hoi,
astra 28 oost:
red button hd (8900) volgende week terug bij freesat maar niet in de sky epg
21ST JUNE 2013 - 19:00
We've had a very busy few days and I'm writing to give you an update on the progress we have made, on the extra SD streams as well as the HD stream.
Whilst the listing of Red Button HD on Sky unfortunately remains unresolved, we have reached agreement with Sky to enable Red Button HD on Freesat. Subject to completion by Sky of the necessary technical work, BBC Red Button HD will reappear at Freesat channel 980 early next week.
A number of people, including @Nathan Lock, have asked why Red Button HD on Freesat has any dependency on Sky. All channels which appear on the Sky platform go through an ‘adaptation hub’ where the essential information that makes the platform work, including the EPG, gets inserted. Adaption works on a per-transponder basis, so even if a channel is to be broadcast outside the Sky EPG, if it is on a transponder that contains other channels that are on the Sky EPG then the adaption hub has to be explicitly configured to pass all channels. So that's why there's a technical dependency on Sky to configure the adaption hub to pass Red Button HD for reception on Freesat.
Finally, I’m pleased to confirm that our final work to launch the additional Red Button SD streams on Monday for the Wimbledon fortnight and Glastonbury has gone well on all platforms. These extra streams, offering extra courts and extra stages, will be available via the Red Button on Sky, Freeview/YouView, Virgin Media and Freesat, and also at the channel numbers mentioned in my original blog post on Freeview/ YouView, Virgin Media and Freesat. I hope you enjoy them
uitleg van freesat :
It does help tremendously in discussing this if you understand a bit more about how the broadcasts aimed at the UK work.
Firstly, Freesat is essentially aiming to get a fair number of the channels that already broadcast FTA onto their EPG. They aren’t using a different satellite, because that would mean that broadcasters would have to pay for another load of transponder space, just to reach Freesat homes; for the forseeable future, those homes will be very much the minority, and many channels will not consider it worthwhile.
So, to make it a viable proposition, Freesat uses exactly the same streams as Sky does – transponder space arranged by the broadcasters. Anything else would be costly and pointless duplication of broadcasts.
But, for many years, Sky has been the de-facto way of receiving channels in the UK. As part of the process of going on the Sky EPG, before it reaches the satellite uplink, the streams intended for a particular transponder pass through a Sky Adaptation Hub, which adds the EPG data required for the Sky system. These hubs are managed by Sky, and are essential to making sure their platform works ok.
There wasn’t an issue in the past, because no one else wanted to run an EPG alongside theirs.
Now Freesat do. If Sky wasn’t there, then Freesat would have to apply a similar process, with their own Adaptation Hubs, adding all the EPG data to the transponders carrying Freesat channels – that data includes things like the signals that will allow future PVRs to start on time, now and next into, and so on.
It would be costly to have a second adaptation hub in the uplink chain of every transponder – and you’d still need to co-operate with Sky to make them work together. So it’s far more sensible to simply arrange with Sky that the Freesat data passes through their hubs correctly.
And that’s what this “shock” announcement is about. It’s something the more technical folk have known for a long time.