OFCOM has announced it will currently not be reserving an HD slot for Five on Freeview. In June 2009, Ofcom made a provisional decision to reserve a HD slot for Five to provide new services on Freeview from 2010. This decision was subject to it resolving certain key criteria by the end of 2009. In OFCOM’s final decision published today (15 March) the regulator stated that Five had not been able to resolve the outstanding issues.

The only other applicants for the HD slot, Channel 4 and S4C, were unable to provide Ofcom with confirmation of their ability to launch a service within a defined timescale.

Any capacity within Multiplex B that is not reserved by OFCOM is available for the BBC to use. This brings forward by around two years the date when it was anticipated that further capacity on Multiplex B would revert to the control of the BBC Trust.

Sky and BT have signed a contract for the wholesale supply of Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2 to BT. The deal means that BT customers will be able to sign up for the subscription channels from early July.  BT Vision customers will be able to view Sky Sports 1 and 2 from August 1, in time for the start of the Premier League season on August 14.

Further evidence of how competitive all this could get is in the story of how Sky subscribers could be convinced to stay as customers by the offer of free viewing via their gadgets and widgets.

The onslaught of complaint regarding BBC’s HD quality finally won through with a raft of picture quality improvements following weeks of campaigners taking their grievances direct to the channels’ hierarchy.

The grief all started last August when the BBC introduced new HiDef encoders that reduced bandwidth below that of Sky’s HD and even their own BBC HD Worldwide channel. What made matters worse was the BBC claim that it was a variation in production styles that caused the picture quality drop. A full account of the campaigners visit to the BBC can be found on the BBC internet blog.

Further good news on the BBC front is the autumn launch of BBC1 HD elevating much of the top viewing programmes to HD status.

After eight years of free-to-air broadcasting the Sky Sports News will move to pay only later this year. With the move to Sky satellite, Virgin Media and Talk Talk TV comes the plan to launch a HiDef simulcast of the channel. Freeview will then air timeshift Sky3 +1 in place of the Sport News. Other Changes are also happening with the closure of Sky Real Lives with a shift of focus to Sky1 and Sky2.

Monday, 12 July 2010 11:59

NME TV has begun broadcasting on Freesat. The music channel features up-to-date charts, videos and music news from NME. CSE Media, who operate NME TV is also launching True Entertainment, a film, drama and documentary channel on Freesat this month.

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IF you’ve been to the pub to watch the Premier League football in 3D, you’ll know how exciting this new technology can be.

But things have moved on since most of the major manufacturers announced they were bringing 3D tellies to our living rooms back in January at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

So, to get you slap, bang, up-to-date with the latest news, here’s 9 things you should be aware of.

1) JOHN LEWIS has become the first store to sell 3D televisions in their shops. Well, one shop. The Samsung UE40 C7000 came out on Friday, priced at £1,799. But the 40 incher is only available in the Oxford Street branch or online. Other stores will have some on display though, just so you can check them out. Which does seem a little strange. You can also buy the Samsung 3D Blu-ray Player BD C6900 for £349 and if you do that with the telly, you get two pairs of specs and the 3D Blu-ray Monsters v Aliens DVD for nothing, saving £149.

2) COMET aren’t far behind with Samsung and Panasonic 3D sets already onsale on their websites, priced from £1600 to £2300. Selected stores are also set to get them this weekend, although there’s no news which ones just yet.

3) LG are the people supplying the tellies to pubs across the UK and working with Sky to bring football to life. Their sets will be out in May or June to buy for your home and LG are the only ones to offer both Active and Passive technology to power 3D pictures.

4) PASSIVE basically means all the gubbins to create a 3D image is inside the television. This means the glasses cost just 50p a pair and the TVs are cheaper too. It makes the jump to 3D much more affordable for people and LG’s LD950 — with a 47 inch display — will come with four pairs of polarised glasses out of the box for all the family. It will cost between £1500 and £2500.

