[RoVic]

We haven't had the big switch over as yet in my area, what id like to know is ... are freeview and digital TV one of the same kind ? at the moment the freeview i have isn't that stronger signal, what with the poor picture that i get some days, is this what i can expect when i do go digital or will there be a much stronger signal .. and improved power to the TV..

[sbowler]

Yes they are one and the same. Have you had your ariel re-aligned, this could help or at least have it upgraded. Its surprixing my old analoge ariel was replaced and the new one points at least 10degrees in a different direction.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by RoVic

We haven't had the big switch over as yet in my area, what id like to know is ... are freeview and digital TV one of the same kind ? at the moment the freeview i have isn't that stronger signal, what with the poor picture that i get some days, is this what i can expect when i do go digital or will there be a much stronger signal .. and improved power to the TV..

When your transmitter turns of it's analogue transmissions the digital power will be greatly increased. If you wait till dso there's every chance that you will get great pictures. If you want perfect digital now an upgraded aerial with possibly masthead amplification may work the oracle, but you could finish up after dso having to remove the amplifier or fitting signal attenuators.

[RoVic]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

When your transmitter turns of it's analogue transmissions the digital power will be greatly increased. If you wait till dso there's every chance that you will get great pictures. If you want perfect digital now an upgraded aerial with possibly masthead amplification may work the oracle, but you could finish up after dso having to remove the amplifier or fitting signal attenuators.

Yep, i have got the very best aerial / coax / power / splitter's that cash could buy, i had been having problems for a long time so the complete system was upgraded from the advice within this forum. but even now the picture is some what " choppy " at times ....

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by RoVic

Yep, i have got the very best aerial / coax / power / splitter's that cash could buy, i had been having problems for a long time so the complete system was upgraded from the advice within this forum. but even now the picture is some what " choppy " at times ....

So's mine during high pressure tropho lift conditions otherwise it's fine. Freesat sorts me out during these periods. How long to DSO for you ?

[N.Dean]

"..are freeview and digital TV one of the same kind ?"

"Freeview" is terrestrial ( i.e. from ground-based transmitters ) digital TV.
The term "Digital TV" also includes digital satellite TV and digital cable TV.
So "Digital TV" includes Freeview.

[Anjou]

Originally Posted by sbowler

Its surprixing my old analoge ariel was replaced and the new one points at least 10degrees in a different direction.

Actually, there is no such thing as an analogue aerial, or a digital one for that matter. An aerial is an aerial. Some are just optimised for different ranges of frequencies (A, B or C/D) used by different transmitters.

If someone tells you that you need a 'digital' aerial for Freeview, they are either misinformed or lying.

A.

[Geofbob]

Originally Posted by sherayoung

is Freeview free (didn't charge), and digital satellite TV and digital cable TV are charged?

No, not that simple. There is a free satellite equivalent of Freeview called Freesat - the line-up of channels is slightly different from Freeview; and Freesat has some High Definition (HD) transmission, which Freeview won't be getting until at least the end of this year.

Also, with almost any satellite receiver you can receive numerous free channels, though many of them are of little interest to the average viewer.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by sherayoung

thank you. so Freeview is not HD tv, because the singnal is weaker? Freesat is HD tv and the signal is much stronger than the Freeview, isn't it?

another Q, are both Freeview & Freesat satellite signal, not terrerial sinal? or either?

Not quite. Freeview in the UK is currently SD only because the technology we are going to use is not yet commercially available and it's terrestrial. (HD will use a more efficient system known as DVB-T2, the existing system is DVB-T). It's nothing to do with signal strength although it will only be available after dso and therefore signal strengths will be greater but HD does not need a higher signal strength than SD. Digital satellite is more advanced as both DVB-S (the equivalent to DVB-T) and DVB-S2 already exist. HD and SD are both transmitted using DVB-S (eg BBC HD) but only HD transmitters use DVB-S2 mostly subscription Sky HD one although CH4 HD is DVB-S2 and needs a freesat from sky card to view it.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by sherayoung

thanks for your reply. so the DVB-T2 will replace DVB-T in the near future?

No DVB-S will continue to be used for SD channels although a DVB-S2 stb will recieve both. Without this millions of existing freeview stbs would be rendered useless. In short you only need a dvb-s2 stb (when you can buy one) if you want to watch the Freeview HD channels.

[200p]

When will we be able to buy Freeview HD digital terrestrial set-top boxes that can decode 1080p50 and when will they start broadcasting in it?

[Starburst]

Originally Posted by 200p

When will we be able to buy Freeview HD digital terrestrial set-top boxes that can decode 1080p50 and when will they start broadcasting in it?

I expect a chipset that handle 1080p/24 or 1080p/50 isn't that big of an issue but the bandwidth required even with mpeg4 is well out of the reach of PAY telly let alone Free channels so simply put not in the lifetime of the upcoming hardware or the current allocation of DTT capacity in the UK.

Even with mpeg4 and DVB-T2 we are still only looking at 4 maybe 5 720p (I believe that has been chosen over 1080i) channels and lets hope the simple fact the 720p sounds poor compared to 1080i isn't a knife in the back for the mainstream market who are not going to beyond the numbers.

