Loading ...May 04
We are a little late reporting this, but further to our previous blog, it has been confirmed that ITV HD will be on the Freesat platform only.
http://www.itv.com/Help/ITVHDQuestions/default.html
The specific section in question, which confirms this news is:
What equipment do I need to receive ITV HD service?
ITV HD is only available through freesat, so you’ll need a satellite dish and either a TV with freesat HD built in (available soon), or a freesat HD digital box connected to an HD Ready TV. You’ll need to connect your HD digital box to your HD Ready TV with an HDMI cable (these cost from about £5).
May 4th, 2008 at 9:57 am
In your face Sky … So glad that someone has the guts to stand up to them - I was disgruntled customer when they took away Sky One from Virginmedia
May 4th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
2nd ed.
Its about time the BBC and its ITV partner started to worry more about giving us the best possible service rather than worrying about treading on other broadcasters shoes.
All that we need now is for a higher bit rate as someone else has commentated elsewhere that ITV will be a low bit rate service on HD at 11mbs. Whereas I don’t know if this is accurate or not, ITV should be thinking about giving us the highest bit rate / quality codec possible in my opinion and finding other ways to restrict reception to Freesat only rather than through codec choice.
May 4th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I really hope itv hd is freesat only and in time bbc and c4 hd cos I hate the pay a lot tv on satellite and it would really hurt them lol
May 4th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
ITV has tried this game before with ITV Digital and we know what happened to that. Then they refused to go on satellite but had to give in when they started to loose millions of viewers. The same will happen this time if they follow this policy. ITV profitability is falling very fast as it is. They have had to give up F1 and they have burnt their fingers with Euro 2008. There is talk of them giving up thier PSB status which will turn them into a rather second rate broadcaster. I have always found ITV’s poor picture quality on satellite very annoying. My heart would sink whenever I heard the ITV had won some sports rights.
I think the BBC freesat is a good thing as it will give some competition to Sky but this is not the way to do it. I have always felt the EPG should run by an indepentant company and there should be common standards for satellite receivers. Freesat could have fullfilled this role. I would have liked a cam slot to be included which would allow smaller companies enter to Pay TV market which could provide real competition to Sky. Clearly the BBC wants to market it as a FTA platform but this could be short sighted. Funding by Licence fee or advertising alone may not be possible in the future.
May 4th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I have to disagree with trevor about having pay tv on freesat. I find the current plethora of pay channels clogging up the freeview transmissions unacceptable.
This was originally floated as a’free to air’ system but pretty quickly got infiltrated by the commercial guys. This must take up a lot of bandwidth which could be used to bring us more channesl and better pictures.
I would hate to see freesat go the same way.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
The problems on freeview are slightly different. Freeview only has a small number of channels because of the existing space taken by analogue. When analogue is switched off there would be room for loads of new channels. Unfortunatly Ofcom want’s to sell the channels off to the highest bidder. I think all the space should be given over to Freeview. We could then have at least 10 new HD channels.
The reason ITV is such poor quality on satallite is by choice. They just don’t want to spend the money on more transponders.
Bandwidth is not really a problem with satellite as even if 28 degrees fills up new satellites can be positioned a different angles.
There is a place for Pay TV. Sky pays about £2.5 millon for each premiership game. There is no way this could be financed by advertising alone. ITV is finding it very difficult to survive on advertising alone and I may need to charge for some of thier programming. Some of us just don’t like adverts and would prefer to pay.
If freesat boxes had an encryption capability smaller companies could enter the Pay TV market and compete with Sky.
May 4th, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I have to agree with Pete’s comments.
You have to remember Trevor that a large proportion of people in this country simply can’t afford to pay extra for tv services, myself included. I couldn’t afford £4 per month nevermind Sky’s prices.
I think we have every right to get a free service (licence / advertising funded) thats every bit as good as the Sky service and hopefully even better.
Accepted, this may mean some sport eg. Premiership matches are beyond FreeSat funding, but equally there’s still scope for many more matches / sports / programmes to be included in FreeSat and this is also where regulation comes in in my view as I believe that Sky (or any other commercial broadcaster) simply shouldn’t be allowed to buy certain events of National importance, England / Scotland / Wales Sporting Matches, Olympics, etc.
In my view, they should be forced to share these with Freeview / Freesat customers with simoultaneous broadcasts on both platforms so no-one is misses out on events of national importance simply because they don’t have / can’t afford the right platform.
The difference in the pay service should come from their other unique channels eg the Premiership, other unique programming and its quality, rather than a monopoly on something thats important to everyone.
