back to article 4K video on terrestrial TV? Not if the WRC shares frequencies to mobiles

For fans of terrestrial television, this is the best of times and this is the worst of times. The DVB consortium has recently produced a draft specification for Ultra High Definition aka 4K, fitting the UHD video within the standard transport streams that are already used for SD and HD. As evidenced by the BBC's current …

  1. MJI Silver badge

    Thanks for pushing this

    I will be on to them asking to protect terrestrial broadcasts.

    One thing about these surveys,

    TV source you can only tick one box, so if you have say Freeview and Freesat you can only tick ONE box

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm curious...

    "and don't buy anything that doesn't have Freeview HD built in"...what's wrong with an el cheapo set top box and a similarly priced Panel...rather than TV?

    1. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: I'm curious...

      As long as the set top box has Freeview HD, then fine. But, given that there will almost certainly have to be an as yet unannounced shift to using T2 and H.264, which are presently just used for Freeview HD services, then buying any kit without it means you risk it becoming obsolete, or being able to receive only a subset of channels, far sooner than would be the case for HD stuff.

      1. JeffyPoooh

        Re: I'm curious...

        "...there aren't many sets out there which have HEVC decoders..."

        and "...an as yet unannounced shift to..."

        All the more reason to simply accept that you'll need several set top boxes. Buy a TV with some sort of interface that has a chance of being standard, and load up the shelf with set top boxes.

        Yes, there are other approaches, but they're worse.

        Even today, where 4K isn't yet a requirement, we already have Apple TV, Google ChromeCast, Android HDMI Stick, Raspberry Pi, Mac, WD TV Live, PS3, XBox, Wii U, Satellite PVR, BluRay player, etc. all vying for an input port. Technology is changing too fast to waste your money on an integrated solution. Take it if it's useful and free, but you need ports and boxes.

    2. the spectacularly refined chap

      Re: I'm curious...

      what's wrong with an el cheapo set top box and a similarly priced Panel...rather than TV?

      Nothings wrong with it per se but it isn't really appropriate in a lot of situations. It isn't just a panel ans set top box but potentially a panel, STB, amp, speakers and multiple remotes. If you're a home cinema buff and this is the main set then fine. A lot of people want a single device they can shove in the corner or on the wall, that has one remote and that you can turn off and on in one place. That's especially true for secondary sets such as those in bedrooms.

      There's frequently a tendency to suggest a panel and STB as if in some way it magically future-proofs you but it brings its own issues and in many contexts it's a pig ugly solution over a simple understanding that yes you might need to replace the set in ten years if the government screw you over.

  3. Ian Tresman

    Gigabit fibre optic broadband

    This is why we all need Gigabit fibre optic broadband.

    1. Tom 38

      Re: Gigabit fibre optic broadband

      As someone who actually has gigabit fibre optic broadband, I 100% agree. Apparently we could all have this for less than building a choochoo to Birmingham...

    2. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: Gigabit fibre optic broadband

      Well, that would be nice. But what about people stuck out in the countryside? Who's going to lay fibre to them?

      And with the mobile networks pretty firmly against the idea of mast sharing to provide decent coverage in rural areas too, this is one of the big sticking points for IPTV in the UK, I think.

      We have had for a long time a very well established terrestrial network, with loads of small relays all over the place (though some of them did vanish with DSO). We still have 98.5% of UK homes covered by it, and whether you use fibre or badger mobile firms into rural roll-out, it's going to be a very long time before there's enough network infrastructure to match that coverage

      1. Tom 38

        Re: Gigabit fibre optic broadband

        I think you have misunderstood what I was saying. For the cost of building a publicly subsidised high speed railway to Birmingham, we could easily pay for running lovely fibre to everyone in the UK. So:

        But what about people stuck out in the countryside? Who's going to lay fibre to them?

        Us, the taxpayer. We can make the operational costs by charging ISPs to access subscribers.

        1. Wibble

          Re: Gigabit fibre optic broadband

          If we valued the future we should do both: fibre everywhere and transport infrastructure. That's what the Victorians would have done.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Gigabit fibre optic broadband @ Wibble

            "If we valued the future we should do both: fibre everywhere and transport infrastructure. That's what the Victorians would have done."

