Freeview HD - when and how?

History
Freeview HD in the UK has been a long time coming, especially as it was tested about a 3 years ago in London. It got to the point when the majority thought that it would never come.

A privileged 450 companies and households were chosen in the Crystal Palace Transmitter Area back in 2006, to test out this new technology, this trial lasted about a year and further trials have conducted by the BBC since then.

The trials proved very successful and it was decided in 2008 to reorganise the Digital Services, to free up the capacity available, giving HD its own group and to upgrade to more efficient technologies.

Extra space or bandwidth is required for HDTV transmissions. In fact, within the HD bandwith of one channel you can run four standard TV channels. At present some of the bandwidth is being used up by analogue signals.

When will Freeview HD start in the UK?
From December only a three HD channels will be broadcast, BBC, ITV and C4. In late 2010 channel Five HD will be added. Eventually after ALL areas have been switched over to digital, you will begin to see more HD channels on Freeview.

Ofcom fixed late 2009 as the date to start HD transmissions and are making them available on an area-by-area basis. From 2nd December, 2009 areas that have already been switched over to digital will begin receiving HD through you aerial, starting with Granada TV region.

The broadcasts will be transmitted via DVB-T2 and encoded using MPEG-4. Freeview HD digital boxes will need to decode this signal. For most people it will mean buying a new HD set-top box when they become available.

How will we receive Freeview HD?
The easy bit was explaining when HD will come to Freeview, the difficult bit is how we will receive the transmissions.

At present (June 2009) there are no next generation Digital Freeview boxes on the market, that are capable of receiving and decoding the HD programmes. It is likely that they will become available soon.

Lets face it, for the vast majority, if you want to receive HD through your aerial you will have to buy a new Freeview set-top box or TV.

A word to the wise
Be careful there are Freeview digital set-top boxes available that are HD Ready with a Full HD (1080p) upscaled picture. But there is a question whether they are compatible, as a lot of these only decode MPEG-2. Not to mention the possibility that the tuner may not comply either.

The equipment needs to decode MPEG-4 broadcast via a DVB-T2 receiver (tuner). We suggest that you exercise caution if you are thinking about buying one. Don't spend your hard earned cash unnecessarily, before the next generation of set-top boxes and TVs become available.

There are also Freeview HD Ready TVs out there. Please re-read the paragraph above - you need to ask the right questions, before you are tempted to buy.

Samsung and Sony have TVs out now with MPEG-4 decoders, but they do not list the type of receiver (tuner) they have built-in - it may be worth speaking to the manufacturers directly.

It is likely that when this new equipment arrives it will have some kind of official logo or label (perhaps like the one above), to indicate that it will be compatible... watch this space.