DTVDigital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
Services, trading as
Freeview, is the name for the collection of
free-to-airFree-to-air describes television and radio services broadcast in clear form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscription or one-off fee...
services on the
Digital Terrestrial TelevisionDigital terrestrial television is the technological evolution of broadcast television and advance from analog television, which broadcasts land-based signals...
platform in the UK. The service is jointly run by its five equal shareholders,
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
,
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
,
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
, Sky and transmitter operator
ArqivaArqiva is a telecommunications company which provides infrastructure and broadcast transmission facilities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The present company, with headquarters located at Crawley Court in the village of Crawley, Hampshire, was formed by National Grid Wireless...
. DTV Services is designed to market changes to the platform. DTV Services is responsible for marketing services such as Freeview+, the PVR brand and Freeview HD.
The technical specification for Freeview is published and maintained by the
Digital TV GroupThe Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
, the industry association for digital TV in the UK who also provide the test and conformance regime for Freeview, Freeview + and Freeview HD products. DMOL, a company owned by the operators of the six DTT multiplexes (BBC, ITV, C4, and Arqiva) is responsible for technical platform management and policy, including the
electronic programme guideElectronic program guides and interactive program guides provide users of television, radio, and other media applications with continuously updated menus displaying broadcast programming or scheduling information for current and upcoming programming...
and channel numbering.
Overview
Freeview officially launched on 30 October 2002 at 5 am when the BBC and Crown Castle (now
ArqivaArqiva is a telecommunications company which provides infrastructure and broadcast transmission facilities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The present company, with headquarters located at Crawley Court in the village of Crawley, Hampshire, was formed by National Grid Wireless...
) officially took over the
digital terrestrial televisionDigital terrestrial television is the technological evolution of broadcast television and advance from analog television, which broadcasts land-based signals...
(DTT) licences to broadcast on the three
multiplexA multiplex or mux is a group of TV channels that are mixed together for broadcast over a digital TV channel and separated out again by the receiver...
es from the defunct
ITV DigitalITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster, which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network as ONdigital in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001, before the service ceased in May 2002. Its main shareholders...
(originally called ONdigital). The founding members of DTV Services, who trade as Freeview, were the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Crown Castle UK (now part of
ArqivaArqiva is a telecommunications company which provides infrastructure and broadcast transmission facilities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The present company, with headquarters located at Crawley Court in the village of Crawley, Hampshire, was formed by National Grid Wireless...
) and
British Sky BroadcastingBritish Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
. On 11 October 2006,
ITV plcITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...
and
Channel 4Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
became equal shareholders. Since then, the Freeview model has been copied in
AustraliaFreeview is the brand given to the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia. It is intended to bring all of the free-to-air broadcasters on to a consistent marketing platform to compete against subscription television, in particular Foxtel, and coincides with the expansion to 3 digital...
and New Zealand.
Receiver
To receive the services that Freeview promotes, either a television with an integrated digital tuner, or an existing standard analogue television receiver (used as a display device) plus a
set-top boxA set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
(typically available from £15) or digital
PVRA digital video recorder , sometimes referred to by the merchandising term personal video recorder , is a consumer electronics device or application software that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card or other local or networked mass storage device...
is required. (New analogue receivers are no longer sold as there will be no more analog transmissions after the 2010-2012 digital switchover.) DTT tuners for computers are also available from about £15. Some retailers say that a digital television receiver is actually required, which is untrue.
Aerial
An
aerial (antenna)A television antenna, or TV aerial, is an antenna specifically designed for the reception of over the air broadcast television signals, which are transmitted at frequencies from about 41 to 250 MHz in the VHF band, and 470 to 960 MHz in the UHF band in different countries...
is required for viewing any broadcast television transmissions. For all transmissions indoor, loft-mounted, and external aerials are available. In regions of strong signal an indoor aerial may be adequate; in marginal areas a high-gain external aerial mounted high above the ground with an electronic
amplifierGenerally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
at its top may be needed.
Aerial requirements for analogue (the old standard) and digital reception in the UK are identical; there is no such thing as a special "digital aerial", although installers and suppliers often falsely say one is necessary. An aerial which gives poor analogue viewing may give unwatchable, rather than poor, digital viewing, and need replacing, at a cost of typically £80 to £180, most of which is fitting cost.
