Freeview (UK) - Transmission Upgrades and Equipment Obsolescence

Transmission Upgrades and Equipment Obsolescence

Digital terrestrial television is incompatible with analogue receivers, which can display DTT only by using a digital set-top box.

Changes in the way that DTT is transmitted mean that a digital set-top box from the late 1990s would have offered impaired performance as early as 2002, and will today be completely unusable in many parts of the UK where transmission is fully digital. The increase in the number of channels (including services which broadcast only for a few hours a day, and 'interactive' text-based services which nonetheless require their own channel numbers) resulted in a requirement to alter the previous broadcast parameters of the network. In August 2008 this caused approximately 250,000 receivers with Setpal microprocessors (mainly 4–6 years old) to stop working altogether due to incompatibility with the expansion, due to a change in size and format of the Network Information Table. Freeview had warned consumers in advance of the update, which was phased in over a three-month period.

Other boxes and IDTVs (almost all dating from 2004 or earlier) have been made obsolete by the change to "8 k mode" which is used in regions where analogue transmissions have ceased. The 8k mode offers financial and technical benefits to broadcasters, at the expense of compatibility with older receivers.

Customers make no payment for transmissions beyond the licence fee, but there is no entity with any obligation to ensure that old equipment continues to work, or is replaced when incompatible upgrades occur, as is the case on managed platforms such as cable TV providing services for which payment is made. Affected consumers are advised to buy new Freeview receiving equipment.

Further alterations to broadcast services are trialled on a regional basis. Viewers who experience problems as a result are advised by Freeview to contact the manufacturer of their equipment.