Weymouth digital TV transmitter (no analogue)

Ant: Please see What does "Full HD Ready" actually mean? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .

Some other countries use MPEG4 on DVB-T, but the UK was the first with DVB-T2.

Before the switchover we were light on the channels and even after we seem to be light of some channels also.
Why do we get so few of the available channels? (map)

Briantist,

I understand the technology but I believe the hype pushed by the digital brigade was to encourage the purchase of TELEVISIONS that were HD ready (not monitors). It appears to me that the televisions pushed by the digital brigade could have displayed so-called HD television using DVB-T (as they appear to do in other countries) but HD over DVB-T is simply not going to be implemented in the UK as the roll-out has been so drawn out that DVB-T2 has now come along. I just find the whole switchover business rather ridiculous but not of any particular concern as I don't actually use terrestial. The channels available on terrestrial are just a subset of those available via satellite and I find the quality of digital terrestrial rather poor. With higher speed fixed line internet, 4G mobile broadband and satellite all either established or coming along I think continuing much longer with terrestrial broadcasting makes no sense. Rather than "going digital" the plan should have been to turn off terrestrial broadcasting in a few years and save the power and money burnt by all those terrestrial transmitters. In 10 years what fraction of the population will still be watching?

G Depledge: Please see Where are the public service (Freeview Light) transmitters? | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice .

Ant: Please can you see The "secret" Ofcom plan for Freeview HDTV: DVB-T2 | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice ?

I would very much like you to explain how you can serve 26,000,000 homes with TV using "4G mobile".

Thanks Briantist but I've come across that previously. As to my observation on Terrestrial's future, well watching TV on a hand-held device, tablet, PC or whatever isn't my thing but millions of people are supposedly spending more time watching programs on broadband than on terrestial TV or Satellite already - and of course you can watch broadband TV on your regular TV too. 3G mobile already provides TV on the move (kind of) whilst terrestrial doesn't really and 4G will up the quality. Satellite has masses more bandwidth than terrestrial allowing for better quality and quantity in any number of homes so its hard to see a major share of the market for terrestrial as time goes on. If you moved to a new house with neither terrestrial antenna on the roof nor a dish on the wall which would you get fitted and cabled through the house seeing as the cost is about the same either way? What is the answer going to be from the vast majority of people under say 30? Should the government have been pushing TV's with integrated satellite receivers with a view to turning off terrestrial TV altogether?

Ant: Let's address these points:

1) Terrestrial is the MOST POPULAR form of reception in the UK, Freeview-only homes outnumber Sky homes, and Freeview is used for non-primary sets in 90% of homes.

2) TV is BROADCAST - each of the six multiplexes goes into millions of homes at once on a single frequency.

For example, Mux 2/PSB2 carries 26Mbps to every home at once.

When 10 million watch a programme on ITV1, this takes up 4Mbps in the system.

3G/4G technologies are peer to peer networks. Brilliant for in interactive services, totally hopeless for delivery of broadcasts.

To deliver 10 million views of a programme over 3G/4G telephone networks requires 40,000,000 Mbps. Oh yeah, and all with subscriptions, rather than free-to-air.

3) Satellite reception is not suitable for many people.

4) Not sure what "people under 30" has to do with anything, there is not really any age differences in the profiles of Freeview users.

Briantist,

DTV is an incredible feat of engineering and a huge amount of work and money has gone into bringing it to fruition. And that is really my point. I think it is shame that it is effort and money spent on a system that can never offer the quality or quantity of channels that can be provided via satellite because of the disparity in available bandwidth. It will stay around for some time because of inertia - most houses are already cabled for terrestrial but that's really the only reason to use it. If we had been in a situation where satellite had been the only broadcast sytem for the last 50 years and then DTV came along who would use it? I can only see its market share continuing to dive as more and more people move to satellite (especially now most people appreciate satellite is free).

The way people (younger people especially) watch TV has changed completely. The viewing figures now for the main channels are only a fraction of what they used to be and the fraction that is watching via terrestrial is even smaller. So small it's not worthwhile for half the channels to transmit via terrestrial to places like Weymouth. If everyone was viewing via terrestrial rather than a large chunk viewing over satellite and faffing about on the interweb you can bet it would be.

As regards my points about broadband; yes the amounts of data are astounding but it's already happening because that's what many people want. I presume you've heard of BBC iPlayer for instance? If people are happy to pay subscription for their broadband service, as they clearly must be, that's up to them.

