DTT receivers has no MPEG4 capacity, except where receivers were derived from the French market.

At some point MPEG-2 will be superseded, this could have been done at the same time as DSO, but it isn't going to be.

[The Phazer]

Originally Posted by DrCheese

erm I'd bet that the viewing figures for a HD channel would be far greater than the dull +1 channels that currently clog up the airwaves and anyway.

They unquestionably wouldn't be. The amount of people who can get HD is dwarfed by the average viewship for any of the +1 channels.

Phazer

[KennyT]

Looking at BARB numbers, the +1 channels seem to get anywhere between a half and a 20th of the main channel, so no hard-and-fast rule, by the looks of things...

http://www.barb.co.uk/viewingsummary...viewingsummary

K

[NEWLINEtv]

Originally Posted by Magic Pants

I doubt ITV would care about HD in all honesty. Picture quality ranks slightly lower than the type of biscuits available at the weekly scheduling meeting in their list of priorities.

I spoke to ITV and Five about this, both said they were not going to launch a HD channel, sad really, would be nice to see corronation street and emmerdale in high def.

[rediproof]

I think Ofcom is saying that there is enough spectrum out there at present but the way the broadcasters use it is inefficient.

From what I've read I think that Ofcom is expecting the change to MPEG4 and if the MUX's were reorganised then this would free up more spectrum. This would cost the providers money but a lot less than building a new 7th MUX network.

[mmace]

I don't understand why this is only coming to light now, the web site HDTVUK published this story about 6-8 weeks ago

The government needs to force the main 5 channels to have a certain amount of HD every week like they do in Aus, if they don't then they should allow Sky/Freeview/Virgin to move those channels around on the EPG and stick them away where no one will watch

[Stator]

Best interests of the viewer? what a joke. These ofcom numpties really are incompetent. Expecting existing providers to give up SD channels in favour of HD ones is rediculous. The UK will lag decades behind the rest of the world. Because there are no HD set top boxes no HD channels will launch. Because there are no HD channels noone will buy an HD set top box. They are locking us into a catch 22 situation that will take years to get out of.

If they thought about it for one second they would realise that what is needed is perhaps just only one or two channels guarenteed to be in HD and then people will buy HD set top boxes and then in the future, as demand dictates, more channels may switch to HD. The HD channel could even be joint operated. One HD channel for everyone to share. Obviously there would be a bit of a fight over the primetime slots, but they could come to an agreement. That way the viewer would get the high quality HD content from all the channels and the schedulers wouldn't be forced to pad the schedule with crud like on BBC HD.

[Mickey S]

Originally Posted by Stator

...and the schedulers wouldn't be forced to pad the schedule with crud like on BBC HD.

Crud?

Mountain, Planet Earth, How We Built Britain, Heroes...

Now Sky HD... that's crud.

[beardedwonder]

Yet again, they talk a good game but no one from OFCOn has ever offered an actual explanation of how this is going to work. No facts and figures just conjecture, create enough confusion so people think that something is being done, then, come auction time HDTV will quickly be forgotten.

[ALanJ]

Originally Posted by Stator

Best interests of the viewer? what a joke. These ofcom numpties really are incompetent. Expecting existing providers to give up SD channels in favour of HD ones is ridiculous. The UK will lag decades behind the rest of the world. Because there are no HD set top boxes no HD channels will launch. Because there are no HD channels noone will buy an HD set top box. They are locking us into a catch 22 situation that will take years to get out of.

There is a game of chicken going on. Ofcom and the treasury would like to be able to sell off the old frequencies for a profit. The broadcasters would like some of them to be gifted to them and their best chance is to put HD versions of their channels on the frequencies.

As you say NO broadcaster commercial or otherwise are going to close 3 SD channels to make way for an HD one - though the BBCs solution is to provide a non realtime HD service in downtime on bandwidth it already has at night (but require special hardware).

The real catch 22 is that the main terrestrial broadcasters are dragging their feet over HD to try to persade Ofcom and the government that they should get free bandwidth while they could offer their service via Satellite and Cable until bandwidth becomes available (after all they should be buying the extra bandwidth when it becomes available not hoping for a handout ).

Originally Posted by Stator

If they thought about it for one second they would realise that what is needed is perhaps just only one or two channels guaranteed to be in HD and then people will buy HD set top boxes and then in the future, as demand dictates, more channels may switch to HD. The HD channel could even be joint operated. One HD channel for everyone to share. Obviously there would be a bit of a fight over the primetime slots, but they could come to an agreement. That way the viewer would get the high quality HD content from all the channels and the schedulers wouldn't be forced to pad the schedule with crud like on BBC HD.