Service costs
The name distinguishes the service from
cableCable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
, Sky Digital and the former
ITV DigitalITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster, which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network as ONdigital in 1998 and briefly re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001, before the service ceased in May 2002. Its main shareholders...
, digital TV services. Freeview channels can be received at no charge (other than the annual
television licenceA television licence is an official licence required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts...
required for television reception required for all viewers of broadcast television in the UK which must be purchased by anyone who has and uses the appropriate equipment to receive television signals).
A subscription-based DTT service,
Top Up TVTop Up TV is a pay television service in the UK launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial platform. The aim of the service is to "Top Up" Freeview customers by providing additional channels and services....
, launched in March 2004 using unused channel space on multiplexes that were owned by parties who, at the time, were not members of the Freeview consortium. The Top Up TV service is not connected with the Freeview service; it simply runs alongside it on the DTT platform. It was possible to receive Top Up TV on selected Freeview set-top boxes or televisions equipped with a card slot or
CIIn Digital Video Broadcasting, the Common Interface is an extensible digital interconnect found in the digital TV market. It is also known as DVB-CI for Digital Video Broadcast Common Interface....
slot, however, this was replaced in 2006 by "Top Up TV Anytime", a service which requires a proprietary set top box—details are on Top Up TV's website.
ESPNESPN is a sports television channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland owned by American sports broadcaster ESPN Inc. The channel launched on 3 August 2009...
can be received with televisions equipped with a card slot.
The
Digital TV Group the industry association for digital television in the UK, is responsible for co-ordination between Freeview, Top Up TV, and other digital services.
Freeview channels
The Freeview service broadcasts free-to-air television
channels, radio stations and interactive services from the existing public service broadcasters. Channels on the service include the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 terrestrial channels, as well as their digital services. In addition, channels from Sky and
UKTVUKTV is a digital cable and satellite television network, formed through a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, a commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Scripps Networks Interactive, spun off from The E.W Scripps Company in 2008...
, text services from
TeletextTeletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
and radio stations from BBC and Bauer amongst others are available.
The full range of channels broadcast via digital terrestrial television includes pay television services from operators such as
Top Up TVTop Up TV is a pay television service in the UK launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial platform. The aim of the service is to "Top Up" Freeview customers by providing additional channels and services....
and ESPN. These channels, although available only to subscribers with appropriate equipment, are listed in the on-screen electronic programme guides displayed by many Freeview receivers but may not be viewed.
Freeview+
Freeview+, originally entitled "Freeview Playback", is a consumer brand for the specification of Digital Terrestrial Recorders which is published and maintained by the
Digital TV GroupThe Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
. It is designed to "raise consumer awareness and promote sales" of Freeview-capable digital video recorders. Only approved digital terrestrial recorders (PVRs, DVRs and DTRs) which meet specified quality and functionality criteria are permitted to carry the Freeview+ logo. An advantage of the scheme is the benefit of joint marketing and consumer confidence.
Channels
With two channels (
BBC HDBBC HD is a high-definition television network provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007...
and ITV1 HD)
Freeview HD completed a "technical launch" on 2 December 2009 from
Winter HillThe Winter Hill transmitting station is a broadcasting and telecommunications site situated on Winter Hill, at the southern boundary of the Borough of Chorley, and above Bolton in Greater Manchester, England...
(as a full power service) and Crystal Palace (as a reduced power temporary service) and operates on multiplex BBC B (aka Multiplex B or PSB3) from that date in regions that switched-over on or after that date, with the service coming to all regions by the end of 2012.
Channel 4 HDChannel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
commenced test broadcasts on 25 March 2010 with an animated caption, ahead of its full launch on 30 March 2010, coinciding with the commercial launch of Freeview HD.
S4C ClirlunS4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is the fifth oldest British television channel .The channel - initially broadcast on...
launched on 30 April 2010 in Wales, where Channel 4 HD will not broadcast. STV HD launched in Scotland, where ITV1 HD does not broadcast, on 6 June 2010.
Five HD was due to launch during 2010 but was unable to reach 'key criteria' to keep its slot. Spare allocation on multiplex B was handed over to the BBC, two years from the date when it was anticipated that further capacity on multiplex B would revert to the control of the BBC Trust. On 3 November 2010,
BBC One HDBBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
launched on Freeview HD. It is available in addition to the existing BBC HD channel, which continues to show the "best of the rest" of the BBC in HD. The BBC Trust recognised that technical and financial constraints prevent additional variations.
