Quote:
Originally Posted by
cube799 /forum/post/16928422
Also most of the Channels on Freeview are in 16:9 SD, they use MPEG4, and they also have DVR that, Get This,
you don't have to pay a monthly fee for like Feevo. I Also hear that they might also have blue ray Recorders. I also like that they have Radio Stations. Also They don't have any VHF Channels.
Freeview is currently 4:3/16:9 SD MPEG2 only, using DVB-T 18/24Mbs OTA. The majority of channels, and all mainstream networks, are 16:9 SD, and all UK commissioned content has been 16:9 for quite a while. I currently receive around 90 Freeview 'services' - though these include radio, digital text and time-exclusive video streams. The current Freeview SD service is based around 6 x 8MHz muxes - 4x18Mbs and 2x24Mbs. It will move to 5x24Mbs eventually.
Freeview HD is due to launch later this year in some regions and will be 16:9 HD (I assume 1080/50i as this is what all UK HD broadcasts currently use) and will use H264 (aka MPEG4 pt 10/AVC) and DVB-T2 36Mbs OTA.
Freesat SD and HD are already on-air, using MPEG2 for 4:3/16:9 SD and H264 for 16:9 HD 1080/50i. (Bitrates vary between 8 and 16.5Mbs for H264 HD) Currently all Freesat broadcasts are DVB-S, though Freesat HD receivers must support DVB-S2.
Both Freesat and Freeview use the MHEG5 digital interactive text system, and the BBC offer Interactive TV on both platforms. There are two full-screen Interactive TV streams on Freeview and a number of 1/4 resolution streams (mainly carrying news, weather, sport news loops etc.). On Freesat there are more lower-resolution streams and at least 5 full-screen Interactive TV streams. (This allows us to watch multiple courts at Wimbledon, multiple live Olympic events etc. on Freeview and Freesat) The Digital text services include a full news, sport and weather text service, and the interactive TV streams aren't just sport. They carry music concerts, play along games for quiz shows, secondary educational streams for classical music etc.
Freeview and Freesat both have "+" services - which are 8 day PGs with Metadata (series link, programme start/stop triggers, alternative showing information to clash avoid etc.) and DVRs for both platforms are widely available. All broadcasters on the platform distribute EPG information for the others - so if I'm watching a BBC service, the BBC provide EPG information for ITV services on a different frequency. This means you don't need to tune multiple frequencies to fill the EPG...
Panasonic now market a Blu-ray recorder with hard drive and dual satellite tuners for Freesat HD, with Freesat + DVR support.
The UK hasn't used VHF for broadcast TV since we retired our VHF 405 line service (which was on bands I and III) in the 80s. Our 625 analogue services are exclusively UHF band IV and V, and our digital TV OTA services are also UHF.
Freeview and Freesat both carry a large range of radio stations - all the BBC networks, the BBC digital-only (also carried on DAB and IP) stations, BBC stations for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the large British Asian community, and a number of commercial stations. On both platforms they are accompanied by EPG information (making recording radio shows dead easy) and digital text support services (so you get some text on-screen)
However HD is still in its infancy here, we don't have "big budget" drama, and we do have our licence fee to pay.
We don't have really local TV stations, but we do have local/regional news on BBC One and ITV1, and we have significant national variations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Wales has it's own Welsh-language channel, S4C, and there is a BBC satellite station for Gaelic speakers, BBC Alba. There are also more variations on BBC One, BBC Two and ITV1 in the nations)
I'm not going to make any comparisons about content - as that is a purely subjective issue. Personally I enjoy some British and some US/Canadian programming, and I also enjoy Swedish TV for that matter.
I think that the US and UK have very different markets, very different geographies, and different histories. Our TV systems differ as a result. I think our broadcasters, rather than our government, have had much greater say on the technology used as well (with the BBC in particular creating or driving a lot of our infrastructure and technology)