NEWS: HD Freeview from BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five 'as soon as 2009'
Following the announcement earlier this week that the BBC is to go ahead with the conversion of its HD TV trial into a full service, it's emerging that increases in the spectrum available for digital television could bring HD services from the 'big four' terrestrial broadcasters to Freeview as soon as 2009.
On Tuesday the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five announced what they called a 'non-binding memorandum of understanding' to launch HD services between 2009 and 2012. Now broadcast regulator Ofcom has revealed proposals to carry out upgrade work on the digital terrestrial television system, which will be completed by late 2009.
The upgrade, which Ofcom says could more than double the capacity available on the Freeview platform, will allow new services, not all of them HD. But viewers wanting to see Freeview HD will need to buy a new set-top box as well as an HD-compatible TV.
- Andrew Everard's blog
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Comments
i think it's a great idea & wish it could happen sooner
I cannot wait. There was no way I could afford to buy into HD broadcasts. Let's just hope it will happen nearer to 2009 than 2012.
Can't happen too soon.
Personally I hope they scrap the roadmap for changes in 2009 and 2016 and instead just make the major spectrum change in 1 leap instead.
If we already have freeview tvs, will these be capable of picking up the expanded spectrum and allow us to watch HD without buying an additional box!
I very much doubt it unless there's a hardware upgrade made available at dealers.
My understanding is that existing Freeview boxes will cease to work in 2009 and the new ones in 2016. Its all to do with freeing frequency space up for HD broadcasting and a part of this involves introducing new methods of compression. To put it simply, existing Freeview boxes aren't programmed to decode the new codecs (compression algorithms).
I would expect your integrated tv should work fine, it will just need a set top box by the look of it when the standards change.
I have a Humax Freeview PVR so really hope there will be another HD PVR available when HD comes to Freeview or it will be useless?
I don't to pay for HD!!!