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back to article Freeview HD to debut in December

The first BBC HD broadcasts on Freeview will start in December, it has been confirmed. Manchester and Liverpool will be the first cities to get Freeview HD, said Graham Plumb, Head of Distribution Technology at BBC Operations. This will happen on 2 December, when the free HD signal will be switched on at the Winter Hill …

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  1. Annihilator
    Go

    Upgrade of Crystal Palace

    Booo!!! Crystal Palace was broadcasting HD signals during the trial a couple of years back, so not sure what this upgrade malarkey is all about! I managed to capture about 10 minutes of the BBC loop on a DVB card - couldn't get it to transcode in realtime though.

    Get the finger out! I read all the time how London gets unfair preferential treatment, let's see some proof of it! :-D

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  2. Apocalypse Later

    Late

    You can already get HD on Freesat. Nothing to do with Sky, completely free TV with a couple of HD channels. By the time there are any on freeview, I would expect to see several more on Freesat.

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  3. Lost in a maze of twisty messages, all alike.
    Boffin

    HD DVB-T on my PC ?

    Just out of interest - if I had a DVB(T) card, and if I were in one of these lucky areas (we are currently scheduled to be even later than London in switchover I think) - if so, could I then receive HD Freeview without upgrading ? If it's only a matter of codecs, it seems to me it should be at worst a Simple Matter Of Programming.

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  4. PhilR

    @Lost in a maze of twisty messages, all alike

    You'll need a new receiver card. Freeview HD will use DVB-T2 instead of DVB-T, which will require different demodulation hardware.

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  5. Quirkafleeg

    Re: HD DVB-T on my PC?

    The article says that it'll be broadcast using DVB-T2 (which some of us knew anyway) for the higher bandwidth; so no, you won't be able to receive it without new cards or USB sticks. But your existing hardware will still be fine for everything else since the other multiplexes will still be using DVB-T.

    Anyway, once the data is received, handling it *is* just a matter of codecs (as I understand it) – it's still DVB.

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  6. Lost in a maze of twisty messages, all alike.
    Happy

    Re: HD DVB-T on my PC?

    Thanks PhilR and Quirkafleeg - I hadn't appreciated the difference of DVB-T2. Must read more carefully (since I am always complaining that Reg journo's don't any more !)

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  7. Bassey
    Thumb Down

    What was the point of the switchover

    We were the told the reason for going through the hassle of the digital switchover was to free up bandwidth for additional services. We've had the pain of being one of the first to be switched over. I say switched over. We didn't have ANY digital services until the day they turned off the analogue. Nothing.

    But hey, at least we'll be first to get all the new stuff, won't we. Oh no. We don't get half the new digital stations, they are turning off some of the ones we get now (we've only had them for 11 days) and now we find out Winterhill (which has not yet switched) will get the new stuff before we do.

    So can someone please explain what the fuck the point was of of being forced to be first when they clearly weren't ready? Oh yeah, I live in a small rural area so no-one gives a shit. I forgot.

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  8. The Impostor

    Freeview HD TVs?

    Any news of LCD TVs with integrated Freeview HD receivers in the pipeline? I hope there will be some available in time for December.

    I look forward to the day when HD broadcasting is standard. But then how long did it take for widescreen to become the norm!

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  9. Kevin Gordon
    WTF?

    Oh no....

    So does this mean that all those people out there today buying a shiny new HD TV with the brilliant benefit of built in Freeview, are effectively buying already obsolete hardware?

    Despite have Freeview built in, you STILL need another box?

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  10. SImon Hobson Bronze badge
    FAIL

    RE: Oh no....

    Correct, very few, if any, current "HD" TV sets will be able to display HD. But don't expect any TV salepersons to know, or mention, this little problem.

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