All posts by Josh
Below are all of Josh's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Looks like pretty decent DAB coverage to me. The DAB transmitters that are on the south coast, are they restricted in which direction they broadcast in? It just seems like you could easily recieve the DAB signals in Belgium, The Netherlands and the northern part of France! Braintist: OK, so what about if there was a "weather lift" period? Would that mean there would be more chance of the DAB radio stations being picked up in France? Maybe once "exclusive contracts" and similar agreements have ended with companies like Virgin Media and BSkyB, we could have Channel 5 HD, Film4 HD and E4 HD? And how about HD versions of 5* and 5USA?
And one other thing: has the Astra 1N satellite been launched with both DVB-S MPEG-2 and DVB-S2 transponders pre-fitted? Or will the DVB-S2 have to be added at a later date or has it been launched exclusively DVB-S2? Since most people these days who have a Sky or Freesat system have HD versions, it would've made sense for the satellite to be DVB-S2 only. I wonder if anyone from the southern part of Norway ever recieves signals from this transmitter during weather lift conditions? Why was the BBC News channel even FTA on Astra 2A anyway? I thought they didn't have the rights to broadcast on a Europe wide beam? And if they broadcast the BBC News channel on a Europe wide beam, why couldn't they make the geo-block restriction extend so that both the UK and continental Europe can watch the live feed of the BBC News channel on their website? @Dave: The reason why the licence fee idea in Australia didn't work was because apparently there was mass civil disobedience where people stopped paying their fee en masse.
If more people here stopped paying the BBC licence fee en masse, I'm sure we could then have the BBC government funded yet no adverts shown. Hopefully, this means they can start to think about phasing out the sales of DVB-T only devices and phase in a rule mandating that only DVB-T2 devices may be sold in the UK. Then, once satisfied that enough of the UK has DVB-T2 devices, start phasing out DVB-T in favour of DVB-T2. Braintist: At least if only DVB-T2 devices were allowed to be sold, there wouldn't be the thing of people buying DVB-T IDTVs that are "Full HD ready" thinking that they will get Freeview HD with it. Briantist: I don't mean to be rude, and I forgot to mention this before, but try looking in Tesco! - £30 Freeview HD boxes. (Even as low as £15 in the "special offers" periods.
When you include the cost of manpower - nothing can justify a non DVB-T2 box any more, so buying a Freeview HD box even for a non-HD ready analogue only set is justifiable as there may be a multiplex launched that has only SD channels but uses DVB-T2. (An example of this is the RTE mini multiplex that will launch after DSO in Northern Ireland). What superb news! If we get new multiplexes after DSO using the UHF 31-37 frequencies, and at least of one of the multiplexes launches as DVB-T2, wouldn't it be nice for Channel 5 to launch a 5USA HD? After all, a lot of American movies are in HD, since HD is a speciality in the United States, so a HD 5USA would be a simply great idea in my opinion. If they can't see what you are doing on your computer, it is easy to watch live TV on your computer without a licence, (I know its illegal), but what the BBC don't know won't hurt them. Briantist: But what if I'm either using a proxy or there happens to be a public Wi-Fi hotspot near my house? The BBC are hardly going to waste their already limited resources on tracking down someone from a public connection where potentially thousands of people use the connection whether they have got a TV licence ot not. And I do have a TV licence actually, but I'm just speaking hypothetically.... I bet that before I know it, by say March next year, you'll have drastically redesigned this website from the ground up!
This is great news! All we need now is for Channel 5 HD to be on Freesat and Freeview and then Channel 5 as a whole can be considered platform neutral. I wonder how long it will be until Channel 5's deal with Sky ends so that Channel 5 HD can be made available on Freesat? I know how you feel, I used to have my own blog at one point, and I have given up on it, because it was too popular; I couldn't keep up with the comments people made. @Malka: May I suggest using a UK based proxy service? Oh, so 4G isn't going to be delayed any further then as we originally feared it would be? I know obviously from what I have read that right now we don't yet know what frequencies Black Mountain and Carnmoney Hill but in theory, would it be practical for them to all use C36 and join up as one Single Frequency Network for the RTE multiplex?
Also, I reckon that a lot of confusion is going to be caused with those who have SD only TV sets, as they won't all realise that you can plug a Freeview HD box into an SD TV via SCART and still be able watch the RTE channels.
Finally, I think that another DVB-T2 project such as this one is fantastic as it will help to push the already booming sales of DVB-T2 equipment even further. MTSS: You could always get Saorsat which provides an ultra tight spot beam FTA satellite TV servie to the Republic Of Ireland. Bear in mind however that you will need to get a KA band LNB and the satellite dish will need to be pointing in a different direction to what it would for Sky/Freesat. I don't mean to be rude but when you say "In comparison with most other countries in the world, the UK had always had a poor local TV service." which countries do you mean? I know the United States is one such example, but which other countries do you mean? What will happen with Windows 7's Media Centre centre and using DVB-S2 tuner cards? Because Windows 7 was released before Astra 1N even existed, it will not recognise Astra 1N's existance, so therefore no more FTA UK channels via satellite for Windows Media Centre viewers! I bet that this must have required some intense negotiations with France over frequency planning! Will this mean that Sky+ HD sunscribers in Northern Ireland will get UTV HD in the 103 position because of Sky's HD channel swap where the HD version of a channel appears in the slot for Sky+ HD subscribers where the SD version of a channel would normally appear? And if not, why not? Freeview HD is 1080 line as well, so the statement about it being limited to 720 line is incorrect. Since the Crystal Palace transmitter is already extremely powerful, after DSO, I wonder how much overspill there will be into not only other regions, but maybe even into the north of France and Belgium etc? Wow, that Sky box must be ancient then, as it says on the back "Manufactured in the UK"! May I suggest a Taskforce style section which functions in a similar way to what this website: office.espadar.com (I'm not trying to advertise my website in any way, I am just showing an example to support my suggestion).
