Freeview HD is here...

[cosmocat]

If you are in the right areas.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/12/03/...ch_report/

Does anybody know if tuner cards are available, and what codecs would be required.

PS Happy New Year everybody.

[BigMoose]

You'd need a DVB-T2 card, which I dont believe exist yet (or have any idea if GBPVR would support one if one did) and a H264 decoder - the same as if you are decoding BBC HD on on sat. I assume the more freeview HD takes off in the UK the more chance there is of DVB-T2 cards coming along.... I dont know of other countries using DVB-T2 but hopefully more will over time and cards will become available.

[Clanky]

On TheRegister it says

'On the vexed subject of content management, the final decision won’t, Freeview assured us, make any difference to the availability of consumer equipment, as it will all be done in software. If Ofcom doesn’t give the go-ahead, then the EPG tables will simply be transmitted in the clear, but the boxes will still contain the decoding software should it become necessary to support DRM - if the BBC gets its way - at a later date.'

What does this mean? Would they encrypt the epg instead of the program?
If so then wouldn't it be easy for a htpc to record hd if the program name was known?

Al

[BigMoose]

That's a very good question. There was a thread about this elsewhere (or was it in the digitalspy forum?) and no one had a clue what the BBC was trying to achieve. Some read it as EPG encryption, but from the thread at the time I got more that the BBC were trying to do something to the DVB data to make it impossible to decode the video data without some know how. I don't see it being in the BBCs interest to waste time solely on encrypting the EPG if their reason for doing so is to stop recording and duplication of the HD content as no HTPC recorder gives a sh*te about the EPG. Surely the BBC know this and wouldn't waste the effort? Or is it just playing silly buggers to make the content owners think they've done their best to stop piracy? Then again, with the nature stuff in HD, surely the BBC are the content owners....

[Clanky]

I've been holding off buying freesat because there are mixed reports about hd quality not being as good as it originally was & now they are thinking about messing about with freeview hd. I need some incentive to get rid of my ws digital panasonic crt but I think I will wait a bit longer & see how things develop

[BigMoose]

As far as I can tell the BBC HD quality on freesat being made worse is down to 2 things: limited space on the 2D transponder to fit more channels in (and extra cost to rent more TPs even if they existed on 2D) and to ensure the sat quality isn't loads better than the freeview version (due to being less space over all on terestrial than sat). So dont expect the freeview version to be any better than the worse freesat version (that said, who knows, with stat muxing on the freeview tp and not yet on the sat tp, it might be better). But yes, BBC HD on sat is noticably worse than it used to be which is a shame. But look at ITV SD on digital sat, it's like watching lego vision for football. All about saving money and squeezing the most they can out of it before too many complain. HD will be no different!

[gEd]

I didn;t bother with freesat as I always felt it was a bit of a stop-gap until freeview HD came along and gbpvr support somehow appeared to me still in early-adoptor mode.

However, Crystal Palace is only a couple of miles away from me, so bring on the tuners and I may well be tempted to give it a go (with Subs help)

[austinwhite]

I guess by the time Freeview HD reaches the wilds of Sussex (2012 I see) there will be plenty of kit to choose from. Till then, it's the cheap (but far from nasty) Pinnacle 7010ix and Freesat for me. BBC HD is better than nothing.....

[Pob]

http://www.dektec.com/Products/Apps/DTC-342/index.asp

[ACTCMS]

http://www.dektec.com/Products/Apps/DTC-342/index.asp

Just a wee bit over my budget...