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Tag: freesat

  • Panasonic To Release Freesat PVR HDD Blu-Ray Recorder


    Panasonic has unveiled what it claims are the world’s first Blu-ray recorders with two integrated Freesat receivers and an internal hard drive.

    Freesat is a UK free-to-air digital satellite television service that is a joint venture between the BBC and ITV.

    Making the announcement at its European press launch in Amsterdam this week, Panasonic said the DMR-BS850 will feature a 500GB hard drive along with a Blu-ray player and recorder.

    The company will also be releasing a smaller version, the 250GB BS750.

    Both will offer support for Panasonic’s new Internet content delivery service, Viera Cast.

    Since the players are equipped with twin HD tuners, users will be able to record content from one channel while watching another one.

    Both machines are Freesat+ compatible, so pausing and rewinding on-demand will also be possible.

    The two models have integrated SD memory card slots and, although Panasonic didn’t confirm it, it will also be possible to record Freesat-recorded content onto a Blu-ray Disc.

    The new recorders will launch in May but no price details have been released.

  • Thirst For HD Drives Freesat Sales To 200,000


    Demand for HD content has helped drive sales of Freesat devices past the 200,000 mark since the UK service was launched last May.

    While the figure is impressive, it further highlights the gulf that has opened up between the US and Japan and the rest of the world.

    An In-Stat report earlier this week showed that the bulk of households with an installed high-definition television is decidedly biased towards these two countries.

    That said, steps are being taken in the UK to improve the amount of HD content available.

    Freesat has quickly established itself as a leading provider of high def channels.

    The BBC-ITV joint venture said that HD had become a key selling point, with 61 per cent of a "customer panel" choosing the availability of high definition content as their "primary reason" for purchasing.

    Freesat offers its HD channel with no subscription.

    BSkyB announced this week that 779,000 now have its HD receiver and it hopes to make further investment in HD programming.

    Apple has also just announced that the first HD show is available for download from the iTunes store for AppleTV owners in the UK.
    Other European nations are also making in-roads into the HD world.

    A study from market researchers GfK states that the German market for Blu-ray players is in great shape, with strong sales in the final three months of 2008.

    GfK said that with average prices approaching the €300 barrier, sales figures of Blu-ray Players finally reached the 100,000 mark in December when more than 30,000 units were sold.

    Despite this positive development in the last quarter of 2008 the new format is not yet a resounding success.

    In December, there were already more than 11 million HD-ready or Full HD TV sets on the market in Germany compared to only 110,000 Blu-ray Players.

  • HD Drives Freesat Sales to 100K in Five Months


    The UK’s free-to-air satellite service Freesat has racked up 100,000 sales since its launch in May.

    Freesat said high definition coverage of major sporting events over the summer played a key role in encouraging people to buy HD set-top boxes.

    Co-owned by the BBC and ITV, Freesat offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television.

    It is taking on competitor Sky by offering free TV channels, including some HD ones, once customers pay for a Freesat receiver.

    There are now around 120 TV and radio channels and Freesat said that its early success was greatly boosted by BBC HD and ITV HD offering free HD coverage of Euro 2008, FA football, Wimbledon and the Olympic Games.

    The service expects to have 200 channels available by the end of 2008 – including subscription-free high definition channels from the BBC and ITV- and 230 by early 2009, with around 30 channels added each month.

    Freesat is promising a packed HD Christmas schedule and November will see the launch of Freesat+, the first digital television recorder (DTR), from Humax.

    Earlier this month, ITV director of group development and strategy Carolyn Fairbairn replaced Tim Davie as chairman of the Freesat.

  • Carolyn Fairbairn appointed Freesat chairman


    ITV director of group development and strategy Carolyn Fairbairn will succeed Tim Davie as chairman of the UK’s free-to-air digital satellite television service Freesat in September.

    Davie, currently the BBC’s director of marketing, communications and audiences, will relinquish the Freesat chair – which alternates between the BBC and ITV annually – when he becomes the corporation’s new director of audio and music.

    Freesat was developed by the BBC and ITV plc. The service began broadcasting on 6 May 2008 and offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television.

    The service expects to have 200 channels available by the end of 2008 – including subscription-free high definition channels from the BBC and ITV- and 230 by early 2009, with around 30 channels added each month.

