Freeview HD

[Nodnerb]

For those that may be interested, Freeview high-def is to launch April 2

From the Dominion Post | Monday, 17 March 2008

Freeview will launch its digital terrestrial satellite service, Freeview HD, on April 2.

General manager Steve Browning says ‘‘all major retailers’’ will be stocking DTT set-top boxes made by Zinwell by then.

These are expected to retail for about $500 and along with a UHF aerial are needed to access the service, which will be available to the 75 per cent of New Zealanders living in the nine largest cities.

Viewers will be able to see 12 hours of TV3 programming a week, including shows such as Prison Break, CSI and Boston Legal in high-definition and other Freeview digital channels in standard definition.

TVNZ does not expect to broadcast many programmes on Freeview HD in high-definition, bar the Beijing Olympics, till late next year.

Rumour also has it that Sony New Zealand will also be making an anouncement shortly regarding PlayTV set top box for the PS3

Looks like the set top boxes are priced at $550 each at this point http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/zinwell-z ... r-p-1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Skuzzlebutt]

Yes indeedy, Freeview HD looks like the business

There's also a, ahem, better write up over at PC World. (Those guys just rock...really know their stuff and, I hear, are incredibly good looking too)

http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/products/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Watched some of the Sunday afternoon motor sport shows via Freeview HD yesterday, and even though they're only upscaled to high def from a SD source, they looked 100% better than any other broadcast platform in NZ.

[Prometheus]

This man speaks the truth (apart from the good looking bit).

Freeview on its own is exceptionally nice, Freeview HD is stunning. Can't compare it to Sky digital, apart from saying Sky digital is like watching tv with gladwrap over your eyes. Looking at HD stuff at work in 50"+ screens is verrrry nice.

However.

Set-top box cost @$500, or DVB-T card for a PC @$120.

Upscaled transmission is nice, but the few shows that will be transmitted in natural HD are easily available commercial free, earlier, from many torrents web sites. Apart from some of the crap quality stuff that arrives in the building - like the Mexico A1GP today

Freeview is just so much nicer, hopefully more folks will make the switch from Sky.
(translation : get Freeview now)

[Bold]

Hrmm..

I'm debating buying a UHF aerial and putting it up myself, or just getting an installer to come and do it. I have no problem with all the wiring etc, its just getting the right size aerial and getting it all alligned etc. We live in a bit of a hollow, and don't have direct line of site to the transmitter, just to be a pain in the arse.

[ronwestnz]

Freeview is just so much nicer, hopefully more folks will make the switch from Sky.
(translation : get Freeview now)

We ditched Sky last week after they told me i had to wait 4 weeks to have a new dish installed after we moved around the corner from where we lived for the past year. Ironically Wifey rang up the next day as a new customer and the install would be done the next day, but she didnt get back to them to confirm the new install.

Installed our own vhf/uhf combo aerial and havent missed sky since

Saving up now for a freeview decoder.

Bold - if you goto one of the electrical wholesalers, they will give you the right aerial for your needs and the the bits to make it work. They will also give the direction to point it in.

[Jetboy]

Just bought a HTPC from VR Concepts and they prodded me into buying a Hauppage WinTV-HVR-4000 card (round $180 I think)...meant to be able to do Sat and Terrestrial Freeview, once its launched will get a UHF antenna and see how easy it is to setup and use

[panther]

been considering getting a TV card for the pc and running freeview with it, what was the major reason to get that card in particular?
Its one I have looked at, but I really dont know too much about the tv tuner cards and what it all means, and how easy are they to setup and get working.
Does it also come with a remote?
will be nice to get a decent picture as my tv is stuffed

[vandem]

Russell Brown blog with comments on his pre-release Freeview HD decoder here:
http://www.publicaddress.net/default,hardnews,225.sm

[BAZZIL]

Have you got your HD card humming yet Jetho?
I'm keen to get one of those two, but seeings you will be the guinea pig, i'll wait and see hehe.

[Skuzzlebutt]

I've documented everything I've done to get Freeview HD up and running at home.

Have a look: http://blogs.pcworld.co.nz/pcworld/prod ... _wait.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jetboy]

Have you got your HD card humming yet Jetho?
I'm keen to get one of those two, but seeings you will be the guinea pig, i'll wait and see hehe.