            No it was not. The canals, bridges, ships, railways were built almost entirely by private capital, in the times when the state didn't think it was the job of the state to provide everything to everybody. The consequence was that infrastructure followed economic demand. Some railways certainly were built to nowhere during the railway mania, but if they weren't economic the were promptly closed - rural dwellers didn't benefit from universal access to railways, canals, water or sewerage systems because it wasn't economic to serve them, and there was no mechanism then for civil servants to plunder the wider population's pockets to offer "services" where people would not pay the true cost themselves.

            Far from modern day Victorians building out a national high speed broadband network, they'd do exactly what BT and Virginmedia do - chase the densest pockets of demand until the capital runs out.

            Amusingly, HS2 is a modern day example of the Victorian railway mania - a vainglorious hope justified on fictitious traffic forecasts, supported by ignorant or crooked politicians, that goes between two thriving metropoli and ignores those living between them. The only difference being that it has been planned by the Stalinist central planning bureaucrats of Whitehall, using public money. In twenty years time HS2 will go the way of HS1 made large, where the British government backed the builders of HS1 with £5bn plus of guarantees plus operating losses and costs in the meanwhile (all because the traffic forecasts were made up numbers....), and then ended up selling the assets to a foreign pension fund for £2bn or so.

  4. ZSn

    HEVC for SD

    This, perhaps, is a silly question. Why not ues HEVC for SD broadcast as well. Doesn't that have an improvement over h.264. Why not jump straight to the more efficient codec? I know that it takes a while for the new standards to percolate through to the end user, but the it'll take a while anyway before this all kicks off, is that not enough time?

    1. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: HEVC for SD

      HEVC would provide improvements (and, like most of these things, probably more in a few years when the encoders have moved on a generator or two).

      But it would mean that nothing currently on the market or in peoples homes would be able to receive even SD broadcasts, other than a handful of very rich people with first generation HEVC silicon in their sets. So, as with the analogue switchover, it would be a massive leap that would require all new equipment - and that for a service that might, perhaps, only be around until 2030 anyway.

      That's going to be a hard sell; won't a lot of people think "You know what, I got bitten once by going with Freeview, now I have to buy all new kit; who's to say it won't happen again?"

      Using T2 and H.264 for SD means that there is an installed base of (according to Digital UK) some 11m receivers that will still be able to be used, and I think that would be pretty important to ensuring that it's a viable proposition.

      1. Gordon 11

        Re: HEVC for SD

        But it would mean that nothing currently on the market or in peoples homes would be able to receive even SD broadcasts,

        A pity that sets don't have plug-in modules for upgrading hardware-decoders. Well, Samsung does have some sets with the ability to pug in an upgrade box, but you can buy a new TV for less than that costs.

        1. ZSn

          Re: HEVC for SD

          I noticed that.The 'upgrade' for the Samsung TV I was looking at was €400, instead I stuck with my old CRT and stuck a raspberry pi running raspbmc for €35. It is also more functional (for what I want), which is using iplayer.

        2. Nigel Whitfield.

          Re: HEVC for SD

          It's a nice idea on the face of it, but how often does a new codec come along? You'd be adding a facility that most people would never use - and in many cases, there might be other parts of the set besides the decoder that would need upgrading too, to make any sense, which means likely making even more of it modular.

          And modular things mean more connections - plugs, slots, and so forth. That in turn adds more points of failure, which will increase support costs - sending someone out to fix a set because the codec board has slipped a bit when they moved it round the living room - as well as an increased BOM.

          We started with MPEG2 around the end of the last century. H.264 services launched on DTT in 2009 - roughly a decade later. I doubt we'll see affordable UHD kit for a while yet, so it's probably getting on for a total of a decade before H.264 ceases to be the newest codec in use.

          So, if people keep their sets for the best part of a decade, there's not really a compelling need that I can see to provide the ability to swap out the decoder, given the cost and the potential effect on reliability.

          1. tony2heads

            Re: HEVC for SD

            If this signal processing stuff were done in FPGA you wouldn't need new hardware you would just reconfigure.

            Does anyone use this technology for TVs?

            1. Vic

              Re: HEVC for SD

              If this signal processing stuff were done in FPGA you wouldn't need new hardware you would just reconfigure.

              It's not *quite* that simple; you'd need enough capacity/speed in the FPGA at manufacture time to cope with anything foreseen during the life of the decoder[1]. That tends to make it expensive and power-hungry - neither of which are good selling points.

              Does anyone use this technology for TVs?

              It's standard in TV encoders, but I don't see it catching on in decoders.

              Vic.

