BBC Freesat HD
April 27, 2007
Want free digital TV but your home isn’t in a digital area? Well you could soon be in luck. BBC have announced plans for a free to view service that offers both high and standard definition for nothing. Up to 200 channels certainly beats the comparatively paltry offering on freeview. Interactive content that we’ve come to expect from digital TV services should be supported too. Plus, the use of satellite broadcasting should fulfil the BBC need to spread their content to the widest audience possible.
The BBC are working in collaboration with ITV to launch the service in 2008. Details of manufacturers, retailers and installers are still to be announced but if these plans go ahead, we could be looking at the best way to watch TV in a long time; but wasn’t freeview meant to do that before it was filled with shopping channels?
“The BBC’s objective in launching Freesat is to support Digital Switchover by providing another way for licence payers to receive digital television channels and radio services, subscription free from the BBC and ITV. Its primary purpose is to drive digital take-up in analogue homes, particularly in those areas which are out of digital terrestrial coverage. Freesat also offers a trusted free-to-view digital upgrade path that gives licence payers all the benefits of digital television (notably high definition capability) guaranteed free of subscription.”
Mark Thompson, BBC Director General
Also, this is supposed to launch as the analogue transmitters are going to be turned off, so offering people with yet another solution to watch digital TV. Speculation of HD freeview launching in 2012 will become insignificant if this satellite service is anywhere near as good as it sounds. The only problem that I can see with this new service is the cost. Whilst it isn’t subscription based (apart from the TV license that you already pay), the cost of the set top box and installation might need to be expensive to cover the costs of setting this up. Nevertheless, this is the BBC, they’ll definitely want a lot of people to use it – it’ll make them look like the innovative broadcasters that they’ve demonstrated time and time again – and to make this possible, it’ll have to be affordable.
With expanding choice, the decision won’t be whether to adopt digital TV, it’ll be about how to receive it.
by: Chris Chapman
