Ofcom: another nail in the coffin for terrestrial HD?
Friday, January 4th, 2008Regulator chooses to “take the money and run”.
As we welcome in the new year, its sad to see that the future of HD on the Freeview platform looks ever more doubtful. Ofcom’s Philip Rutman has been quoted as saying that “There is no compelling case for the spectrum to be set aside for specific purposes,” which can almost certainly be taken to be read as ’spectrum will not be set aside for terrestrial HD.’
The quote comes from electrical retail news website ERT Weekly, who accuse Ofcom of ‘taking the money’, by effectively allowing the majority of the broadcast spectrum to be bought up by the highest bidders, despite Channel 4 and the BBC already committed to broadcasting content in HD before 2012.
For HD fans, the only non-subscription solution available looks likely to be the forthcoming Freesat service jointly run by the BBC and ITV, which promises over 80 digital channels and the ability to upgrade to HD for an additional one-off cost.
But the problem with Freesat is that a satellite dish is required to receive the service – for structural or aesthetic reasons, not everybody can or will want to fix a dish to the side of their home, and so a Freeview version would be the ideal solution for people who either can’t have or don’t want Freesat.
The many manufactures, including Sony, Samsung and Toshiba, who are behind the HDforAll campaign also potentially stand to lose out on revenue from HD TV sets that would not necessarily be purchased is a high-definition terrestrial solution could not be worked out.
