All posts by jfc
Below are all of jfc's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.R
On the tenth day of Christmas Auntie brought to me ... five morMonday 9 December 2013 11:30AM
Highbridge
I receive my freeview from the Mendip transmitter - does this mean I won't the new services tomorrow - Mendip is on the list, but the one you give above
| link to this comment |
R
14 reasons why you should stop moaning about paying the TV LiceWednesday 15 January 2014 9:47AM
Highbridge
Good Article and well argued- but can I ask - why these head shots of young women, what is the relevance? (you haven't been got to by some marketing types have you?)
I love this site and have followed for a long time, but it seems to be getting updated much less frequently than it was.
BTW I think 20% as proportion of screen time given to adverts is bit optimistic. On minor channels we are down to 40 minutes an hour of actual content. I cannot watch this way- so I record and zap. What use is that to the advertisers?
| link to this comment |
R
14 reasons why you should stop moaning about paying the TV LiceWednesday 15 January 2014 4:22PM
Highbridge
Thanks for the explanation - and I hope your health woes sort themselves out. The issue of advertising to programme ratio is moot. The channels may well only show the allowed volume of commercials, but they promote themselves remorselessly and it sure feels like advertising. Most US imports are somewhere between 41 and 43 minutes of actual programme time per hour. Subtract from this, Titles, Credits, 'previously' and 'next' and you are down below 40 minutes. And there is the heinous business of captions (and even voiceovers) trailing the next show over the previous. In our house we just don't watch commercial TV live any more - we record and zap - They have killed their own golden goose.I agree that the BBC is outstanding value for money, but it's a tax not a choice.
| link to this comment |
R
14 reasons why you should stop moaning about paying the TV LiceThursday 16 January 2014 10:31AM
Highbridge
Just a few technical observations about how we view US shows. - Most 'high end US drama' is shot at 23.98 frames per second - slightly off the 24fps of feature film because it is a simple mathematical match to the 59.94 hz that US TV (SD or HD) actually transmits at. The23.97 is converted to 59.94 for US transmission by applying a 3:2 pull down (just as in the old telecine days) and there is no duration change at all. The best way to convert 23.97 to 50hz for European transmission is to run it slightly fast (about 4%) and make a frame for frame transfer.(sometimes called 2:2 pull down) This will reduce the duration of an hour of 23.97 to about 57.6 minutes. However a lot of the lower budget channels will get a standards conversion of the US show which runs the same as the original duration. -Poorer quality, but cheaper.
On a strictly practical note I often record shows like Law & Order to my PC via a capture card. I hate the commercials so much I edit them out and the actual duration is usually about 43 mins- though I have seen it as low as 41mins. US broadcasters are notorious for doing horrible things like speeding movies up to make them fit timeslots. I hear what you say about Offcom regs, but the actual programme durations are what I've stated. I think there is probably a big difference between (say) CH4 who will show a top quality transfer and keep to the rules and the low budget channels (you know who I mean!). I don't know if cable/sat channels are regulated at all?
| link to this comment |
An excellent and thought provoking series of articles, but I just don't see how the BBC can carry on with its current funding model. The protection of the criminal law for non-license payers is absurd. The only way for the Beeb to provide such excellent value for money is to keep some kind of a 'mass-funding' model, but how we do this and maintain the BBC's independence is a very thorny problem. I have some ideas, but here is not the space for them!. Still to throw away the BBC because we can't work out how to fund it would be an act of cultural madness. This is not to say that the BBC is not in need of major reform, because it is. We really need our best minds at work to create a framework that will allow the BBC to function through the new century.
| link to this comment |
IMHO
Mobile Phone Surcharge -Demographically unfair - loads payment on young adults
Tax On TV Subscriptions -Illogical, those have chosen non-BBC services pay
Mobile Phone Usage - Demographically unfair-young and middle aged pay
Broadband Tax- Demographically unfair-young and middle aged pay
General Taxation - hopeless, Westminster will control the BBC
Council Tax - A good option in my view, payment by household,some linkage to wealth
Electricity Tax - Another good option but the energy suppliers would fight it tooth & nail
License Fee - No longer practical, time has passed it by
Subscription via Sky Virgin -Illogical, those have chosen non-BBC services pay
VAT extra charge - Another good option, but Westminster could control the Beeb
Tax On electrical items -totally impractical it would put up prices enormously
PAYE all Tax Bands -Politically controllable
PAYE higher only - No correlation between those who pay and those who view
PAYE on the top 1% - The rich would control the Beeb.
In my view Council Tax Levy is best. Local authorities are too diverse to bring focussed political control to bear. There is some linkage to wealth & It encourages local and regional responsibility (though I agree with you that regional TV costs are un-sustainable.)
Why are we not seeing this quality of journalism in the national press? - This site just gets better.
| link to this comment |
Re: The License Fee - I am middle aged & middle class - so the license fee works for me, but there are huge swathes of the population for whom it does not. Criminalising students in bedsits is nuts - nuclear families are no longer the norm. Snooping around trying to find non payers is costly and invasive. We do not need a TV Licensing Authority - many other billing systems exist. The license fee has to go and be replaced by an easy to administer form of mass funding that bears some relationship to income without being subject to political manipulation.
Re: Compression HEVC/H265 aims to be twice as efficient as AVC/H264, but is much more computationally intensive. AFAIK it implies new STBs / Decoder Boxes as well.
| link to this comment |
I've just rescanned my living room TV which has a DVB T2 tuner and was surprised to find what I presume is Com7 on Chennel 33 - All the new BBC HD channels, plus Al Jazeera HD etc on air - TV now appropriated by son to watch the footy, but I will check again later and confirm.
| link to this comment |
J
DTG Summit: Freeview 700 MHz band for 4G very likely, BBC pay-FThursday 22 May 2014 11:38AM
Highbridge
I think it is important to separate out the issues that really matter here. I don't mind if I get my 'free to air' TV via an aerial or the internet as long as....
-The quality is the same or better
- Coverage footprint is the same or better
- The Choice is the same or better
- I can watch on portable TV (or I guess phone/tablet) as easily as I do now
- I'm not having to pay data charges
We also have to consider public safety issues - would information get to people as reliably in times of emergency? Care would have to be taken to make sure people who have not embraced the internet are not excluded.
Technology changes are always an opportunity to 'smuggle through' changes such as turning the BBC into a subscription service, so we have to be careful.
| link to this comment |
Page 1
Saturday 31 December 2011 12:51PM
Highbridge
-Personally I think this is a shame, it would have been good to get the 'first five' all in HD matching SD - As these are the core public service channels. I've always thought that CH5 got a bad press - there have been some real 'diamonds in the rough' in the past. Having said this the schedule seems to be going down market fast at the moment. (will Ofcom actually do anything to keep them to basic public service standards?).
Also on a slightly different topic Freeview HD bit-rates are low enough a lot of the time now to get six channels on this mux .