Many Freeview HD channels facing axe in June 2022

[Ar]

Thanks to EE winning an auction of the frequency for Com7, Freeview will
be losing a lot of channels, including BBC News HD, BBC Four HD, QVC HD,
Quest HD, CBeebies HD, and a few other channels.

In other words, we are losing most the HD channels to go back to the
stone ages of SD video. Thanks EE, we really didn't want or need your 5G
shit.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1620580/Freeview-update-COM7-shutdown-BBC-channel-shut-down

[JNugent]

Sky+HD?

Just a suggestion.

[Ar]

On 04/06/2022 15:52, JNugent wrote:

>> https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/science-technology/1620580/Freeview-update-COM7-shutdown-BBC-channel-shut-down
>
>
> Sky+HD?
>
> Just a suggestion.

There is no information on if the axed HD and SD channels on Freeview,
will continue on Freesat - which naturally has an even smaller audience.

How does the rest of Europe have many FTA HD channels, but UK decides to
axe the HD and leave us with shitty SD?

[Brian Smith]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DTT_channels_in_the_United_Kingdom

click on the arrow in the 'H.222 Transport' column to sort by that to
see the COM7 channels being lost.

[JNugent]

Priorities, it seems.

OfCom seems not to understand how crucial it is to be able to see QVC's
cooking pots, frying pans and other wares in full HD.

[Andy Burns]

Brian Smith wrote:

> click on the arrow in the 'H.222 Transport' column to sort by that to see the
> COM7 channels being lost.

Or just look at a website that lets you filter by mux

<https://www.terrestrialtv.uk/dtt.php?reg=UK&mux=E&type=VRDTSGAHUYXCZILP&col=LNM>

[Mike Swift]

In article <t7fuc7$gs0$1...@dont-email.me>, Ar <A...@127.0.0.1> writes

>
>There is no information on if the axed HD and SD channels on Freeview, will
>continue on Freesat - which naturally has an even smaller audience.
>
>How does the rest of Europe have many FTA HD channels, but UK decides
>to axe the HD and leave us with shitty SD?

One word MONEY.

Mike

--
Michael Swift We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners.
Kirkheaton We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians.
Yorkshire Halvard Lange

[Richard Evans]

Presumably no more Com7, so presumably no more Forces TV then :|.

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
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[Richard Evans]

On 05/06/2022 01:12, Mike Swift wrote:

> One word MONEY.
>
> Mike
>

Yep. The government would rather make money by auctioning off spectrum,
than provide good public services.

[Mike Swift]

In article <t8o01q$1dg3$2...@gioia.aioe.org>, Richard Evans
<R.P.Evan...@Sky.com> writes

>> One word MONEY.
>>
>> Mike
>>
>
>Yep. The government would rather make money by auctioning off spectrum,
>than provide good public services.

To be fair I only use them if there is a programme I want to watch and
Virgin goes down, the only time I use the TV for anything other than
showing Virgin is for You Tube and steaming video, music and photos from
my computer upstairs to the TV.

[JNugent]

On 19/06/2022 09:10 pm, Richard Evans wrote:

> Presumably no more Com7, so presumably no more Forces TV then :|.

Hasn't it been announced that Forces TV is to close?

[Richard Evans]

On 20/06/2022 13:47, Mike Swift wrote:

>
> To be fair I only use them if there is a programme I want to watch and
> Virgin goes down, the only time I use the TV for anything other than
> showing Virgin is for You Tube and steaming video, music and photos from
> my computer upstairs to the TV.

With Freeview you have a very wide choice of PVRs.
With Virgin, you can only choose what they want to offer you.
With satellite, there is probably a bit more choice, but
I'm not allowed to install a dish where I am. In any case
where I am the view of the South Eastern sky is very
restricted. So satellite probably wouldn't work.

After paying my TV license for BBC, and putting up with
adverts on other stations. I would consider it a cheek to
have to pay extra to get them on Virgin when I can't even
choose what PVR I want to use.