With so many people watching via satellite (and broadband) and the percentage increasing rapidly did it really make sense to invest so much in a system that less and less people choose to use?

By the way Sky does not equal satellite and live streaming to tens of thousands over the internet is broadcasting in my book.

Ant: It would help if you got your facts right. Have a look at Digital Television Updates | Ofcom and you will see that DTT is the most popular form of reception, more than satellite (Sky and Freesat):





Your "The way people (younger people especially) watch TV has changed completely" is also not borne out by any actual facts. See BARB but the public service channels STILL add up to the majority of viewing - 66%:

This week: BBC One 21.4%, BBC Two 6.3%, ITV1 16.2%, C4 6.0%, FIVE 5.2%, C4+1 0.7%, E4 1.1%, BBC three 1.3%, BBC FOUR 0.6%, BBC News 2.1%, ITV2 1.9%, ITV2+1 0.6%, CBBC 0.6%, CBeebies 1.2%, More4 1.0%.

The iPlayer is a web site, not a delivery platform. It requires the Internet to exist. If you want mobile broadband to cover the same area as TV, you will be putting up a lot more transmitters!

So, anyway, your question "did it really make sense to invest so much in a system that less and less people choose to use" is clearly just wrong, the majority of people are using it.

Having run this site for the last decade, I find your comments about "Sky does not equal satellite" and " I presume you've heard of BBC iPlayer for instance?" utter bizarre.

If you think "live streaming" is broadcast, think again - How digital television works | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice and From Baird to Persistent Peer-to-Peer networks | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice will explain.

Ant: Here is the share of viewing (week before) as a graphic.



The "public service" channels I have coloured, the "subscription only" channels are shown as marble.

The selection of channels in grey between the others are those that are on Freeview that are not carried on the public service transmitters.

The "other" Freeview channels viewing shares are:
ITV 3 2%, Sky News 1.1%, Sky Sports News 0.8%, Sky 3 0.8%, Dave 0.8%, Film4 0.9%, ITV 4 0.8%, E4 +1 0.7%, Virgin1 0.7%, FIVER 0.5%, FIVE USA 0.8%, Dave ja vu 0.3%, Viva 0.2%, Yesterday 0.4%, Quest 0.3%, Virgin1 + 1 0.2%

Briantist,

I think we are at crossed purposes. There has been a big push to terrestrial digital to provide a greater choice of programs (and I believe to free-up some of the spectrum too), yet a system already exists that provides far more choice and is capable of far better quality (and much less infrastructure is required to support it). The switchover could have been achieved by putting the new public service channels on satellite and pushing that as hard as digital terrestrial was. Perhaps not acceptable politically to lose terrestrial broadcasting but from the engineering/cost point of view it makes sense. The point I was making is that simple.

Your other points don't contradict what I've written previously. Of course the public service channels still add up to the majority of viewing and I'm surprised it is already as low as 66% but they are all available on satellite. Of course iPlayer requires the internet (who ever said it didn't?).

The data regarding who's watching what is not actually relevant to my original point but your own graph shows that already by Q4 2009 cable and satellite (not terrestrial) were together the main viewing platforms on the main TV set - the fact the viewing on those platforms is lower on other sets just shows that most households will stick with the cabling they already have (my point regarding inertia), not that for some strange reason they prefer terrestrial on those sets and satellite/cable on the main one. The viewing figures also only cover TV sets so the market share for program viewing over terrestrial gets even lower when other devices are taken into account.

As regards mobile broadband, if you reread my earlier post you'll see I said that mobile broadband can provide programming on the move - I wouldn't expect millions of people to be sitting on park benches all accessing it at the same time! Having said that it does look like demand is such that there will be further massive increases in infrastructure in the coming years.

As regards broadcasting see Broadcasting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and I think you'll agree live streaming is broadcasting (okay it's Wikipedia but you'll see the point).

Ant: Broadcasting is when ONE signal is used to deliver to multiple concurrent recipients.

Live streaming is, therefore, not broadcasting. It apes it, but it is not actually a broadcast in any technical sense.

Have you actually looked at the number of programmes viewed by means other than broadcast? It is not yet significant.

There are serious issues trying to provide broadcast services on peer to peer networks. It makes little sense when there is a much more efficient delivery system.

It is much better to save the net (broadband or mobile) for on-demand services.