BBC1 HD

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,
" writes
On 1 Nov, 19:23, Mike Henry wrote:
In ,

" wrote:

[...]

To be fair, the argument wasn't BS. It went like this: BBC funding is
always under threat. Lots of viewers claim to "never watch the BBC",
which undermines the license fee. Whereas the truth is that most of
these viewers do watch the BBC, but they forget they watch it, or
don't know they're watching the BBC when they are. So if we put our
logo on all the channels, they can't forget, and will realise what
good value for money they're getting.

That was the argument they used for putting a huge BBC logo slap bang on
the screen in the first 10 seconds of every programme. It's a valid
argument in that case.

That's more for when the content finds its way onto other (especially
non-BBC) channels.

It's not an argument for extending this to a permanent DOG.

Well, accepting the "our critics are idiots" argument, it is - these
people might miss the start of the programme, or forget.

My answer was we should go back to the 1930s, where such stupid people
knew to keep their mouths shut, no one was interested in their
opinions, and no one would take any notice of what they said. Rather
than the 21st century attitude of running things to cater for the
lowest common denominator, and ignoring the demands of anything better/
higher.

I didn't put it quite like that, but his response was basically that
if the BBC did that, then many people would go and watch ITV and/or
Sky, and there'd be no publicly funded BBC left. A kind of "we have to
half wreck it ourselves to stop someone else coming along and
annihilating it completely" argument.

I hope you put him right after that?

What, you think I could have convinced him and changed BBC policy on
the spot by reasoned argument?

I shall restrain myself from commenting. I still regularly talk to
folks from the Beeb (though not usually the pretentious ones!).

What was said next?

I went and looked at a demo of archiving all the BBC's terrestrial
broadcasts, including BBCi, to HDD, and providing an interface to be
able to experience an as-live recreation of the "red button" feature
at some point in the future.

After all, if
what he said was true, the BBC would have permanent DOGs on SD BBC1 and
BBC2 analogue+digital *right now* and would have done so since 1998. But
instead, they know full well why they daren't put permanent DOGs on BBC1
and BBC2 analogue+digital.

True - but by putting them on the HD version, and eventually phasing
out the SD version, they've got what they want.

I suspect the tide might turn - not such that the DOG is removed - but
just _maybe_ by making it optional. You never know.

Cheers,
David.

The BBC channels could be easily distinguishable by being the only
channels without DOGS.
--
Ian

Mike Henry wrote:
: I hope you put him right after that? What was said next? After all, if
: what he said was true, the BBC would have permanent DOGs on SD BBC1 and
: BBC2 analogue+digital *right now* and would have done so since 1998. But
: instead, they know full well why they daren't put permanent DOGs on BBC1
: and BBC2 analogue+digital.

I can clearly recall the BBC putting a DOG on DIGITAL BBC1 (and BBC2) when
they started in 1998! It took a major effort the to get this decision
reversed!

Brian Mc wrote:
Mike Henry wrote:
: I hope you put him right after that? What was said next? After all, if
: what he said was true, the BBC would have permanent DOGs on SD BBC1 and
: BBC2 analogue+digital *right now* and would have done so since 1998. But
: instead, they know full well why they daren't put permanent DOGs on BBC1
: and BBC2 analogue+digital.

I can clearly recall the BBC putting a DOG on DIGITAL BBC1 (and BBC2) when
they started in 1998! It took a major effort the to get this decision
reversed!

BBC 1, 2, 24, and Choice (now BBC 3) all launched on Sky Digital on Oct
1 1998 with DOGs. The OnDigital launch was Nov 15th 1998.

The DOGs on BBC 1, 2, and Choice were removed after many viewer
complaints on Dec 1st 1998. ISTR that was Greg Dyke's first day as BBC
DG, and he personally ordered their removal ? The BBC Choice DOG crept
back on about a year later ISTR ?

C4 added a DOG on the digital versions of C4 at Easter 1999. Again lots
of outrage, and that was removed a few weeks later.

C5 have had a DOG on analogue and digital since the outset, but there
was a 3 or 4 year gap with that, 2003-7 ?

Gary wrote:
: The DOGs on BBC 1, 2, and Choice were removed after many viewer
: complaints on Dec 1st 1998. ISTR that was Greg Dyke's first day as BBC
: DG, and he personally ordered their removal ?

If it was Greg Dyke's first day he may have been asked to rubber-stamp
some, already made, committee decision to remove the "digital DOGS" - I
very much doubt if it was done without such a concensus!

However these days the "DOG loving marketing types" seem to have gained
more of a foothold in the BBC!

On 2 Nov, 13:55, "Gary" wrote:

I don't 'LIKE' dogs but the BBC HD one is mostly not a problem to me. It is
there, but you have to look for it. A lot of the time it is quite faint.

I think there is a more important *commercial reason for dogs, piracy. It
watermarks the broadcast. I have seen a copy of a dvd on sale at car boots
with the German Disney Channel HD version of a film on it. ( the dvd is not
HD). But the picture quality is quite good for a pirate .

This idea make no sense at all, but it gets repeated so often that
some people really must believe it.

Here are several reasons why the "it prevents piracy" idea doesn't
work...
1. The most "valuable" content goes out on BBC One. The SD version has
no DOG. DVDs are SD.
2. The semi-transparent non-animated BBC DOGs can be removed
perfectly. If a pirate wishes to remove them, they can do.
3. Most of the content will _only_ air in full height anamorphic 16x9
with english language, no hard subtitles, 50Hz video on the BBC.
There's no need to "trace" the video or "prove" it aired on the BBC -
that's the only place it could have come from.
4. People happily produce, sell, and buy pirate DVDs with DOGs on
them, so it hardly stops piracy.
5. There are several invisible and virtually unremovable ways of
watermarking video and audio.
6. There are several robust ways of fingerprinting video and audio.
7. Most of the content with any value is released on DVD shortly after
broadcast. This DVD is the ideal source for making pirate/bootleg/
copied DVDs.

