Freeview HD sets a date: December 2

Finally, after much delay, we have a date to expect Freeview HD service in the UK, at least for those in range of the Winter Hill transmitter (Manchester & Liverpool for sure,) it will go live December 2. elsewhere, you'll be waiting until at least 2010 to experience the joys of OTA HD as has been promised, but keep an eye out and the Beeb, ITV and Channel 4 should be coming your way. Anyone know if those New Zealand PlayTV Freeview HD adaptations will be back-compatible to the UK?

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 26th 2009 3:39PM]

No mate they wont, HD in the UK will be using DVB-T2.

Also that logo is for NZ not UK.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 26th 2009 5:42PM]

The big question will be whether an hd boxes will be on sale in the UK in time for December, I don't know of any manufacter yet to announce whether they will have boxes

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 26th 2009 7:37PM]

Anyone know when PlayTV is coming to New Zealand?

[DrXym Posted Jun 27th 2009 6:39AM]

European DVB-T is a bit of a mess at the moment. Lots of countries have fairly old DVB-T SD services using MPEG2 and now everyone seems to be implementing different ways of doing HD. All agree on AVC, but some are using DVB-T and some DVB-T2. It's going to take a few years for everything to settle down and in the meantime there is going to be huge confusion as to what box supports what countries.

For example, most Irish televisions are tagged DVB-T / "Freeview" compatible, but DTV hasn't even officially launched in Ireland, and when it does its going to broadcast all SD & HD channels encoded with AVC. The result is virtually no existing television or set top box will work in Ireland. Only a small number of this year's crop of TVs do support AVC but nobody seems to be going out their way to highlight this. There is going to be a huge amount of confusion and anger surrounding Irish DTV if / when it finally launches.

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 27th 2009 4:32PM]

Just buy a TV with a built in freeview decoder (sony lcds) from australasia? lol

prob won't work with the whole dvb-t2 thing but all well

[(Unverified) Posted Jun 29th 2009 2:44AM]

I wish there was a freeview service here in the US.