Until 17 October 2011, the Commercial Public Service Broadcasters had the opportunity to apply to
OfcomOfcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
to provide an additional HD service from between 28 November 2011 and 1 April 2012. Channel 5 HD was the sole applicant, with the aim of launching in spring or early summer 2012.
Technical
The
Digital TV GroupThe Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
publishes and maintains the UK technical specification for high-definition services on digital terrestrial television (Freeview) based on the new DVB-T2 standard. The specification is known as the
D-bookThe D-Book is the UK technical specification for Digital terrestrial television .The Digital TV Group has published and maintained the D-Book for over a decade and the specification is updated annually to keep up with the pace of development in UK DTT...
. Freeview HD is the first operational TV service in the world using the
DVB-T2DVB-T2 is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting – Second Generation Terrestrial; it is the extension of the television standard DVB-T, issued by the consortium DVB, devised for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television....
standard. This standard is incompatible with DVB-T, and can only be received using compatible reception equipment. Some television receivers sold before the HD launch claimed to be "HD-ready", but this usually implies that the screen can display HD, rather than that DVB-T2 signals can be received—a suitable tuner (typically built into a STB or PVR) is additionally required. Freeview HD set-top boxes and televisions are available. In order to qualify for the Freeview HD logo, receivers will need to be IPTV-capable and display Freeview branding, including the logo, on the electronic programme guide screen. The Freeview HD trademark requirements state that any manufacturer applying for the Freeview HD logo should submit their product to the
Digital TV GroupThe Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
's test centre (DTG Testing) for conformance testing.
On 2 February 2010, Vestel became the first manufacturer to gain Freeview HD certification, for the Vestel T8300 set top box.
HumaxHumax is an electronics company. Founded in South Korea in 1989, it manufactures set-top boxes, digital video recorders and other consumer electronics. It is publicly traded on KOSDAQ....
released the first Freeview HD reception equipment, the Humax HD-FOX T2, on 13 February 2010.
It was announced on 10 February 2009 that the signal would be encoded with
MPEG-4 AVCH.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
High Profile Level 4, which supports up to 1080i30/1080p30, so 1080p50 cannot be used. The system has been designed from the start to allow regional variations in the broadcast schedule. Services are statistically multiplexed – bandwidth is dynamically allocated between channels, depending on the complexity of the images – with the aim of maintaining a consistent quality, rather than a specific bit rate. Video for each channel can range between 3 Mb/s and 17 Mbit/s.
AACAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
or
Dolby Digital PlusDolby Digital Plus is a digital audio compression scheme. It is an incompatible development of the technologies used in the earlier Dolby Digital system. E-AC-3 has a number of improvements aimed at increasing quality at a given bitrate compared with legacy Dolby Digital...
audio is transmitted at 320 kb/s for 5.1 surround sound, with stereo audio at 128 kbit/s; audio description takes up 64 kbit/s, subtitles 200 kbit/s and the data stream, for interactive applications, just 50 kbit/s. Recording sizes for Freeview HD television transmissions average around 3 GB per hour. Between 22 and 23 March 2011, an encoder software change allowed the Freeview version of BBC HD to automatically detect progressive material and change encoding mode appropriately, meaning the channel can switch to 1080p25. This was extended to all of the other Freeview HD channels in October 2011.
To ensure provision of audio description, broadcasters typically use the AAC codec. Hardware restrictions allow only a single type of audio decoder to operate at any one time, so the main audio and the audio description must use the same encoding family for them to be successfully combined at the receiver. In the case of BBC HD, the main audio is coded as AAC-LC and only the audio description is encoded as HE-AAC. Neither AAC nor Dolby Digital Plus codecs are supported by most home AV equipment, which typically accept
Dolby DigitalDolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
or DTS, leaving owners with stereo, rather than
surround soundSurround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
, output. Transcoding from AAC to Dolby Digital or DTS and multi-channel output via
HDMIHDMI is a compact audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed digital data. It is a digital alternative to consumer analog standards, such as radio frequency coaxial cable, composite video, S-Video, SCART, component video, D-Terminal, or VGA...
was not originally necessary for Freeview HD certification. As of June 2010 the
DTGThe Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
D-Book includes the requirement for mandatory transcoding when sending audio via
S/PDIFS/PDIF is a digital audio interconnect used in consumer audio equipment over relatively short distances. The signal is transmitted over either a coaxial cable with RCA connectors or a fiber optic cable with TOSLINK connectors. S/PDIF interconnects components in home theaters and other digital high...
