The future of television

[Taz2k]

Originally Posted by Paul

If its Live TV via an aerial then its surely not Freely, so this seems to be a bit of a con.

Freely is a hybrid system with some channels available exclusively via an aerial, others available as streamed DVB with some channels available via both methods. Freely has its own EPG with different channel numbers to Freeview. It's not a con but it is extremely confusing.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Taz2k

Freely is a hybrid system with some channels available exclusively via an aerial, others available as streamed DVB with some channels available via both methods. Freely has its own EPG with different channel numbers to Freeview. It's not a con but it is extremely confusing.

I wouldn’t have thought so. Most people just switch on the TV and select their channel from the EPG. They don’t care how they receive them.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I wouldn’t have thought so. Most people just switch on the TV and select their channel from the EPG. They don’t care how they receive them.

They might do for sport, if streamed 'live' action is way behind freeview coverage.

[Taz2k]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I wouldn’t have thought so. Most people just switch on the TV and select their channel from the EPG. They don’t care how they receive them.

Except that channel selection is not the part that is confusing. The confusion is that Freely via an aerial isn't the same as Freeview. It does confuse people that broadcast DTT is now carried on 2 different platforms which don't share channel numbers if they expect DTT to have a single, uniform, EPG. I suppose though that channel selection could be confusing to viewers if they have Freely in one room and Freeview in another. Not to mention the possibility of even more diverse channel numbers if they own a third tv which has Freeview Play with CLM.

---------- Post added at 16:13 ---------- Previous post was at 16:05 ----------

Originally Posted by Mr K

They might do for sport, if streamed 'live' action is way behind freeview coverage.

Possibly something they are trying to mitigate by using a variant of DVB for streamed Freely. Even Freeview has encoding / decoding delay. The challenge is to match them. In the end it will come down to how powerful the processors are in the TV. With manufacturers cutting costs (e.g. Sony TVs now being manufactured by TCL) it probably isn't something that will happen soon.

Originally Posted by Taz2k

Freely is a hybrid system with some channels available exclusively via an aerial, others available as streamed DVB with some channels available via both methods. Freely has its own EPG with different channel numbers to Freeview. It's not a con but it is extremely confusing.

Interesting, I have not seen that mentioned anywhere before.
Freely has always been positioned as internet based, thanks for the info.

Its USP as I understood it was that it was supposed to put FAST (linear streaming) channels into the same EPG as the traditional broadcast channels, and that it would let you select and play as-broadcast stuff from all the main public service broadcasters even if you’re using an internet connection rather than an aerial to feed your Freely box or TV. We don’t have an aerial or a dish (or VM) and at present without Freely we have to go to each app separately to see what’s presently being broadcast. Freely should remove that requirement. But I can see why PVR functionality is a genie the broadcasters would rather put back in the lamp if they can, so I’m not surprised if any PVR functionality a Freely box ships with is restricted to what it receives via an aerial.

Prior to launch, the PSB channels were still refusing to relinquish the need to login in order to access anything they were delivering over IP rather than terrestrial broadcast. I don’t know if they eventually relented, but it’s likely that even if you want to access BBC1, ITV etc via a unified EPG, using only an internet connection, you won’t be able to do so without first setting everything up in your Freely device with individual user names and passwords for BBC, ITV, C4 and C5.

[Taz2k]

There's also the possibility that the "over the air" EPG data carries CRID data necessary to support recordings but the online EPGs do not.