It's not an anti-piracy measure, and it never has been. I don't just
mean "it's an anti-piracy measure that doesn't really work" (there are
a few of those!) - I mean "no one who decides to add a DOG does it to
stop piracy, or expects it to stop piracy".

There is sometimes some vague _hope_ that it'll identify BBC content
posted on YouTube (for example) - but this falls down for most of the
reasons above, and the rather more obvious reason that most of the
YouTube encoding options make the DOGs unreadable if not invisible.

btw Gary, your Usenet posting software is still broken.

Cheers,
David.

"j r powell" wrote in message
...

It's on satellite, 28.2E, but not on the Sky EPG yet.
Details a 10.847 GHz, SR 22.0, FEC 5/6
SID is 6941.

This DVB-S1 transponder is currently carrying two versions of BBC HD along
with the BBC1 HD feed, so bitrates must be low.


Something similar to this duplicate channel naming has been the case for
some years on Hotbird with channel VIVA Polska (music video channel) and
Direct 8.

Scanning the transponder with an FTA receiver produces two entries 'VIVA
Polska' and 'VIVA Polska.' Note the addition of a full stop in the second
entry. Both channels refer to the same V/A/PCR PID's (164/96/164) so
there can, IMO, be only one actual data stream. (Lyngsat lists only the
first channel name)

On the basis that those running the transmission know what they are doing,
this dual listing must be done for a reason. But what reason ? If it were
to be more conspicuous in the channel listings of viewers who have every
channel listed, why stop at two and not have ten entries.

A similar dual listing happens with Direct 8 at H/B 12539 H. This time both
channel names and PID's are identical. Happens on more than one brand of
receiver so I don't think it's a receiver peculiarity.

"Roger-r" wrote in message
...

...On the basis that those running the transmission know what they are
doing,
this dual listing must be done for a reason. But what reason ? If it
were
to be more conspicuous in the channel listings of viewers who have every
channel listed, why stop at two and not have ten entries.


While I have no knowledge of why this is done by other service providers I
believe that for BBCHD this duplication is there to allow BBCi to test red
button applications before they are launched to the public.

I have no idea what it looks like now but when originally defined,
pre-Freesat, these duplicated services had the same video, audio and
subtitle PIDs but with some different, unique, OpenTv data components. The
test variant then only appeared in a Sky test bouquet (possibly defined in
the BAT, Bouquet Allocation Table) and was only available on the EPG to Sky
STBs with a special Sky test card. The main service being available in the
EPG of the public receiver base. I think there were also some duplicated SD
services on other BBC transponders for the same purpose (ETV1,2 & 3 spring
to mind).

I guess that now something similar is done with Freesat which must have some
other way of pairing test services and test receivers.

Glyn

I have just done a re-scan for channels on my Windows 7 Media Center (I
can receive Freeview and Freesat), I get two 108 channels one is BBC HD
and the second is Sky text. I also get two 109 channels one is S4C the
other is Mobilizer. It also finds (with a manual single transponder
scan) ITV1 HD on 1262

What's happening with 180 and 109 on my set-up








--
'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
improbable, must be the truth'

Roger-r wrote:
"j r powell" wrote in message
...
It's on satellite, 28.2E, but not on the Sky EPG yet.
Details a 10.847 GHz, SR 22.0, FEC 5/6
SID is 6941.

This DVB-S1 transponder is currently carrying two versions of BBC HD along
with the BBC1 HD feed, so bitrates must be low.


Something similar to this duplicate channel naming has been the case for
some years on Hotbird with channel VIVA Polska (music video channel) and
Direct 8.

Scanning the transponder with an FTA receiver produces two entries 'VIVA
Polska' and 'VIVA Polska.' Note the addition of a full stop in the second
entry. Both channels refer to the same V/A/PCR PID's (164/96/164) so
there can, IMO, be only one actual data stream. (Lyngsat lists only the
first channel name)

On the basis that those running the transmission know what they are doing,
this dual listing must be done for a reason. But what reason ? If it were
to be more conspicuous in the channel listings of viewers who have every
channel listed, why stop at two and not have ten entries.

A similar dual listing happens with Direct 8 at H/B 12539 H. This time both
channel names and PID's are identical. Happens on more than one brand of
receiver so I don't think it's a receiver peculiarity.



I was re-scanning Hotbird yesterday and noticed this.
The channels have different Service IDs.

On Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:43:37 -0000, Ian wrote:

In message
,
" writes

[snip]


The BBC channels could be easily distinguishable by being the only
channels without DOGS.

Bingo! That's exactly right! The best part of using the DOGless strategy
is that all the commercial competition now has no choice but to carry on
using DOGs thus making a DOGless BBC broadcast stand out with brilliant
clarity to the viewers who will swiftly come to know that a DOGless
broadcast is a BBC broadcast.

The lack of such irritating DOG crap on the screen becomes a 'trademark'
indicator of quality in itself when all other broadcasters have no choice
but to continue polluting their "program content" with DOG crap for fear
of upsetting their customers[1] who won't be best pleased with the reduced
level of "product"[2] being delivered to them.

[1] The advertising agencies

[2] The viewing audience (Never lose sight of the fact that whenever you
watch a program delivered via a commercial broadcaster, you are the
'product').

--
Regards JB Good