Basically, if there was any ideas about the technical ins and outs of terrestrial transmissions and changes to the EPG on Freeview etc, instead of people posting the ideas as comments on random articles, there would be a place on your website where all the ideas would be categorized and easy to find instead of searching through the articles for individual comments.
Since your website is already immensely popular, and some Ofcom employees might have secretly read the comments on this website, they are bound to notice the Taskforce section a lot more easily.
Also on this Taskforce, people would be able to post ideas into categories and vote and comment on each other's idea submissions.
Here is the source code for creating a Taskforce: 
tf.zip 
Mark: As long as nothing is plugged into a TV aerial, than the answer is that it will continue to work. Considering that HD boxes can be set to downscale to 576i when output to SD TVs, I certainly agree with your idea. All that is needed is enough people to have HD capable kit! @Briantist: But nobody else can actually receive that broadcast though. @Briantist: You DO NOT need a TV licence to own a TV set! If you read the information at tvlicensing.co.uk, it will even tell you that you don't need a TV licence if you use a TV for the purpose of not watching live broadcasts, but instead watching DVDs, using a games console etc. Sorry to seem blunt. I wonder if people in the North of France will now be able to receive Freeview from the South of England more easily? Congratulations for 10 years of this website running! It has been a very valuable resource to me! Alastair McIntyre: That is strange, as in Australia, their eqivalent of the BBC (ABC) doesn't show adverts, yet no licence fee is charged because ABC in Australia is funded from general taxation. Mark A.: But I was just saying that between DSO stage 1 and 2 in Northern Ireland, there will be no BBC Two analogue anywhere in the UK! I thought that the BBC are too budget constrained to launch any new HD simulcasts of their channels?
But, if the BBC do launch any new HD simulcasts of their channels as a result of this extra space, I'd love to see an HD simulcast of the BBC News channel! This would especially make sense when you consider that the BBC are upgrading their news studios to be HD capable.
One of the reasons I would love to see an HD version of the BBC News channel is because sometimes, I have been in waiting rooms or receptions with a large plasma TV showing the BBC News channel, and it is properly set up to show the channel in widescreen, but it is spoilt by the fact that you can see too many compression artifacts!
I can understand if anybody here disagrees with the idea of an HD version of the BBC News channel, but I just think that it would be great. @Peter Henderson: If the multiplex contains only public service broadcasting channels, especially if they are channels from the BBC, then I would imagine that they would be required to be carried on the relay transmitters as well as the main transmitters. Aerialman: And I am glad that Belmont transmitter is included in the chosen 20 as well! Is this a joke of some sort they cooked up? I thought that Sky did not want to be assosiated in any way with Freesat, thus the reason for Sky News SD being FTA but not on the Sky EPG! Sorry, I mean Freesat EPG. How come it is only just now Sky are allowing Sky News to appear on Freesat? If anybody is just buying a Freeview box now, I would strongly recommend that they buy a Freeview HD box, even if they don't have a HD ready TV due to the fact that the box will be futureproofed for if the SD channels ever transition to DVB-T2. It is even more important in Northern Ireland due to the new "mini-multiplex" that uses DVB-T2 despite the channels on that multiplex being SD only. Also, if anybody is buying a new TV set, I would recommend only getting on with the Freeview HD logo on for the same futureproofing reasons as I just mentioned.
Cost isn't so much of any excuse anymore, considering how cheap DVB-T2 boxes have become.
Of course, I am not suggesting that everybody who already has DVB-T only equipment to bin it, but anybody buying anything new in terms of Freeview equipment, should only buy DVB-T2 only equipment! I'd love to see an HD simulcast of the 24 hour BBC News channel - after all, BBC News as it is looks very professional on those big plasma TVs in waiting areas, why not go that bit further by launching an HD simulcast of BBC News?
Sid: Channel 5 HD is on Virgin Media as well. JDT: Yep, there are plenty of Freesat HD dual tuner PVRs! You will currently get 5 HD channels on Freesat. I wonder how long it will be before ITV HD is fully regionalized? I'd love for there to be a Yorkshire variant of ITV HD, then my grandparents would probably watch ITV HD more than SD ITV, as at the moment, they don't like watching ITV HD, then the regional news not showing. 
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http://downloads.bbc.co.u….pdf (DN163AP) 
Channel M closure sounds warning for local TV - Media News - Digital Spy 
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