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Will the U.S. ever get Freeview (like the UK already has)???

no $ to be made for subscription but a novel idea..there formerly were free 56k ISPs in the USA...
rolleye.gif
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yes by 2006 all channels you can pick up in analog you'll be able to pick up digitally. problem is america about 100 times larger then england and far more height dynamic. meaning we have geographic limitations that prohibit the reception of channels.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
i thought they had to pay a tv tax.
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We do, its called a TV license, and its a yearly fee of roughly 90 - 100 pounds.

Funny thing is its only for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

I have to laugh, you guys talk about the brits as being strangers 😛
Feels real weird 😱

I can assure you that FreeView is nothing special.

The majority of people in the UK (Like myself) have Digital.

I have Sky Digital.


Do you guys not get an annual "taxation" on your Television viewing then?

Dan
 
LOL.
Went on the website, and it says my area is not covered by Freeview.
Had a Digital box for a year now
rolleye.gif


It's not all that great, but a one off payment for a load of new channels is quite nice, plus they have a Digital TV card now so you can have a TV tuner in your PC and pick up digital TV, so no more rubbish analogue interference 🙂
 
Originally posted by: MrFiTTy

Do you guys not get an annual "taxation" on your Television viewing then?

Dan
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Not in the U.S. Some federal taxes go to the Federal Communications Commission, but that doesn't really count.

Is the BBC totally funded by these licenses, or is there advertising as well?
 
The FCC taxes the hell out of our radio broadcasters, telephone communications, and all other communication services that they regulate.

The consumers don't have to pay anything annually for the tele, but FCC taxes are still hidden on top of their monthly service charges for phone, cable, and internet.
 
Basically we pay for the tv anyway. The BBC is completely funded by that, the government and donations. Then we have ITV Chanel 4 and 5 which are funded byadvertising. Everyone who owns a tv and arial can get those channels. Freeveiw is 100 pounds one off for a set top box which allows us to pick up set digitl channels. It works kind of like sky but sky allows many more channels because you may more.

EDIT : The channels we can receive are not that good anyway, Nothing like sky
 
Is the BBC totally funded by these licenses, or is there advertising as well?
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Totally funded by TV Licensing yup, that is one good thing about BBC channels, they have no adverts 🙂

Dan
 
Essentially freeview is the terrestrial digital TV channels.

Initially terrestrial DTV in the UK was set up as a subscription service - the now defunct ITV digital channels required a subscription, with some others being included as free.

We only have 5 terrestrial channels, and from a technical perspective it is not possible to add more - the spectrum is completely full. Even launching channel 5 was a bit of a fiasco, requiring VCRs/game consoles/etc. to be retuned so as not to interfere.

The BBC and the independent companies have been quick to expand their services on this new transmission medium which can carry many more channels - and has 'crystal clear sound and picture'.

I'm sure that HM's government wants freeview to succeed so they can switch off analogue TV and sell off the radio spectrum it uses, as soon as possible.
 
The problem with the US and all things like Bluetooth and this, is that TV and Radio companies long ago bought up all available bandwidth (much like the domain registry whores).

Buying bandwidth from one of these companies is usually measured in 7 digits+.

 
Originally posted by: MrFiTTy
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo i thought they had to pay a tv tax.
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We do, its called a TV license, and its a yearly fee of roughly 90 - 100 pounds. Funny thing is its only for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). I have to laugh, you guys talk about the brits as being strangers 😛 Feels real weird 😱 I can assure you that FreeView is nothing special. The majority of people in the UK (Like myself) have Digital. I have Sky Digital. Do you guys not get an annual "taxation" on your Television viewing then? Dan
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woah, I never realised that there were so many fellow Brits on this forum.. Mention Digital TV and they all come out of the woodwork 😉

I wouldn't say that the majority of people in the UK have digital; actually the percentage of households with some sort of extended TV (sky, cable digital) is only slightly over a third (36-37%). Its growing, but its not there yet, and the government will be hard pressed to start switching off analog signals by 2006. I've noticed that people on forums like this tend to be tech early adopters, with early adopter friends, and thus get skewed visions of "average" tech use; like thinking broadband use is the norm, when its still a minority of users who have it.
 
With the transition to digital in the U.S., broadcasters have the option of doing HDTV, multicasting, PPV, and/or commercial data services. The DTV mandate in the U.S. requires that broadcasters at least duplicate their existing service in digital, and they can do what they want with the remaining bandwidth. Duplication of the analog SD service in digital consumes 3Mbps to 5Mbps (depending on compression). That leaves them an addition 14-16Mbps to offer more channels, data services, Pay-TV service, or whatever else they want.

