Freesat pumps up its music channels with Massive R&B

September 2011
Freesat today announced that it is adding Massive R&B to its range of existing music channels: NME TV, Bliss, Chart Show TV, Flava and the Vault. Massive R&B is the home of the hottest R&B and Hip Hop videos, interviews, countdowns and exclusives.

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Freesat confirms Sagemcom as lead manufacturer for its next generation of set-top boxes

September 2011
Freesat today confirmed it is partnering with Sagemcom as its lead manufacturer for the development of its next generation set-top boxes, due to launch in early 2012. Freesat confirmed that Humax would also be producing new boxes later in 2012.

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Freesat hits 2 million sales

September 2011
Freesat today announced it has sold its 2 millionth unit, far exceeding original sales projections made when the company launched three years ago, and taking gross retail sales to nearly £1 billion since launch in 2008.

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Freesat team member scoops prestigious RTS Young Technologist award

July 2011
The Royal Television Society (RTS), Britain’s leading forum for discussion and debate across the television community, has announced this year’s winner of their Young Technologist award as Freesat employee Peter Sellar, beating stiff competition from across the television industry.

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Freesat strengthens its On Demand service with the launch of ITV Player

July 2011
Freesat today made it even easier for customers to take control of their TV viewing as it announced the arrival of ITV Player on its subscription-free TV service. The only TV service to offer both ITV Player and BBC iPlayer, Freesat’s customers can now catch-up on all their favourite ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 programmes, up to seven days after broadcast.

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Freesat appoints new Finance Director

July 2011
Freesat, the subscription-free satellite TV service, is delighted to announce the appointment of a new Finance Director, Alistair Thom. Alistair brings a wealth of experience to the role of Finance Director, joining Freesat from KPMG where he has worked for the last five years as a Manager in the financial advisory team, across a wide range of commercial clients including AOL, Arqiva and Jaguar Land Rover.

If you have a high-gain aerial or use signal amplifiers, it is quite common to find that the high-power digital signals provided after switchover will overload your Freeview equipment – and can appear to be “weak signals”.

Eliminating other possible problems first

The first is that very, very old equipment will not function with the digital signals split into 6,817 sub-signals, as it was only designed to work with 1,705 sub-signals. This is known as the “8k mode issue” – see  TVs and boxes that do not support the 8k

It is also common that people do not clear out the old channel list (by selecting “first time installation” retune, “Factory Reset” or “Shipping Condition”) before doing an “autoscan” for the available broadcast frequencies, and this results in everything from missing channels to no subtitles, programme guide, wrong channel numbers and no text services. If you can’t find how to do it see either  Freeview Retune – list of manuals or do it this way:  My Freeview box has no EPG, is blank, has no sound or the channel line up is wrong.

A third problem is caused by having signals from more than one transmitter – see DigitalRegion Overlap.

The final very common issue is “too much signal“.

Transmitters have much more digital power after switchover

At most transmitters, the digital signals after switchover are considerably more powerful than before. This was because when the analogue and digital services ran together, the digital services were kept low to prevent appearing as snowy interference on television sets using analogue reception.

Here is an example, from Sutton Coldfield, of how the signals change at switchover:

4,000kW of analogue signals are turned off, and the digital services increase in total power from 48kW to 1,200kW – that is an increase of 25 times in numerical terms, also know as +14dB. (The reduction of -7dB from the analogue strength is intended – the digital services require less power to cover the same number of homes).

This large increase in power should cause no effect for most people. A stronger signal does not increase the picture quality (you need Freeview HD for that), sound levels – the only effect should be that more homes that are further away from the transmitter mast can receive a stable digital signal.

High gain aerials and signal boosters

However, many people have been tempted into buying one both high gain aerials and signal boosters.

High-gain aerials were very suitable for places where the Freeview signal before switchover was very weak indeed, but if you have one of these and you are located closer to the transmitter, you will probably now have a signal overload.

Generally speaking, signal booster devices are never really much use for Freeview reception, and much of the time they actually amplify the interference more than they do the signal, causing reception to get worse, not better.

