BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On 13/12/2013 09:37, Martin wrote:
On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:00:40 +0000, Roderick Stewart


And then we invented the internet, which makes it possible for anybody
to watch or listen to any radio or TV channel from anywhere. Maybe in
about 25 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.

Next they will invent communication satellites to avoid laying miles of
broadband cables to remote places.

That's a good idea, and then I suppose you could carry every regional
version of a channel, and choose to watch whatever version you like,
regardless of location.


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On 13/12/2013 08:17, charles wrote:

When the uhf services were planned, England was treated as a whole. No
precious frequencies were allocated for regional services, which in the BBC
case amounted to 5 news bulletins and one regional programme about half an
hour long - less than 3 hours a week!

Yes, though I seem to recall ITV had an awful lot of regional content,
the UHF network was (or should have been !) planned with them in mind too

unfortunately, hills which upset tv reception don't nrecessarily repect
man-made regional boundaries, which is why some people in Harrogate have to
watch Bilsdale.

That's the main problem.



--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

In article , Mark Carver
wrote:
On 13/12/2013 08:17, charles wrote:

When the uhf services were planned, England was treated as a whole. No
precious frequencies were allocated for regional services, which in the
BBC case amounted to 5 news bulletins and one regional programme about
half an hour long - less than 3 hours a week!

Yes, though I seem to recall ITV had an awful lot of regional content,
the UHF network was (or should have been !) planned with them in mind too.

Remember that main stations, like Bilsdale, sterilise the use of the their
frequencies for hundreds of miles. We couldn't have had a 5 (or even 6)
channel service covering the entire country if regional tv had been
considered.

unfortunately, hills which upset tv reception don't nrecessarily repect
man-made regional boundaries, which is why some people in Harrogate
have to watch Bilsdale.

That's the main problem.

I once had an idiot complain that living only 20 miles from the capital of
Scotland he could get a tv signal. I had great pleasure in telling him
that when our forbears picked Edinburgh as their capital city, they hadn't
considered television reception in the Moorfoot Hills 600 years later as a
priority.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.18

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:00:40 +0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 08:17:14 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:


When the uhf services were planned, England was treated as a whole. No
precious frequencies were allocated for regional services, which in the BBC
case amounted to 5 news bulletins and one regional programme about half an
hour long - less than 3 hours a week!

unfortunately, hills which upset tv reception don't nrecessarily repect
man-made regional boundaries, which is why some people in Harrogate have to
watch Bilsdale.

And then we invented the internet, which makes it possible for anybody
to watch or listen to any radio or TV channel from anywhere. Maybe in
about 25 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.


Allow me to correct your last paragraph:

Maybe in
about 10 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:00:40 +0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

And then we invented the internet, which makes it possible for anybody
to watch or listen to any radio or TV channel from anywhere. Maybe in
about 25 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.

What, compared with the inefficiencies of:
1) building thousands of little masts and blasting stuff into the air
2) distributing an individual copy of everything to anybody who wants
to watch/listen to the same channel at the same time

Really, you do write some rubbish some times.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:14:19 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

If everybody had their own dedicated "line" to some master
computer that would be very inefficient.

Which is what 'broadcasting' over the internet actually is. I'm
surprised the government aren't proposing a 5p tax on single use data
packets to stop this.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

Paul Ratcliffe wrote:

Which is what 'broadcasting' over the internet actually is. I'm
surprised the government aren't proposing a 5p tax on single use data
packets to stop this.

Indeed it is. It's fabulously wasteful of internet bandwidth.

There is an internet protocol from years ago which aims to address this
(broadcasting) to some extent (but I can't remember what it's called).
It moves the media servers further out into the network. It's still an
appalling bodge, though.

--
SteveT

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

In article , Paul Ratcliffe
wrote:
On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:00:40 +0000, Roderick Stewart
wrote:

And then we invented the internet, which makes it possible for anybody
to watch or listen to any radio or TV channel from anywhere. Maybe in
about 25 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.

What, compared with the inefficiencies of: 1) building thousands of
little masts and blasting stuff into the air 2) distributing an
individual copy of everything to anybody who wants to watch/listen to
the same channel at the same time

I'd also love to see some well-founded examinations of the power required
to stream things rather than broadcast them. All too easy for people to
forget that server farms, etc, have to sit somewhere and run to support the
broadband services they come to expect.

OTOH most '100kW' ERP TXs don't actually transmit anything like 100 kW. On
the other, the power required to download files and fetch a stream will be
more the amount you home machines/phone/etc use.

In power terms broadcasting may actually be quite competitive in terms of
'efficiency'. But it is almost impossible to tell.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 09:14:19 +0000 (GMT), charles
wrote:

except that "broadcasting" is an efficent ay of getting programmes to the
customers. If everybody had their own dedicated "line" to some master
computer that would be very inefficient.

That's the way it's going though. While it might be inefficient to
plan a broadcasting system on the basis of individual connections, if
such a system or its equivalent is already there, even if it was put
in place for other purposes, then if it also happens to be capable of
handling broadcasting services it makes perfect sense to use it. From
the customers' point of view it makes no sense to have two different
sets of equipment, one for communications and one for entertainment,
if one can do the lot.

Rod.

BBC Confirmation of new HD services
 

On Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:37:43 +0100, Martin wrote:


And then we invented the internet, which makes it possible for anybody
to watch or listen to any radio or TV channel from anywhere. Maybe in
about 25 years time people will wonder how we managed for so long with
such an inefficient way of distributing information as to build tall
masts on the tops of hills and blast it into the air.

Next they will invent communication satellites to avoid laying miles of
broadband cables to remote places.

Not so good for two way communications though. But if you install
something that is good for two way communications, you'll find it can
also handle the one way stuff, i.e. "broadcasting".

Rod.