Updated November 2005
Nothing is stable in the world of digital television. First of all the BBC withdrew from the Sky scrambling system and stopped producing Free to View Solus cards for those who did not want to subscribe to Sky, and the Freeview principle on digital terrestrial television has been confused by subscription with Top-Up TV.
During the beginning of 2003 I was considering buying Freeview. What spurred getting satellite television instead was receiving a digibox from Elena's friend then leaving for Norway. Thus all we needed was satellite installing and wires for £80. The box turned out to be a dud, however, even smoking in the shop at a test of what was wrong. The satellite and wiring installation done for us was also wrong, which had to be done again. However, we were committed to installation, and on April 24 2003 we finally received satellite television.
When informed of all options, we selected the £120 package for installation for Free to View channels alone. The installers could not wire up the television according to requirements, and so I sorted it all out and wired it up to everything as of then.
A properly inserted phone extension was required by the still subsidised Sky installation costing £43 (that was not a success of installation first time either).
Then we discovered that the Free to View is not the same as the Freeview. ITV 2, UK History, UK Bright Ideas and FTN are in Freeview but not Free to View or Free to Air. So many stations were unavailable free.
THEN two months after installing satellite we first read in the Radio Times that satellite Free to View was being withdrawn!
When the BBC originally put its services on to satellite it realised that a) it had to scramble the picture because Astra 2A covered too much of Europe and b) it had to therefore provide the means to have free access restricted to the UK. So it provided Solus cards which allowed digital satellite users to get BBC channels, and ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 in the UK were unscrambled by this card. This was called Free to View.
Now that BBC has moved to the lower Astra 2D, and has gone Free to Air, the cards provided by the BBC have been discontinued. The other channels do not provide any cards. Therefore the only way to get these channels on digital satellite is for the customer to pay Sky. Sky is the owner of this digital gateway and is paid millions by each: the BBC compared with before is saving £85 million over 5 years.
People who had Sky digital cards and those who obtained Free to View Solux cards before February 2003 had their Free to View services switched off in September 2003. Others come within the next four year cycle before Sky's security method switches these cards off as a means to prevent fraudulent viewing.
To go Free to Air the BBC has put its regional and national variant channels on the satellite system. So 947 is East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It needed a card to deliver the local channel to 101 and disable the 900s version (101 defaulted to London otherwise).
Because some rural and mountainous areas needed satellite and Freeview was unavailable, politics came into this situation. An agreement was made that people could send a one off payment for Solus cards to regain ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 between 27th October 2003 and 31st January 2004, and these cards apparently never need to be changed.
Sianel Pedwar Cymru is unaffected by cards and is Free to Air. Radio Times had said it would be lost but was wrong.
With the start of ITV 4 in 2005 all ITV stations went Free to Air on satellite. Channels 4 and 5 don't seem to want to do anything about becoming unavailable.
Here were some of the explanations given to me from various people about the loss of channels:
- BBC: Contact ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 about the loss of these stations. The engineering is ongoing and that 101 will default to BBC London again once the card is disabled.
- Channel 5: It is the BBC's fault as well as Sky's stranglehold, and Channel 5 are only licensed to broadcast to the UK whereas it says the BBC footprint touches Europe and Ireland and so Channel 5 cannot use it. It has not got the resources to make their own unscrambling cards.
- Channel 4: Contact your MP about it as they pay millions to Sky and are not going to pay millions to BBC. Legislation is going through to force making available on all platforms if enacted upon.
- ITC: Cannot comment, it is a commercial decision of companies.
- Government: hopes to do it voluntarily by agreement but keeping a watch on the situation (i.e. wait and see - but this is happening now).
The daft thing is that they have all the disadvantages of being scrambled, but receive nothing from Sky in terms of revenue for the Sky card clearing them, as do those channels that get income from pay packages that are normally scrambled. ITV has used its strength and historically uneasy relationship with Sky to become completley Free to Air.
For a long time the move to Astra 2D by the BBC led to one huge problem: it could not properly transmit regional BBC 1 (except BBC London). Widescreen transmissions to ordinary boxy 4:3 televisions sets with letterbox setting (so you see the whole picture) were faulty. They showed a line of dashes on the top half of the picture. A BBC engineer told me (January 2004) that a solution was likely soon and the correction has happened. Look out for its occasional outings.
We purchased Freeview fearing loss of digital channels and to received the missing free channels. Even the simple life of Freeview has complication.