              [1] My introduction to Digital TV used a software-based decoder with hardware acceleration elements. It was a cracking chip for the time - 2x 64-bit CPUs with SIMD and a whole load of accelerator units, and this was back in the mid-90s. The "official" reason for it never getting to market was clearly bogus, but the reailty was that things like DigiCipher had simply gone away, leaving just MPEG-2. We couldn't compete with dedicated decoder chips - not in price, ease of use, nor power consumption.

          2. Alan Brown Silver badge

            Re: HEVC for SD

            "We started with MPEG2 around the end of the last century. H.264 services launched on DTT in 2009 - roughly a decade later"

            You missed DTT upgrades knocking out 20-30% of the entire Freeview receiver fleet in 2007 (no upgrade was possible on SetPal-based units as the company went bust) and that H.264 started the same year, just not in the UK as a public broadcast.

            On the subject of "mini updates"

            I've just had to reflash my 18 month old FreeviewHD system to cope with multiplex updates made in January (which shows how often I use it) - The updates affected 5-10% of ALL HD receivers out there and for most it's not practical to update as it involves soldering a USB port to the board or using a specially made scart-serial cable.

            Arquiva never broadcast updates for these units (Vestel T8600s sold under dozens of brand names, including Tecnika and Bush - they were the ONLY available HD box for the first year of FreeviewHD) so owners who paid £59-150 for them are mostly out of luck.

            Most people will have thrown the boxes out and bought new ones. It seems the cost of using Freeview is having to get a new decoder every 3-4 years.

        3. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: HEVC for SD

          "Well, Samsung does have some sets with the ability to pug in an upgrade box, but you can buy a new TV for less than that costs."

          This is a good arguement for a standardised plugin interface, like say... HDMI

  5. Pete 2 Silver badge

    Cut or compress

    There are two ways to reduce the quality of TV.

    You can either fill up the airspace with cheap, crap programmes that nobody watches and repeats that are repeatedly repeated -- or -- you can compress the crap out of the signals until you are left with blocky, distorted pictures and sound that nobody watches, but for different reasons.

    At present we are still in the infancy of digital TV and are only just starting to realise that "choice" is not all it's cracked up to be. It appears that "choice" means watching this prime-time soap, or that one - or watching the Commonwealth games on either BBC1 or BBC3, or a celebrity quiz or a celebrity reality show. The quantity has increased, but the breadth has not.

    If there is to be a "crunch" where the frequencies available for TV is greatly reduced, we may well find that viewers are not willing to put up with both bad programmes and poor picture quality. At that point, it might just happen that broadcasters start to offer a greater variety of programmes that are low-bandwidth friendly - such as without the fast scene-changes or lots of action that programme makers edit in to programmes to give the impression of quality, dynamism and attractiveness.

    Though I can't ever see them axing all the repeats.

    1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: Cut or compress

      In order to axe all of the repeats, it would be necessary to produce many times the current amount of new programmes. This will either mean programmes created with extremely low budgets, or the cost of watching TV, either directly by subscription or by increased advertising increasing significantly.

      Face it. All the time that there is something like the current airtime available, repeats will happen.

      I think that there may be scope in eliminating some of the channels. Maybe set a limit of a dozen channels, but make sure that they cover a wide spectrum of quality programmes to appeal to a broad audience.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: Cut or compress

        "In order to axe all of the repeats, it would be necessary to produce many times the current amount of new programmes."

        Or you just don't have so many channels - repeats are the kind of thing that work well on demand, and if you actually look at the amount of programming produced there is plenty of time to broadcast it on just a couple of channels. Yes it would require time shifting equipment, but most people have that already, we don't need itv, itv+1, itv+2, itv+3 - how many do they have nowadays?

      2. Vic

        Re: Cut or compress

        In order to axe all of the repeats, it would be necessary to produce many times the current amount of new programmes

        Or - and here's a radical thought - we could just have fewer channels.

        That way, we could have the TV that people watch, without endless repeats on "On the Buses" et al.

        We could even do away with some of these bandwidth squabbles...

        Vic.

    2. Lamont Cranston

      Re: Cut or compress

      Can't we just cut the dedicated shopping and porn channels? Maybe shunt them over to IPTV, so those who want them can still get them through their smart telly/box.

      1. Richard Jones 1
        Unhappy

        Re: Cut or compress

        Sadly this is the summer of discontent for some viewers of terrestrial TV with a poor selection of choices. The choice being reduced to Money feast winterball sponsored by Fifa*, Commonwealth Sports, or endless repeats that have not been greatly relieved by the shopping channels pushing I care not what.

