The future of television

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by epsilon

Loss of votes at the last minute when the broadcast infrastructure starts to fail and with the realisation that broadband infrastructure simply can't cope with the demand. That's when the government will finally realise they should have been planning for this. Maybe even pulling a "South Africa" and having to keep the terrestrial network running after the rest of Europe has switched off, with all of the political problems that will come with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD1aYYFEUtQ
Hard to imagine but South Africa is even behind us in securing a future for TV distribution.
I'm not quite sure that the broadcaster's plans actually align with your vision of the future https://www.t3.com/tech/tvs/bbc-to-r...es-of-channels. A set top box with 100's of channels... oh dear, oh dear.

There’s no conflict that I can see. Those 100s of channels will end up being streaming channels, which are a very poor substitute for the established channels that are most watched in this country.

As for broadband not being able to cope, that’s for the birds. I don’t think anyone is sleepwalking into this.

I seem to recall some scare story appearing on here some time ago that there wouldn’t be enough electricity to support the whole TV experience being provided by on demand over broadband. Don’t fall into the same trap, episilon, that would be embarrassing.

We may come up short on Electricity, but not for TV, it uses a fraction of what EV's require.

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

There’s no conflict that I can see. Those 100s of channels will end up being streaming channels, which are a very poor substitute for the established channels that are most watched in this country.

Did you not read my comments a few posts back about Freely delivering channels by DVB over IP, so no different to the existing terrestrial network. It certainly isn't your dream vision of on-demand streaming only and the end of linear channels.

As for broadband not being able to cope, that’s for the birds. I don’t think anyone is sleepwalking into this.

Studies have shown that the existing broadband infrastructure cannot cope with events attracting a mass audience. It is one of the scenarios being examined by the DCMS. "The cloud" isn't designed to massively increase bandwidth at the drop of a hat.

I seem to recall some scare story appearing on here some time ago that there wouldn’t be enough electricity to support the whole TV experience being provided by on demand over broadband. Don’t fall into the same trap, episilon, that would be embarrassing.

Now you are just being silly, although I'm not sure why I should be surprised by that.
However, totally unrelated to TV or broadband, electricity grids are becoming more susceptible to load balancing failures and even hacking (e.g. the recent outage across Spain & Portugal). Recent news stories of kill switches built into solar panels made in China are also enlightening. That said, such failures would have the same impact on broadcast tv so a little beyond the scope of this thread.

---------- Post added at 19:27 ---------- Previous post was at 19:24 ----------

Originally Posted by Paul

We may come up short on Electricity, but not for TV, it uses a fraction of what EV's require.

I'm guessing the electricity comment is just one of his typical obfuscations.

Originally Posted by epsilon

Studies have shown that the existing broadband infrastructure cannot cope with events attracting a mass audience. It is one of the scenarios being examined by the DCMS. "The cloud" isn't designed to massively increase bandwidth at the drop of a hat.

What you’re experiencing here is one of OB’s standard tactics, the ‘breezy dismissal’, in which he hopes he sounds so authoritative and certain of his facts that everyone will assume he’s read up on the subject and must know what he’s talking about.

In fact, the inability of the national broadband infrastructure to cope is discussed at length in the Ofcom document, which we all know he’s aware of (even though it’s still unclear if he’s actually read it). Amongst the many problems is that if you’re watching a live event and pause it to make a cup of tea, you can no longer be served from a multicast. The service provider then has to provide a bespoke stream for you, as well as everyone else who paused it to answer the door to the pizza dude. There comes a point when the network can’t cope - something that simply doesn’t happen with broadcast.

It’s no coincidence that low budget FAST channels like most of what’s available on Pluto TV don’t let you pause/rewind. It allows them to multicast without the risk of network load running out of control.

Now you are just being silly, although I'm not sure why I should be surprised by that.

My bad, you totally get it after all

You can build pausing into a device by using stream buffering.
Obviously it requires a local storage system, such as memory or disk.

[epsilon]

More disappointing news for OB and from one of his favourite sources.
https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2025...ht-switch-off/

Originally Posted by Paul

You can build pausing into a device by using stream buffering.
Obviously it requires a local storage system, such as memory or disk.

Well yes, we used to call that Sky-Plus, or TiVo.

The point is those are premium add-ons to a basic service.

Originally Posted by Chris

Well yes, we used to call that Sky-Plus, or TiVo.

