Why do the BBC not want people on the Spanish Costa del Sol to watch BBC1 or ITV?
One concerned resident from Los Montesinos said "We are thankfully very lucky that we will not be affected by Astra 2E although my Sister who lives in Estepona is worried sick that she may be facing Xmas without any UK TV" I wish the satellite had blown up.
More worrying is that Tom Anderson did not enjoy this story. #Gutted
In addition to upsetting 100'000+ people outside of the UK it appears that Alix has been upsetting people for years, back in June 2011 she made the decision to change the way that HD transmissions are broadcasted and instead of using DVB-S changed to DVB-S2, Alix decided to post these changes on the BBC Blog on the 2nd of June just 4 days before the changeover happened, this left many upset and agry viwers such as Mr Wavey who said "Move to DVB-S2 fair enough and a good move 4 days notice bad move, I have just returned from holiday and didn't know about this until I had no TV Signal on my Media Centre last night and immediately though it was a problem with my hardware"
He went on to say; Now I need to buy a new TV Card, this takes time to sift through whats good and whats bad plus ordering and setting it all up.
I am slightly miffed about this I have to say and really can't understand why this was done with such short notice, please give us an explanation we are all ears!
Despite many comments on the blog Alix declined to comment despite messages such as this one from Clive BG "As the owner of a two year old Panasonic TX-37LZD81 FreeSat Full HD television I assumed I would have access to HD TV. When I bought it I was also assured that it would enable me to use iPlayer and I have regularly chased Panasonic who will apparently be providing the software update "soon" (for 18 months now). So, who do I chase to get this fixed? The BBC? Panasonic? or the retailer (John Lewis).
I think Trading Standards may also have a view. This is appalling treatment of customers and viewers and I certainly knew nothing about the change until yesterday when faced with a blank screen and Googled to discover a BBC statement here on the "Internet Blog" dated just a few days ago.
So why is Alix Pryde so focussed on upseting people?
How upset is this guy?
BBC, revert your ill-advised changes now!
Reasons:
1. Non-technical minded people will spend money to fix your error!
2. Not enough notification
3. If it is an upgrade it should be backward compatible
4. Lack of responsibility from the BBC
You simply have lost the plot on this one and to put this on the Internet Blog is sheer arogance of the fact it is a TELEVISION CHANNEL!
After hundreds of complaints Alix Pryde eventually responded to the blog and yet again in true BBC style disabled any further comments!!! What a bunch of arogant over paid *$&*"£S
104. At 18:12 8th Jun 2011, Alix Pryde wrote:
Thank you for the further comments and good questions regarding the recent change of our HD satellite transponder from DVB-S to DVB-S2.
There’s a particular theme about the shortness of the notice period and how this affected viewers who were using DVB-S kit to receive the BBC’s HD services, which I want to respond to. I’m also responding with a similar message to the handful of people who have used the BBC complaints system to raise this.
First, let me express how sorry I am to hear about the difficulties and frustration that this change has caused some of you.
My team and other colleagues in the BBC work hard to make changes such as these as smooth as possible for our audiences. In this case that involved sending test streams in advance to receiver manufacturers and also working closely with our platform partners, ie Sky and Freesat, thoroughly testing that their HD receiver models would work with our DVB-compliant new mode. This formal approval process was completed successfully in the second half of May, culminating in a live test in the early hours of one morning. Only at that point was it decided that we could proceed. Bar a couple of specific HD receiver models that turned out to require more hands-on intervention than anticipated, both Sky and Freesat have confirmed to us that the change went well from their perspective, thanks to this process.
On the communications around the change, there has been criticism of the length of notice given about the change. I fully accept that and I am sorry that we fell short of your expectations on this occasion. With hindsight, I can see that greater notice would have enabled viewers who were receiving our HD channels via DVB-S kit to take the action needed to continue receiving the BBC’s HD services by acquiring the necessary S2 kit, as recommended in the BBC’s HD FAQs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbchd/faqs.shtml#satellite_box). Whilst well-informed viewers may have been aware that the BBC’s change to S2 would come at some point, it is understandable that they might want to wait to know when that point would be before making their choice about how to upgrade. It’s not unreasonable to want weeks rather than days to do that.
Similarly, I accept that people who had planned recordings on DVB-S2 receivers that required some form of intervention to continue receiving services, would have benefitted from more notice of the change.
In future, we will, wherever possible, provide more advance notice of technical changes that could require a similar level of response from some viewers.
In terms of how the additional capacity will be used, you are probably now aware of the BBC’s confirmation today (8 June 2011) that we are going to conduct a broadcast trial of Wimbledon in 3D, to help us better understand more about the potential audience benefits of this technology. This is just the first way in which we are using the additional capacity and we have other plans being developed for how we deliver to audiences the benefits of this higher capacity mode. So Wimbledon 3D is not in itself the reason for the upgrade to DVB-S2, which is part of our strategy to get the most value from our spectrum by using it efficiently. However, it has been a major factor in the timing of the change because we needed the extra space to allow the BBC HD channel to move to 1920 resolution for the duration of the 3D trial (as Andy Quested describes) without having an adverse impact on the picture quality of the other services on that transponder.