5) ACTIVE on the other hand places a lot of the technology in the glasses themselves, meaning they might look a lot cooler, but they’ll cost you upwards of £100 a piece. The active shutter system blacks out each eye without you noticing when needed so the left and right eye see the images meant for them. That means full high definition 1080p pictures can be received by each eye to provide the clearest HD picture available. LG’s LX9900 Active TVs will be in 47 and 55 inch sizes and cost around £2500 and £3600.

6) IT’S not all about watching football though. There’s going to be plenty of 3D games coming out in the next year or two. The likes of Avatar — itself a great 3D movie — are setting the standard for a whole new way of immersing yourself in virtual action.

7) IF you own a PlayStation 3, then you’ll be pleased to know it will be 3D compatible. A free software update to be delivered soon will allow it to spin 3D Blu-ray movies and games without the need to upgrade your hardware. Sony’s own 3D Bravia models will be out in June.

THERE’S also good news for Sky+ HD customers. The box will work with the new 3D channel from Sky and it’s actually operational now. You’ll need to call customer services though to make it live for you but it won’t cost you a penny more. There’s very little content right now but by the autumn Sky plan to have proper 3D shows and movies to tune into.

9) A 3D DVD version of Avatar is on the way for next Spring. That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter which says Fox Home Entertainment is planning the disc. The 2D version sold more than four million Blu-ray copies on its launch day in America and will be massive here too when it comes out next week. But it’s not the same as watching it as James Cameron intended in cinemas and as 3D TVs slowly begin to invade our high street stores, it won’t be long until someone down your road has one and starts selling tickets to their living room.

Combine the latest Sony 3D Blu-ray players with any one of the TV sets on the way to enjoy 3D films in your front room. The memorably tagged BDP-S470 and the BDP-S570 will both upscale your standard definition DVD’s and give you access to loads of BD-Live content via the internet. The 3D Blu-ray discs should start arriving by the end of this year, so then, just don your active shutter specs and enjoy your films with those paying guests. The S570 model has built-in WiFi by the way, apart from that the players are peas-in-a-pod. No word on price yet.

There are different colour cables but on the whole many aerial engineers will use white or black cable depending on the colour of the house,to attach the cable to a wall you will need cable tacks which you should run all the way down at a good 300mm apart, this is to look tidy but most important that it does not fly around in the wind and get caught on anything. you will need good quality cable, double shielded 75 ohm cable is best, examples; made by webro and raydex though there are more manufactures coming on the market all the time. You will need connectors to connect to your aerial and also to your TV, the connectors you will need will depend on the aerial but some aerials will have connectors already on them.

This is the offical release from the BBC about the plan for Freeview HD.

The plan is still to launch Freeview HD on December 2nd at the Winter Hill transmitter serving Manchester and Liverpool. The plan has always been to roll Freeview HD out around the country following switchover and Winter Hill was selected as the first achievable transmitter. There will need to be a retrospective upgrade of regions that have already switched.

The originally mentioned date of November came from the fact that Winter Hill starts to switch over in November. But it was quickly realised that the BBC’s second Multiplex (Mux B) that is being converted for Freeview HD actually switches over on 2nd December at Winter Hill.

The March 2010 date in the Ofcom document is simply the last backstop date by when Winter Hill has to be on air to comply with our licence conditions. They’ve built in a contingency (as already happens in switchover licences).

The BBC has been working on plans to deliver early upgrades to some stations (serving high populations) that are late in the switchover programme and would otherwise have to wait long for Freeview HD.

One example is London that switches over in 2012 but we’re planning to upgrade its Crystal Palace transmitter in December this year. There are another four main transmitters that we plan to upgrade in the first half of 2010. We can give the names and dates of these transmitters in a little while when plans are a bit firmer. We are also planning an upgrade to the Digital UK postcode database, which will tell viewers when they can expect their transmitter to be upgraded to Freeview HD.

Although everything is still on track against plans, there are significant technical and contractual challenges – not least to get transmission and domestic receiver equipment through design, development and delivery stages within an ambitious timescale. As with any major technical project, there is always a risk of slippage due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control. However, there is industry-wide commitment to rolling out Freeview HD as soon as possible, and good progress is being made on all fronts.

Graham Plumb is the Head of Distribution Technology, BBC Operations Group.

Does it mention you need another box?