But as you say the broadcasters want more so that is all they are asking for

When they don't get it they will scale down their proposals the BBC already has a proposal for this scenario and if Ofcom gifted a single channel for this pirpose shared between the broadcasters with a hard disk based system users could get all the programming that is likely to be available short terms delivered to their STB.

The downside is that this requires an expensive STB rather than a cheap on to get the full range of programming in HD.

But don't expect the broadcasters to mention this as they are focused on getting it all for free.

Why Ofcom think that new multimedia systems are more interesting and lucrative than TV is anyone's guess. They obviously belive companies are more likely to overpay for them but I wonder in the current market if they auctioned off the bandwidth and didn't define what needed to be done with the multiplexes would broadcast be so much less?

[Micro$oft]

Originally Posted by nytramfilms

I feel SD is very good allready, do we really need HD?

No, the majority of people couldn't give a toss, for want of a better phrase only 'TV geeks' actually rate HD as anything but a minor factor in their viewing experience.

[Jarrak]

Originally Posted by Micro$oft

No, the majority of people couldn't give a toss, for want of a better phrase only 'TV geeks' actually rate HD as anything but a minor factor in their viewing experience.

While that is a valid point I prefer "AV enthusiast" over "TV Geeks" but given the huge surge in larger flat panel sales and the demise of CRT production the need for higher quality broadcasts is going to increase.
The current digital SD broadcasts are borderline even for an average CRT and that's mainstream broadcasters not the niche ones.

[davidweller]

Originally Posted by Micro$oft

No, the majority of people couldn't give a toss, for want of a better phrase only 'TV geeks' actually rate HD as anything but a minor factor in their viewing experience.

Quite.

I'm happy with the quality of the service I get. Will not be upgrading to an HDReadyTV until I'm forced to.

[TimmyRaa]

I emailed Philip Rutnam with my concerns, didn't expect anything back, but got the following response:

Dear Mr X,

Thanks for your e-mail.

I'd like to reassure you that there is no need for standard definition services on Freeview to be dropped in order to carry services in high definition.

This is because the capacity of the DTT platform can be expanded significantly in the next few years without requiring additional spectrum. I'm not sure whether the technical details of this will be of interest to you, but briefly there are three sources of capacity gain. These are all related to digital switchover and/or improvements in the way that the existing multiplexes use spectrum.

These changes mean that there should be enough capacity for at least four HD channels to be broadcast across the entire UK, and possibly a fifith channel covering about 90% of the country, with no loss in SD services.

You say that our focus should be on making HD services available quickly on the terrestrial platform. We agree, but we disagree with the conclusion you draw from this.

In fact, speed is a major reason for preferring the use of spectrum already allocated to broadcasting to the use of additional spectrum. This is because the first option will allow HD to be delivered as DSO is rolled out, at least from 2010 onwards. The second option would require the broadcasters to incur the time, expense and risk of designing, procuring and building new transmission infrastructure. It is most unlikely that this would be able to provide HD services across the country before the Olympics.

I hope that this response indicates that we take these issues seriously, and that our views are more carefully considered than a brief exchange in The Guardian may be able to suggest. You will understand that I reject completely your suggestion that our approach is in any way politically motivated, or that we are failing to act in the public interest.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Rutnam

Thought you all might be interested in what he has to say!

[Stator]

Originally Posted by TimmyRaa

I emailed Philip Rutnam with my concerns, didn't expect anything back, but got the following response:



Thought you all might be interested in what he has to say!

I didn't think the change from 16QAM to 64QAM would provide enough bandwidth for 4 HD channels

I'm sure however that the extra bandwidth will promptly be wasted with more home marketing crap instead of using it to provide better services like HD

[CJL]

Originally Posted by TimmyRaa

"but briefly there are three sources of capacity gain. These are all related to digital switchover and/or improvements in the way that the existing multiplexes use spectrum."

I must be blind? He says there are three sources of capacity gain but then doesn't go on to explain what they are? If an SD stream averages 1-2Mbps then an HD stream (encoded in H.264) with the same kind of picture "quality" (or lack thereof) is going to take at least 5-6Mbps (and far more for decent quality). There just won't be ANY kind of bandwith gain of this magnitude on any of the muxes (even with QAM switches) will there? Or are they proposing to shuffle the channels about on the DSO muxes to make a "big hole" in one of them? (perhaps the plan is to give each of the main channels 1 hour each a night in a share of this "hole"? )

Cliff