Hi David,
The Freesat platform is being set up and managed by a separate company (of
the same name) that has been set up by those participating (BBC, ITV etc).
I've asked around the team at R&D who are working with them on the
technical infrastructure and specifications. Unfortunately it looks like
the information you're after will not be widely available (at least not
yet).
What I've been able to establish is that Freesat identified the need to
guarantee a supply of compliant set top boxes at launch. A group of
manufacturers have agreed to do so, but only in exchange for a limited
term of exclusive access to the specification. I have no idea what the
length of this exclusivity arrangement will be.
Personally, I would very much like to see these specs eventually opened up
- we've certainly benefited from many of the open-source developments for
DVB-T / Freeview. I believe Freesat are aware of this consideration, so
I'm hoping it will be something they eventually choose to do.
This is as much as I have been able to find out for you. Apologies for it
taking a little while.
Matt
On Mon, 11 Feb 2008 12:58:55 -0000, David Matthews <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
I don't know if this is the right place to ask but I was wondering if
there was information available about the technical details of Freesat
that could be used in open source projects.
Specifically, I wrote and maintain the MHEG engine that is used in
MythTV. It appears that the BBC has started test transmissions on
satellite of the MHEG interactive service. It's possible to view much
of this using the current code in MythTV but it seems that the profile
on Freesat is a superset of the Freeview profile so not everything
works. Presumably information about this is available to the builders
of set-top boxes but it would be nice if it could be available for
open-source projects. There have also been references to the EPG
information being transmitted but again there is nothing publicly
available about how to decode it.
Incidentally, I've been working on a translation of the MHEG engine from
its original C++ into Java to produce an application/applet for viewing
MHEG offline or via HTTP. I'm rather short of MHEG test programs
although I have recorded some of the carousels off air. Does the BBC
have some test programs available?
David.
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| Matt Hammond
| Research Engineer, FM&T, BBC, Kingswood Warren, Tadworth, Surrey, UK
| http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/
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