How to tell if you have too much signal

There are almost as many ways for a Freeview box to display the “signal strength” and “signal quality” as there are types of Freeview box. Here are some of them:

Speaking generally, there will be two indicators:

One is signal strength – this shows the power level of the signal entering the Freeview box. Often “0″ is the lowest and “10″ the highest, but sometimes it can be a percentage, sometimes coloured boxes and so on.

The signal strength should be around 75% – more than this indicates too much signal.

The other measure is the signal quality and this is much more important to high-quality Freeview viewing. Any measures that increase this to the maximum will provide for uninterrupted viewing, lower values will result in “bit errors” that cause the picture to freeze and the sound to mute out.

One problem with over powerful signals is the overload can sometimes show as a low signal because the receiver circuitry will enter a “blown fuse” state to protect itself.

How to deal with too much signal

First, if you have a booster or amplifier – remove it from your system. Don’t just unplug the power, as this will result in no signal getting though the device.

If you can’t just disconnect the output cable and connect it to the input cable, you might need a coax female-female coupler to connect two male connectors together.

If you don’t have a booster or amplifier, you might have to fit an attenuator onto the cable. They come in two types, either a “single attenuator”, around five pounds, or a variable attenuator, for around ten pounds. The variable sort has a knob that can be turned to select the required level of signal dampening.

Original from Brian Butterworth  (More Content at http://www.ukfree.tv)

All you need to know about the Digital Switchover

As the Broadcasters, Freeview and Digital UK have notified, throughout 2011 and 2012 the Digital Switchover will come into effect in the majority of the UK (that has not already switched).

Why is Digital taking over?
Digital Television is now the best technology for broadcasting, ensuring availability of more channels with greater picture and sound as well as new interactivity features.
Digital Switchover – get set for digital

To make sure this is nationwide; the digital signal needs to be available across the UK.

Currently, approximately 75% of households are in areas where a digital broadcast signal is available. After the Digital Switchover, almost everyone (a minimum of 98% of the UK) will be able to receive digital TV through a conventional aerial.

As a result, it will be necessary for all customers to re-tune their Freeview product, possibly more than once, depending on your area.
Digital Switchover

For information regarding the dates of these changes in your local area please go to TV Re-tune or DigitalUK

To the right hand side of this page you will find retune guides for different models of TV and DVD Recorders to guide you through how to perform a retune on your product.

If you are unsure whether your Panasonic product is digital ready; look for the DVB logo (below) on the TV or the instruction manual.
DVB – Digital Video Broadcasting

The above information is useful for the Digital Switch Over related retuning, however we would always recommend, as good practice to retune your product periodically, to ensure that you receive all channels available in your postcode area.

For additional information regarding channel availability and your local transmitter, please refer to Digital UK website.

Analogue television channels in Oxfordshire and parts of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire have been permanently switched off.

The digital switchover began on 14 September when BBC Two’s analogue signal was turned off at the Oxford transmitter group.

Freeview channels are now available to viewers who had previously been in digital blackspots.

The move completes the digital switchover in the Oxfordshire area.

Before 14 September, about 6,000 viewers in areas including Chipping Norton had been unable to receive BBC Freeview channels.

The final switchover on Wednesday has meant further Freeview channels from ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 are available from local transmitters for the first time.

Existing Freeview viewers will have to retune their sets.

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.

The switch to digital TV could damage the regional licences held by ITV, according to the industry watchdog.

Ofcom claims that by 2012 the costs of the licences which allow the organisation to broadcast could be overshadow the benefits it offers.

It estimates that the ITV network could lose up to £64 million a year and new funding would be needed after the digital TV switchover to maintain the Channel 3 licence.

The Channel 3 regional licences allow ITV to broadcast in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland using analogue and digital signals, but have “a number of public service broadcasting obligations”.

Ofcom says: “As the digital TV roll-out gathers pace across the UK, the value [of the licence] is declining.”

Terrestrial signals were switched off permanently in south and central Wales earlier this week, as engineers worked to improve services so new Freeview channels can be received for the first time in Llanelli, Builth Wells and Rhayader.