BBC/ITV Freesat service delayed?

Mayo Exile

I notice that on the BBC Ceefax engineering page (p.698) the hoped for launch date of BBC/ITV Freesat service is now 2007. Anybody have any further info?

Ulsterman 1690

Surely the "service" is already here and has been since BBC (and laterlly ITV) went FTA. They may be waiting until 2007 before they begin actively promoting it but thats quite another matter

Charles Slane

It's true that the channels are already there and available free to air, but I think the "service" as such will be Freesat-branded boxes with their own EPG. They may well also have non-Sky boxes with hard-drives for recording programmes without having to pay any subscription for the facility.

watty

They have been slow with spec for non-Sky Interactive and non-Sky 1 or 2 week program guide so Philips can't make the boxes yet.

Issues. Licence costs: MHP is gone mental on Royalties per box pricing. The "Open TV" used by Sky is horrid and Sky uses proprietary extensions to it. A "home grown" Interactive will take time to develop and debug.

HD TV: They may have decided to go for a box able to decode MPEG4 (even if not HD output).

The Freesat launch they are talking about is BBC/ITV branded boxes that do more than current FTA boxes. Though some or many current FTA boxes may support what they decide to do (on EPG/Guide /Interactive), or later have OTA (over the air) SW upgrade to do "it".

In either case BBC/ITV will continue to support the Sky EPG/Guide and the channels with now/next basic EPG continue to work on all FTA boxes.

Ulsterman 1690

This might sound like a silly question but.....

MHP is gone mental on Royalties per box pricing.

Who/what are MHP ?

L1011

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

This might sound like a silly question but.....


Who/what are MHP ?

Multimedia Home Platform. Interactive platform that was expected to be used by all FTA broadcasters in Europe. However, its gone so bloody expensive - broadcasts having to pay per-user-per-year fees, etc - that its gone unlikely

MHEG5 (shudder) may get re-used as a result.

Lennoxschips

They may well also have non-Sky boxes with hard-drives for recording programmes without having to pay any subscription for the facility.

Sky+, the greatest racket in broadcasting. Pay extra money to be able to use your own equipment.

watty

MHEG5, AFAIK is the system used by OnDigital/ITVDigital now Freeview. Not quite as evil as Open TV which is "C" based (NOT C++!).

At the minute, Either the "original" or "Sky" versions of "Open TV" , MHEG5 and MHP all look unlikely. If I was the tech bod, I'd be scratching my head.

The Actual TV guide can be done for a week using just the ordinary DVB spec, why they haven't started doing this already I have no idea.

lawhec

It'll probably end up that much of the "Freesat" specifications will be borrowed over from Freeview.

MHEG5 isn't that bad, and MHP is now unlikely to make an appearence on DTT in the UK. IIRC MHEG licences cost very little, with MHEG6 allowing for greater interactive services.

The 8-day EPG on Freeview is based on the DVB standard. There should be no reason why BBC & ITV cannot roll this out. German broadcasters already do this.

The BBC already promote Freesat from Sky without actually mentioning Sky right now. There's no real hurry as Freeview is still rolling out strongly, Freesat will only be strongly promoted when Freeview takeup starts to slow (mainly down to most people in coverage areas already receiving the service) and when the analogue switch-off starts in 2008 in the English-Scottish border regions.

bk

There seems to be two reasons for the delay:

1) ITV has decided to delay their funding of the launch until next year.

2) BBC/ITV want to launch a system that is HD capable from the start.

BBC will be testing HD on Sat and Freeview over the next few months.

And potentially they might be waiting for C4 to join them.

Since the channels are FTA already, I think it is more important for them to wait and make sure they get it right from the start.

lawhec

The HDTV theory is a plausable one.

Channel 4 IIRC cannot go FTA on Satellite until 2008, so will still be left behind on a 2007 launch (will double check this).

EDIT: Yup, both Channel 4 and Five have encryption contracts that run until 2008, what date exactly though I don't know.

Sponge Bob

Northern Correspondent wrote:

Channel 4 IIRC cannot go FTA on Satellite until 2008, so will still be left behind on a 2007 launch (will double check this).

Channel 4 is busy shunting thornier DRM issues onto E4 and More4 which process may take 2 years anyway.

Thereafter I believe they could launch on freesat while avoiding rights problems . As for 5 :rolleyes: . Another 1000 car chases here or there I could do without.