If Sky can produce the best programming eg for arguments sake, if their National Geographic turns out better than the BBC’s Planet Earth, then they will have little for fear from Freesat, producing a parallel service.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:43 am
personally i think its great that itvHD will be freesat exclusive(hopfully the first of many).sky can now say goodbye to me buying a hd box from them,no way am i paying for a pvr that wont work if i cancel my subscription and charge me £10 extra for programes that i already pay for in my subs(would sky get away with charging £10 extra for the +1 channels?)
May 5th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Well said darnall42, I would not pay Sky anything. As a broadcaster they are only interested in making money. Sky subscribers should realise that they are paying for their subscription, pay again for the sky box, pay again to use it, pay again to view HD and pay again through advertising. Sky need to be brought down a peg or two, I hope Sky’s subscribers move to Freesat.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I hate to tell you Barry that ITV is just as much a commercial company as Sky. I agree with you that Sky does need some competition but exclusivity is not the way to do it. I know it won’t happen at present but if Sky removed ITV from their EPG they would just about bankrupt ITV. I don’t think FTA television can produce much competition to Sky.
I don’t like ITV for the following reasons:
They denied thousands of viewers access to the world cup in HD during the trial.
They refused to transmit on satallite for 2 years so I had to have a cable box as well as a satellite box.
Digital ITV lost over £800 million pounds to the FA. and almost destroyed digital terestrial televsion in the UK.
ITV transmit very poor quality video on satallite. During the Champions League we has very fuzzy pictures from ITV on Tuesday night and fantastic HD from Sky on the Wednesday. Also Sky covered more of the matches, often 8 at a time!
So I think ITV has served us very pooly over the last few years and they are about to do it again.
I am not sure what ITV expects to gain from this. Most Sky viewers will just live without ITV HD and a few might just buy an extra box. I don’t think many will abandon Sky for one or two HD programs per night.
If they do make ITV HD exclusive to freeview they will also deny access to people with free to air boxes. I don’t think these transmisions would be legal as there are European and UK rules about television standards. ITV does not appear to have applied for a licence from Ofcom.
If they do deny me access maybe I could apply to the European Court of Human Rights.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
you’ll need to realise ITV HD isn’t a channel and wont be on the EPG, it will fall in with there interactive service perfectly.
ITV1HD will be coming down the line.. but if sky would accept that channels is not so clear.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
“If they do deny me access maybe I could apply to the European Court of Human Rights”
Moron.
May 6th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Oky, i’m a full sky customer and a freesat customer.
I agree this ITV & BBC joint thing is a great idea, but whats the rush with all this HD stuff. Watching TV with either of my sky systems produces an amazing picture already, plus theres only a fraction of content in HD!.
Compared to tv from an aerial, sat tv wins hands down.
Just think they’d have been better of spending OUR (BBC is funded by US the UK public afterall).
If they had went to sky and said look we want to show our FTA channels free instead of charging £20 for your freesat card charge them a fiver.
Plus when you think of all the sky boxes swimming around on Ebay isnt it better to recycle them in someones home instead of making new shiny ones ?.
Saves all the agro, a sky dish & box off ebay is next to nothing.
I installed one at the weekend infact, minus the card it cost about £50 in total thats with box, cable, clips and sky dish. I have my own alignment kit just for emergencys, saves on the £70 sky call outs.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Well, I wish ITV HD good luck on their ‘exclusive’ Freesat (and maybe FreeView?) only service and stick up a finger at Sky. I’m not sure if they’ll get away with it though and ITV have made some BIG mistakes and very poor decisions in the past . .
We’ll see . . .
May 21st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
ITV HD is currently available using a Humax receiver, currently showing Champions League Football (so much for a Sky exclusive). To view, simply press red, red, green, green, blue. You will then an option to press red to view channel in HD !!!
June 24th, 2008 at 1:42 am
Ok, is it real HD or scaled up Sd?
If its scaled, then whats the point?
Also, at what bitrate. 5mb 720p is no better than 3mb 576p.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Does any one know when I get my pz81b can I record freesat on my sky+ and explain what they mean by hooking the tv up to the dish.
Can this only be done from the outside? many thanks if you can answer this for me.
July 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Im just waiting for the Freesat DTR to be launched and will be purchasing one, removing my Sky+ box and plugging it in. I have already written to Sky telling them if they want to keep me as a customer then they will have to give me:
1. A FREE HD Box
2. FREE installation
3. Don’t charge me £10 per month (or give me £120 to cover the 1st year)
Im pretty certain they won’t find my offer very attractive so will be dumping my contract.. still if enough people do it then what choice will they have?
BBC and ITV together have some serious power in the market, probably not as much as Sky because of their US owners who own half of the world but lets hope enough leave to make a difference. Wasn’t too long ago I had all Sky channels for £2.99 per month.. now that seems like a million years ago now!