Freeview vs Freesat vs Freesat From Sky

8. *My notes to a Freeview provider*

To a cash rich executive,

I will not be needing HDTV, in the fact that I have trusty CRT tv still going strong from 2004. And I hope for the sake of my wallet and my mood that it dare not break.

However, I will be needing more channels that don't repeat programs of other channels to an infinite amount of times. I have listed some channels as examples:

e.g.

more 4 - repeats of series that have been repeated already too many times.

Dave - repeats of shows seen too many times although sometimes useful when all other channels fail to satisfy.

E4 - repeats of american and english shows, again and again.

ITV 1 & 2's same yearly movies repeated over and over and over).

Freeview is getting a bit clogged up with repeats of shows. There are becoming more frequent days when they're is nothing on freeview that hasn't been seen before or isn't worth watching.

I'm tempted to sign up to sky just for that bit of extra variation in its programs.

Reform freeview into the format of sky: Have a few channels for films, a few for sport, a few for comedy, drama, etc. Although i fear this would incur a subscription.

And get rid of the garbage channels at the end of the channel list.

Also radio channels are not needed. If people want to listen to radio then let them listen to it through a radio/cd/system. TV Bandwidth should be strictly for that, TV.

Sport and Nature programs seem to be a rare commodity on freeview, perhaps they might be increased?

Alas, my final recommendation, that the name freeview be changed to "Groundhog TV" as that is what it's becoming.

Keep up the good work, and think on it Freeview.

7. "The launch of Freeview+ in 2007 upgraded the experience with digital TV timeshifting and recording functionality to pause/rewind live TV and record one channel while watching another. Features to rival a Sky+ box."

This is incorrect. I had a Freeview Box with all the above functionality in 2005. It was in 2007 that Freeview created a standard and logo that manufacturers could use on their packaging to differentiate their product from a normal Freeview box. There were already loads of Freeview PVR's on the market.

"Until Freeview HD launches across the country in 2010"

It's not launching across the country only a few transmitters will be beaming out the signals. By the World Cup less than 50% will have access to Freeview HD.

6. Too early to sign up for HDTV from free sat and sky. Their content will be minimal. I'm guessing it will take a year or two for these two to get their act together. The woes of commercial viability ring to mind.

5. Two other points worth mentioning:

(1) My 52inch tv shows that the standard definition picture quality on Freeview is far superior to Freesat but this is not so obvious with a smaller sized TV. I have expressed my disappointment to Freesat about their standard definition picture quality.

(2) Satellite as a technology is regarded as having the potential to offer more HD channels than Freeview. However, it appears there may be some commercial issues currently limiting the number of high definition channels on Freesat and Freesat have not announced any dates for the arrival of any more HD channels. Freeview may have more HD channels than Freesat in 2010 which was unimaginable at the time of Freesat's launch two years ago.

Damian

4. Freesat and Freesat from Sky also don't offer Dave, in my opinion one of the main reasons to upgrade to digital.

3. Is UK lagging behind other countries in wide spread uptake of HD channels.

2. To add to that:

HD in the UK is still pretty woeful no matter which platform you try!

When I say Woeful, that has nothing to do with the technology, it goes without saying HD quality is excellent, I am referring to the actual channels and the content!

If you think you can get HD installed and suddenly be able to watch your favorite programmes in superb quality your likely to be disappointed!

Due the the technology, you will have to watch a completely different channel, as the Standard Defintion transmissions will still be on the original channels. So BBC-1 and ITV-1 for example will still be in SD. The BBC has a separate channel called BBC-HD which only tranmits occasional programs that are consistent with the actual BBC-1 schedule. Much of the time the HD schedule is limited to a select few programmes cycling throughout the day!

ITV-HD is even worse, the majority of the time you will just see a black banner saying nothing is being transmitted at the moment!

Sky is only marginally better. It has replicated some of its channels like Sky1 so if you re-tune to the HD version of Sky1, you will be able to see the regular programmes transmitted on the HD channel (whether or not they were originally produced in HD however is another question!)

If your a movie buff, Sky also provides HD variations of some of its movie channels. I personally have no interest in this as I prefer to get this content elsewhere some 12 months before its aired on TV even though Sky generally offer's the content first out of the TV mediums.

I can't vouch for all countries, but the USA seems to have adopted HD much better than the UK. Their infastructure is much better to cope with the transition though. I can't vouch for all of the USA but certainly in Florida, when a new housing development is built, all the services like Cable are installed before a single house is built. They are also good at pushing out new technology. The community where my villa is was only developed in 2001 but too early for Fibre, however Fibre was pumped into the whole community last year.

We couldn't get Cable or Fibre put into my town in the UK if the residents dug the trenches themselves :-(

1. Two disadvantages with Freesat from Sky which are worth a mention.

1) All the subscription channels are on the system, making channel hopping between the free ones difficult.

2) Sky is sending out new cards at the moment meaning that former Sky subs customers will need to spend £20 on a new one.