, and for either transcoding or multi-channel
PCMPulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems...
audio when sending it via HDMI in order for manufacturers to gain Freeview HD certification from April 2011. Thus equipment sold as Freeview HD before April 2011 may not deliver surround sound to audio equipment (some equipment may, but this is not mandatory); later equipment must be capable of surround sound compatible with most suitable audio equipment.
In early February 2011 it was announced that 1,000,000 Freeview HD set-top boxes had been sold.
Copy protection
In August 2009 the BBC wrote to Ofcom after third-party content owners asked the BBC to undertake measures to ensure that all Freeview HD boxes would include copy protection systems as required by the Digital TV Group's D-Book, which sets technical standards for digital terrestrial television in the UK. The BBC proposed to ensure compliance with copy-protection standards on the upgraded Freeview HD multiplex by compressing the service information (SI) data, which receivers need to understand the TV services in the data stream. To encourage boxes to adopt copy protection, the BBC made its own look-up tables and decompression algorithm, necessary for decoding the EPG data on high-definition channels, available without charge only to manufacturers who implement the copy-protection technology. This technology would control the way HD films and TV shows are copied onto, for example Blu-ray discs, and shared with others over the internet. No restrictions will be placed on standard-definition services. In a formal written response, Ofcom principal advisor Greg Bensberg said that wording of the licence would probably need to be changed to reflect the fact that this new arrangement is permitted. The BBC had suggested that as an alternative to the SI compression scheme, the Freeview HD multiplex may have to adopt encryption. Bensberg said that it would appear "inappropriate to encrypt public service broadcast content on DTT".
On 14 June 2010 Ofcom agreed to allow the BBC to limit the full availability of its own and other broadcasters' high definition (HD) Freeview services to receivers that control how HD content can be used. Ofcom concluded that the decision to accept the BBC’s request will deliver net benefits to licence-holders by ensuring they have access to the widest possible range of HD television content on DTT.
An update to the Freeview HD programme guide data, featuring the
Huffman-encodedIn computer science and information theory, Huffman coding is an entropy encoding algorithm used for lossless data compression. The term refers to the use of a variable-length code table for encoding a source symbol where the variable-length code table has been derived in a particular way based on...
EPG tables, was rolled out in August 2010.
Coverage and reception
, 77% of the UK population can receive the full Freeview service, with more able to receive some channels before digital switchover and all channels after Coverage is being increased as digital switchover takes place across the UK.
Ofcom estimates that the coverage level of the three public-service broadcasting multiplexes will reach 98.5% of the population (the same as analogue television) and six-multiplex reception will cover 90% of the population once the digital switchover has been completed in 2012. The full package of sixty Freeview channels (six-multiplex) will only be available via the main transmitter in each transmitter group, and a number of other Relay Transmitters that are deemed to be important in terms of the large coverage area they serve. Those who rely on a local self-help
relay transmitterA repeater is an electronic device that receives asignal and retransmits it at a higher level and/or higher power, or onto the other side of an obstruction, so that the signal can cover longer distances.-Description:...
, or other Relay transmitters covering a small village or area will only receive around eighteen channels (three-multiplex) after digital switchover.
Approximately 27% of households were in a location that could not receive Freeview broadcasts in 2006. Maximum Freeview coverage of the UK while
analogueAn analog or analogue signal is any continuous signal for which the time varying feature of the signal is a representation of some other time varying quantity, i.e., analogous to another time varying signal. It differs from a digital signal in terms of small fluctuations in the signal which are...
and
digitalA digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
services were running in tandem was reached in the years before digital switchover in the UK began. Digital UK, a body backed by the UK government and UK broadcasters, is switching off analogue TV services in the UK in a process ending in 2012, region by region. In June 2009 the BBC announced that high-definition TV (HDTV) broadcasts on digital terrestrial television would start in December of the same year.