I had our TV aerial changed for wideband (the transmitter range) for digital reception and this improved analogue Channel 5 (it is at the far end of the spectrum). Freeview was purchased on 22 August 2003. With limited numbers of scart sockets and a variety of inputs both Freeview and Free to Air satellite was delivered to both the existing televisions in two rooms. There is a diagram for this period, useful as an example for anyone with only one scart input.
Then in December 2003 the on and off control of the main television failed. A new television was purchased. It had two scart plugs allowing direct connections from Freeview and Free to Air satellite without concerning what was recorded or seen in the dining room TV. However, with this, digital pictures going through the aerial to the other TV now suffered interference. Advice (from the BBC by telephone) was that the signals were too strong. The aerial link was removed from the satellite box (unnecessary and a likely source of amplification) and the phonos out to TV scart digital connection made the front room TV a slave. Later an aerial (RF) cord for ordinary channels was pushed through the same hole in the wall.
In January 2004, the vital phono inputs to the video failed, thus cancelling satellite to the video and dining room TV. This was a moment to get a replacement video with DVD player containing better inputs and outputs. The old video is still part of the wiring and allows now video to video recording, if ever wanted. So from late January 2004 the wiring has been like this.
Two issues arrive. One is that Freeview and satellite can receive interference. Attempts to solve this with directional scarts have produced many strange and counterintuitive results (I'm told the electrics cause the interference lines). It seems I have discovered a removal method when they "gather", which is to go to blank analogue TV temporarily and then return to Freeview. Many people suffer from such interference especially with a mass of wires.
The satellite delivers many radio stations hiss free, for example BBC Radio 3 and 4, except that the output levels are very high as measured in the delivery to the video and stereo. Freeview delivers a number of such stations.
http://www.wickonline.com/fta.htm carries satellite Free To Air EPG numbers. It shows channels that are paid for on satellite yet on Freeview for nothing.
Then came another development to put a new spanner in the works. The BBC especially promoted Freeview: buy a box, plug in and that's it. From February 2004 Channel 26 Freeview was used to promote Top-UP TV and it came into being. It demands payment for blocks of time given to channels over a 24 hour period.
Radio Times replied to a letter of mine complaining Freeview would suffer saying that the BBC, Crown Castle and BSkyB - who run Freeview - do not control all the broadcasting frequencies. SDN, a transmission company that owns the Channel 5 broadcasting frequency is subcontracting its frequencies to the Top Up TV consortium. Radio Times covered the matter in its subsequent issue.
In all this it should be noted that the BBC is already muddy in this matter because it part owns Freeview and part owns UK TV, and most of UK TV requires subscription as only two of its channels are on Freeview . Maybe some channels would prefer a pay slot but Top Up TV is proving to be relatively unwanted because of its hours-block slots for its channels that prevent choice meaning payment for repeats at fixed times. At each rescan I remove all Top Up TV EPG information and numbers from the Freeview choices.
Now OfCom is proposing to make channels pay or free according to the market, except for those under BBC ownsership. So Freeview will be even less Freeview in the future. I replied on 20 November 2005 to its consultative exercise rejecting its moves towards allowing pay TV, also pointing out that Freeview is complex to operate for some older people and to find channels unavailable will irritate.
Meanwhile I am one of those who complains with some regularity about logos on BBC digital services - and BBC 3 is now worse than ever with its script under the logo. It is unnecessary, especially on Freeview, where the multichannel argument does not stand, but it is not credible on satellite either.
Freeview has been expanded recently by compressing channels into its bandwidth before the analogue switch off beginning in 2008. ITV is likely to close ITV News as it seeks to add a children's channel to the range: ITV News was reduced to daytime only when ITV 4 started.
The channels are carried four to six at a time in what is called multiplexes. Freeview is very limited regarding space until analogue signals are turned off. The text services have their own channels so that they do not need duplicating behind TV channels and therefore save space, although only BBC makes full use of this. The quality of radio channels is better than DAB (Digital Radio) which may be hiss free but sacrifices sound quality, so a good idea is to wire up Freeview and satellite to the HiFi. Meanwhile do not set clocks via the pips as they are delayed on all digital platforms by what is called processing. Incidentally, sound and vision are processed separately on digital TV which is why synchronisation is not always accurate to human eyes and ears on satellite and Freeview.
I now have broadband at 2 mb (started July 2005) and this allows better radio on demand and some TV clips (including stills). Unfortunately Tiscali Broadband, or whoever is involved technically, keeps losing the signal at times of high demand.