[Richard Evans]

On 20/06/2022 14:06, JNugent wrote:

> Hasn't it been announced that Forces TV is to close?

It would probably make no difference to me if com7 closes.
As I would no longer be able to get it anyway.

[Mike Swift]

In article <re53bh19eml3e5ktd...@4ax.com>, Martin
<m...@address.invalid> writes
>There is very little choice of Freesat PVR. There is so little choice that
>Freesat had to get somebody to make them after Humax stopped making
>Freesat PVRs Reliability of Humax Freesat recorders was poor, which is
>odd because we have had a Humax Dutch cable PVR for more than ten
>years without problems.

We've had similar conversations in the past about PVR's, I have a
Topfield TF5800, it had 2 tuners and served me well until i got a Virgin
box, it's still in a cupboard in the spare bedroom together with an AIWA
VHS recorder I use now and again to digitise old F1 tapes.

[Ar]

On 21/06/2022 11:01, Martin wrote:
>> With Freeview you have a very wide choice of PVRs.
>> With Virgin, you can only choose what they want to offer you.
>> With satellite, there is probably a bit more choice,
>

> There is very little choice of Freesat PVR. There is so little choice that
> Freesat had to get somebody to make them after Humax stopped making Freesat PVRs
> Reliability of Humax Freesat recorders was poor, which is odd because we have
> had a Humax Dutch cable PVR for more than ten years without problems.

Rather than sending it to a tip, I turned an old unused computer in to a
PVR, zero problems, record all the steams on the multiplex if you want.
Pick your own cable / terrestrial / or satellite card (or a combi card).
Overkill yes, but it works and you chose what you want depending on budget.

[NY]

"Martin" <m...@address.invalid> wrote in message
news:9a6gbhhcps25ns2i9...@4ax.com...

> Can a whole family watch it? It's outrageous the way Microsoft has made
> perfectly good PCs obsolete, without any real advantages to the user.

I use a Raspberry Pi for recording, using DVB-USB tuners and TVHeadend
software. I could use the Pi as a file server to devices such as TVs, but I
tend to copy edited versions of the recorded programs to a Windows PC which
I use as a file server, and that PC is only on when I'm using it as a PC or
as a TV file server, with only the Pi (and its USB HDD) needing to be left
on 24/7.

I have a few old PCs. One has Win 10, for experience at a time when I was
only used to Win 7. The other has various interchangeable HDDs on which I've
installed various flavours of Linux (Ubuntu, Cinnamon Mint etc) for practice
/ experience of Unix and the various GUIs.

[Richard Evans]

On 25/06/2022 12:12, Ar wrote:

> Rather than sending it to a tip, I turned an old unused computer in to a
> PVR, zero problems, record all the steams on the multiplex if you want.
> Pick your own cable / terrestrial / or satellite card (or a combi card).
> Overkill yes, but it works and you chose what you want depending on budget.

If you mean MythTV, I pretty much gave up on that because the video
playback was jerky. The reason is simple enough but actually
solving it, seemed to be impossible :|. It would probably be
fine in the USA where the refresh rate is 60Hz. But here were
we use 50Kz, but computers are 60Hz. That was just a frustrating
problem that I gave up on.

Perhaps it depends on what you find acceptable.

[NY]

"Richard Evans" <R.P.Evan...@Sky.com> wrote in message
news:t9head$1bjt$1...@gioia.aioe.org...

> On 25/06/2022 12:12, Ar wrote:
>
>> Rather than sending it to a tip, I turned an old unused computer in to a
>> PVR, zero problems, record all the steams on the multiplex if you want.
>> Pick your own cable / terrestrial / or satellite card (or a combi card).
>> Overkill yes, but it works and you chose what you want depending on
>> budget.
>
> If you mean MythTV, I pretty much gave up on that because the video
> playback was jerky. The reason is simple enough but actually
> solving it, seemed to be impossible :|. It would probably be
> fine in the USA where the refresh rate is 60Hz. But here were
> we use 50Kz, but computers are 60Hz. That was just a frustrating
> problem that I gave up on.
>
> Perhaps it depends on what you find acceptable.

