MI
millionairefan
Will it be shown again on the 6:00? I would like to see it.
On another new development, the Boxco (BBC-ITV) box launching in early April will come with E4 at FTA (Daily Mail).
On another new development, the Boxco (BBC-ITV) box launching in early April will come with E4 at FTA (Daily Mail).
MI
millionairefan
Media Guardian reports that the Pace box will include, for free, Sky One, Sky News, MTV, E4 and a 'best-of-Sky' channel - whatever that means.
If this is the case, I reckon there will be a huge surge for these boxes (I'll know we'll get a Pace one!)
If this is the case, I reckon there will be a huge surge for these boxes (I'll know we'll get a Pace one!)
MI
Mich
Founding member
Sounds great, its something i've been going on about for ages. I can see floods of channels trying to become FTA and for example UKTV channels will be encouraged by the been because they'd like everyone to go digital. I think a Mux of premium channels could work, but it must only be one! Two Mux's for the beeb. This looks like it will be a HUGE success, and i'm happy to say I predicted it. Also someone said that channels would need to go FTA on Sky, firstly ITV 2 is different and secondly this is true competition for Sky.
MI
Mich
Founding member
Sounds great, its something i've been going on about for ages. I can see floods of channels trying to become FTA and for example UKTV channels will be encouraged by the been because they'd like everyone to go digital. I think a Mux of premium channels could work, but it must only be one! Two Mux's for the beeb. This looks like it will be a HUGE success, and i'm happy to say I predicted it. Also someone said that channels would need to go FTA on Sky, firstly ITV 2 is different and secondly this is true competition for Sky.
CW
cwathen
Founding member
I think this could be good - so long as ITV Digital don't try to hijack it. Obviously if a significant number of popular subscription channels go FTA, they will be under threat. There should definately be procedures in place to prevent them from buying up some of these boxes, bundling them with an ITV Digital CAM and then selling them as a prepay package at a very cheap rate - maybe only £10 or so more than buying a box (that'll still mean ITV get £110 for a prepay package, which I think is similar to what they get now). Then of course if people don't renew their prepay, ITV Digital will want their box back, and the whole problem of DTT relying heavily on ITV Digital will come back again.
They definately should not be allowed to be marketed by ITV Digital in any way, as that could be the ruination of this box.
They definately should not be allowed to be marketed by ITV Digital in any way, as that could be the ruination of this box.
BC
Blake Connolly
Founding member
On the One O'Clock News, as well as showing the very neat looking little box, there was a graphic showing what kind of channels we should expect.
The first was the logos of the 5 terrestrial channels, BBC TWO's was the old one-line version, not the box, by the way. The second had 'extra channels from the BBC and ITV'. These were BBC NEWS 24, CBBC, BBC CHOICE and BBC FOUR, all the one-line logos. Under that was the ITN logo and I think the ITV2 logo. And finally the last screen was 'channels from other providers which might be offered for free for the first time'. There was a UK Gold logo, and underneath it, err, some pictures of remote controls!
Anyway, I really hope this'll get much more people onto digital. It certainly looks like a nice thing to have for the bedroom telly in Sky Digital homes too. It's much smaller than normal set-top boxes, it's sort of white clearish plastic with the Pace and DVB logos on it.
The first was the logos of the 5 terrestrial channels, BBC TWO's was the old one-line version, not the box, by the way. The second had 'extra channels from the BBC and ITV'. These were BBC NEWS 24, CBBC, BBC CHOICE and BBC FOUR, all the one-line logos. Under that was the ITN logo and I think the ITV2 logo. And finally the last screen was 'channels from other providers which might be offered for free for the first time'. There was a UK Gold logo, and underneath it, err, some pictures of remote controls!
Anyway, I really hope this'll get much more people onto digital. It certainly looks like a nice thing to have for the bedroom telly in Sky Digital homes too. It's much smaller than normal set-top boxes, it's sort of white clearish plastic with the Pace and DVB logos on it.
DR
drjones
From Pace's description on their website ( a little weak at the moment) I am presuming that this will be an inline device - similar to a signal booster...
Quote 'it will automatically retune your TV'
...so this seems to suggest that it will recieve the MUXes, decode them and then forward them to the TV as analog.
So does this mean that it transmits the digital channels to different UHF channels - if it does then at least in theory, all the mux's channels will be available to work with any analog tuner I.E. a video tuner (thus meaning you can record digital and watch another channel
Or will it be more like a STB where it uses a single signal generator (or SCART) thus only allowing one channel per time.
I think the first option is a wish, the second is more realistic, but you never know http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mind you at £99.99, it is within reason to have two, or combine it with a standard STB, allowing you more flexibility to record digital channels
Quote 'it will automatically retune your TV'
...so this seems to suggest that it will recieve the MUXes, decode them and then forward them to the TV as analog.
