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Old 14th Oct 2021, 11:30 pm   #1
dave walsh
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Default The death of terrestial TV transmission?

We seem to be looking at the next generation of TV's just based on utilising the Internet for reception [if I've understood recent adverts] and requiring no [traditional] aerial input at all. This subject was raised back in March and it was postulated that there might, in fact, be a downside to this way of viewing television re "live" programming but I'm not sure that will be true at all!

Given the overall viewing audience, these days which seems to have a much narrower [eg boxed set] basis that will be so financially attractive to certain International Companies, in every possible way it may well be the future of looking in [ie viewing] lasting well beyond the previous onset of HD or Curved and then Giant Screens!

Is the "current" light at the end of the tunnel a train? The Internet can be switched off very, very easily as we know from activities elsewhere. It might well be interesting to speculate about the best period TV on which to view the Queen's speech if that's your thing but it may eventually require a digi-to-analogue unit of an entirely different purpose to that of the [now disappearing] Freeview Box. Working Humax Receivers seem to be as rare as Unicorns these days [discussed on the Forum right now]. I've got an 1800! The rot started when we lost the [free] You Tube App access but it still does BBC I-Player I think [otherwise known as ZOUNDS] and the Freeview Terrestial output. Comments welcome but over the Internet only please

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Old 15th Oct 2021, 12:08 am   #2
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I've just recently been pondering this question because of the Bilsdale incident, which my partner has had to overcome by swapping to Freesat. The installation of the 'temporary' 80m mast this week will have restored the primary service to most but not quite all of the people who relied on the old 1000ft (ish) high mast.

As I understand it, Arquiva are now following up with a scheme to find out who still doesn't have their TV service back and provide those people, starting with the most needy / vulnerable, with alternative ways of receiving TV, such as TV via internet or TV via Freesat.

You don't have to be an economist to start thinking about what happens next - if these alternative measures restore 100% coverage, where will be the incentive to rebuild the Bilsdale mast to its full height?

I think they probably will do it this time, but if the same thing happens in say ten years time when many more people will have very high speed internet / streaming as standard and far fewer people will be receiving their TV via an aerial or a dish, I have a feeling the mast would not be rebuilt.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 12:33 am   #3
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

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Originally Posted by dave walsh View Post

It might well be interesting to speculate about the best period TV on which to view the Queen's speech if that's your thing but it may eventually require a digi-to-analogue unit of an entirely different purpose to that of the [now disappearing] Freeview Box.

Dave W
I'm sorry, but I'm not sure about what the above sentence means. Using the Queen's speech as a measure of anything gets us close to politics. I am not the least bit worried about future access to TV, for there are a surely much bigger concerns to contemplate. I guess that we are looking at a future which will be driven by market forces and it will be one in which the "user pays", as is already the case in so many leisure activities. Personally, I'm putting some effort in to watching less TV these days. I doubt very much that anyone's dying words were that, "I wish I'd watched more TV".

On the other hand, with internet radio, I probably listen to more radio than ever. I find it very interesting to get a view of the world as seen by the NPR radio stations in the US and CBC in Canada, and even BBC World Service reports news that completely by-passed UK TV news and that is worrying!.

B
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 10:33 am   #4
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I suspect that all future TV and radio will be via the internet. Consider the huge cost of running a TV transmitter of say 500kW that covers a (relatively) small area of the UK plus all the smaller 'fill-in' transmitters. The same with radio transmitters. The cost of having all these running 24/7 365 days a year must amount to a huge amount of energy.

With the internet, the world is available at a fraction of the cost both radio and TV via a PC or a phone these days. You can stream from phone to TV if necessary which we actually do at home sometimes when my son wants to watch a sport event not available in the UK. Simply pair the phone to the TV and there you go. Who needs whacking great TV transmitters?
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 10:37 am   #5
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

Will this all be with no loss of quality I wonder?
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 11:15 am   #6
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

To be honest I was amazed when TV went digital in the UK that the terrestrial stations didn’t go with a Freesat set up then. would have saved a fortune on transmission power, etc
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 11:56 am   #7
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

That would have been a lot of dishes needing installing at the same time. Obviously the aim was to let people use their existing reception infrastructure as far as possible, with only an extra (Digital terrestial receiver) box inserted between their aerial and old analogue TV.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 11:59 am   #8
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

Quote:
Will this all be with no loss of quality I wonder?
Quite possibly, when high speed fibre internet is as 'normal' as 56K dialup was 20 years ago there will be scope for very high definition streaming in a way which isn't quite practical for most people at the moment.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 12:25 pm   #9
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I live in Sweden, and every month, on the first Monday at 3pm, they test the emergency siren. The procedure should this go off for real is to tune into a national tv or radio station to get status and directions. Being next door to Russia focusses our attention (or raises our insecurities, depending on your view).

Now, a couple of years ago some maintenance on a Saturday accidentally triggered the alert on a Saturday night in the Stockholm area, and it continued to sound for many minutes. There was a scrolling message on the main TV channel to warn us that it was not an emergency, but there were also a lot of very anxious people trying to follow the instructions to tune into the radio, realising that they didn't have a working radio in the house anymore.

There are a lot of intangibles that we get from a national TV service. For one thing they are regulated so they are balanced, and they are usually untouchable by governments. (Where that is true it is a very precious thing, not appreciated probably).

I can see why there is a shift away from programmed TV to on-demand TV, but there needs to be a clear long term view about what is sancrosanct for news dissemination and family viewing, and people need to be prepared to put their hands in their pockets, even if they are subscribing to streaming services.

The solution in Sweden was to abolish the licence fee and introduce a tax at 1/4%, capped at 1500kr (I think, approx £130), solely for broadcast services. As usual they do things neatly in Sweden.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 1:01 pm   #10
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

There is something reassuring and certain about a signal coming from the air especially when you see the broadband road cabinets that have been struck by vehicles or vandalised..and then you think of their backup batteries out in the cold and rain.

