Digital TV – Page 4 – Digital-Lifestyles

BT Vision To Launch (Finally)

BT Launches Digital TV Service As we’ve covered extensively, BT has been working on BT Vision for yonks now, perhaps struggling with some of the technical issues with the Microsoft system that they’re running.

Launching on Monday, BT Vision, BT’s new combined television and Internet service, will let customers view Freeview channels and catch up with TV shows over the past week with no monthly subscription fees.

We’ll be at the launch cover it live, so tune in on Monday.

BT will also offer “on-demand” content (films, music, TV programmes etc) for viewing on home TVs, downloadable over a broadband connection.

With BT and BSkyB enjoying joint rights to show Premiership matches, BT will provide paid access on a per-game and “season ticket” subscription basis.

Other one-off and subscription Pay TV content will be available via “add-ons,” with the service using BT Vision’s set-top, a programmable Sky+ style PVR unit capable of storing up to 80 hours of TV and set to retail for less than £100.

BT Launches Digital TV Service Viewers will be able to pause and rewind live TV and enjoy access to around 30 Freeview channels.

BT’s new TV service echoes moves made by France Telecom and Telecom Italia in Europe, and should help the UK broadband giants fend off competition from rivals such as TalkTalk who are reeling in punters with their ‘free’ broadband service.

It’s also a smart piece of a manoeuvring to counter Sky, who recently launched their own residential broadband service, as well as cable network NTL who are mustard keen to start delivering content over phone lines.

BT Launches Digital TV Service BT is set to start rolling out the service early next year, although it’s going to be a bit of a half-cocked launch with only Channel Four currently signed up for the seven-day “catch-up” service (behind the scenes, BT’s legal team are busy battling with BBC and ITV producers to negotiate a path through the minefield of rights.)

BT Vision’s Download Store will also include music content, with deals already struck with Sony BMG, MTV, Video Performance Ltd and BTPodshow.

BT Vision

UK Online Video Viewing Bites Into TV Viewing

Online Video Viewing Bites Into TV Viewing Video sharing Websites like YouTube are starting to impact on TV viewing figures, with more people switching off and logging on.

A new survey by the BBC found that 43% of Brits who watch video on their PCs or mobiles at least once a week now spend less time on the sofa watching TV as a result.

Although online mobile viewing continues to rise – three quarters of users say they watch more online than a year ago – it’s got a long way to go before it matches the reach of TV, with only 9 per cent of the population regularly watching Net videos.

Online Video Viewing Bites Into TV Viewing A further 13% of those questioned said they watched online occasionally, with another 10 per cent saying they expected to start in the coming year.

Not surprisingly, online and mobile video is the biggest hit with the young ‘uns, with 28 per cent of those aged 16-24 saying they watched more than once each week, while around one in ten of 25-44 year olds were Net video regulars.

However, citizens of advancing years weren’t too keen on this new fangled online video thing, with just 4 per cent of over-45s watching online.

Online Video Viewing Bites Into TV Viewing The majority of the population still prefers to watch the old fashioned gogglebox, with two-thirds of the population shunning online TV and saying that had no intention of starting in the next 12 months.

It’s a bit of a different story in the US, where hit TV shows regularly appear on networks’ websites and through services like iTunes, although the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 will all be offering most of their shows on demand over the Internet in the next few months.

BBC report

Motorola Pass 50 million Digital Set Top Boxes

Motorola Pass 50 million Digital Set Top Boxes Over the last ten years, Motorola has moved from the first commercial digital STB to shipping fifty million digital STBs.

Back in 1996 General Instrument Corporation, later acquired by Motorola, shipped the first Digital Consumer Terminal (DCT) Model 1000 set-top to customers. It handled both analogue and digital signals travelling over the cable.

Of the 50m units they’ve shipped, 8m of them are high-definition (HD) capable receivers and over 5 million digital video recorders.

As a way of getting to grips with the scale of 50m Motorola set-tops stacked one on top of the other, we’re told that

they would reach a height of over 11 million feet, almost 400 times that of Mount Everest
placed end-to-end in a straight line would cover the distance from London to Sydney, Australia.

BBC Use Digital To Pressure Government

BBC Director-General Mark Thompson is back on again trying to justify to the British government why the BBC should be allowed to increase their licence fee above the Retail Price Index (RPI).

Thompson’s main thrust for the increase is the cost of going digital. It’s a clever approach as the UK government has publicly committed itself to switching off analogue TV in favour of digital. Thompson also knows that once the analogue spectrum is freed up, the government may make bucket loads of cash from making that spectrum available.

