Freeview kit to require retune tomorrow
EPG shake-up
Freeview viewers, prepare to retune your equipment. The terrestrial digital TV platform will require yet another channel check tomorrow to implement changes made to its electronic programme guide.
TVs with digital tuners and set-top boxes not set to automatically spot the change and to retune accordingly, will require manual retuning. There will be on-screen prompts to remind you.
The change is all about shuffling the channels to make room in the listing for more stations of given types. For example, HD services will be shifted from channels 50 to 101, in the process gaining room for 20 HD channels in all. Channel 100 will become a Freeview HD information page.
Channels 1 through 99 will become home to "general entertainment" stations. There will also be room made in the listing for IPTV stations, though clearly not video-on-demand services which, of course, have no need of a time-based programme guide.
DMOL (DTT Multiplex Operators Ltd), the organisation that oversees the Freeview EPG and the channel listing, said it will reserve certain channel numbers for new public service local TV channels. These will be carried at 8 (England and Northern Ireland) and 45 (Wales and Scotland).
The reorganisation follows a consultation process DMOL initiated back in March. DMOL has an in-depth PDF discussion of the changes and the reasoning behind them on its website. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Four?
We used to Drrreeeeaaammm of having 2 channels.
We used to sit in a darkened room with a big cardboard box in't corner wi' an 'ole in it. And when our dad got home he would put on a mangy old glove wi' faces drawn on't fingers, stick it through 'ole and jiggle his fingers to re-anct forsyt' saga - AND he used to have to do adverts about InjuryClaims and QuickLoans himself too.
If we asked him to change channel he would say 'what f***ing channel would that be then - smartarse?" and give us some 'forsyt justice' by punching us in the face wearing the puppet glove.
But you tell that to the kids of today ......
Now I'll need to spend ages *again* deleting all the shite off the EPG.
Sometimes I really miss the simplicity of four channels.
*Offers Spangles around*
re: Why Not
"The providers of shopping channels considered that the DMOL research suggests that there
is no consumer demand for the genre."
So, even the shopping channels conclude there is no need for self existence?
I think therefore I cease.....
Re: Four?
"When I were a lad we only had to cope with two which was confusing enough"
yes, but one was the BBC and we didn't watch the other as it contained stuff for common people!
Re: re: Why Not
Really? Has *anyone* ever watched the shopping channels (for anything other than entertainment, at least) since we first got them on Sky Analogue all those years ago when I was still a kid?
Overpriced tat. Complicated buying structures. Expensive postage and phone lines. Over-eager American salesmen demonstrating how wonderful a ceramic frying pan "holds heat for longer" without any mention that it takes longer to warm up (ya cannae beat the laws of physics, Jim) with THE most false product appraisals and "smiles" ever in the history of the planet.
I watch them to play the "contradiction" game - where you and a friend sit and watch them (presumably when NOTHING else is on) and point out the scientific flaws and what they actually mean when they say "It's 50% better" or whatever and point out the holes in their sales pitches.
Apart from that, who on Earth would watch them? It's like a Betterware catalogue on the TV, but not quite so classy.