DSE closed tomorrow so might have to make a trip to Feilding and break into the one over there as need a qty of RG6 to run into the flat, but should have it up and running this weekend

Nice work on the tutorial Skuzz.....most helpful

[panther]

nice tutorial Skuzz, thanks. Will be getting into this pretty soon after moving house..hope its got a UHF aerial, i noticed that prime displayed with rabbit ears in the room ill be renting. I dont think this will be good enough though.

one thing, you mention to put the dll in the correct place, buit dont mention what the correct place is. I am only assuming it would be into the system32 folder?

you run it on vista, but its the same procedure on XP?

[Skuzzlebutt]

nice tutorial Skuzz, thanks. Will be getting into this pretty soon after moving house..hope its got a UHF aerial, i noticed that prime displayed with rabbit ears in the room ill be renting. I dont think this will be good enough though.

one thing, you mention to put the dll in the correct place, buit dont mention what the correct place is. I am only assuming it would be into the system32 folder?

you run it on vista, but its the same procedure on XP?

Whoops...I meant to update that.

It goes here: C:/Program Files/DVBViewer/Filters

Just dropped it in there, restarted DVBViewer and away she went.

And I just updated my tute to include the secret location

[Skuzzlebutt]

Oh and re XP...I'm pretty sure it's an identical setup. I don't think any of what I did is affected by the OS.

[Skuzzlebutt]

It's worth noting that GBPVR and the free Mediaportal software can both be made to work with Freeview HD...but DVBViewer is the easiest to get working. I might have a fiddle with Mediaportal though and see if I can get that working cos the front end is nicer than DVBViewer.

If only Microsoft would update Media Centre...I could just use that ...it is built in to my OS after all

[panther]

lol thanks for the replies Skuzz.
I got a little prob with powerdvd that you recommended, it only plays via 2 speakers in any movie or even mp3. in the config, if no track or movie is playing i can select 4 speakers, but as soon as start a song/movie nothing comes from the rears and the config only shows 2 speaker, nothing else. Win media 10 and Uleads dvd player work fine with all speakers. Any ideas why it wont work with the prog you suggested?

[Skuzzlebutt]

lol thanks for the replies Skuzz.
I got a little prob with powerdvd that you recommended, it only plays via 2 speakers in any movie or even mp3. in the config, if no track or movie is playing i can select 4 speakers, but as soon as start a song/movie nothing comes from the rears and the config only shows 2 speaker, nothing else. Win media 10 and Uleads dvd player work fine with all speakers. Any ideas why it wont work with the prog you suggested?

No idea mate. Are you playing a movie that has more than two audio channels?

[panther]

i think so, it plays in 4 speakers in win med 10 and the ulead dvd player fine.
is there a way to tell looking at the file?

sorry to hijack thread btw

[Skuzzlebutt]

i think so, it plays in 4 speakers in win med 10 and the ulead dvd player fine.
is there a way to tell looking at the file?

sorry to hijack thread btw

Hmmm. Not sure, I don't use PowerDVD all that much and I haven't had 5.1 speakers plugged into my PC for ages, so I've never had cause to try and get more than two channels going.

However, I use GOM Player to playback my DivX movies and stuff...if I right click on the playback window while it's playing I can click on "Information" which gives me all the details of the file...including how many channels it was encoded in. I imagine there could well be a way of doing this in other playback software too...but couldn't say for sure. Sorry.

[panther]

another question, why do you recommend

you’ll need an appropriate TV tuner, and one that doesn’t have hardware MPEG decoding at that.?

[Skuzzlebutt]

another question, why do you recommend

you’ll need an appropriate TV tuner, and one that doesn’t have hardware MPEG decoding at that.?

Because the NZ Freeview HD system uses the very latest MPEG4 encoding, and very few hardware decoding solutions support it. So you want a USB one that makes your PC to the MPEG4 decoding in software rather than hardware. Hardware solutions will turn up eventually...there's probably some around already, but I don't know of any.

[panther]

thanks for the info. So basically there is no point in getting the hauppauge 3000 then, cos id like to get one that can use a remote so can watch from bed

[Bold]

another question, why do you recommend

you’ll need an appropriate TV tuner, and one that doesn’t have hardware MPEG decoding at that.?

Because the NZ Freeview HD system uses the very latest MPEG4 encoding, and very few hardware decoding solutions support it. So you want a USB one that makes your PC to the MPEG4 decoding in software rather than hardware. Hardware solutions will turn up eventually...there's probably some around already, but I don't know of any.

Are you saying that card with hardware decoding wont work at all? or just that there's no point in it?

I would assume that even though a card has hardware decoding it could be disabled and you could use software anyway..

[Chris56]

i read in the paper today that taranaki not going it as yet or sumthing i didnt fully read it tho as i wanted a different page

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dailynews/4447839a6002.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Prometheus]

The original plan was this :