The previous poster wrote that the TV licence in Sweden had been replaced by a £130 tax so that is something for the TV licence complainers to think about, as once the licence is gone you are still going to pay for it in some way or other but there will be nobody answerable (like the BBC) or responsible to anything that may happen.

I mean today the BBC is involved in getting the Bilsdale transmitter back and running..but without the licence fee they may be too concerned with their own survival to bother with the vulnerable people who rely upon the transmitter.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 1:03 pm   #11
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

Can we keep off politics please. Especially the UK TV Licence.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 1:14 pm   #12
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I wonder if satellite transmission will also be a thing of the past. The main expense for Sky isn't the hardware but the cost of having a dish installed. Therefore they are looking into having an internet-only Sky Q receiver.
Of course this is just Sky at the moment and, just like FM, I suspect satellite and terrestrial transmissions will be around for a good while. But not for ever.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 2:57 pm   #13
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

For emergency stuff is there a non turnoffable text type thing to mobile 'phones?
 
Old 15th Oct 2021, 3:15 pm   #14
Mike Phelan
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

There is on both of ours.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 3:27 pm   #15
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

Quote:
Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell View Post
For emergency stuff is there a non turnoffable text type thing to mobile 'phones?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Broadcast
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile...United_Kingdom

As it happens, I got a fairly meaningless cell broadcast alert in Oxford a few weeks ago, presumably sent out by mistake. A UK emergency alert system is currently under development, but isn't yet functional.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 3:48 pm   #16
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

One of the problems with "the market" is that it is very happy to use free or paid-elsewhere infrastructure.

So if tomorrow everyone switched to viewing TV online, I seriously doubt there is enough bandwidth to cope, but of course that isn't (much of) a concern to the online video providers.

We also need to worry that streamed video is becoming a significant slice of the carbon-emission pie diagram.
So I think we need to compare the power required to transmit to thousands of receivers over the air with the power of the thousands of routers required to propagate such hugh data volumes.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 4:16 pm   #17
dave walsh
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I think you were presenting pretty much the same world view on a changing Broadcast environment as myself there Bazz [post3*] . I was just conflating the "view the queens speech on an age appropriate early Television Set" thread" [which happened to be running] with how you would actually get the Internet Only signal into the vintage TV, in the absence of any terrestrial option?
This will be a world where the image is just a light patch on the wall, not a physical object with controls and sockets. This follows on from Colour, HD, Curved Screens, Huge Screens, 4k etc [See the 1966 film Fahrenheit 451]. It's all coming up pretty fast in my opinion!

The Queen herself is notoriously apolitical and independent so I don't think there was any sort of risk involved. The 1953 Wedding recording seems to be a constant favourite with Vintage TV enthusiasts who often have it running with something from Dr Who or The Avengers in second and third place8-

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But she doesn't have a lot to say" The Beatles!

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Old 15th Oct 2021, 4:22 pm   #18
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

The other thing to consider is streaming vs live. I find it amazing that the vast majority of my customers (and the population) choose to watch TV in the same way they always have.
I wouldn't dream of watching TV live - I don't have an aerial or dish. I like to choose when and what I watch. I have the radio for news, and should I want to see a current affairs programme I can watch shortly after broadcast to suit myself.

I know this is a minority view, but this is the viewing habit of many young people (I exclude myself, obviously!) and therefore real-time broadcasting may well be on the way out. Most young people don't want to look at listings and set recordings - they just want to watch what they want when they want, for better or worse.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 4:30 pm   #19
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

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Originally Posted by dave walsh View Post
This follows on from Colour, HD, Curved Screens, Huge Screens, 4k etc [See the 1966 film Farhenhite 451]. It's all coming up pretty fast in my opinion!

Dave W
Is the Freeview platform capable of supporting 4K with the same number channels we have now?

Has for live TV watching, I think there are many who record and watch when it suits, possibly more than we think. I watch little live TV, I will record what I want and use the radio much more than TV.
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Old 15th Oct 2021, 5:04 pm   #20
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Default Re: The death of terrestial TV transmission?

I've pondered this issue myself a bit.

[Disclosure: I have not owned a 'TV' for over two decades - all my viewing this century has been digital - a mix of BitTorrent, filesharing-sites, DVD and streaming. The BitTorrent/filesharing stuff is for the likes of 'Fansubbed' Japanese/Korean anime which will never see broadcast in the UK; when my DVD-player packed up a couple of years back I didn't replace it, since there are no longer places to rent DVDs from! I have 40Mbit/sec broadband, an Amazon Prime subscription, a Netflix subscription and a Sky "NowTV" stick]

The problem faced by legacy 'broadcast' TV - whether terrestrial or satellite - is that a lot of viewing has now switched to taking place on phones/laptops/iPads and similar personal devices - none of which really work well with a satellite-dish or terrestrial-broadcast-antenna!

I guess Sky's offering of a streaming-only service is an acknowledgement of this.

Equally, 'on demand' has take over from linear-viewing. Why should some anonymous program-scheduler control when I watch something? That harks back to the horrible-70s and 80s when saturday-evening-TV was invariably gruesome so we all went down the pub. Life's just too short to waste on "Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game".

Furthermore, 'broadcast' TV doesn't have a pause-button so if someone visits me/phones me/calls me on the local 2M repeater/the dog needs to go out for a pee/I need to get more coffee I miss a chunk od what I am watching.

That doesn't play well with people.

The slow [or not-so-slow, as the generation of 'digitally-native' types move into middle-age] death of broadcast TV (both satellite and terrestrial) seems obvious to me.

I won't mourn its passing.
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