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BBC White Paper Claims HD Over Low Bandwidth Signal
Kelten Miynos writes "According to CNet, the BBC has written a white paper in which they claim it's possible to double the available Freeview TV bandwidth by using some clever technologies. 'Doubling the space would mean we could easily have HD channels on Freeview, although everyone would need to buy a new receiver and aerial to pick them up. The key to all this is something called MIMO, which stands for multiple-input multiple-output. MIMO works using two transmitters, and two receivers. The two transmitters mean the two sets of data — sent on the same frequency — will arrive at the receivers at different times. Different arrival times are what allow the receiver to differentiate between the two separate signals and subsequently decode them.' These procedures could then be transplanted abroad to other countries with similar services."
The BBC announced the world premier broadcast of Finding MIMO
If you read the BBC paper you will notice that they cheat a little - their MIMO system relies on two polarizations (vertical and horizontal) insted of spatial separation of the two antennas. Satellite TV has been using polarizations for a long time, though not in MIMO mode.
The correct summary would be "BBC White Paper Claims HD By Efficient Use of Existing Bandwidth".
Digital TV via an aerial.
Previously there'd been two competing digital TV providers: Sky, selling digital via satellite, and ITV Digital, selling digital via aerial. Although both carried the same basic menu of free-to-air channels, they were basically pay-TV providers trying to push subscription services, and didn't really achieve much. Sky Digital inherited the viewers from Murdoch's existing satellite operation, but didn't really expand the market AFAIK, and ITV Digital did very poorly, being a second-best offering as a pay-TV platform, and again failing to win over the majority who aren't really interested in pay-TV. ITV Digital folded after a while.
At this point a BBC-led group established the Freeview standard, which is based around a set-top box made as cheap and simple as possible, and which provides a comparatively small number of free-to-air channels. There's an expansion that allows encrypted pay-TV channels, but few exist and hardly anyone bothers. Because the box was very cheap and it was a one-off expense - no subscriptions, no registration - it became the standard very quickly. These days it's being built in to most new TV sets as standard, and supposedly we're on course to be able to switch off the old analogue broadcasts on schedule.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.