Loading ...Well, maybe not, things have been a little too quiet recently following the high profile launch of Channel 4 HD and NHK World HD a few months ago.
However, it is the summer season which quite often see’s things tail off a little, but we hope to have more news for you very soon to kick start the platform back into life ready for the silly season in the build up to Christmas.
So what can we expect over the coming months? Well we have it on reasonably solid grounds that Channel 4 are planning to launch a HD channel soon, which could be E4 HD, Film4 HD or possibly more likely More4 HD as that will be a new channel and therefore not tied into any existing (Sky) contracts. We also believe talks are ongoing with Channel 5 to bring 5* and 5 USA to the channel, with Channel 5 HD possibly to follow. In addition, following the huge success of the Manhattan Plaza DS-100 Freesat SD receiver, and the announcement that they will be launching a HD and HDR version, we have it on very good authority that the HD receiver will be available from September and the HDR (Freesat+) from October.
We also believe that Freesat is on its way to 2 million sales and should reach this (with a little news push) within the next month or two, which will be a fantastic milestone to reach in little over 3 years.
Sorry we cannot bring you more news yet, but hopefully things will pick up again shortly.
July 25th, 2011 at 4:40 pm
Could the expansion of the Manhattan range be anything to do with Harvard losing the rights to the Grundig brand?
Steve GQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Wow sounds like it could be a great Christmas on the Channel front.
Possibly 2 new HD channels and possibly 5* and 5 USA.
I just hope that if the Ch4 HD channel isn’t Film 4 HD, they bring it to the platform as soon as they can afterwards.
Al (Original)Quote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
@Steve G
Yes, Manhattan gained the contract when Harvard Group (Grundig, Goodmans, Bush) lost it. Has worked out for the best, Manhattan have a very solid brand with reliability to match, where as Harvard units were a little flaky!
adminQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:00 pm
When I saw the Date 25th July great no news is good news sounds good well maybe not its tailed off dashing our hopes in these hard times we need good news and we been dashed I still like you freesat
original steveQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Any news on when STV HD will join properly to the platform??
AlexRQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
Trying to get banned from DS again i see @admin LOL!!!!!
News was that More4HD was sooner rather than later, but all gone quiet now!!
ianQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
@ian
haha, it doesn’t matter what I say over there, it will ultimately lead to a ban
adminQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Hahaha
see how long before: A) they remove it, B) you get banned or C) i do too!
ianQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Stvhd imminent, but don’t hold your breath!
James CQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
This is just a question on my part, but with the 50% of UKTV now sold of by Virgin,does anyone know if it is likely that any of the UKTV channels with come to freesat? Purely wondering, that’s all.
KeithQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Good news all around, then.
MuzerQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Had a Humax Freesat HD for about 3 years-fab on HD, however, decided to splash out and get a Humax Freesat HDR500. What a difference in SD progs. Almost (not quite) as good as in HD they are all upscaled to perfection. Having some fun and games with what I can only say is a poorly put together manual on how to record. Rang Humax helpline-very helpful chap-getting there now, the quality on recording matches the “real” thing. Well done Humax. Got it from Laskys for £227.
footyQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
footy, what does that have to do with the subject?
James CQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
Footy what did you have for breakfast?
original steveQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 9:07 pm
What about the Thomson-branded Freesat HD PVR, which was due this summer, the THS615DTR ?
as reported in…
http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/index.php/thomson-freesat-pvr-to-launch-this-summer
RozzoQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
“So what can we expect over the coming months?”
How about ITV Player that was promised in “Summer 2010″, and coming soon in 2011 !
What’s the news on this ?
ShaunQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
@ian
Well, there you go, all our comments got removed but the original post still stands. Proves a point don’t you think
adminQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
@Shaun
ITV Player is supposidely going to be available across the platform in the next few weeks but we’ve heard that before, so will wait for official news before posting on here.
adminQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 10:41 pm
Hello,
Always keen to see how the platform as moved on, but no need to fret, of all the electrical equipmen in my home the Humax Hdr still stays current, I’ve changed the telly for 3D,burnt the laptop out twice and it looks as if the ps3 is changing again, my phone (iphone4) is in date till september atleast and the Andriod pad could really do with being honeycomb.
No change, not a problem.
Chris RobertsQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
2 (AL): I strongly suspect Film4HD will appear soon too as they are not tied in with Sky. Virgin have exclusivity at the moment but most likely on a much shorter term than Sky would tie channels in for!
10 Keith: I wasn’t aware VM had sold their 50% of UKTV yet? You might be right that the new half of the party might have a more open view on bringing these channels to the platform but any contractual deals with Sky have to be completed first.
Overall, things are quiet at the moment but, like admin says, it’s the Summer season when there’s not much happening. The next big thing, indirectly, for the platform is Astra 1N which was due to be orbited 1st July, sadly they’ve had some logistical setbacks in French Guyana and so far Arianespace have not committed to a relaunch date (despite estimating 20 days from 1st July). Fingers crossed we’ll hear wind of a new date this week and once in orbit will probably have 4-6wks of testing before going in to service.
Once Astra 1N is ready to go then we’ll hopefully start to see channels such as C5′s spin-off services swap over and begin their transition to FTA, thus then joining the platform.
Good news on the 2m unit sales front too, this is really positive for the platform and if recent news about Sky’s increased churn rate are to be believed then that will help the uptake as Freesat is becoming more and more aware to consumers.
NeilQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
ITV player ? What about the BBC iPlayer channel 901 ?
Shuan
Freesat info on 999 still says BBC iPlayer is on 901 – channel 901 has gone ( although iPlayer is accessable via the Red Button on BBC channels ) but the ITV player beta version via channel 999 ( blue/green button code ) is now longer available.