        One could almost wonder if there is a softening up process going on to prepare is for returning to radio or home entertainments all round the self generated performances and dropping TV altogether.

        *Could this stand for Frauds Intermingling False Accounting?

      2. Nigel Whitfield.

        Re: Cut or compress

        Some of those perhaps could be accommodated via the IPTV functionality that's built into Freeview HD boxes, and I daresay more will be in future. But equally, others won't really want to have to switch to a distribution method that means they could lose a lot of their viewers (just as some have been resistant in the past to changing channel numbers so that things can look a lot tidier in the EPG).

        Some of those shopping channels, for example, are oddly popular with older people, or the housebound, and those are also often the same groups who may not be able to afford the costs of a broadband connection with unlimited bandwidth, or live in an area where a decent connection is available.

        Logistically - especially with the climate of puritanism wafting through the country - it might be much easier to force the porn channels off the airwaves and onto IP services. But I can't see the same happening with shopping.

      3. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

        Re: Cut or compress

        Can't we just cut the dedicated shopping and porn channels?

        They make money for the providers. If there's less spectrum available then logically the cost of carriage should be increased, which might indeed drive the dross onto the internet, and leave us with a smaller number of decent channels. I'm not holding my breath, though.

        1. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: Cut or compress

          The shopping, 'chat' and porn channels are prime candidates for lowbitrates as the screen doesn't update much.

          Going to H.264 SD would make a substantial difference in the number of channels able to be fitted in one multiplex. At some point it's likely that a decision will be made that this will be the way forward - probably with a 2-3 year leadin on end-of-sale for freeview SD boxes.

      4. Stuart 22

        Re: Cut or compress

        Can't we just cut the dedicated shopping and porn channels?

        Some people like them and they do add to the breadth of material available. The real hogs are the time shift channels. Yep I use them too and it can be easier that catching up on iPlayer and cheaper than a PVR. But they come at the expense of breadth (like BBC1+1 replacing BBC3).

        Actually iPlayer is brilliant and I use it a lot. I'm using ITV3+1 because ITVplayer is s**t. Should we really have each provider rolling their own or would it not be in the interest of the consumer to have it delivered through one coherent technology as DTT is done through Freeview. That is some sort of FreeReplay. One readily understandable iinterface for young and old delivered directly by the device manufacturer.

        Then we could phase out all the +1 channels and argue about whether the spectrum be used to expand either breadth or quality - or even both.

        1. Wibble

          Use iPlayer...

          I'd love to use iPlayer, but I live in central Sussex where Bastard Telecom can't be arsed to install fast broadband - I get 1M bit/sec (or 130KB).

          So I'm stuck with using the catchup channels.

          BTW I'd forgotten that there were shopping channels, etc. I retuned at switchover then set up my favourite 30 or so channels and have never missed the dross.

          1. ZSn

            Re: Use iPlayer...

            If you have a bit of patience that's still fine. What I have is a raspberry pi running raspbmc. Then, as long as you're not watching live, you use the get_iplayer command to download it to the machine itself. If I want I can use get_iplayer --subtitles --modes=best -g <whatever the show number is> and it downloads it in glorious (sort of) HD. I can fast foward and back without a glitch! If you have a lot to download and a 1meg line it is pretty much 1:1 download to watch time (or a bit worse even) so just set it off the previous night (as long as you have the patience to watch it tomorrow). It works for me, in a rural area with a 2meg link.

  6. DrXym

    Concerning IPTV

    Live streaming TV doesn't require every single computer has a single connection to the server. This could be accomplished using UDP multicasting - everyone watching a particular channel subscribes to an IP address and they're sent the same packets. It would require the ISP to have some box which does the multicasting but it's far more efficient than everyone having their own streams.

    Anyway for DVB, HEVC is approximately twice as efficient as encoding video as AVC. There are 4x as many pixels but they're also 1/4 the size and things like macro blocks are variable size. So it is possible that HEVC might deliver a subjectively better image at a similar bitrate as AVC.

    So potentially it wouldn't imply any more bandwidth from existing broadcasts, although it would mean switching hardware and that is obviously the main sticking point. I don't see much market for UHD in terrestrial broadcasting but a more efficient codec has obvious benefits.