So it would be possible for CBS/Viacom to offer five channels, Disney/ABC to offer five channels, FOX to offer five free channels, etc etc all for free (or for subscription if they wanted) over the airwaves. But instead, the likes of CBS, ABC, and NBC have decided to offer HDTV, at least during primetime hours. Rather than delivering five low-quality standard channels, they've decided to dedicate all the bandwidth to high-quality HDTV, or to do HDTV plus a low-bandwidth 480i/480p channel for local / education purposes. With the Freeview system, the UK has essentially decided to go with low quality, low-resolution programming rather than the much-better-than-DVD quality HDTV we have here in the United States.

If anyone in the UK or elsewhere would like to see what real HDTV looks like, and is willing to host a few HDTV clips, let me know, and I'll send a few (they are large, 60-100Mb depending on length). HDTV clips are playable on a PC with certain DVD players, like WinDVD, as well as some freeware players, like VLC.
 
Originally posted by: KenAF
With the transition to digital in the U.S., broadcasters have the option of doing HDTV, multicasting, PPV, and/or commercial data services. The DTV mandate in the U.S. requires that broadcasters at least duplicate their existing service in digital, and they can do what they want with the remaining bandwidth. Duplication of the analog SD service in digital consumes 3Mbps to 5Mbps (depending on compression). That leaves them an addition 14-16Mbps to offer more channels, data services, Pay-TV service, or whatever else they want.

So it would be possible for CBS/Viacom to offer five channels, Disney/ABC to offer five channels, etc etc all for free (or for subscription) over the airwaves. But instead, the likes of CBS and ABC have decided to offer HDTV instead, at least during primetime hours. Rather than delivering five low-quality standard channels, they've decided to dedicate all the bandwidth to high-quality HDTV, or to do HDTV plus a low-bandwidth 480i/480p channel for local / education purposes. With the Freeview system, the UK has essentially decided to go with low quality, low-resolution programming rather than the much-better-than-DVD quality HDTV we have here in the United States.

If anyone in the UK or elsewhere would like to see what real HDTV looks like, and is willing to host a few HDTV clips, let me know, and I'll send a few for hosting. HDTV clips are playable on a PC with certain DVD players, like WinDVD, as well as some freeware players, like VLC.
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What exactly IS HDTV?

Dan
 
High Definition TV - the long and short of it is that it looks better, better aspect ratio etc

There were a number of competing systems designed, with support from different governments, which is why it has been so slow to take off. The EU pumped a lot of funding into its favoured system (designed mainly by Phillips), the Japanese had a seperate one, and the Americans had another... I did some reading on it for my degree a few years ago, but hopefully things have changed a lot since then.
 
HDTV = High Definition TeleVision

Standard analogue TV, like we have over here in the UK, is 480i, which means that there are 480 horizontal lines, which is interlaced, which does all the odd lines, then all the even lines every second. There is also 480p, which is 480 lines, progressivly scanned, so it does each line in turn, much like a computer monitor.

HDTV uses 720p (1280x720 progressive), 1080i (1920x1080 interlaced) or 1080p (1920x1080 progressive), which provide much greater resolution, much more like a PC monitor.

In order for the TV broadcasters to fit in even more data, they use MPEG2 compression, like they use in DVDs.



That's digital TV over in the US. In the UK, as has been said, the broadcasters still send the same, crappy, low quality signal over a digital connection, so we have even more, crappy quality, full-of-crap channels.


And the majority of people don't have digital, or even analog extended TV rather than the standard analogue terrestrial TV.


Confused
 
Oh yeah, for probably a better explanation, take a look here



I for one would much rather have high quality picture and HDTV and a few decent channels over here in the UK than 100's of crappy channels :disgust:


Confused
 
Originally posted by: Confused
Oh yeah, for probably a better explanation, take a look here



I for one would much rather have high quality picture and HDTV and a few decent channels over here in the UK than 100's of crappy channels :disgust:


Confused
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I must admit sky is a load of bollocks :disgust:
 
Confused, as an American I must agree with you in that regular cable (not basic, not digital) has alot of crap channels. Only a select few are worth watching, and that's only sometimes. If I had ONE good station I'd pay the same amount I pay for 100 crappy stations 🙂

Bill

edit: advertisements suck 🙂
 
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