For playing back 50 Hz video on my PC, I've set the video card refresh rate
to 50 Hz (or maybe 100 Hz) as opposed to 60/120 Hz. That hopefully means
that there is no 10 Hz beating pattern between the rate at which the screen
is redrawn and the rate at which video frames change. On a CRT monitor where
each pixel is lit sequentially, 50 Hz would have been far too low, but on an
LED monitor where all the pixels are lit for almost the whole 1/50 second,
it doesn't matter. I use VLC to play videos.

I investigated MythTV as a means of recording, and found it difficult to
configure. I quickly abandoned it and chose NextPVR instead. And since that
wasn't (at the time) available on Linux, I changed from NextPVR to TVHeadend
when I moved from a Windows PC to a lower-powered Raspberry Pi as the
recording device.

I now record using TVHeadend on a Pi, but I use a Windows PC to store the
recordings, watching a lot of them on that PC, but also running Plex server
on the PC and a Plex client on a Roku that is connected by HDMI to the main
TV. I separated out the functionality for several reasons:

- didn't want the workload of playing the video in VLC to affect the
integrity of recordings that were being made at the same time, leading to
dropped frames and other glitches

- didn't want to have to keep a couple of multi-TB HDDs spinning all the
time; instead just use a single HDD as the temporary recording storage; at
present that disc is a spinning one, but I might be able to save power by
using a solid state HDD instead

- although Plex server will run on a Pi4, it makes the CPU usage and
temperature shoot up when a video is being served to the Roku Plex client; a
lot of that is due to the stupid transcoding that takes place between the
raw MPEG/H264 TS file and whatever bizarre format the client wants to see -
why couldn't the client be left to decode the TS file served by simple SMB
over the network?

[Richard Evans]

On 29/06/2022 13:39, NY wrote:

>
> For playing back 50 Hz video on my PC, I've set the video card refresh
> rate to 50 Hz (or maybe 100 Hz) as opposed to 60/120 Hz.

That was one of the 1st things I tried to do, but my computer video
did not have a 50Hz or even a 100 Hz option. I tried to find a
video card that could do 50Hz, so that I could use it in building
a PC for a MythTV front end. As an added complication I was
determined to keep the front end fanless. Trying to find a fanless
video card that can do 50Hz basically just gave me brain fog.

I actually didn't intend to watch it on a computer. I actually
still use analogue TVs, with a modulator connected to my PVR
to drive all my TVs. So my front end would have ultimately been
a PC connected to a modulator.

I now use the PC I intended for the front end to run a back end.
I mostly just use my PVR, but use my Myth back end either as a
backup for when my PVR simply doesn't record something, or when
I want to get an Mpeg file. I use the MythTV web interface to
schedule recordings. To play back, the back end provides a Upnp
service, but I normally prefer to just copy the mpeg file to my
PVRs hard drive.

It's been many years since I tried to find a suitable video card.
Perhaps things may have moved on since then.

>
> I investigated MythTV as a means of recording, and found it difficult to
> configure.

Yes it is a pain to set up. I mostly just leave it as it is and only
very occasionality go into the setup. I usually need some Googling
to remind me how to do it. Last time was when BBC3 returned to air
so I went in to to a complete rescan. The rescan only took a few
minutes, but I was probably about 1/2 hour reminding myself how to do it.

> - didn't want to have to keep a couple of multi-TB HDDs spinning all the
> time; instead just use a single HDD as the temporary recording storage;
> at present that disc is a spinning one, but I might be able to save
> power by using a solid state HDD instead

I would tend to steer clear of solid state drives for this. I think
an issue would be that there is a limit to how many times you can
write to an SSD. Although the limit is very high, video files take
a lot of data. So if you are regularly writing a lot of video files
to an SSD, it might not take a very long before you start reaching
the limit.

[NY]

"Richard Evans" <R.P.Evan...@Sky.com> wrote in message

news:t9j6de$7ae$1...@gioia.aioe.org...

