4G and Freeview

[Anna]

mangerton,

Thanks for info but as I said I have had FreeSat for a while because of Freeview's limited range here. I did, this morning, check on Freeview's home page for coverage using my postcode and the choice of Wenvoe or alternative relay and those are the tv channels they said I could get (I omitted to list BBC News channel and one childrens' channel - CBeebies!) But you are perfectly correct, we all do pay the same licence fee and I certainly wouldn't be happy if I'd decided to go with Freeview which offers a vastly inferior product as regards viewing/listening choice here.

[Don Petter]

mangerton,

Thanks for info but as I said I have had FreeSat for a while because of Freeview's limited range here. I did, this morning, check on Freeview's home page for coverage using my postcode and the choice of Wenvoe or alternative relay and those are the tv channels they said I could get (I omitted to list BBC News channel and one childrens' channel - CBeebies!) But you are perfectly correct, we all do pay the same licence fee and I certainly wouldn't be happy if I'd decided to go with Freeview which offers a vastly inferior product as regards viewing/listening choice here.

Not sure if you're saying you can or can't get Wenvoe, but if you can you should be able to get all Freeview channels on all six multiplexes:

http://www.ukfree.tv/txdetail.php?a=ST110742

(Albeit that the three COMs are only half the power of the PSNs. Still 50000 watts, though.)

[Anna]

Don, this is very kind of you but somewhat academic since I'm happy with FreeSat but I was just going by Freeview's homepage coverage checker!! I will do a straw poll tomorrow amongst colleagues to see if they are satellite or have Freeview (certainly in my little area of 20 houses we are all satellite)

[Dave2002]

But, DAB radio where I am is a non-starter (maybe possible with new large aerial installations?) so I am reliant on my FM radio for everyday listening and whilst I can go in the room where the tv is to listen via FreeSat (not convenient as a large part of my listening is in the kitchen/dining area) or listen via the computer (with a not very brilliant sound and again not convenient) I want to able to listen in any room I choose, hence my portable Roberts which also gives me LW (for Radio 4 Cricket) plus MW. Therefore, until they sort DAB out an FM switch off would be a disaster for me and many others. It's really annoying that it's presumed (by those in London) that everywhere has blanket coverage, rather like the assumption that everyone has a computer and therefore iplayer is available to all.

Anna,

One way forward, which some planners may be anticipating, is that some Internet radios are getting better and cheaper. I think there are some portable ones, so you could move them around your house and gain access to most of the stations, and the quality is I think rather good now on most of the streams. So that would be a possibility for you, though would involve some extra expense. There are still many people who don't have broadband, don't have skills with computers, and this would all be a bit much for them, so I agree with you about those in London (even though I work and live nearby) apparently having a disregard for those people living more than 50 miles away from Big Ben. Unfortunately, also, some rural areas do not have acceptable broadband, and it may still be some years before they do, so yet another incorrect assumption.

[Anna]

also, some rural areas do not have acceptable broadband, and it may still be some years before they do, so yet another incorrect assumption.

We had to have a campaign and XXX number of people who said they would sign up to broadband before the exchange was enabled and we got it here but some outlying villages are real broadband blackspots. I'll stick with my retro Roberts radio until they realise not everyone lives in London and some of us have very high hills and very low valleys!

[Gordon]

We know you live in a difficult area for terrestrial broadcast Anna and so Freesat is probably your best option. Postcode checks in areas like yours don't work well.

However, after DSO your area should be getting the PSB1 mux which has BBC4 in now. If you [someone close] gets any BBC TV at all then they should get 4. Similarly all the national BBC radio services are in PSB1 and so should be available as well as local Welsh ones [similarly in Scotland the Gaelic service and Alba]. On the other hand given where you live you are almost certainly on a relay, not Wenvoe. Also, where you live where we know it's difficult, even if the relay transmits everything to you on all 6 multiplexes, the signals may not all get to you and depending on your aerial, all the multiplexes may not arrive at your TV and the TV will only know about what it found when it did the last retune.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

**** Seemingly not in Scotland, much to my surprise on a recent trip to Dundee. We were unable to access Radio 4 using Freeview. TV channels were available.

Well you speak as you find. But I'm mystified. Looking at this web site, BBC R3/4 and both present on PSB1 in Scotland during the day, but switch off for Alba during the evening.

http://www.astra2d.com/scotmux.html

But what's strange is that in Wales, where they cater for both S4C and S4CHD, they still get R3 and R4 ALL THE TIME!

http://www.astra2d.com/walestmux.html

Looks like Wales drops E4 instead of radio.