    1. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: Concerning IPTV

      Yes, multicasting would be great; it works in theory. In practise, are all the ISPs going to invest in the kit and the upgrades to their networks to make sure it all behaves well? And then decide that they'll provide a basic TV service out of the goodness of their little capitalist hearts?

      I suspect that, instead - as history might tend to suggest - they'll do the bare minimum they can get away with, offer sod all support, charge extra and when when the service collapses for some reason during, say, a major news or sports event, make empty promises about it never happening again, while reminding people they never offered a guarantee of any sort of service level for domestic customers and if they can't watch Eastenders, well they should never have chosen to live at the end of a country lane.

      Net result most likely to be lots of punters paying more than they do now, for a worse level of service.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Concerning IPTV

        "Yes, multicasting would be great; it works in theory. In practise, are all the ISPs going to invest in the kit and the upgrades to their networks to make sure it all behaves well? And then decide that they'll provide a basic TV service out of the goodness of their little capitalist hearts?"

        Well if they're offering IPTV then I assume they would. Or if there were a consortium of broadcasters who supported the platform then they'd pay for the kit to go into the ISP's intranet just as they pay for the kit that goes into masts.

      2. Vic

        Re: Concerning IPTV

        In practise, are all the ISPs going to invest in the kit and the upgrades to their networks to make sure it all behaves well?

        Multicasting actually makes life easier - rather than having to run packets end-to-end through their network, they only need to have one feed into it, with multiple feeds going out to end-users. It's actually a cost-reduction in the near-term.

        There *might* be a little up-front cost if the ISP doesn't have switches that run IGMP snooping - but not every single switch needs that (the more that do, the more efficiently the network will run). IME, most commercially-available switches do have the capability, and there seem to be several GPL-licensed IGMP snoopers available.

        And then decide that they'll provide a basic TV service out of the goodness of their little capitalist hearts?

        That's exactly what *should* motivate them - but there's also a marketing angle there as well; with multicasts, there is much less chance of upstream network congestion causing delays to subscribers. BT are already making a fuss about this in their advertising for fibre-optic broadband; the "end of buffering" over copper lines could be a nice story to tell customers, and reduce costs as well.

        Net result most likely to be lots of punters paying more than they do now, for a worse level of service.

        Well, that's a given, whatever happens.

        Vic.

    2. jaywin

      Re: Concerning IPTV

      A single UDP stream would prevent many of the useful tricks iPlayer currently does, like changing resolution on the fly, buffering without losing any of the programme and live pause / rewind.

      It would also require the live channels to have a completely different streaming infrastructure to the on demand channels.

      1. DrXym

        Re: Concerning IPTV

        "A single UDP stream would prevent many of the useful tricks iPlayer currently does, like changing resolution on the fly, buffering without losing any of the programme and live pause / rewind."

        Live pause & rewind can be handled with a buffer. Stream to an HDD or even into RAM. The RAM option might be more limited but there is no reason that an IPTV solution requires client side storage of streams - timeshifted streams could be stored on a server and accessible on demand. Same for recordings - what you think of as a recording is just a start/end time and a channel id which is resolved to the stream on the server when you play it.

        As for how to deal with load, that's an issue for the ISP / provider to sort out. There is already fairly sophisticated protocols for DVB-IPTV which answer these sort of issues including load management.

        1. jaywin

          Re: Concerning IPTV

          > there is no reason that an IPTV solution requires client side storage of streams - timeshifted streams could be stored on a server and accessible on demand.

          Which kind of throws out the idea of everyone sharing a single multicast stream doesn't it?

          And as for a client side buffer enabling pause/rewind, how does that work if you rewind to the beginning of the programme you tuned into half way through?

          While UDP multicast may be the most efficient use of bandwidth, using it will require bringing in many restrictions in what the public already expect from a streaming video service.

          1. Vic

            Re: Concerning IPTV

            And as for a client side buffer enabling pause/rewind, how does that work if you rewind to the beginning of the programme you tuned into half way through?

            That's easy - you use one or more multicasts to transmit the bulk of the information, then use a per-subscriber unicast to fill in anything that's been missed.

            It's a little tricky to get the PCR/PTS right - particularly if you're switching between several NVOD multicasts for the same channel - but this is not beyond the whit of man.

            Vic.

          2. DrXym

            Re: Concerning IPTV

            "Which kind of throws out the idea of everyone sharing a single multicast stream doesn't it?"

