All posts by NJ
Below are all of NJ 's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.Government policy toward the BBC is a disgrace. Allowing the BBC to obtain its weather information from services other than the MET Office, just show how out of touch this government is. It clearly knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.It is vital for the UK to have a distinct and independent national broadcaster and the country will pay a very high price in reputation, influence and democracy if the BBC is allowed to fall into the hands of the commercial sector.There must be a strong suspicion that the government is targeting the BBC, because of political pressure being applied by certain international broadcasters who want to take control of the UK TV market. If the BBC is reduced to a shadow of is former glory, the quality of TV in the UK will fall to unimaginable low standards, with US style commercials that last longer than the programs and unfettered political bias in favour of multinational corporate vested interests. The BBC is not without fault, unfortunately those who are deciding where the axe should fall are the ones who should be sacked first and are likely to be the last to go.I personally find the BBC obsession with sports coverage irritating, as the costs far out weight the value of the over extended coverage. I resent the license fee being spent on highly over paid professional sportsmen (persons).The BBC internet services are the bench mark for production values by which other are judged, particularly the BBC news channel. But again there is strong indications that this is under attack, with recent evidence of political manipulation, both in the stories that are covered and those that are missing.I have long believed that the move to digital was the prelude to pay per view subscription TV services, a view now confirmed by published government documents, and that the drive for super fast broadband will ultimately lead to the switch off of Free-view TV broadcast transmitters in favour of internet television services. This opinion was mocked when I first published it on this forum. As time has past the evidence that it is correct has mounted, with BBC3 moved to the internet and the emergence of providers such as Netflix and Amazon TV to name but a few.The BBC is not perfect, but it is a lot better than the grim future that awaits if vested interests get their way and take control. I urge everyone to fight to keep our national broadcaster independent and able to inform, educate and entertain to world class standards as it once did and to some extent still does.
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Will the modulation of all the rearranged channels change from DVB-T to DVB-T2?
After rearrangement will any transmit DVB-T?
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Combined with cuts to the NHS should ensure this fails to raise any money as their will be no one to pay the fee.
This is clearly a political plan designed to damage the BBC, but I suspect it will do more damage to the government as old people vote.
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Does anyone know what the viewing figures are for BBC3? I suspect that moving BBC3 on line was a test to determine if all broadcast channels can be moved to on one services, and later converted to subscription.
In the short term this free spectrum will most likely be wasted in providing a delayed transmission channel with the late night slot being used to promote yet more gambling. Am I the only one who resents paying a licence fee for such antisocial, money grabbing, television.
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StevensOnln1: I have noticed that a number of channels have already moved. On investigation, it appears that a least one of those that have moved to DVB-T2 is not actually transmitting in HD.
Do you know if DVB-T2 can be used to reduce the channel bandwidth if not transmitting in full HD?
Is DVB-T2 equipment compatible with the new higher contrast ratio transmissions or will some receivers need a further upgrade: A) or lose the signal completely.
B) just not be able to see the enhanced contrast resolution.
I have an number of televisions, none very old, but some do not decode DVB-T2. The question is when is the best time to replace the older receivers? I am sure that other will be in a similar position and some may not realise that their televisions may soon be obsolete.
There are a couple of general observations to be made:
1) this constant upgrade process of relatively expensive home equipment such as televisions will put a strain on many household budgets and given that this equipment is almost certainly imported, it will also put a strain on the UK economy, not to mention the environmental damage of the huge pile of electronic waste it will generate.
2) These frequency changes are being made to provide spectrum for G4 mobile telephone services. The replacement G5 replacement is already being tested and will soon start to be rolled out. G5 cannot use the frequencies being cleared as it requires a much higher carrier frequency to accommodate the much higher modulation bandwidth. What will happen to the G4 spectrum that will no longer be required?
I understand that there plans to use G5 as a method of broadcasting 8k internet based television, so in the long term all the current TV spectrum maybe free again, something I find rather ironic given the amount of consumer money that is going to be wasted on all these changes.
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MikeB: My concerns relating to the High Dynamic Range contrast improvement not UHD.
It is my understanding that HDR increases the lumance range from 8 to 10 bit and this can be transmitted using a version of DVB-T2 and is a feature being added to the latest freeview televisions.
Any comment?
The problem with upgrading using low cost add on boxes is that it involves yet another remote control and a loss of many of the integrated features of the television set.
FYI. I am aware of some of the archive comments. I contributed to some of them using the ID of NJ. After a long time I returned to the site and mistyped my ID and am stuck with the new name.
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Nick Anderson: I sympathise with your comments. Those that invested in very expensive plasma screen televisions a few years ago must be rather depressed at the way their investment has been devalued. There was a time that TVs could be expected to remain in service for 10 or more years. There appears to be a move to reduce the replacement time to that similar to a computer or worse still a mobile phone.
It strange that the inclusion or programmable parts such as microprocessors, digital signal processors and field programmable gate arrays have failed to prolong the working life of the receiver hardware. I suspect that televisions are begining to follow the Microsoft built in obsolescence model, where they are made obsolete, not by failure of the hardware but by upgrades to the software. In my view, as these technologies converge, television, computer, and mobile phone replacement cycles will converge to the shortest common denominator.
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In the current weather conditions, fog and frost, there is strong co-channel interference with all the BBC channels on sandyheath. The other channels seem to have less of a problem.
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MikeB: the no signal can also indicate co channel interference. Sets that have a menu option which shows bot h bit error rate and signal strength provides more information. Maybe showing a strong signal with very poor BER . . In my location high pressure or fog results in the loss of the signal from the BBC mux, with other channels unaffected. This I assume is due to co- channel interference.
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Saturday 29 August 2015 12:14PM
Wisbech
Since the last Sandy Heath retune a few days ago, channel 48 has a strong signal but very poor quality. All other channels report both good signal and quality. My post code is PE13 2EG.
Please note, I have just received a card indicating that G4 transmitters are being activated in my area, but given the frequency of channel 48, it seems unlikely that this is a GSM4 is the problem as I would have expected the interference to be confined to higher up the TV band.