I know the above explanations do not help DVB-S viewers to restore their access to our HD services, or viewers whose recordings failed to regain their content. However, I hope I have shown that we do take a lot of care in the execution of changes such as this and also listen to feedback when we have fallen short of expectations. I’m sorry that on this occasion some viewers have been inconvenienced and I hope that they soon regain the ability to watch and enjoy our HD channels.
More recently in 2012 Alix Pryde was responsible for "Reducing BBC Red Button and expanding BBC One HD"
This resulted in thousands of upset customers including this chap who said;
So because DTT is limited, you again use that a a template for how much the BBC will and will not expand into HD services and what will be culled to keep the DTT users happy, at the expense of those more millions that use either satellite & cable..
When o when will the BBC drop this silly, stupid and pathetic line from the book of excuses about platform neutrality and exploit each platform to the max it can take, not limit everything to the one platform that can handle next to nothing.
And, i wouldn't be boasting about BBC HD PQ, its shocking if not a shambles and frankly, embarrassing to even claim it to be HD, but of course, the BBC don't listen to the masses that have been telling you this for how long..?? You listen to one or two folks that know nowt.
BBC One HD Scot, Wales & NI are a good idea in principle, but the fact you will then go ahead and kill off BBC HD, leaving BBC Three & BBC Four, with no outlet for HD content, is nothing short of braindead. The channels are still not 24 hours a day, and now, will be left with no HD.
I can't believe i pay a LF for all this nonsense, yet those on the European continent, get stunning BBC HD content, topend bitrates and yet the BBC in the UK, paid for by the public, get something thats nothing remotely to be proud of in terms of HD quality.
Im also in the mindset to think you took the BBC One HD logo off, because it looks nothing close to real HD, like ITV, Channel4 & NHK are able to deliver.
A reply to any of this? Ive more hope of winning millions on the lottery haven't i.
I wonder if this will make it through the moderation process...
Another upset person said:
louis norman Wells
7TH OCTOBER 2012 - 17:38
I certainly am Louis Norman Wells!.A Britsh citizen born and brought up in Norfolk.Reached my 87th birthday a week ago,and have lved in France as a pensioner for the last 24 years,moving here on retirement for health and economic reasons,like so many others of my generation.The whole of my career was spent in the Radio and Electronics Industry,so I am well able to understand the technicalities behind the BBC,s decisions. It would be more fitting for the BBC to make its economies elsewhere,salaries for instance, than in the information service it has furnished nationally and to the rest of the World for many generations. A service which is still highly regarded for its truth and lack of partiality
So why has Alix decided to focus the new Astra 2E beam tighter on the UK? Why does she keep upseting people? Do you know Alix? Do you have an e-mail address for Alix?
This is what Alix Pryde said about the "Loss of British TV in parts of Europe"
I’m conscious that there is currently some speculation about the timing of forthcoming moves of BBC services between satellites and the reason for these changes. So I thought you would appreciate it if I set the record straight. The quick answer is that, as a result of SES’s fleet replacement programme, BBC services will move in the second half of 2013.
Regular readers will recall that in February 2012, SES retired Astra 2D and BBC services moved to a new temporary home on Astra 1N. Astra 1N is due to take up its permanent position in 2013 (19°East), so the BBC’s services will move to their new permanent home on Astra 2E (28.2°East) when that becomes operational. SES expects Astra 2E to launch in Q2 2013, so we currently expect to transition BBC services to it during summer 2013.
Some of you have also noticed that we commissioned a new transponder (which we call DSat8) in the autumn. It moved from its temporary home on Astra 1N to its permanent position on Astra 2F at the end of November 2012. DSat8 is still in a testing phase but in the coming months it will be used to broadcast BBC One Scotland HD and BBC One Wales HD as we complete the programme of providing all Nations programming in glorious HD. We’ll be publishing the details of DSat8 on our satellite reception advice page when the services launch.
I hope that clarifies the timings of moves and also that the moves relate to the SES fleet replacement programme, rather than any BBC strategy to change its footprint. That said, the new transponders do have a slightly different footprint, so I’ll explain a bit about that, and why the changes are no cause for concern for the BBC in our requirement to ensure that the BBC’s domestic services are readily accessible to people living in the UK.
What impact will all this have for the viewer?
In all likelihood the move of BBC services from 1N to their new permanent homes will have no impact on UK households. Astra 2E and 2F have the same, tighter but slightly more powerful UK spot beams which means that UK households should get a slightly stronger signal. So if you happened to be on the edge of coverage, you will hopefully get more reliable reception.
The overspill of the BBC’s services will be reduced so viewers outside the UK will find it even harder to receive them. I know that this causes unhappiness to some of you living outside the UK. However, it is entirely appropriate because the BBC domestic services are for people living in the UK only.
For viewers outside the UK, BBC Worldwide offers a number of channels which are available in various territories. These include BBC Entertainment, BBC Knowledge, BBC Lifestyle, CBeebies along with BBC World News throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
I hope the detail above helps you to understand a bit more about the changes coming in the second half of 2013 and the reason for them. Finally, thank you to SES for the lovely pictures of Astra 2F.
Alix Pryde is Director, BBC Distribution (on £120K a year!!!)
We have a house in France and stay there part time for about 4 months each year. We pay the British TV licence as well as our French one. Where does that leave us if we can't receive BBC programmes? when will astra 2e move to 28.2 and start broadcasting?
No comments:
Post a Comment