            No it doesn't. Live TV is multicast. If you view a PPV movie, or a recording, or your timeshift out of your RAM buffer then it goes to unicast.

            "And as for a client side buffer enabling pause/rewind, how does that work if you rewind to the beginning of the programme you tuned into half way through?"

            The box goes "oh he's rewinding back in time so we'll stream from a different url". Or it goes "oh he's rewinding back in time so we'll stop here and throw a popup asking if he wants to timeshift -15, -30 or -60 minutes and THEN stream from a different url"

            "While UDP multicast may be the most efficient use of bandwidth, using it will require bringing in many restrictions in what the public already expect from a streaming video service."

            No it wouldn't. The end user would be sublimely unaware of all of this. They'd just have this cool box which allows them to rewind live TV even if they've only switched to the channel this second. They'd have this cool box which lets them "record" 10 channels at once. They'd have a cool box which did this even when it was unplugged from the wall because the "recordings" are actually timeslives in the cloud mapped onto a honking big storage device recording *everything* and figuring out which bits to save. They'd have this cool box which is about the size of a paperback book because it doesn't need to pack in any HDD, tuners or any of that nonsense.

            Catch my drift? I'm not saying IPTV is perfect or all of this is easy. But it's doable and in some ways is actually easier than it would be through other means. It needs the infrastructure in the ISP, particularly for time shifting but the fact is that it offers huge potentials.

    3. War Puppy

      Re: Concerning IPTV

      HEVC is simply more efficient than H264, which was more efficient than MPEG2 .. and so on.

      There are not 4x as many pixels unless you are dealing with a stream that has 4x as many pixels!!!

      For example:

      SD in MPEG2 is 4 Gigs of data. 2 hour movie

      SD in H264 is 1.5 Gigs for the same quality.

      SD in HEVC is 0.8 Gigs for the same quality.

      The transmission rates for HEVC broadcast will save a lot of bandwidth, as would transmitting current MPEG2 SD streams in H264.

      So getting HEVC (H265) into a new 'FreeviewSHD' box, and changing all transmissions to H265 would provide plenty of scope for more crap SD channels, or a few 4k channels on top of what there now due to the compression savings across everything else.

      HEVC is needed to cope with 4k pixels because data streams would be huge under H264, using up valuable bandwidth.

      1. Nigel Whitfield.

        Re: Concerning IPTV

        Yes, it certainly would be more efficient, but as I suggested above, I think that the need for everyone to replace their kit makes a wholesale switch to HEVC a non-starter, politically - and it's not just the consumer side, either. If the current temporary muxes are cleared around 2020-2021 at the earliest, then given the timeframe for IPTV replacing terrestrial broadcasting, which Ofcom and DigitalUK reckon is ten years or so on from that, would the broadcasters really be that keen on a whole load of new technology that requires capital investment, and may only hang around for a few years?

        Boxes with HEVC will appear, because it'll be used for some OTT services, but will anyone really want to tell consumers they have to replace all their STBs, integrated TVs, and digital recorders, and then do the same again in another ten years if DTT is switched off in favour of IPTV around 2030?

        Technically, yes, it's a better solution. But if that's going to be done, then I think people need to be talking about it sooner rather than later. The hope right now (and the explicitly stated reasoning behind the temporary muxes) is to get more people buying T2/H264 kit, but there's no consumer message explaining why, as yet.

        1. Vic

          Re: Concerning IPTV

          would the broadcasters really be that keen on a whole load of new technology that requires capital investment, and may only hang around for a few years?

          Broadcasters are already deploying HEVC-capable kit.

          Disclosure: Guess what I've been doing for the last couple of years...

          Vic.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Screw +1 and +24

    How about we just encourage a 10x multiplier for the carriage fees on repeat channels. There'd be loads of bandwidth left over without them all.

    1. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

      Re: Screw +1 and +24

      Not sure if you've noticed, but the +1 & +24 channels are compressed even more than the original channels, so use less bandwidth.

      (This doesn't mean I disagree with getting rid of them, though!)

    2. jaywin

      Re: Screw +1 and +24

      No, we'd just lose other services instead. Look at BBC Three being closed down to allow BBC One +1 to be launched without incurring additional transmission costs.

  8. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Watching TV

    I remember as a kid, sat at home with the parents actually watching TV.

    Nowadays, I have a TV on just as background noise. I rarely sit down and devote 100% of my attention at the screen.

