If you've been watching terrestrial telly on an older Freeview TV, you could soon find yourself staring at a blank screen. Broadcast engineers are making a series of technical changes that could leave those with a non-HD Freeview TV or set-top box unable to tune in.
The easiest way to check whether your hardware is compatible with the technical changes is to head to Freeview channel 71, which is one of the first to implement the change to video codes. If your screen is blank or an error message appears, then it might be time to upgrade to a newer set-top box or flatscreen. You will not hear any sound.
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Channel 71, which broadcasts That's TV 3, is one of the first to switch to the newer MPEG-4 AVC video codec and HE-AAC audio codec. Until now, these formats were only used for services broadcast in the newer DVB-T2 standard.
Older flatscreen televisions will simply ignore channels that rely on these standards, since they're too old to support DVB-T2. In most cases, channels that rely on these formats won't even be added to the TV Guide. For example, an ageing Freeview TV will not add BBC One HD on channel 101 or U&Eden on channel 57.
That's TV 3 will be the first channel to make the switch to the new video codecs, ruling out viewers with older TV hardware or set-top boxes
THAT'S TV
The change was rolled out earlier this month, and represents a significant shift in how Freeview will broadcast its content. Your older equipment may have been perfectly adequate until now, but this codec switch could render it incompatible with certain channels.
Thankfully, the impact should be relatively small. These problems will only affect devices generally purchased before or during the UK's digital switchover, making them more than a decade old.
The shake-up comes as three new channels arrived free of chargein the latest refresh to Freeview, including ITV Quiz — a new launch that replaces ITVBe in your TV Guide.
If the shake-up to That's TV 3 goes unnoticed by most viewers, we could see many more Freeview channels making similar switches in the coming months. Broadcasters may interpret minimal complaints as evidence that few incompatible devices remain in use.
What's the benefit of making the move to MPEG-4 AVC and HE-AAC? This switchover allows channels to use less bandwidth whilst maintaining the same quality of broadcasts. This efficiency could prove attractive as the number of people watching terrestrial television continues to decline, rising the cost per viewer.
If more channels take this approach, you could find your older television starting to lose access to more channels.
This mirrors the recent BBC satellite closure where affected viewer numbers proved smaller than anticipated. The BBC had suspected minimal impact, and call volumes to their help scheme were "even less than expected".
Freeview remains one of the most popular ways to watch free-to-air television channels in the UK. But that might not be the case for much longer. Everyone TV, the organisation behind Freeview and Freesat, launched a new Wi-Fi-powered platform called Freely in the UK last year, which streams free-to-air channels over an internet connection.
Without an aerial, you can place your new Smart TV anywhere in the room as long as it has a minimum internet speed of 10Mbps. This is similar to solutions like Sky Glass, Sky Stream, Virgin Media Stream, and the rebooted EE TV launched last year.
Switching from an aerial to Wi-Fi has enabled features on Freely that you'd typically associate with Sky Glass.
However, the arrival of Freely doesn't mean Freeview is going anywhere for now, but as more people upgrade their televisions and gain access to the new platform, we'll likely to see Freeview and Freesat fall out of favour in the coming months and years. The industry-wide pivot is something campaigners have warned about, cautioning that millions could be left without access to live television channels.
With the arrival of GB News, AMCNI UK, PBS America, and QVC in a fresh update at the beginning of the year, Freely will now offer 40 streamed live channels and 74,000 hours of on-demand programming
EVERYONE TV PRESS OFFICEOfcom figures show that 31% of Britons aged 65 and over don’t currently use the internet at home. According to estimates by consultancy firm EY, this gap would result in over 5.5 million households being unable to tune in to live television from the BBC and others.
The uptake of high-speed broadband is only set to increase by 10% between 2022 and 2040.
BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have ensured their catch-up services are deeply integrated into Freely so when you miss the start of a live broadcast you'll be able to skip back to the beginning — with the show streamed behind-the-scenes from BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and others. Entire boxsets will be presented in the menu, so you can catch-up on earlier series of a show before tuning into the next live episode.
GB News was added to the service as part of a blockbuster update earlier this year.
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