I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Staying with my Dad up in the Hawkes Bay a couple of weekends ago I got to see FreeView. The new TVNZ Digital TV service. The kids channel was great and it was funny to see Gloss again.
The set top box interface was woeful. Clearly designed by a satellite guy it showed all sorts of numbers that probably isn’t that useful to most Grandma’s. The hardware was cheap and nasty. The remote would certainly not take pride of place on the coffee table.
I hadn’t really been following it but there is a debate about whether FreeView should be broadcast on Sky but it seems to be raging.
If you already have a Sky Decoder or even a digital receiver in your TV you have all the hardware required to get the FreeView channels. But TVNZ will not let Sky users get FReeView on the box they have already invested in.
This is really dumb and infuriating.
- I am a taxpayer and am paying for the content. To get FreeView TVNZ are saying I have to buy a new decoder that I don’t need or want, let alone the complexity of another (badly designed) remote and interface. This is infuriating.
- This ‘walled garden’ approach just like everything else we have fought about over the last 10 years. What a massive step backwards, after such a great step forward with TVNZ OnDemand.
- The value is in the content and the eyeballs watching it, not the unnecessary, expensive and crappy device.
This is a really dumb thing TVNZ are doing. The backlash will be significant.
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well I design settops for a living (none of the freeview boxes - if we do one you will like the UI - IMHO Sky’s sucks too - someone who creates a TV UI using complementary colours doesn’t understand how colour works in video) - I have hacked about with the streams off of the satellite and I know that the technical issues are trivial (just a matter of Sky pushing a different channel map out - probably an hour’s work by someone).
I’m sure the issues are all about money - people are paying to put those channels on the satellite - and I’m sure they’d like a few bucks kicked back by Sky if they pass them to their customers.
I think there’s also been some deal done by the Freeview folks to produce officially branded receivers, probably to make sure there’s a critical mass of product available - those guys would be pissed off if Sky just gave it away for free.
However the walled garden thing works both ways - say I want to build a Sky box will they let me? probably not.
The MythTV guys will be knocking up FreeView boxes (broadcast rather than satellite - and it will be true HD) - a purpose built Linux distro and a digital card or two from Dick Smith’s dropped in that old PC you had to toss when you got Vista will give you a nifty PVR
Rod, I assume the no FreeView on Sky by TVNZ is related to the no Prime on FreeView by Sky. Both are build walled gardens
The other argument is that Prime TV, a free-to-air channel - yet its owner Sky TV won’t allow Prime on the Freeview platform. Trackside (TAB) is not on Freeview either. The government needs to regulate the industry so that all free-to-air channels are available on both Sky and Freeview platforms. That way, everyone wins.
Freeview is not TVNZ. Freeview is a consortium of broadcasters including TV3, C4, Maori, Triangle/Stratos, Parliament TV and TVNZ. TVNZ has two channels (TVNZ6 and SportsExtra) that are available on satellite Freeview (DVB-S aka DTH) and not on analog terrestrial. TVNZ7 comes next year, as does Freeview on terrestrial digital (DVB-T aka DTT).
For satellite Freeview you can use other receivers. You wouldn’t get the official MHEG-5 EPG. Instead you’ll get the manufacturers EPG which probably isn’t as fancy as the Freeview one, but perfectly usable.
You can also get a PVR to use with Freeview. I’ve been using a Topfield PVR with the satellite channels for a while.
I’m not sure what you mean by having a “digital receiver in your TV” means in relation to being able to view Freeview. In the UK most TVs have both terrestrial analog and digital (DVB-T) receivers. I’m not aware of any with DVB-S tuners, but if they did exist you would be able to watch Freeview on them. You would not be able to watch Sky with them.
Personally I would like to see Prime on Freeview, it’s the only major analog channel that isn’t available freely digitally. Why is that I wonder?
Thanks Chris, good info. What do you think about them mandating you need ‘another’ box for taxpayer funded shows?