[Gordon]

Well you speak as you find. But I'm mystified. Looking at this web site, BBC R3/4 and both present on PSB1 in Scotland during the day, but switch off for Alba during the evening.

http://www.astra2d.com/scotmux.html

But what's strange is that in Wales, where they cater for both S4C and S4CHD, they still get R3 and R4 ALL THE TIME!

http://www.astra2d.com/walestmux.html

Looks like Wales drops E4 instead of radio.

The Welsh language service S4C and Ch4 + some extras are not BBC and are on another multiplex, PSB2, not PSB1 so it doesn't stress the BBC capacity as Alba does in Scotland. BBC 1 TV in Wales has Welsh language opt outs like any other region but there seems to be no E4 at all in Wales!! In Wales there seems no compromise with the Welsh language BBC R4 Cymru being available alongside BBC Radio Wales in English, just as there is a Gaelic Radio service in Scotland. There is no Scots equivalent of S4C [which I'm sure Mr Salmond will deal with in good time] so that in Scotland there is a swap in the evenings to get Alba some space, displacing quite a few radio sevices to boot. Presumably BBC 1 Scotland is all one region in English with no Gaelic?

Looks lke those tables have an error in them. PSB 1 in Scotland gives 8 video services at 10.356 MBit/s each!! The whole mux is only 18 MBit/s.

[mangerton]

Presumably BBC 1 Scotland is all one region in English with no Gaelic?

Yes, that is so.

Looks lke those tables have an error in them. PSB 1 in Scotland gives 8 video services at 10.356 MBit/s each!! The whole mux is only 18 MBit/s.

10.356 kBit/s?

[Anna]

There is no Scots equivalent of S4C [which I'm sure Mr Salmond will deal with in good time] so that in Scotland there is a swap in the evenings to get Alba some space, displacing quite a few radio sevices to boot

mangerton. Isn't Alba comparable to S4C? By that I mean broadcasting all day in Gaelic as S4C, although nothing to do with the BBC, does in Welsh, but it seems from above Alba's not available on all platforms all day. Also is Scotland totally bilingual (an' I dinnae mean Glasgee) Oh. sorry, that's an awful faux Scottish accent/bad joke!! Do you have option of conducting everything in Gaelic, official forms, banking, education, etc. I'm sorry but I don't know much about the Gaelic language and how widespread it is so it would be interesting to know and of course - to keep on topic - how it affects broadcasting.

[Simon B]

Yes, that is so.



10.356 kBit/s?

Picture quality @ 10 kb/s would be... interesting. IIRC, typical figures for the video stream of SDTV would be a few (2-3) Mbit/s. This is consistent with shoving 8 SDTV channels plus other odds and ends through an OFDM MUX using 64 QAM which gives a usable throughput of about 24 Mbps.

There's also this:

"In 64 QAM, the digital TV signal is transmitted in groups of 64 symbols."

That's a fundamental misunderstanding. Not that the meaning of 16-QAM/64-QAM is relevant to this discussion - it just underlines that the veracity of the info on the page is rather doubtful.

[Dave2002]

Yes, that is so.

10.356 kBit/s?

That still looks wrong - that's over 10 Mbps. MPEG 2 should be very good at 6 Mbps, and most operators run at around 1.5 Mbps.
Some go lower - even under 1 Mbps.

[Gordon]

In that link provided by our esteemed Inspector, PSB1 Scotland has BBC 1 video listed as 10356 kBit/s [no decimal place] which in my book means 10.356 MBit/s. I take these to mean average rates; the stat mux will make effective rates variable over short periods. The same is repeated in the Welsh lists. It seems a lot for modern SDTV video coding when you note in PSB 3 that HDTV takes from 3 to 17 Bit/s [using MPEG4 which is about twice as efficient as MPEG2 used by SDTV so equivalent MPEG2 rates are double these]. I'd hate to see HDTV at 3 MBit/s. Anyway the muxes seem to change all the time:

Here is another view of a mux, that of the BBC mux in London on June 5th 2012 at 13.55, there are 7 video services but there is no BBC 3 and BBC 4:

http://www.bsaoc.com/Bitrates/BBC_A_Multiplex/BBC_A_20120605_1355.jpg

and here for the same Mux on May 30th at 19.40 with 7 video services but BBC 3 and BBC 4 are here but no CBBC:

http://www.bsaoc.com/Bitrates/BBC_A_Multiplex/BBC_A_20120530_1940.jpg

The rates have been redistributed for the evening. In each case the video rates are around a few MBit/s where I'd expect them to be for SDTV. I'd like to know what the "other" is. None exceed 4 MBit/s [= 4000 kBit/s] for video.