In 2007 the Whitehaven transmitter in
CumbriaCumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
switched to digital. In 2008 viewers in the
Scottish BordersThe Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
had their analogue signal switched off and their Freeview signal boosted, and coverage increased to minor relays. In 2009 Freeview coverage increased: The south-west of England switched to digital between April and August; Cumbria,
Dumfries and GallowayDumfries and Galloway is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland. It was one of the nine administrative 'regions' of mainland Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government etc. Act 1973...
and the
Isle of ManThe Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
switched in June. Wales is the first nation to complete the digital switchover with its analogue services replaced by high-powered digital signals carrying the Freeview service.
History
Following the collapse of ITV Digital, the
Independent Television CommissionThe Independent Television Commission licensed and regulated commercial television services in the United Kingdom between 1 January 1991 and 28 December 2003....
re-advertised the licenses for the three multiplexes (MUX B, C and D) that had been used by ITV Digital. On 16 August 2002, the licenses were granted to members of the Freeview consortium, with BBC getting multiplex B and Crown Castle getting multiplexes C and D.
Although all pay channels had been closed down on ITV Digital, many free-to-air channels continued broadcasting, including the five analogue channels, the BBC channels and
ITV2ITV2 is a 24 hour, free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998, and is available on digital television via satellite, cable, IPTV and terrestrial platforms. The channel has the...
, ITN News Channel,
S4C2S4C2 was a free-to-air British television station owned by S4C which, until 2010, broadcast coverage of the National Assembly for Wales at the Senedd....
,
TV Travel ShopTV Travel Shop was a British television channel that sold holidays.It launched in 1998, primarily on satellite and cable. In 2000, the channel launched on ONdigital, using capacity from ONrequest 2 , and broadcast 6am-12pm weekdays, and 6am-10am weekends, free to air on channel 44. Its hours were...
and
QVCQVC UK is a digital television shopping channel broadcast in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1993 when QVC, Inc. formed a deal with Sky TV to create a UK version of the US channel. "QVC — The Shopping Channel" first broadcast in the UK on 1 October 1993. QVC UK - 20% owned by Sky - moved into...
.
Freeview launched on 30 October 2002.
Sky TravelSky Real Lives was an in-house channel from BSkyB that showed extensive programmes about travel, adverts for travel agencies and documentaries. The channels closed on 19 August 2010.-History:...
, UK History,
Sky NewsSky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
,
Sky Sports NewsSky Sports News is a 24-hour sports news channel in the United Kingdom. It is run by BSkyB whose sports channels include Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as Sky Sports HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4....
, The Hits (now
4Music4Music is a music and entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and available on some digital television providers in the Republic of Ireland - its web component can be found at with its own and pages. It is the only channel within the Box Television Network to be branded under Channel 4 and...
) and TMF (now
VivaViva is a music video and entertainment channel in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The channel was officially launched on 26 October 2009 by Alexandra Burke, with an exclusive live performance of her single "Bad Boys". The channel replaced TMF. The channel is owned by MTV Networks Europe and was...
) were available from the start.
BBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
and the interactive BBC streams were moved to multiplex B. Under the initial plans, the two multiplexes operated by
Crown CastleCrown Castle International Corp. is an American corporation headquartered in Houston, Texas, which provides infrastructure for broadcasting and mobile telephony. It operates in the United States, Puerto Rico and Australia...
would carry eight channels altogether. The seventh stream became shared by UK Bright Ideas and
FtnFtn was a television channel from Virgin Media Television transmitting free-to-air on Freeview and Virgin Media, and as a subscription channel on Sky Digital. The channel was broadcast between 18:00 and 06:00 daily...
which launched in February 2003. The eighth stream was left unused until April 2004 when the shopping channel
Ideal WorldIdeal World is a shopping channel in the UK whose sister shopping channels include Create and Craft, Ideal Extra and Ideal & More. It is owned by Ideal Shopping Direct Plc. Their sister health and beauty channel, Vitality, closed early in 2008...
launched on Freeview. There are now 14 streams carried by the two multiplexes, with Multiplex C carrying 6 streams, and Multiplex D carrying 8. It has recently been announced that more streams are now available on the multiplexes, and that bidding is under way.
On 23 August 2010,
Sky Sports NewsSky Sports News is a 24-hour sports news channel in the United Kingdom. It is run by BSkyB whose sports channels include Sky Sports 1, 2, 3 and 4, as well as Sky Sports HD1, HD2, HD3 and HD4....
was removed from Freeview and replaced with Sky3 +1.