    Emma Scott, Freesat managing director, said: “Carolyn is a highly regarded industry figure and I’m certain that the strong strategic skills and expertise she continues to demonstrate at ITV will be of huge benefit to Freesat.

    “I’m delighted that she has agreed to become Chairman of Freesat. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Tim for the great support and wise counsel he has provided during Freesat’s development and launch.”

    Before joining ITV in 2007, Fairbairn worked at the BBC where she developed the corporation’s plans for Freeview as its director of strategy and distribution.

    Fairbairn said: “Freesat plays a crucial role in ensuring that UK viewers have access to free-to-air digital and high definition television.

    “After a successful launch earlier this year, the service has already proved itself to be popular with consumers and I’m delighted to be taking on the chairmanship.”

  • HDTV to follow lead of smartphone

    In the same way that mobiles will all soon be “smartphones”, HDTV will simply become “TV”

    BY 2015 nobody will refer to “high definition” TV because HD will be the standard form of free television everywhere.
    But the HD broadcast offering in Europe will largely remain patchy during the intervening transition period, according to a report by Screen Digest.
    The study says HDTV will mainly develop as a pay TV product in Europe over the next five years – and mostly as a satellite product.

    A major factor for this is the lack of HD on free-to-air platforms, with only Sweden having already launched HD on free DTT and only France and the UK likely to follow in the short-mid-term.

    The report says that despite its name, Freesat HD has a disappointing HD line-up and is not likely to make a strong market impact in the UK.
    Other barriers to HDTV uptake are a lack of local HD channels in many countries, with pay TV operators relying mostly on US HD channels supply so far.
    The study concludes that a number of European pay TV operators “lack of ambition” when it comes to HDTV.

    In the report, HDTV 2008: Global Uptake, Strategies and Business Models, three critical success factors that will support the successful migration to HDTV are identified:
    – penetration of HD-ready displays
    – supply of HD content and HD channels
    – the availability of HD broadcast on a variety of television platforms.

    The report shows that all these are now cleared for a sustainable migration to HD in the long term.
    But it adds: “In the next five years, HDTV will mainly develop as a pay TV product in Europe, and mostly a satellite product.
    “However after analogue switch-offs are completed between 2010 and 2012, and digital free-to-air platforms are upgraded to more advanced technologies, they will end-up with more bandwidth capacity and become more widely accessible.”

    This, says the report, will kick-start the next phase of HDTV migration as HD becomes the mainstream and ultimately, the standard form of free television around the middle of next decade.

    There is a clear connection between the depth of the HD offerings and the take up of HD by subscribers, according to the study.
    It says that HD has not been pushed hard enough yet by many of Europe’s pay TV operators despite being used heavily as a marketing tool.
    The problem is that this isn’t followed through with the delivery of HD channels.
    Premiere in Germany still only offers two HD channels and its HD uptake is sluggish.
    By contrast BSkyB has now 17 HD channels covering all genres, and on the back of this has signed up almost 500,000 subscribers in less than two years – the fastest take-up of any new BSkyB product.
    The report says that in European pay TV markets that show signs of maturity, operators can use HD to drive ARPU, increase loyalty and reduce churn rates.
    HDTV can also drive pay TV acquisition, as new owners of HD-ready sets are frustrated by the lack of free HD sources.
    “Pay TV operators should therefore seize this window of opportunity before free TV eventually accommodates more HD,” says the report.

    The report also says that small and medium sized pay-TV operators might benefit from reduced costs of transmission and release bigger capacity by migrating their subscribers to MPEG4 at an early stage.

    Click here to view the report summary and its key findings

  • Free high definition content is the future as viewers grow accustomed to the new "normal" television