I’ve spoken to TVNZ folks about this. The way they’d like to see it work is that Sky pays TVNZ to carry the TVNZ channels. Sky make money selling subscriptions to packages of services, so if they want to add TVNZ channels to the package then TVNZ should get some of that subscription money. Sky uses that subscription money to compete against TVNZ for rights to shows and sporting events. If TVNZ didn’t get a cut, then mandating Sky to get TVNZ’s channels for free would be stacking the odds against TVNZ thus ensuring the quality and number of shows TVNZ can afford goes down.
There are two ways you can get Sky paying TVNZ for content: through voluntary contract or through regulation. Which poison do you want? The time before there’s a voluntary contract during which consumers get the short end of the stick, or the regulation that means the pricing is imperfect?
The problem comes because you can’t separate the pipe and the content at Sky. TVNZ don’t really want to be a pipe–ideally, they make content and it goes out over any and all pipes they can find. They make their money off ads. Sky, however, can’t be dealt with as just a pipe–give the pipe a dollar and you’re likely to see it spent on content … content on which Sky will sell ads and thus compete with TVNZ.
I agree that civilians don’t give a toss about the economics, the politics, or the business. They’re being screwed (in the forms of duplicated hardware and multiple confusing interfaces to learn). But I don’t think the diagnosis is as simple as “TVNZ are being dicks”.
Rod
Well if you’ve got a Sky box I’d agree its an ass to have to purchase another box.
However as a taxpayer I would like to see the development of free to view digital TV in NZ on an open and standards based platform.
Nat raises some interesting points on the politics. A issue I think is being overlooked is that whilst the non-commercial TVNZ6 is taxpayer funded (as compared to the largely commercial funded TV ONE and TV2) that does not mean that the taxpayer owns the content that is transmitted on TVNZ6. Much of the content has been locally produced by independent companies.
So if you were the MD of a local production company would you be happy to see your content used to create revenue for Sky without getting any recognition of that revenue?
Enough on the business politics check out the latest toy from Topfield, the TF6000PVR, wifi, remote web access for setting up recoding schedules and easy transfer to content to and from PC (see http://www.freetv.co.nz/webapps/site/61418/52840/shopping/shopping-view.html?pid=261929&b_id=&find_groupid=4985).
Of course given that HD will come with the DTT version of Freeview people might want to wait until next year before investing in a box - if they live in a major metro area with good terrestrial reception.
Thanks for the great info. Seems like another broken thing.
Why did TVNZ ever allow Sky to carry their channels for free? When Sky rolled out their satellite service the FTA channels were a big marketing and selling point for them which allowed them to generate revenue from FTA TV channels. Now than TVNZ6 has come along Sky simply expect to carry the channel just like TV1 and TV2 however TVNZ seem to have finally woken to to this fact but by simply denying access to Sky they’re (at present) simply hurting their viewer base by limiting their service to those who have a Freeview STB. Sky are currently hurting because their growth has all but stopped and being able to carry all the Freeview channels is something that they need so they can continue to deliver a product so why don’t they simply cough up and pay TVNZ to carry their channels like they do with most other Pay TV channels?
Freeview and Sky TV are not competing products which is something many media choose to forget. The Freeview platform (DVB-S and soon to be DVB-T) is a replacement for the existing analogue broadcast platform in New Zealand whereas Sky is a Pay TV operator. The DVB-T platform covers the bulk of the population and once we start seeing TV’s on the market with built in tuners you won’t have to worry about buying another STB and the poor UI.
Freeview via Sateliite is just standard FTA MPEG2. This means you can buy any FTA satellite receiver you like and use it with Freeview.
Freeview shop has a very good range, i.e. you can choose any of these:
http://www.freeviewshop.co.nz/satellite-receivers-c-2.html
They have some quality units with European styling also.
I have an Ultraplus 780 Micro PVR, the remote control that comes with takes pride of place on my coffee table as it also operates my TV apart from looking great.
Check out the very latest PVR from Topfield - the TF6000PVR ES, now with 320gig HDD and an HDMI port which has upscaling to 1080i from the standard defintion Freeview signal http://www.hooktech.co.nz/pvr.htm