Thompson ratcheted up the pressure on the Government to comply, by reminding them the risks of digital transition, “If it is under resourced it will fail. It’s as simple as that – and the failure will impact on many millions of households.”

The UK public has for a long time been told, primarily by the BBC, that Digital will be amazing and their lives will somehow become increasingly glorious once they get a Digital TV. Only now are they starting to understand that it’s going to cost them more to have.

Until today, Thompson was asking for an increase in the licence fee of RPI plus 2.3%. today it’s dropped to +1.8%. Under the adjusted figures, the license fee would be £149 in 2013/14 by today’s prices. The reduction has been helped by Ofcom making the decision to no longer charge the BBC a spectrum tax.

Being publicly funded, this kind of ~~argument~~ discussion is very important to the BBCs future ambitions – digital and otherwise. The license fee is payable by all UK residents who have a TV.

Mark Thompson speech today

TV’s Annual Scottish Play: EITF Roundup

Last week was the annual get together of TV ‘luvvies’ in Edinburgh and this year, as for the last few years, the current moguls felt it necessary to behave like Scrooge, reflect on their previous misdemeanours and take a bit of a look at TV to come.

TV “yet to come” was epitomised by Ashley ‘Zeitgeist’ Highfield, who managed to appropriate the Long Tail in his round up of what the future has to hold (just to prove we can jump on bandwagon too – don’t forget there are still copies to be won at Digital Lifestyles).

There was a rapprochement between the Blair and Brown of the TV world, that figure of Calvinistic integrity John Birt and the once swashbuckling radical Michael Grade acknowledge the existence of one another. After 20 years of cold shouldering they’re talking again, so John deliberately avoided mentioning possible ‘top slicing’, where Channel 4 and any broadcaster with Public Service credentials might receive a portion of the BBC’s some say generous, licence fee take.

The spectre of Banquo’s ghost in the shape of everyone’s (now) favourite caterer, Mr Charles Allen, was there and delivered the keynote address, he of course blamed all and sundry for the mess ITV is in – ‘nothing to do with me guv’ should have been the title.

And of course there was the figure of fun brought down this time by Sir Alan Sugar, poor Simon Shaps, the man who brought us Celebrity Love Island was asked by the UK’s cut price Donald Trump in a festival remake of The Apprentice “Why do I get the feeling that you’re the kind of fella you find hiding behind the bushes?” Simon should be so lucky that he can find some bushes in the barren terrain of ITV primetime.

In a sign that TV executives are at long last spending some time staring into their crystal balls, rather than monitoring the value of their plummeting share options, talk was abound that the annual get-together could have a makeover and become a media festival in 2007.

Whitehaven First English Digital TV Town

Whitehaven First UK Digital TV Town Today it was announced that Whitehaven, Cumbria will be the first area in England to have its TV reception changed over from analog to digital.

Ahead of expectations, Broadcasting Minister Shaun Woodward and Industry Minister Margaret Hodge announced their intentions today to switch over the analogy signal in Autumn 2007.

A year later (don’t rush it will you), Selkirk in the Scottish Borders will start the transition in Q4 of 2008, with the whole of the Borders area being converted by Q2 2009.

Whitehaven has been specifically selected as they have always suffered from a weak analog signal, and following the switch they will end up with 18 channels rather than the four they currently receive.

The first area in the UK to switch over was two villages, Ferryside and Llanstephan, situated on either side of the River Tywi, in Carmarthenshire, Wales back in March 2005.

Who will bear the cost of the hardware in each home to change to digital has been unclear for quite a while. The have government appeared steadfast in insisting that the generally the public must bear the costs, with assistance available to some.

Today they’ve finally made it clear who will get support

Extra help with switchover will be available to: all households with one person aged 75 or over; all households with one person with a significant disability (receiving attendance allowance, disability living allowance); help will be available free of charge to households with one person aged 75 or over/disabled households receiving pension credit, income support or jobseekers allowance; other households will pay a modest fee; specific support for households where one person is registered blind or partially sighted.

Many feel see the expense of having to buy extra equipment as a tax on the citizen to enable to government to then sell off the analog spectrum to the highest bidder, raising income for the government. Todays clarifications will have taken some wind out of their sails.

Digital UK

Shaun Woodward Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover

Shaun Woodward Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover Shaun Woodward (right) the MP famed for the twin disgraces of his defection from the Conservatives to Labour and a stint working with Esther Rantzen on That’s Life, is now Creative Industries minister and is busy singing the virtues of the UK’s Digital TV switchover plans.

According to the minister, there’s going to be a golden digital age in the UK as more and more employment is provided by the creative industries, our children enjoy interactive education, the sick benefit from Tele-medicine and the new technologies even help the government with transport and defence industries.