So does this mean that it transmits the digital channels to different UHF channels - if it does then at least in theory, all the mux's channels will be available to work with any analog tuner I.E. a video tuner (thus meaning you can record digital and watch another channel
Or will it be more like a STB where it uses a single signal generator (or SCART) thus only allowing one channel per time.
I think the first option is a wish, the second is more realistic, but you never know http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mind you at £99.99, it is within reason to have two, or combine it with a standard STB, allowing you more flexibility to record digital channels
CW
cwathen
Founding member
I like the price point - £100 for an FTA DTT receiver is very good, it's certainly much cheaper than buying an ONdigital box. I expect the prices to drop before much longer aswell soon. By the time it gets near to the analogue switch off (which I still don't believe will happen in 2004 whatever the government would like) I'd expect these things to be going for under £50.
NG
Looking at the report on BBC News Online - it looks like the Pace box connects to the TV via a SCART socket - though the aerial connection to the receiver is also plugged into a hole on the side of the SCART connector - so I guess the idea is you no longer connect an aerial to the analogue tuner in your telly... (They can claim it 'automatically retunes your telly' possibly if it raises the switching voltage on the TVs SCART socket - forcing the TV to display the signal on the SCART socket rather than from the tuner)
The receiver is very unlikely to contain more than one MPEG2 decoder and output circuit - so will (as do all existing ITV Digital set top boxes) receive the digital TV signal, demultiplex it, select the correct compressed MPEG2 stream and decode this to uncompressed YUV digital video, convert this to RGB analogue, and also code to PAL composite analogue. This means each individual set top box can only display ONE digital TV channel at a time - you would need one per TV and VCR in your house to be able to record and watch different digital channels on every analogue TV / Video in your house.
I would be surprised if the box had an RF modulator - as this is not necessary for use with most TVs with SCART sockets and would add to the cost. I would imagine a modulator (as on playstations etc) will be an optional extra.
noggin
Founding member
Quote:
drjones on 7:32 pm on Jan. 18, 2002
From Pace's description on their website ( a little weak at the moment) I am presuming that this will be an inline device - similar to a signal booster...
Quote 'it will automatically retune your TV'
...so this seems to suggest that it will recieve the MUXes, decode them and then forward them to the TV as analog.
So does this mean that it transmits the digital channels to different UHF channels - if it does then at least in theory, all the mux's channels will be available to work with any analog tuner I.E. a video tuner (thus meaning you can record digital and watch another channel
Or will it be more like a STB where it uses a single signal generator (or SCART) thus only allowing one channel per time.
I think the first option is a wish, the second is more realistic, but you never know http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mind you at £99.99, it is within reason to have two, or combine it with a standard STB, allowing you more flexibility to record digital channels
From Pace's description on their website ( a little weak at the moment) I am presuming that this will be an inline device - similar to a signal booster...
Quote 'it will automatically retune your TV'
...so this seems to suggest that it will recieve the MUXes, decode them and then forward them to the TV as analog.
So does this mean that it transmits the digital channels to different UHF channels - if it does then at least in theory, all the mux's channels will be available to work with any analog tuner I.E. a video tuner (thus meaning you can record digital and watch another channel
Or will it be more like a STB where it uses a single signal generator (or SCART) thus only allowing one channel per time.
I think the first option is a wish, the second is more realistic, but you never know http://web.ukonline.co.uk/tv.home/forum/emoticons/biggrin.gif
Mind you at £99.99, it is within reason to have two, or combine it with a standard STB, allowing you more flexibility to record digital channels
Looking at the report on BBC News Online - it looks like the Pace box connects to the TV via a SCART socket - though the aerial connection to the receiver is also plugged into a hole on the side of the SCART connector - so I guess the idea is you no longer connect an aerial to the analogue tuner in your telly... (They can claim it 'automatically retunes your telly' possibly if it raises the switching voltage on the TVs SCART socket - forcing the TV to display the signal on the SCART socket rather than from the tuner)
The receiver is very unlikely to contain more than one MPEG2 decoder and output circuit - so will (as do all existing ITV Digital set top boxes) receive the digital TV signal, demultiplex it, select the correct compressed MPEG2 stream and decode this to uncompressed YUV digital video, convert this to RGB analogue, and also code to PAL composite analogue. This means each individual set top box can only display ONE digital TV channel at a time - you would need one per TV and VCR in your house to be able to record and watch different digital channels on every analogue TV / Video in your house.
I would be surprised if the box had an RF modulator - as this is not necessary for use with most TVs with SCART sockets and would add to the cost. I would imagine a modulator (as on playstations etc) will be an optional extra.