    Why? I don't think there's only one reason. It's probably a mixture of things: YouTube/et al (Watched a couple of great videos on Graham's number last night), lots of repeats, too many "celebrity" shows, general dumbing down of content.

  9. Killing Time

    A silver lining perhaps?

    Maybe this bandwidth availability crunch could have a positive impact on DTT channel quality. It seems to me that currently there appears to be a glut of available channels, some real junk is being broadcast, presumably as channel pricing is cheap. I can’t envisage some of this stuff really having an audience big enough to be generating enough money to make them viable long term.

    Perhaps, as the pressure for bandwidth rises then only the seriously funded players will survive. I don’t see any point in tens of channels of (to put in favorably) niche interests.

    Having said that, will still make a response to Ofcom.

  10. stu 4

    Broadcast TV is a dinosaur

    Put it out its misery once and for all and kill it.

    It's an anachronism from the 20th century we've grown up with through technological limitations.

    1. Wibble

      Re: Broadcast TV is a dinosaur

      Please, do explain what you're talking about...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Broadcast TV is a dinosaur

        "Please, do explain what you're talking about..."

        stu 4 works at OFCOM. It's what they all believe.

      2. stu 4

        Re: Broadcast TV is a dinosaur

        I mean sending a tv program over the air by broadcast to everyone.

        So they all have to watch it at the same time.

        Then later we invented video recorders, and then HD recorders to try and get around these limitations technology imposed (the fact that the only way to get a tv program was to broadcast it).

        But you still have a situation where every program got sent out - once. unless you set your own device to record it you are stuffed. or you hoped for a 'repeat'.

        what the hell is the point of that ? It makes no sense now that there are more efficient ways of getting you that tv program - on demand, when you want it.

        So no need to BROADCAST it to everyone. No need to hope you knew it was on and recorded it.

        'oh I've missed reading the latest dawkins book. never mind it might be repeated in a few years' - makes no bloody sense at all does it ? And yet we've been programmed to treat TV media differently from books... and expect a program to be transmitted to our house at a certain time, where we either have to watch it then and there, or be responsible for recording it ourselves to watch later.

        I've not watched broadcast tv since 2000 when I got my first tivo. From 2004, I stopped having any mechanism to watch broadcast tv (live or locally recorded). I was tv programs and films when I want, though netflix, amazon prime, or downloaded.

        broadcast tv is ridiculous if you stand back and thing about it - but one we've got used to thinking is normal and makes sense, when it makes no sense at all.

        1. Vic

          Re: Broadcast TV is a dinosaur

          It makes no sense now that there are more efficient ways of getting you that tv program

          Broadcasting is the most efficient way of transmitting TV. It just might not be the most convenient...

          Vic.

        2. Lamont Cranston

          Re: I've not watched broadcast tv since 2000 when I got my first tivo

          Aren't TiVos just PVRs? In which case you were just time-shifting the broadcast TV to suit your schedule.

  11. Steven Jones

    A little alarmist...

    Unlike the analogue switchover, politicians will get involved with this if Freeview was to be crippled. The reason there was no big outcry over loss of analogue was that DTV gave clear advantages. More channels, better quality (assuming the broadcaster didn't choose stupidly low bit rates) plus all the advantages of PVRs. All those VHS recorders had clearly had their day and we were also at the point where people were swapping out old CRTs for flat screens. In the big picture of things, the costs were modest and most people didn't have to do much save buy the right receiving equipment.

    In short, all the planets were in alignment and it was, bar a few, clearly in (almost) everybody's. However, if the Freeview platform itself came under threat, then expect all hell to break loose. There are lots of issues with broadband as a universal platform; holes in the coverage, cost to viewers and reliability. If your broadband goes down at the moment, you've got the option of watching TV. If that's dependent on the same delivery system, then you're out of luck until it's fixed.

    That leaves Freesat, but not everybody want's to stick a dish on their house (assuming they've got a reasonable location), and it means chucking away serviceable hardware with no obvious advantage. In a house with many receivers there's also a distribution problem. It's not as simple as putting a distribution amp in the loft space.

    If there are sufficient grumbles, then it politically won't work. Think of all the issues that have arisen with shutdown of FM radio. People see very few advantages, but what the do get is a situation where their car radio won't work apart from and expensive swap-out or some nasty kludge which means their steering-column controls don't work.

    nb. I see little point in 4K as, in the average UK living room, people sit far too far away from the TV screen to see any difference unless you buy a simply huge TV screen. Much better that any more bandwidth or improved codecs are used to enhance HD quality (which is often abysmal).