Woodward speaking last week at a Royal Television Society event, Digital Switchover- Making it Happen did not seem to think that finding the £26.99 that you can now buy a Freeview box from Argos for, would pose a problem amongst the financially challenged members of the electorate in the deprived St Helens constituency he now represents. Woodward in fact hinted obliquely that although they might fail to feed their children properly and many have high levels of debt, he’d observed some good ‘entertainment kit’ in their homes.

Accompanied by Ford Ennals (below right) the Chief executive of Digital UK, the body charged with making it happen, he made clear that BBC licence fee; although not yet agreed, would be settled by the end of the year and this was would fit in with the digital switchover schedule. ‘The Government needs to be satisfied that licence fee payers are getting value for money,’ he told the audience but he was ‘confident that they’ll get the right number’ at the end of the process of negotiation with the BBC.

Ennals revealed that surveys from trial areas indicated high levels of satisfaction particularly amongst the over 75s, who along with other vulnerable groups that might find the new technology challenging, would be getting assistance. Ennals is busy co-ordinating Digital UK’s nine project strands that include the thorny issue of resolving the platforms being made available to those in Multi Dwelling Units (that’s flats and the like to you and me).

The switchover which is being rolled out region by region, will swap out the old analogue transmissions with super new digital ones starting in what was the Border TV region in 2008 and finishing up, not as originally planned in London, but in the less challenging areas of Tyne Tees and Ulster thus avoiding any conflict with 2012 Olympic games coverage in the nation’s capital.

Creative Minister Paints A Rosy Picture For UK Digital TV Switchover Digital UK had the current 98.5% coverage as a target and expects to meet this with additional coverage being by satellite, cable and broadband. Current figures indicate a rump of around 2% of refuseniks, those viewers content with a meagre 4 or 5 channels who see no value in multi-channel viewing, but expectations are this number will shrink as the digitisation spreads across the country like a warm front.

The average cost per household is predicted to be around £130 the extra costs are likely to be those second and third TV sets that are so easily forgotten, new rooftop aerials and replacement of analogue video recorders.

Woodward repeatedly refused to answer the question as to why the government felt it was the BBC’s responsibility to handle switchover issues rather than Government, who have been happy to find funding to subsidise the over 75s TV licence fees.

The Minister agreed that there were questions still to be resolved, like the value of continuing the current ‘gifting’ of spectrum to Public Service Broadcasters after switchover, and how the desire for High Definition would be met, but they were being evaluated so no need to worry there then.

Digital UK with stakeholders across industry and broadcasting would not make the mistakes seen in Italy, where a planned ‘big bang’ switchover for 2006 had not even registered as a moderate whimper. In the UK it is all so far going swimmingly and Ford thinks the BBC will be keeping up the good work as long as the BBC licence fee is agreed by year end as Shaun assured us it will.

Channel 4 Rolls Out Broadband Simulcast Service

Channel 4 Rolls Out Broadband Simulcast Service Channel 4 has today launched a new broadband Simulcast service, making their live TV schedule available online for viewing, for free.

To access the content users will need to register at www.channel4.com/livetv.

Once registered, PC users will be able to sit back and watch a streamed version of Channel 4’s TV schedule, broadcast at the same time as their live TV transmission.

Broadband users – and no doubt, bored office workers sneaking a peek – will be able to sneakily indulge themselves with a feast of Channel 4’s original content, although films and acquired shows (such as the hugely popular Lost or Desperate Housewives), are off the menu for now.

Channel 4 Rolls Out Broadband Simulcast Service Channel 4 has, however, said that it is negotiating with US studios to add their content at a later date.

The programming will carry the same commercials as the regular Channel 4 TV service, and where the current programming is not available, a rather less-than-enticing sounding “loop of Channel 4 promotions” will be broadcast.

The streamed Channel 4 programmes will also be accessible via the channel’s Website for up to seven days after transmission.

Channel 4 Rolls Out Broadband Simulcast Service Appearing in a thundercloud of enthusiasm, Channel 4 CEO Andy Duncan was on-beam and on-message and rapidly hit evangelical overdrive, describing the Web transmission as an opportunity “to build on what Channel 4 has always done – stimulate, infuriate, debate, create,” adding that he didn’t see the digital revolution as an attack on Channel 4’s power as a public broadcaster, but as a “fantastic opportunity,”

After taking a breather, he continued, “It is our stated aim to make Channel 4’s public service programming available across all meaningful platforms and to be the first UK broadcaster to begin simulcasting our content on broadband is a significant step towards delivering on this objective.”