Transmission upgrades and equipment obsolescence
Digital terrestrial television is incompatible with analogue receivers, which can display DTT only by using a digital set-top box.
Changes in the way that DTT is transmitted mean that a digital set-top box from the late 1990s would have offered impaired performance as early as 2002, and will today be completely unusable in many parts of the UK where transmission is fully digital. The increase in the number of channels (including services which broadcast only for a few hours a day, and 'interactive' text-based services which nonetheless require their own channel numbers) resulted in a requirement to alter the previous broadcast parameters of the network. In August 2008 this caused approximately 250,000 receivers with Setpal microprocessors (mainly 4–6 years old) to stop working altogether due to incompatibility with the expansion, due to a change in size and format of the Network Information Table. Freeview had warned consumers in advance of the update, which was phased in over a three-month period.
Other boxes and IDTVs (almost all dating from 2004 or earlier) have been made obsolete by the change to "8 k mode" which is used in regions where analogue transmissions have ceased. The 8k mode offers financial and technical benefits to broadcasters, at the expense of compatibility with older receivers.
Customers make no payment for transmissions beyond the licence fee, but there is no entity with any obligation to ensure that old equipment continues to work, or is replaced when incompatible upgrades occur, as is the case on managed platforms such as cable TV providing services for which payment is made. Affected consumers are advised to buy new Freeview receiving equipment.
Further alterations to broadcast services are trialled on a regional basis. Viewers who experience problems as a result are advised by Freeview to contact the manufacturer of their equipment.
2009 retune
The Freeview service underwent a major upgrade on 30 September 2009 which required 18 million households to retune their Freeview receiving equipment. The changes, meant to ensure proper reception of Channel 5, led to several thousand complaints from people who lost channels (notably
ITV3ITV3 is an entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom that is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. The channel was launched on 1 November 2004. ITV3 is the second largest UK multi-channel, second only to ITV2.-History:...
and
ITV4ITV4 is a British television station which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a male-oriented line-up, including sport, cop shows and US comedies and dramas, as well as classic ITV action...
) as a result of retuning their equipment. The Freeview website crashed and the call centre was inundated as a result of the problems.
The change involved an update to the NIT (Network Information Table), which some receivers could not accommodate. Many thousands of people could not receive some channels. This included 460,000 fed from relay stations who have permanently lost access to
ITV3ITV3 is an entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom that is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. The channel was launched on 1 November 2004. ITV3 is the second largest UK multi-channel, second only to ITV2.-History:...
and
ITV4ITV4 is a British television station which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a male-oriented line-up, including sport, cop shows and US comedies and dramas, as well as classic ITV action...
. Updates were broadcast to enable
firmwareIn electronic systems and computing, firmware is a term often used to denote the fixed, usually rather small, programs and/or data structures that internally control various electronic devices...
changes, but in some cases the receiver must be left on and receiving broadcasts to accept the updates; not everyone was aware of this.
See also
- Digital TV Group
The Digital TV Group is the industry association for Digital Television in the United Kingdom : The Group was formed in 1995 to set technical standards for the implementation of digital terrestrial television in the UK and now encompasses all digital TV platforms and convergence issues...
- Top Up TV
Top Up TV is a pay television service in the UK launched in March 2004, operating on the digital terrestrial platform. The aim of the service is to "Top Up" Freeview customers by providing additional channels and services....
- BT Vision
BT Vision is a hybrid IPTV-digital terrestrial television service provided by BT Group in the United Kingdom which was launched in December 2006...
- Virgin Media
Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...
- Freesat
Freesat is a free-to-air digital satellite television joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc, serving the United Kingdom. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008...
- TalkTalk TV
- Télévision Numérique Terrestre
TNT is the national digital terrestrial service for France. It formally arrived on 31 March 2005 after a short testing period. Like Freeview in the United Kingdom it will support many new channels as well as the current terrestrial television stations...
- Sky Picnic
Sky Picnic is a proposed pay television service to launch from BSkyB. It would sit alongside Freeview and Top Up TV on the digital terrestrial television platform in the United Kingdom.-History:...
- High-definition television in the United Kingdom
High-definition television in the United Kingdom is available via cable, IPTV, satellite and terrestrial television. The first high-definition broadcasts began in 2006 and the number of channels has grown to 65 ....
External links