[200p]

I thought the first lot of Freeview HD decoders wouldn't support it but that a later set of Freeview HD decoders would or might? I found this letter from Ofcom about Freeview decoders that mentions 1080p50 and saying I think that the initial ones won't support it http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/d...etter1080p.pdf
I'm not sure what date that is from or what the current situation is or if/when we will get it 1080p50 now

We have therefore decided to adopt an AVC level of 4.0 in the reference
parameters (and therefore not include 1080p50 as a permissible video format).
We would expect that this decision would continue for at least the medium term, and that we
would include this as our recommended option when we formally consult on the Reference
Parameters later in the year

- so it looks like after the medium term, that we may get 1080p50 on Freeview

We view the short and medium term here as being less than or comparable to the expected life of DVB-T2
consumer reception equipment (either STB or IDTV).

Does that mean about 10 years or less? Ten years to wait is ages

It's a shame if we only get 720p on Freeview when nearly everyone has 1080p TVs that can accept 50hz signals.

Also Hans Hoffman, the project manager of the EBU said that 1080p50 does not require any more bitrate than 1080i25.

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by 200p

I thought the first lot of Freeview HD decoders wouldn't support it but that a later set of Freeview HD decoders would or might? I found this letter from Ofcom about Freeview decoders that mentions 1080p50 and saying I think that the initial ones won't support it http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/d...etter1080p.pdf
I'm not sure what date that is from or what the current situation is or if/when we will get it 1080p50 now

- so it looks like after the medium term, that we may get 1080p50 on Freeview


Does that mean about 10 years or less? Ten years to wait is ages

It's a shame if we only get 720p on Freeview when nearly everyone has 1080p TVs that can accept 50hz signals.

Also Hans Hoffman, the project manager of the EBU said that 1080p50 does not require any more bitrate than 1080i25.

There's some confusion here 1080i 50 (the 50 refers to fields 1/50 sec each, and 2 are required for a full frame) and 1080p 25 (transmits 25 fields/sec with each field containg the full frame data) use effectively the same bandwith as both transmit 25 full frames/sec. 1080p 50 doubles the frame rate and is way beyond the bandwith available even using DVB-T2 and mpeg4 compression. Without massive improvement in encoders and compression techniques which would need all new equipment and is years away, transmitted 1080p 50 is a pipe dream. Even blurays which have a massive bandwidth capability only use 1080p 24 a direct 1920 X 1080 progressive scan of each frame of a 24fps movie negative.

In any case to implement this would mean that every TV would have to be 1080p 50 capable. What about the millions of displays that are HD ready (including some early 1920 x 1080 displays).

Any increase in bandwidth capability would be much better used to increase bit rates to give as near as possible as a bluray 1080p24 picture which is currently the highest quality picture commercially available.

[200p]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

There's some confusion here 1080i 50 (the 50 refers to fields 1/50 sec each, and 2 are required for a full frame) and 1080p 25 (transmits 25 fields/sec with each field containg the full frame data) use effectively the same bandwith as both transmit 25 full frames/sec. 1080p 50 doubles the frame rate and is way beyond the bandwith available even using DVB-T2 and mpeg4 compression. Without massive improvement in encoders and compression techniques which would need all new equipment and is years away, transmitted 1080p 50 is a pipe dream. Even blurays which have a massive bandwidth capability only use 1080p 24 a direct 1920 X 1080 progressive scan of each frame of a 24fps movie negative.

They don't use the same bandwidth because they're compressed. Only if they were uncompressed would they use the same bandwidth. Progressive video is easier to compress than interlaced video. So 1080p50 would not be way beyond the available bandwidth. It could be compressed using current bitrates. How good it would look would depend on the content, but for news or talk shows etc. it should be easy to compress even at lower bitrates (since the backgrounds of shots won't be changing very much) and would give better picture quality than the other formats. Since we have progressive displays it is a better format than 1080i25.

In any case to implement this would mean that every TV would have to be 1080p 50 capable. What about the millions of displays that are HD ready (including some early 1920 x 1080 displays).

No that's not the case. Blu-ray discs are usually encoded at 1920x1080p23.976, but you can still watch them on a 720p TV or one only capable of 1080/50i or 1080/60i. The Freeview HD decoders could/should be made to output at all current TV resolutions, including 720p, 1080i, 1080p etc.

Any increase in bandwidth capability would be much better used to increase bit rates to give as near as possible as a bluray 1080p24 picture which is currently the highest quality picture commercially available.

1080p24 is not good for sports, live TV, or for reproducing motion without judder or strobing. There's a reason there are never any live sports shot at anything under 50 frames/fields per sec - because anything less causes too much strobing/judder and won't capture with enough motion resolution. In fact the BBC say even higher frame rates should really be used since we have increased the spatial resolution of TV but not the dynamic (motion) res. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/w...les/WHP169.pdf. So all we have done is made more pixels blur on movement and/or make the picture strobe more.

In fact on Blu-ray, 1080i30 (1080/60i) gives a technically better picture on Blu-ray (it's more pixels per second and gives 30 full frames per second) - though it does need de-interlacing. Other European stations have chosen 1080p50 and studios in the USA have chosen 1080p60. 1080p50/60 equipment (cameras, mixers etc.) are already available, and 1080p50 is recommended by the project manager of the EBU.