BBC THREE wins "best non-terrestrial channel" at Edinburgh TV festival

In message ,
Peter Duncanson Proclaimed from the tallest tower:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:35:00 +0100, (Sam Nelson)
wrote:

In article ,
Charlie Pearce writes:
That's funny, I could have sworn you could watch it on Freeview...

So, even the people that run broadcasting organisations these days
don't understand how their technology works? Ludicrous.

Surely the problem is that their use of the word "terrestrial"
is a hangover from when the distinction was between
"terrestrial" and "satellite". With that meaning of the word the
terrestrial services are BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and five,
everything else is non-terrestrial. With the arrival of digital
terrestrial services that meaning of the word has been
undermined, but it is not easy to find a single word to replace
it. "Analogue" might have been useful for a few years, but not
now.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when a word
has lost touch with its origins. The word "filming" is still
sometimes used when no film is involved.

And who would think twice about referring to an aerial on a
spacecraft, even though "aerial" means "in the air" and
spacecraft aerials are in a vacuum?

True, but both of those examples though (somewhat pedantically
speaking)incorrect, are non-ambiguous, if you talk about filming something
on your mobile-phone, or about the aerial on a spaceship people will know
exactly what you are talking about.
Using 'non-terrestrial' when refering to digital is totally wrong(well maybe
not TOTALLY) and somewhat confusing.

(what DO you call an aerial on a spacecraft then? I suppose it's an
antenna?)


--
Regards,
Chris.
(Remove Elvis's shoes to email me)

Is SkyOne on Freeview then?

Paul DS.

"Ian" wrote in message
news
In message , Sam Nelson
writes
In article ,
Charlie Pearce writes:
That's funny, I could have sworn you could watch it on Freeview...

So, even the people that run broadcasting organisations these days don't
understand how their technology works? Ludicrous.

From their website,

"The six channels in the running for the Best Non Terrestrial Channel
Award are Dave, E4, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV2 and Sky One."

What they mean is "Best Digital-Only Terrestrial Channel",

but maybe that's too long to fit on the award. :¬)

--
Ian

In message , Paul D.Smith
writes
Is SkyOne on Freeview then?

Paul DS.

"Ian" wrote in message
news
In message , Sam Nelson
writes
In article ,
Charlie Pearce writes:
That's funny, I could have sworn you could watch it on Freeview...

So, even the people that run broadcasting organisations these days don't
understand how their technology works? Ludicrous.

From their website,

"The six channels in the running for the Best Non Terrestrial Channel
Award are Dave, E4, BBC Three, BBC Four, ITV2 and Sky One."

What they mean is "Best Digital-Only Terrestrial Channel",

but maybe that's too long to fit on the award. :¬)

-- Ian


You're right, I didn't spot that.

It should be Sky Three.

If they meant Sky One, then they must have been referring to "Best
Satellite channel".

Perhaps they're suggesting that Sky One is all you miss if you're not a
Sky subscriber. :¬)
--
Ian

The message
from "ChrisM" contains these words:

====snip====

(what DO you call an aerial on a spacecraft then? I suppose it's an
antenna?)

It most definitely _is_ ! I use 'antenna' all the time 'cos I can't
spell 'aerial'[1] :-)

[1] Unless I can cheat and see the word in the quoted text (I'm good at
recognizing when a word is _correctly_ spelt, but ICBA to type out the
two or more permutations to work out the correct spelling when I don't
have that luxury). Mind you, I'm dismayed that I haven't learnt the
spelling for that word in all the time I've been subscribed to this NG.
:-(

--
Regards, John.

Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 13:22:59 +0100, Peter Duncanson
wrote:

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:35:00 +0100, (Sam Nelson)
wrote:

In article ,
Charlie Pearce writes:
That's funny, I could have sworn you could watch it on Freeview...

So, even the people that run broadcasting organisations these days don't
understand how their technology works? Ludicrous.

Surely the problem is that their use of the word "terrestrial"
is a hangover from when the distinction was between
"terrestrial" and "satellite". With that meaning of the word the
terrestrial services are BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4 and five,
everything else is non-terrestrial. With the arrival of digital
terrestrial services that meaning of the word has been
undermined, but it is not easy to find a single word to replace
it. "Analogue" might have been useful for a few years, but not
now.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when a word
has lost touch with its origins. The word "filming" is still
sometimes used when no film is involved.

And who would think twice about referring to an aerial on a
spacecraft, even though "aerial" means "in the air" and
spacecraft aerials are in a vacuum?

And of course 'taping' a programme, even when using a PVR or DVD-R.


Marky P.