I call it Sky Q

[epsilon]

American's are ditching pay tv and going back to terrestrial.
https://multicastnews.com/p/sinclair...sers-broadcast

[RichardCoulter]

Explanation given by BBC technologist:

OFCOM has renewed Licences for Muxes PSB 2 and COM 1,2 and 3 to 31 December 2034 call it 2035
which is when Contracts with Arqiva end
The documents are the "Notices of Renewal" at https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-an...l-tv/multiplex

The Licenses can be revoked for a number of reasons which includes
Section 16(16A) of the 1996 Act
(7) With the consent of the Secretary of State, Ofcom may revoke the Licence for reasons related
to the management of the radio spectrum.
This is qualified
(10) Where Ofcom make the decision to revoke the Licence they shall specify a date, not earlier
than 31 December 2030 or five years after the date on which the notice is given (whichever
is the later), on which the revocation takes effect.

This is at page 26 of any of the above Licenses (full version)

OFCOM have indicated that they are unlikely to do this for 2030
and I'm sure that if it was substantially before 2035 there would be many representations made ....

The BBC Muxs end on two dates
for PSB 1 /BBC A on 31 December 2027 - which is when the BBC ceases to exist in Law
as you cannot have a license owned by something/ one that does not exist!!
(this is a point Dr Shah makes - the BBC charter is about the only one that does not exist in perpetuity)
For PSB B which is operated by BBC FTV Ltd expires on 16 November 2026 "12 years from 16 November 2012"
so application needs to be made by then if it is to be continued
Bearing in mind that it carries non BBC PSB channels in HD and there are contracts with Arqiva running to 2035 it would get very interesting if it was not renewed.....
or PSB1 conditions and transmission mode changed ..... and which services are carried on it on spectrum gifted to the BBC.

So it looks likley that all Six muxes will exist to at least 2030 and probably most of them beyond that to 2035
As it requires the band to be cleared of DVB emission from existing sites to make it available for Mobile telco use ....
by which time it is very likely that there will be a demand by the mobiles for the spectrum and little TV wanting to be emitted
but DTT may exist but not DVB - but there are commercial and regulatory issues!!

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Explanation given by BBC technologist:

So it looks likley that all Six muxes will exist to at least 2030 and probably most of them beyond that to 2035
As it requires the band to be cleared of DVB emission from existing sites to make it available for Mobile telco use ....
by which time it is very likely that there will be a demand by the mobiles for the spectrum and little TV wanting to be emitted
but DTT may exist but not DVB - but there are commercial and regulatory issues!!

Back to analogue then.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by epsilon

Back to analogue then.

Hahaha 😆


Some more info given from the BBC Technologist that others may find interesting:

If you want one set of scenarios - all with a very technical and totally uncommercial view point read this
https://www.coleago.com/app/uploads/...eport-2025.pdf
only one Scenario of 6 has the PSB in HD (the one that converters all muxes to HD and has 31 HD channel slots
Most reduce the number of Muxes and use T2 to squeeze more low res SD channels in to allow the closing of Muxes
and do a total repack of the Band (which requires international agreement) but move to PSB muxes slots which are very very expensive to opetera, but the PSB muxes are on Long contracts assume to 2035 or thereabouts and one can imagine that SDN likewise
And Arqiva is internal accounting!

The key issue is how much will there be to transmit in say 2030 and then what is turned off for ever in 2035
and thus what DTT looks like after that ....

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Hahaha 😆


Some more info given from the BBC Technologist that others may find interesting:

Thanks, Richard, for a helpful input on this thread, which is welcome!

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Hahaha 😆


Some more info given from the BBC Technologist that others may find interesting:

If it's DTT but not DVB then presumably it would be 5G broadcast. UHF frequencies aren't really useful to mobile companies for 5G, data works much better and faster at higher frequencies. It is useful for "broadcast" whether that is OTA updates or broadcasting in the normal sense as it gets out further. Less bandwidth but covering a wider area, obviously not really useful for lots of mobile "cells" because the bandwidth isn't there.
But it needs a commitment. It's another scenario where Europe has made the commitment but here we have total silence.
Again, for the various scenarios in the report. Things aren't going to happen overnight, decisions need to be made and infrastructure planned. The UK hasn't mass converted to DVB-T2 because no company will invest in the conversion without an assurance that the transmitters won't be turned off a few years hence. There needs to be a return on any investment.
So, it's in the hands of the DCMS an important time for the department to get its act together. But what is happening? suggestions that the DCMS will be abolished and the workload split out to other government departments. Yeah, more sleep walking into the future...

[OLD BOY]

Which is why I cannot see any major intervention by the government. And it’s why the broadcasters are proceeding the way they would prefer.

You are absolutely right that Europe is charting a very different path from that of the UK. It will be very interesting to see how that pans out.