Freeview|HD in the Eastern Bay of Plenty

The country's last analogue television transmitter has been switched off at 2am on Sunday 1 DEC by Broadcasting Minister Craig Foss at the Waiatarua TV tower in Auckland's Waitakere Ranges.

Sadly, the only way to watch television in the eastern Bay of Plenty (including Whakatane and Kawerau) is via satellite and Freeview|HD is not available. I haven't got digital at my address - 78 Onslow Street - since the digital switch over.

Did this help? Click to mark!

0 members promoted this

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Biggles on December 18, 2013 at 12:11

IMO people have had adequate warning that this would be the case.

We were told about 8 years ago that Analogue would be switched off around this time and there has been heaps of advertising in the last couple of years that people would have to either buy a new TV and/or get a STB with either UHF or Satellite Dish depending on their location. I bought my first STB back in 2008 purely so I could partake of crystal clear pictures with no ghosting or interference (and even in HD occasionally) and long before I got a Freeview TV.

However those who can not receive UHF Freeview should start lobbying their MPs to do something about it. I see no reason why anyone who was able to watch Analogue should be denied the ablity to receive FreeviewHD and have to install a satellite system. All analogue sites should have been converted and not just a selection of them.

Permalink Reply by Aaron Butler on December 18, 2013 at 12:16

What really needs to happen is Sky need to be forced to un-encrypt the satellite HD feeds of 1,2 & 3 for Freeview users to pick up.

Permalink Reply by Alan Cobcroft on December 18, 2013 at 12:46

A whole new can of worms as HD is not what Freeview Sat boxes support

Permalink Reply by Mike G on December 18, 2013 at 16:05

Analog transmission never covered 100% of the population. The cost of getting Freeview HD to all the old analog sites would be enormous and wouldn't be practical as we're talking about hundreds of sites. It would be good to do a few more high sites though such as Putauaki where one transmitter can hit 30000 viewers.

Permalink Reply by Biggles on December 18, 2013 at 17:07

It may be an enormous cost to put Digital transmitters at all the old analogue sites but they should have at least made satellite Freeview HD as well. That would cover they whole country for lower cost. The feed to the Sky satellite is obviously in HD because Sky are transmitting FTA channels in HD. I'm sure if Sky was made to unscramble the FTA transmissions or Freeview satellite was upgraded to HD then HD Satellite box decoders would become available.

Permalink Reply by Mike G on December 18, 2013 at 23:35

There could be an upgrade of the satellite freeview service in the future, but it would render all current satellite boxes obsolete, so it won't be soon. Perhaps it would be better to see how many other channels go HD before launching an HD satellite service. That way, we'd be sure that the system will have capacity required first.

Why should sky free up a product that they own?

Permalink Reply by Biggles on December 19, 2013 at 8:27

Why should sky free up a product that they own?

Because they don't own TV1, TV2, TV3 which they are transmitting in HD. If the uplink is FTA and HD then the downlink should be unscrambled for all to receive.

Permalink Reply by Mike G on December 19, 2013 at 11:24

Sky lease the satellite space, uplink it themselves, and carry it for their subscribers, at a lower quality than Freeview HD. The uplink is not FTA, it's encrypted.

Permalink Reply by Biggles on December 19, 2013 at 11:58

The uplink may be encrypted but the downlink is HD because if you have MySky HDi you can watch TV1,2 and 3 in HD without an HD ticket.

Permalink Reply by forumuser on December 19, 2013 at 12:50

I have sent Craig Foss and Mike Sabin (Northland MP) a letter regarding the situation with HD FTA services been unencrypted from Optus D1, Regarding satellite boxes, it will soon be a requirement to produce boxes with HDMI support and DVBS2 support, which are currently supported on Dish TV and DTVS products and plus other unapproved models.

Let alone the Optus D3 signal SKY Boxes are now picking up on a test channel.

Permalink Reply by Biggles on December 19, 2013 at 13:56

Good on you Joshua!

Permalink Reply by Steve J on December 22, 2013 at 7:48

I agree . I have had people complain that on large screen sets the freeview sat pictures looks terrible.

In fact it looks worse than a good p5 signal from a main analogue station with a proper antenna system at the user end ,

getting rid of the waste of space channels would be a starter ( multiple tv1 and tv3 regions )

and then increase the bit rate of the remaining !!

changing the requirement to support H264 and DVBS2 is a step in the right direction. I suspect current boxes may be throw away and 5 years old . Introducing new channels in HD would then be possible if transponder space is available .