>> - didn't want to have to keep a couple of multi-TB HDDs spinning all the
>> time; instead just use a single HDD as the temporary recording storage;
>> at present that disc is a spinning one, but I might be able to save power
>> by using a solid state HDD instead
>
> I would tend to steer clear of solid state drives for this. I think
> an issue would be that there is a limit to how many times you can
> write to an SSD. Although the limit is very high, video files take
> a lot of data. So if you are regularly writing a lot of video files
> to an SSD, it might not take a very long before you start reaching
> the limit.

That's a fair point. I'd always been led to believe that SSDs didn't like
frequent deletions and writes, which is why you are advised not to defrag
them. But I've recently read than they are fine for large video files,
despite the large amount of data and therefore the large number of writes
involved.

Maybe I'll play it safe and stay with a spinning disc...

[Ar]

On 26/06/2022 09:34, Martin wrote:

> Can a whole family watch it? It's outrageous the way Microsoft has made
> perfectly good PCs obsolete, without any real advantages to the user.

You can build a "media centre" PC relatively cheaply or re-use an old
computer to do it - it just has to be good enough to be able to play HD
video. Get rid of Windows, use Linux, or as someone already replied, you
can use a Raspberry Pi with a USB device called a "RTL SDR" (software
defined radio). These two options may be a bit more involved compared to
getting a dumb box from the high street, but they will record what you
want, and if not using Windows, they should ignore any "do not record"
flags the broadcasters send out.

I have successfully recorded with Windows 7 - if you're using later, ask
around for advice.

BTW, the bastards at Freeview deliberately scramble their EPG, so if
you're not using "official" kit with the Freeview logo on it, the text
for the EPG will be scrambled, and you won;'t be able to read it. This
is because the manufacturer refused to pay Freeview money to unscramble
the text. I don't know anyone else in Europe that deliberately scrambles
their EPG.

Freesat is not affected the same way by the wanker tactics of Freeview
on the EPG, but some stations only have "now and next" option, so unless
you know their schedule, you won't be able to programme anything in
advance from an EPG.

[NY]

"Ar" <A...@127.0.0.1> wrote in message news:t9kjkn$1v62p$1...@dont-email.me...

I'm not sure how good the RasPi RTL SDR is in comparison with dedicated
tuners such as the PCTV 292e (terrestrial) and 491e (satellite). I've only
used those, and not tried the RTL SDR.

I use TVHeadend software which is a bit geeky and complex to setup (I can
pass on my experience if people need help) but does a good job. It extracts
EPGs perfectly: the EPG for SD multiplexes is unencrypted, and it decrypts
the encrypted one for PSB3 (the "HD" mux). It ignores any "do not record"
flags that broadcasters may throw at it ;-)

I use a Pi 4 for recording and a Windows PC for editing out
commercials/continuity and for acting as a server that the TV or various PCs
can access when playing programmes.

[Richard Evans]

On 30/06/2022 09:53, NY wrote:

> That's a fair point. I'd always been led to believe that SSDs didn't
> like frequent deletions and writes, which is why you are advised not to
> defrag them.

I suspect the advice not to defrag, is more to do with there being no
point. They don't have the time penalty of waiting for heads to move
to the right track, or waiting for the disk platter to rotate to the
right point. So why shorten their life by defragging them.

But I've recently read than they are fine for large video
> files, despite the large amount of data and therefore the large number
> of writes involved.

Is it still OK to keep writing many such files every day?

>
> Maybe I'll play it safe and stay with a spinning disc...

I'm not certain, but I think I would be trying to calculate it,
and if I wasn't certain, I wouldn't do it.

[Richard Evans]

On 04/06/2022 15:38, Ar wrote:

> Thanks to EE winning an auction of the frequency for Com7, Freeview will
> be losing a lot of channels,

It seems to have gone now :|.

I'd previously repositioned my aerial to get com7 (to reduce
interference from other TXs). I may as well now move it back again
now. To where it got a slightly better signal for the other
multiplexes.