The ITV Player on freesat was a mess – I only looked at it from time to time to see if they got it working properly. Now that it has vanished, I assume even they have given up on it !
Is it just me, but is the sound on freesat 999 breaking up?
Adrian LucasQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
@admin Do you have any inside connections in the Harvard group? I want to put pressure on them to release an update for the Goodmans/Grundig boxes!
They don’t record the BBC HD channels on schedule any more (among other things). I’m sure they could easily fix it with an OTA update.
They’re still selling them in Maplin and Tesco so surely they have a duty to fix these software glitches!
BarnardQuote
July 25th, 2011 at 11:43 pm
Scripps is supposedly buying UKTV from virgin, They own Food Network in the UK so lets be optimistic here!
WERTQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 12:51 am
Just dug this out from Broadcast which makes interesting reading about the Scripps acquisition:
http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/scripps-poised-for-uktv-deal/5030056.article
NeilQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 7:10 am
I can still get ITV player on 999 green,green blue green green.
AlanQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 7:15 am
@Barnard
Sorry, no decent connection within Harvard Group and given they have lost the contract with Freesat, they are even harder to deal with!
adminQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 8:18 am
To barnard the programmes rely on a signal sent by the broadcaster and sometimes they are not on time I don’t think its a Harvard group fault
original steveQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 8:30 am
@ Admin # 7, Luckily I don’t seem to get banned, I just cause whole blogs to be shut down by the BBC. Whatever, happened to free speech?
At least it’s liberal on here.
Al (Original)Quote
July 26th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Alan, just tried green green blue green green for ITV Player and it works picture fair.
Richard W. (Burdekin)Quote
July 26th, 2011 at 10:11 am
Lets hope when 1N gets off the ground ( 26 July so the rumour mill says) we start to see those channel pouring in.
PhilQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Yep @admin, i saw the hack job of editing the thread and the removal of the posts and once again proving that DS is bent!!!!!!
Fun though, i expected a ban! Guess they woke up from the booze and pills party they were obviously having eh
ianQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 11:46 am
@30 Phil
The rumour mill must be wrong about the launch date being 26th July. There is no launch date scheduled yet according to the arianespace website.
Richard CrichtonQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
@ 24 ahhh I can’t read the article as I’m not a subscriber, what does it say?
DarthQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Channel 999 claiming ITV net player available as a beta on channel 903 for humax boxes but I can’t get it to work yet
GaseousClayQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
So what have you all been saying on DS to warrent a ban?
Good news that we could possibly be getting more HD channels.
JonQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
@GaseousClay: Same here, still the coming soon screen on 903. Haven’t checked to see if GGBGG still works, though.
MuzerQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
@Jon: Just criticizing someone making a spammy, self-promotion thread in the wrong subforum about RD (edit – admin), and the admins taking a few days to even move it, and haven’t deleted it at all despite it obviously being vapourware crap, and what’s more have deleted most of the comments complaining about it being vapourware crap.
MuzerQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
@ Muzer, nah GGBGG does’t work either. I’m wondering if there might be a freesat retune overnight. Going to try a retune on it now see if that works.
GaseousClayQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Have a look at the thread now, they have removed more comments to make it look like we was never there!!!!! Maybe they read here also..
ianQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
@ian
Yep, I’ve had all my posts removed from that thread and DS won’t even do me the favour of a reply to say why! The mods on there are incapable of understanding their own forum rules!
adminQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Exactly, they are there to do a job and that is to make sure that users adhere to the T&C’s yet they blatantly disregard them in favour of some obvious spammer!
And that same plank that created that one now thinks that Freesat ‘went wrong’ so i think that says alot really…
Least it was moved though..
ianQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
I didn’t realise that RD were still around, up to their old tricks spamming the freesat forums eh?
JonQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Doesn’t seem to be anything more on Electric Sofa movie channels . It was expected early 2011 but here we are approaching late 2011 and still no news.
LlewQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
I think you should have a three strickes or you r out law on freesat you have to give three launch dates if you don’t meet any of them like itv then your told to go fourth well I’ll let you gees the rest
MartinQuote
July 26th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
Richard (32): Looks like this site has some insider info on 1N, the latest now being discussed is 5th August at the earliest:
http://www.forum-conquete-spatiale.fr/t12353p60-ariane-5-eca-va203-astra-1n-bsat-3c-5-aout-2011
(A Google translation will convert to legible English)
NeilQuote
July 28th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Thank you Neil. It will launch sometime hopefully without a problem then things should get interesting in the run up to the winter holiday period.
Richard CrichtonQuote
July 28th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
@ 45 Neil. SES facebook page now saying..
ASTRA 1N, the 2nd try:
Arianespace Flight VA203
Ariane 5 ECA – ASTRA 1N – BSAT-3c/JCSAT-110R
Liftoff is scheduled for Friday 5 August 2011
PhilQuote
July 28th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Confirmed launch date August 5th on their website.
http://www.arianespace.com/news/mission-status.asp
Richard CrichtonQuote
July 29th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Glad to see SES and Arianespace have now finally given a relaunch date, lets hope she takes off successfully this time! I put a temporary dish up at 19.2E for the July launch which is still sat on a stand in the garden awaiting the relaunch!
I think it will make for some interesting changes to come in the later quarter of the year. Hopefully we might see some activity by mid-September once they’ve completed all the in-orbit tests.
NeilQuote
August 4th, 2011 at 11:37 am
One day to go till the launch of Astra 1N fingers crossed. Watch the launch live here from 21:33 UTC.
http://www.videocorner.tv/videocorner2/live_flv/index.php?langue=en
Richard CrichtonQuote