[mangerton]

Anna, I'm ashamed to say I don't know much about this. However, Google IYF, and I do have a (very) little knowledge. Gaelic is not widely spoken in Scotland:

"Figures published today in Scotland's Census 2001 - Gaelic Report show that, in 2001, over 92,000 people in Scotland (just under 2 per cent of the population) had some Gaelic language ability and that almost half of these people lived in Eilean Siar, Highland or Argyll & Bute."

That came from here, where there's more info:

http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk/press/news2005/scotlands-census-2001-gaelic-report.html

The place names are local government regions; "Eilean Siar" means the Western Isles - loosely, the Outer Hebrides.

So you can see that Scotland is nothing like bilingual. Here is a link to Eilean Siar's policy; I think it's the most Gaelic of the three.

http://www.cne-siar.gov.uk/sgioba/english/policy.asp

There is no legal obligation to use Gaelic as there is in Wales to use Welsh. I know that the Govt department I work for doesn't do anything for Gaelic speakers though we'll happily provide a translator of languages you've probably never heard of (I hadn't, when I saw the list!) if you phone our helplines.

That said, there is increasing interest and use of the language, and the BBC does much to help this, though no doubt Gaels will say they could/should do more. BBC Alba (TV) broadcasts in Gaelic in the evenings as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. In addition the BBC has

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radionangaidheal/

which is available online and on FM throughout Scotland. It broadcasts all day as an opt out from Radio Scotland.

I must mention the Mod (think Eistedfodd) which does more to keep Gaelic culture alive than anything else.

http://acgmod.org/

I see the Mod this year is in Dunoon - less than an hour by car and ferry from Glasgow, and certainly not in the heart of the Gaelic speaking part of the country!

I hope this has has been of some help. Happy to answer more questions to the best of my ability, but if you have a look at the links here you'll get a good idea of what is going on.

PS I'm sure you won't mind my pointing out that Glaswegians would refer to their city as "Glesga" or "Glesca", but never to "Glasgee"

[Dave2002]

Gordon

A few years ago, when I was more concerned about these things I calculated the bit rate for programmes recorded off Freeview to my then PVR. I could still do this now with my Freesat one, though I'm not desperately inclinded to do this frequently. I found that some channels/programmes with obviously relatively poor quality video were under 1 Mbps. Possibly the worst was something like Countdown (not sure if it was that though...) which came in at 900 kbps. Most BBC programmes were, IIRC between 1.5-2 Mbps, but there was a noticeable improvement for some programmes, such as some period drama, some gardening programmes (e.g. Monty Don), and some nature programmes such as David Attenborough programmes. In SD some of these went up to 3 Mbps. I did also buy some DVDs of corresponding programmes, and in a few cases the DVDs showed a slight improvement over the broadcast programmes. I estimated the DVD rates as between 4-5 Mbps, and the equivalent off air programmes had a bit rate up to 3 Mbps. The quality difference between DVD and low bit rate (1 Mbps) video is significant, but most broadcasters are aware of this, and are likely to allocate higher bit rates to programmes where there'll be a benefit, or conversely where a low bit rate will obviously cause most users to complain. As I said, nature programmes are often at the upper end for quality.

Some broadcasters will reduce the bit rate, with obvious quality reduction for programme repeats. AFAIK the BBC tends to keep the quality up, at least to match the source quality.

HD video does tend to use much higher bit rates, and usually much more storage for the same length of programme. I think the BBC HD codecs run up to 9 Mbps, while Sky might go up to 11 Mbps. Typically a 1 hour HD programme takes more than 2 Gbytes of storage. This is easy to see if an external FAT drive with a 2 Gbyte file size limitation is connected to a PVR as files won't copy.

I could calculate the bit rates for some HD material more accurately by looking at the contents of some of my external drives and a relatively simple calculation would give the bit rate. As it happens we often record in SD. We can tell the difference between HD and SD, but for many programmes the quality improvement in HD is not so significant, and storage space and time taken to transfer files are more important than having the better quality which HD can provide.