Channel Four’s decision to slap their live TV content up on the Web is indeed a significant development, and proof of how new media is redefining distribution channels.

Despite this, many of the most popular consumer electronics devices remain rooted around a traditional TV, with Freeview boxes and widescreen LCD and HD sets enjoying huge sales.

www.channel4.com/livetv

Freeview TV Homes Exceed Analogue For First Time

Freeview TV Homes Exceed Analog For First Time We wouldn’t normally bore you with tales of how many more percent of the UK population have joined the Digital TV-owning army, but this one is a significant one.

For the first time, the number of households having the BBC-backed Free-to-Air service, Freeview, has exceeded their analogue cousins. Nearly 7.1m have Freeview and 6.4m are still analogue only.

Freeview will also be pretty pleased that for the third successive quarter their sales have exceeded the 1 million mark, achieving 1.2m between January and March, up 40% over the same period last year.

Digital satellite is still the Digital Daddy, with 7.7m homes subscribing to Sky and the remaining 645,000 receiving free-to-view satellite.

There would have been relief at the recently-merged UK cable companies when they saw that there’d been an increase in the number of subscribers. The gain for NTL is only 5,000 subscribers in real terms as the additional new now-digital 70,000 digital cable subscribers were laid off against the 65,000 analogue subscribers who switched. These figures relate to the pre-merged companies.

Interestingly there still around 500,000 analogue subscribers out of the 3.3m total cable subscriber-base. Changing these has got to be a priority if NTL want to start making the returns they need from subscribers.

TV over ADSL First
For the first time Ofcom has reported separate figures for TV over ADSL services. Currently this is only London-focused HomeChoice, but they will be joined in short order by other IPTV companies like BT Vision. HomeChoice gained at a rate of 21.4% over the same period in 2005, ending with 48,545 subscribers.

Breaking down Sky’s figures
There’s some interest to be had comparing Sky’s Q4, 2005 figures with Q1 2006 – a couple of surprises lie in there.

Churn (number of subscribers leaving the service) is up to 11.4% over 10.6% and ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is down £5 to £392 from £397. This doesn’t sound like a lot until you look at it in terms of income loss – over £38m.

On the positive front there was a gain of 87,000 households, with multi-room households gain 84,000 and Sky+ users up 149,000, now hitting 1,430,000.

Freeview TV Homes Exceed Analog For First Time Additional TV Sets – Ongoing problems
Ofcom are estimating that 38% of Freeview sales are intended to secondary TV sets which will start to allay a lot of fears.

The big hurdle for the UK digital switch-over gang is the replacement of the non-primary TV set, the bedroom TV & video, little Johnny’s TV and the spare that the babysitter uses. When the analogue-broadcast lights go off is when these people start to yell.

Ofcom UK Digital TV Q1 2006 report (PDF)

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009 In a few years time, kids will be clutching their sides and laughing at the thought that their parents used to watch TV on massive great boxes that filled up half the living room.

We know this because a new report tells us that LCD TVs are the future, with worldwide ownership of the slimline goggleboxes overtaking lardy CRT TVs in 2010.

According to a new analysts iSuppli, sales of LCD TVs are positively hurtling along, with shipments expected to rise by 74 per cent to 46.7 million units this year – way up on their original estimate of 41.9 million units.

After wheeling out their extrapolation-o-meter and pulling assorted levers and flywheels, the company predicts that LCDs will account for 48 per cent of TVs shipped in 2009, while chunky old-school CRTs will struggle with just 42 per cent.

By the next year, the report predicts that LCDs will account for a hefty 56 per cent of all TVs shipped.

Sales of rear-projection TVs and plasmas look set to remain a small part of the overall market, claiming just 3 percent and 7 per cent of the market respectively in 2009.

LCD TVs To Rule The Roost By 2009 Style over picture
Although punters are happy to plunge headlong into the lithe, angular world of the LCD TV, many still believe that the ‘umble CRT TV still provides better picture quality – and what’s more, they cost less.

However, declining LCD TV prices brought about by improvements in manufacturing continue to bring the once stratospherically-priced TVs into the economic reach of your average punter, with the average price of 32-inch and 40/ 42-inch LCD TVs falling by 17 per cent and 14 per cent respectively in the last five months.

LG.Philips remain the raging King Kongs of the LCD TV manufacturer jungle with the biggest slice of the market, followed by Samsung, China’s Chi Mei and Acer-owned AU Optoelectronics.

In the fourth quarter, South Korea produced nearly 45 per cent of the world’s LCD TVs, with Taiwan grabbing 40.1 per cent.

iSuppli