    The head of the UK’s Freesat digital service believes viewers will begin to resent paying for HDTV as increasing numbers regard it as the new “standard”.
    Emma Scott, managing director of Freesat, which launched in May, said there were already over 10m HD ready TV sets in UK homes.
    But at the time of Freesat’s launch only around 5 per cent of those HD ready homes were actually watching television programmes in high definition – and by subscription.
    Addressing the Broadcast Digital Channels Conference 2008 earlier this month, she said consumers and retailers wanted HD content– but it was the broadcasters that had taken a while to catch up.
    “Free HD is a long term opportunity for broadcasters and for Freesat,” she said. “HD is not a gimmick, it’s a new standard for television and one which every broadcaster I’ve met would love to deliver its content in.
    “I do not believe that HD will remain a long term income driver for pay platform operators – consumers will resent paying for something they see as the ‘new normal’ television if it isn’t premium sport and movies, which they already ‘expect’ to pay for.”
    Freesat offers subscription-free high definition channels and services once viewers have made a one-off payment for equipment.
    It expects to have up to 200 channels by the end of this year, including two high definition services – BBC HD and ITV HD – both available for free.
    Scott said that only with the launch of Freesat, a joint venture between the BBC and ITV, was HDTV really free for anyone who wanted it.
    She pointed to the rise in popularity of HD in the US, saying that the 35 per cent of homes now watching in HD were increasingly loyal to the networks they watched – and sought out HD programming, even if they wouldn’t normally watch the genre.
    “And with 1m Sony Playstation3s and an increasing number of Blu-ray players sold – both of which allow you to watch HD content via an HD ready TV – there are an increasing number of homes who will never want to switch back to just normal, ‘standard’ definition content.”
    Citing other popular examples where consumers get free access to products and services – such as Gmail, YouTube and Skype – she said Freesat hoped to be as successful in broadcasting.
    “So, in a world where there is widespread availability of digital technology, consumers increasingly expect their media for free,” she said.
    “But just being free isn’t enough for Freesat. Freesat will be the best of free, and is only going to get bigger and better.”

  • Soccer fans enjoy ITV's first HD programming as Euro 2008 matches broadcast on Freesat


    The UK’s ITV network has launched its HD service on Freesat by broadcasting the opening games from Euro 2008.
    Freesat is a subscription-free, digital satellite TV service from ITV and the BBC.
    Viewers can see all the games the BBC has rights to in high definition on Virgin Media and Sky, but ITV announced that its debut HD programmes would be matches on the opening few days of the football tournament.
    The first HD offering from ITV was the Portugal v Turkey match on Saturday.
    Following this, ITV’s games through to the 13th of June will also be available in high definition, by pressing the red button on ITV1 when viewing on Freesat.
    Although Euro 2008 will occupy the channel for the next few weeks, Simon Fell, Controller Emerging Technologies, ITV Consumer, said there would also be HD coverage of England football internationals, the Champions League football and selected dramas.
    Speaking at Understanding and Solutions’ Driving Digital Content event, Mr Fell said the red button strategy was made necessary by the structure of the ITV Network. “We’re a regional business funded by advertising and that’s the model we have to keep to,” he said.
    Once an HD broadcast has completed, viewers will be returned to their local ITV region.

  • Freesat's mix of HDTV programmes and subscription-free service is likely to appeal to "millions" of customers unhappy with the UK's digital TV providers


    Dissatisfaction with the UK’s top three digital TV providers is likely to make customers consider switching to freesat’s combination of HD programmes without subscription.
    That is the conclusion of Steve Weller, communications expert at uSwitch.com, which carried out a customer satisfaction study on the UK’s top three digital TV providers – who hold 95% of the market.
    Almost 9 out of 10 homes in the UK have now ‘gone digital’ and spend a total of £4.2 billion on receiving the service every year.
    However, the independent price comparison and switching service found that more than 1 in 4 customers are not satisfied with their digital service.
    While 73% of people surveyed were satisfied overall with their DTV provider, 27% said they were not satisfied. This equates to 6,000,418 households.
    Weller said the survey of nearly 10,000 digital TV subscribers looked at the services provided by Freeview, Sky and Virgin Media.
    He said that less than 1 in 2 digital TV customers (46%) are satisfied with the customer service they receive from their provider.
    “Sky and Virgin will have quite a challenge on their hands convincing customers to part with their hard earned cash whilst expecting them to accept the current levels of customer service on offer,” he said.
    “The availability of ‘free’ services has received a boost with the launch of freesat, a joint initiative from the BBC and ITV that promises high definition programmes without the need for an ongoing subscription.
    “With a one-off cost for the set-up and a box, consumers will no doubt see these services as offering greater value for money when compared to the traditional monthly subscriptions offered by Sky and Virgin.”
    On a more positive note, customers voted Sky Best Overall Provider with 76% satisfied, despite coming last for value for money (57% satisfied).
    Sky customers pay an average of £31.17 per month for their digital TV service – almost double the £16.70 paid by Virgin Media customers.
    Freeview won Best Value for Money award with 75% satisfied – with value for money voted the most important feature when choosing a DTV provider.