    1. Nigel Whitfield.

      Re: A little alarmist...

      One would hope so; but then, we're dealing with a bunch of people who probably wouldn't be said at any decision that drove more punters into the arms of Sky.

      And, of course, this is a decision taken at an international level; so I do think it's important that responses to the consultation keep Ofcom on their present path of objecting to the co-primary allocation (and so too do some of the more cynical of my contacts)

      1. Steven Jones

        Re: A little alarmist...

        The decision to open up the spectrum is not the same as actually having to deploy it. I know there are border issues so that adjacent countries have to coordinate allocation of bandwidth at a detail level, but that's mostly an issue for countries with land borders and not the UK (well, unless Scotland votes "yes").

        So I don't see any reason why if country A wants to use a given band for mobile usage why country B has to implement it.

        (nb. I am aware that there are actually issues with overlapping bandwidths between France and the UK such that transmission powers and direction are actually something which are subject to agreement at the narrower parts of the channel, but I don't think it changes the principle).

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear

    "there's a long way to go before we regularly, if ever, see UHD in the home"

    Well, that is a worry, isn't it?

  13. Christian Berger

    The problem with IPTV is...

    ...that there don't appear to be any simple and published standards. Sure there actually are standards in use to get the multicast streams from your ISP, however you'll never know what they use and if there's DRM in there.

    What we would need is a public standard for IPTV. Something DRM-free which I can ask for in a store like DVB-T or DVB-S. This is the base for interoperability, particularly in the face of open source solutions which become more and more important as the commercial solutions more and more act like malware.

    1. Vic

      Re: The problem with IPTV is...

      ...that there don't appear to be any simple and published standards

      Yeah, there are. They're laid down in the various parts of ISO 13818.

      Sure there actually are standards in use to get the multicast streams from your ISP, however you'll never know what they use and if there's DRM in there.

      They're transport streams. The enclosing format is very well-specified.

      If there is DRM of any flavour in there, that is something you're not going to get any info about - but as a user, you don't need it; you just supply the appropriate parts of the data feed to the correct CAM, and out pops unencrypted video.

      Something DRM-free which I can ask for in a store like DVB-T or DVB-S.

      Neither DVB-T not DVB-S are DRM-free. And nor is IPTV. That's the way of it, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

      This is the base for interoperability

      It isn't. There is already interoperability - but that is entirely orthogonal to the presence of DRM.

      Vic.

  14. Mage Silver badge

    It just isn’t feasible to run both DTT and mobile data services in the same band.

    TRUE!

    Also the 800MHz sell off was Governmental GREED.

    No "Digital dividend" for viewer or Broadcaster.

    The Mobile operators have captured the Regulators.

    They are using existing 900, 1800, 2100 etc poorly.

    It's driven by Licence Revenue. Not logic. Ofcom's agenda (And Comreg and some others) is to abolish Terrestrial TV.

  15. WereWoof
    Unhappy

    DSO

    I have to be honest, Since the Digital switch over I have stopped watching T.V. I found the massive increase in advertising unbearable, the increase in landfill programs that I wouldn`t be interested in the 1st time round let alone the 30th have completely put me off. It really is a case of more channels = less choice. I have virgin broadband and T.V, My mother has Freesat (she like cookery programs). I haven`t turned on the T.V to watch it now in years. it is much better for me to download what I want to watch and some kind person has removed the ads. The only time my set is on now is when my nephew comes over with his Xbox. T.V in UK is rapidly becoming like America T.V 90% ads 10% programs of which perhaps 1% interest me.Broadcast T.V. is dead, they just don`t realise it yet as the message is taking so long to get from the brain in the tail to the brain in the head.

  16. Mike Pellatt

    In the modern world, where everyone moves around, and companies want economies of scale, decisions on spectrum usage are agreed internationally.

    'twas always so. In the days when everything >300MHz was considered useless for anything except broadcast TV, the main reason was that the now pretty much unused (except for splurge from data over power devices and faulty ADSL/VDSL) frequencies <30MHz can travel worldwide, so international agreement was vital to avoid different services interfering with each other.

    Then satellites came along, and for much the same reasons international agreement was vital.

    Once upon a time, something like a third to a half of the spectrum from DC to 1GHz was allocated to TV. Now, that was wasteful

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