Loading ...James Strickland has today been appointed the director of product and technology development of Freesat.
James will be joining Freesat from Cisco, where he was director of IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) Business Development for Europe and emerging markets. James has extensive experience in product marketing, management and business development, working for companies such as OpenTV and Pace Micro Technology.
At Freesat, James will play a key role in developing, implementing and managing Freesat’s digital receiver product strategy and will lead the delivery of the organisation’s innovation objectives.
Commenting on the new appointment of James Strickland, Emma Scott, Freesat’s MD said;
James brings a wealth of experience from a range of fields, and is well-placed to help Freesat in the next stages of its development.
Strickland will take up his post in the Autumn.
We at joinfreesat think this is a great appointment, with experience in product and technology, plus previously dealings with Pace, there must be a chance of a further push towards the incorporation of BBC’s iPlayer, as well as the possibility of a agreement with Pace to manufacture digital receivers for Freesat.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:31 am
Lets hope they do some pr work, as its pants at the moment. Though would expect a big market hype when the pvr is released (I hope)
August 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Perhaps his first job should be to tell people in the uk that there is a another tv box available .
For unless your interested in the subject of tv and perhaps have access to the internet - then at this stage the vast majority of people in the uk probably dont know very much about freesat - or - dont really understand what it is or isnt .
The situation isnt helped very much by fact that apart from the radio times TMK none of the printed tv guides carry the freesat channel numbers .
August 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am
Well if he has dealings with IP TV hopefuly he’ll get behing the iplayer availabilty on the freesat boxes. Without that there just another FTA box with a fancy guide - nothing new. iPlayer is available on the Wii so to create a freesat version should be very very simple especially as Freesat wrote the specs for the box.
At least a date for its arrival should be a start, although personally I think it should have been made available at launch. It would make an excellent feature for marketing the product
August 21st, 2008 at 11:17 am
Whereas I have nothing against IP TV per se, I have to say its very idea leaves me cold. My experience of broadband, and I’m on for 16-18 hours per day, is that its very unreliable. Connections drop out, even if only momentarily and its slow at times. TV which obviously will have a high data rate is likely to be affected even by a slow in transmission or momentary drop. Therefore I personally don’t see any future in Internet TV, at least this side of the entire country moving to optical fibre and even then, that still leaves it prone to exchange problems. The last thing I want with tv, is reception problems and the one thing no-one who seems to have had these great ideas about internet tv seems to have thought about, is the fact that the internet is so unreliable.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:01 pm
to be honest I think most people are interested in when freesat are going to get some decent channels added and not the appointment of a chief geek
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:54 am
I think a lot of people will, once it’s up and running, find the idea of being able to access iPlayer type services via a Freesat box as one of the key factors in choosing it over other services.
And it is actually possible to do reliable TV over the net - you just need to make sure the codec is ok, and you don’t need a massive amount of bandwidth. After all, iPlayer works pretty well already, thanks to technologies like Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).
There is a pretty large future in IPTV, and it’s a mistake to imagine that it will all be moving over the public internet - the bulk will be on CDNs, and internal servers at the ISPs. And, of course, with the moves toward IPv6, reliability issues have very much been thought about. Some of these points are discussed in an article I wrote for pcw at http://www.pcw.co.uk/2219986
With regard to Freesat, I’d actually go as far as to say that for a lot of casual TV watchers, if the Kangaroo service finally gets the go-ahead, as well as iPlayer, then a standard STB with connectivity to those replay services will be all that they’ll need, and at 60 quid or so would be far better value than a full-blown PVR.
It has the potential to make Freesat a very attractive proposition - buy a box for a one off fee, and you don’t need subscriptions, recorders, or anything complicated. You can still watch Eastenders or Dr Who whenever you want, as long as it’s within the 7 day window.
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:27 am
Pedro - well said .
How about a freesat movie channel that only really shows the sort of films that BBC2 moviedrome used to show on sunday nights .
What sort of channels would others like to see added to freesat ? .
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:58 am
New channels altogether - some kind of documentary channels, more HD content
New to the EPG, currently FTA: Luxe HD, All the music channels, Nuts TV, all the news channels etc.
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
[QUOTE]…movie channel that only really shows the sort of films that BBC2 moviedrome used to show on sunday nights [/QUOTE]
Oh now that would be Alex Cox-tastic cult popcorn heaven!
August 22nd, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Nigel, maybe your broadband area is more reliable than mine, but on an 8MB connection, I can’t even stream Youtube successfully half the time (without pauses or buffering) or web surf cams, so TV has no chance of ever being reliable.
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I would like to see some documentary type channels and maybe a history channel
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I’d like a freesat channel that shows me the lottery results a day before the draw!!!
Its not going to happen - freesat do not create the channels its just an EPG which broadcasters pay a fee to get listed in. If you want film channels, history channels etc then go and tell the broadcaster to get themselves on freesat.
If you want a BBC film channel, then ask BBC its not freesats remit to produce the content only the means of getting the content to the viewer.
As to the IPtv not being any use - I can quite happily stream iplayer from the internet to my laptop without any problems, a lot of my friends can too. I know that some people may have slow connections and may have trouble, however a bulk of people can get 2mb+ broadband which is fine. If we had fibre optic we could stream HDTV which would be the holy grail. But to say IPtv is not of any use is ignorant of the way the market and technology is moving. Personally I believe that on-demand content is the future.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Yeah quite right brian - why should freesat give the slightest hoot what the people who buy freesat boxes want to see on it
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
If you want new channels your in luck, its seems we have a new radio station, WRN Radio and a new tv channel, France 24!!!
Its a pity there is only two this time.
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Brian - I don’t think anyone believes Freesat can create it’s own channels (well, hopefully not).
What I would like to see is the non-spam FTA channels to be added to the Freesat EPG, and maybe one or two new channels to appear FTA and then go onto Freesat’s EPG too.
Does anyone know - how often are new FTA channels launched (or former subscription channels go FTA) on Astra and Eurobird?
I know less than 10% are any good, but something worthwhile must crop up eventually.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Two more channels has been added today according to the link below
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=880002
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I think it’s France 24 and WRN Radio..
I would love to know what salary James Strickland is on . . And what the position of “Director of Product and Technology Development” actually means?
Is there really that much to do?
Dozens of meetings and free lunches comes to mind . .
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Xool - My Humax has had the two new channels added and one channel movement on the EPG.
August 23rd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Tony - Rep of Ireland - I have heard Film4 has been moving for the last few days, see link below
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=879166&page=2