BBC/ITV/ Ch4 / Ch5 HiDef Freeview Trial

FrankJH

FrankJH

FrankJH

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I have just heard a few minutes ago that I am one of the lucky few to be granted a free STB for the terrestrial HiDef freeview trial happening in London, so thought I would start a thread.

I have been granted a 15 minute slot on Sat 3rd June to pick up my kit from Central London (and a talk thru on how to connect it doh!!)

Will post more when I get the box, anyone else getting this kit?
 
Mr_Sukebe said:
Frank,
I think that you were just about to lets us know where you live, so that we can have one of our less than friendly acquaintances come and borrow the unit from you....

On a more serious note. Nice one, but you're going to have to give us lots of updates on your findings, actual picture quality, the type of broadcasts, reliability of the STB etc.

What TV/av system will you be using it with?
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Laughs - If you want to scour the whole of Central London then you will probably deserve it - and even then I will hate you for a long time to come (one of the main reasons I moved recently was because of a plague of burglaries) ... just to be sure no offence taken or meant

Of course I will let you know with pictures and words what the kit is like, from build quality to cables etc and pic quality on my Samsung 32" R41BDX.

I also have a Sony freeview dvd /hdd recorder and Denon 1906 av amp

Obviously I am most happpy about being able to watch the world cup in Hidef goodness, but now I will become seriously interested in all the BBC wildlife progs as well ( as I believe these have been shot in HD for years) amongst other things - I wish Formula 1 (yes I know I am sad but there ya go) was broadcast in HD but Bernie wont pay for it so thats out the window

Wont have many updates until this weekend when I pick up the kit - but as you can possibly tell I cant wait

Personally the questionaires and telephone interviews I have to do will be small penance indeed.
 
I think I applied in early / Mid march - and as there are only 450 places, I am sure they got snapped up very quickly.

I am not that hot on what hardware would be required either in a stb or in a MCE machine for you to recieve it ( apart from the software codecs) but I wouldnt bet on you being able to recieve it.

I am guessing you are also in easy range of Crystal Palace transmitter?
 
Goatboy said:
In that case are there any PC's fast enough to handle an h.264 stream on the fly?

Last I heard x264 encodes took about 24 hours for a single film on the fastest pc's around.
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This is why I was surprised that a normal pc would be able to decode it.

But its all new to me, so willing to learn if someone gets it working - glad I got the (hopefully) easy option (-:
 
Werewolf said:
Isn't decoding traditionally much less CPU intensive that encoding?
I know it's much faster to watch an avi/xvid file than it is to encode it for example:)
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I will be gutted if My pc does the job better than a "built for the job" stb lol, but either way I get the equipment free, so cant complain
 
hp7909 said:
'think this years US GP will be in HD - but maybe just for the American audience. HD broadcast means also upgrading all track/stadium/etc equipment - quite not cheap :cool:
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I realise that but then Bernie could sell subscriptions to earn even more thick a wad of cash - I would be surprised if it wasnt shot in hd anyway, so its just transmission etc that needs to be dealt with i dunno

Not like he is short of a bob or two to get initial funds from before getting paid back by subscribers
 
Picked up the STB today (from Ch4 offices in SW1), which is an i-can 3800T box , which looks much like any STB from the front with a top-up TV slot also.

Roun the back it has power, two scart connectors, analogue L+R, RF in and out, HDMI, SPDIF, ethernet and USB 2.0

For anyone who is interested; STi7100 CPU, 68Mb Flash memory and 192Mb RAM

1280*720 & 1920*1080 available res (and SD upto 720*576)

At the moment I can only pick up one BBC HD channel which is just showing clips, as soon as I catch a full HiDef broadcast I will try and take pics from SD BBC and HD channel for comparison (if anyone wants to see) - of course its also picked up the standard 50 odd channels or so from freeview.

I currently have the res set to 1080i even though I am only using a Samsung 32R41BDX , it just seems a little better than 720p, but I may change this once the BBC have finalised the transmission rate ( we were advised they willl be changing this up until thebeginning of the World Cup)

/edit ..... I have just checked the BBC HD website and there doesnt seem to be much on at all before the WC - I was hoping there would be some wildlife programmes or simulcasts to do some comparison but it seems not - they have a couple of programs but these have not been filmed in HD , so no live pics for a while I am afraid)
 
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I am sure you are right - the demo stuff was all music programs and slow moving wildlife - which looked good but difficult to really compare as soon as the WC starts I will be flicking between them to see which is better.

tesla - as above , however remember that the panel is actually slightly better than 720p ( native is 1366*768 instead of 1280*720) so using the tv's downscaling may still end up better as I would guess the image should be slightly better - but as Ben said fast motion might change this once I get a chance to view.

Goatboy, you may well be right however the bbc website was only willing to tell me the timetable upto about Wednesday of this coming week, and it was either SD upscaling for about an hour a night or the rolling demo.

Once proper HD is shown I will happily try and produce some pics for people to get a proper idea. I was also hoping that ITV would be broadcasting their matches in HD (and Ch4 would be doing something also) but as yet their channel isnt broadcasting - or the tuner isnt picking it up - as this is a trial what do people think about the possibility of all terrestrial channels broadcasting on the same trial channel ( as there isnt enough broadcasting space for them all to do it until analogue gets turned off)?

It was just curious that the BBC is the big pusher of this, and yet I picked it up from CH4 offices and in the included leaflets it clearly states BBC and other broadcasters........... will update either way as soon as I know more
 
MrM3 said:
Damn I signed up for this... twice I think.

I have Sky HD but would hav preferred yours for ITV World Cup coverage.

Do you keep the stb afterwards? Can it record?
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Well they where giving away the stb to people just walking in today - so I dont know why you didnt get the email saying you could be part of the trial.

As long as you complete all the online questionaires ( once a month I believe) and do a few phone questionaries for the 6 months til Xmas, you are entitled to keep it yes ( i think there are other incentives also but cant remember the details)

No it cant record - I am going to see if my dvd/hdd recorder can do it justice when there is real programing to be recorded.

If anyone has HD ITV it will be sky so I wouldnt worry too much. I am hopeful I get it also but I am not certian
 
Without being rude - it would be nice to keep this for the official equipment, I know a number of people from here have signed up

If you want to talk codecs etc etc then by all means create a new thread........... just remember that as far as I am aware the BBC is only transmitting the triial from Crystal Palace, so if you dont have your tv signal coming from there you wont get the new HD channel anyway.
 
Well actually there was a thread not so long ago with loads saying they had signed up- but as to whether they got the box, I have no idea
 
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