View Full Version : Official boxes?
richms
24-01-2008, 12:25 AM
Has their being any announcement about who the lucky few to sell certified boxes will be, and any indication on pricing yet?
bartender
24-01-2008, 07:54 AM
I don't think an official box exists. After speaking with a friend of mine who has good dealings with the Kordia folk, it seems that no one there knows which boxes they will be going for.
However after visiting DTV Services in Tawa last week they had a Kaon DTT box there.. and I asked them how much they expect to sell their boxes for which is ~$450-500 or so...
My guess is all boxes will be over $400 since that's what all the similar boxes go for overseas... I doubt there will be any boxes sub $350 IMHO.
I put my money on $450 myself... which IMHO will be the killer for DTT to start with. Give it 18 months or so once the boxes come down in price to ~$300 then things will take off.
openmedia
24-01-2008, 09:03 AM
Don't expect to see official DTT boxes until march, and I'd expect to see them on sale in the same places as the DTH boxes.
Pricing won't be as cheap as DTH because of HD + H.264 + HDMI. With any luck we will start to see integrated Sets within a couple of months as well.
cyril
24-01-2008, 09:52 AM
Bartender, is the Kaon to be certfied box or not, if not then I guess we can expect certified ones to be steeper again.
Cyril
kiwisteve
24-01-2008, 04:39 PM
I hear that Zinwell have one :D:D
Hi everyone, just wondering if anyone is still having problems with hills boxes. Eg: Locking up, Defaulting....
kiwisteve
24-01-2008, 08:46 PM
Mine seems fine in that respect But I did hear a mention that some may have had faulty power supply plugpacks
paulw
24-01-2008, 10:10 PM
However after visiting DTV Services in Tawa last week they had a Kaon DTT box there.. and I asked them how much they expect to sell their boxes for which is ~$450-500 or so...
At that sort of pricing it will be the kiss of death for DTT in NZ..
kiwisteve
24-01-2008, 10:25 PM
I doubt it , will only be a matter of months and it it will appear in large screen tvs and dvd recorders , Pvr etc
Plus there will be those non offiical boxes like the one I have already had a loan of
:D:D
openmedia
24-01-2008, 11:10 PM
At that sort of pricing it will be the kiss of death for DTT in NZ..
Early adopters pay the premium. When DTT started in SD in the UK and AU box prices were way above this.
The quoted prices I've seen for European HD DTT are also well above NZ$500 so these prices aren't unreasonable (personally).
What sort of price were people here expecting?
Apsattv
25-01-2008, 02:49 AM
They should be aiming for barebones at no more than $299
same as the sat boxes entered at.. I think the lowest price i've seen for the official sat boxes are $199? anyone seen lower?
They should be aiming for barebones at no more than $299
What would be your definition of barebone?
openmedia
25-01-2008, 09:50 AM
No PVR features?
bartender
25-01-2008, 02:19 PM
Should we start a petition to Kordia and say, you guys are crazy for not doing MPEG2 for SD transmissions..
Doubt anyone will listen, but I am sure due to it being an election year and the low up-take of Freeview DTT, some politician will go on about it. And someone else will have a positive spin on it....
openmedia
25-01-2008, 02:43 PM
Should we start a petition to Kordia and say, you guys are crazy for not doing MPEG2 for SD transmissions..
Doubt anyone will listen, but I am sure due to it being an election year and the low up-take of Freeview DTT, some politician will go on about it. And someone else will have a positive spin on it....
Personally I'd think them crazy to do MPEG2 transmissions over DTT. H.264 has matured and the prices will be coming down very fast. Plus all of the big TV manufacturers have announced integrated support for H.264.
Lets make the most of the fact that we are getting the latest in technology.
bartender
25-01-2008, 04:09 PM
I am not saying MPEG2 for HD, only MPEG2 for SD...
That way we **COULD** use the cheap MPEG2 SD boxes ex-aussie or china or wherever else... and those who want to pay extra for a HD / H.264 box could.
That way we have the best of both worlds... Cheap boxes and HD content.
The only downside I could is that the SD MPEG2 encoded content would be larger than if it was H.264 encoded. Perhaps that might mean that an extra Transponder / Frequency was needed and maybe that was the reason why not to use MPEG2.
I will put $5 down on the fact that by mid this year there will be some news report about how poor the uptake of DTT boxes are for the million dollar investment that the NZ Govt is putting into it.
That is if by March / April there is actually a Freeview certified box ready for the market. :P
Lets wait until someone officially states the price of the box. Maybe someone may sell a box for $299!!
kiwisteve
25-01-2008, 05:06 PM
An Aussie Mpeg2 box will NOT work here even in SD mode
openmedia
25-01-2008, 05:39 PM
I am not saying MPEG2 for HD, only MPEG2 for SD...
That way we **COULD** use the cheap MPEG2 SD boxes ex-aussie or china or wherever else... and those who want to pay extra for a HD / H.264 box could.
That way we have the best of both worlds... Cheap boxes and HD content.
The only downside I could is that the SD MPEG2 encoded content would be larger than if it was H.264 encoded. Perhaps that might mean that an extra Transponder / Frequency was needed and maybe that was the reason why not to use MPEG2.
I will put $5 down on the fact that by mid this year there will be some news report about how poor the uptake of DTT boxes are for the million dollar investment that the NZ Govt is putting into it.
That is if by March / April there is actually a Freeview certified box ready for the market. :P
The HD H.264 channels are going to use about the same bandwidth as an SD MPEG2 channel, perhaps a little bit more. The SD Channels on DTH run at around 6MBit, the SD channels on DTT are currently looking at around 2Mbit. Huge difference.
Yes the prices will be initially high, but I have a feeling that the Olympics in HD will bring the big push they need.
openmedia
25-01-2008, 05:45 PM
Oh one last detail on the subject of MPEG2 SD and H.264 HD. The current plan is for TV 1, TV Two and TV 3 to go HD only. People with MPEG2 only STBs wouldn't get these channels.
Who'd pay for a freeview STB that didn't get the three biggest channels.
100% H.264 is the best use of the capacity they have.
cyril
26-01-2008, 12:44 PM
Yeah as I understand, HD fulltime, but anything that is not of HD source will naturally be upconverted before transmission to maintain an consistant image format, trying to manage switching formats at the broadcasters end could be a nightmare and introduce glitches in presentation.
Cyril
openmedia
26-01-2008, 01:31 PM
Yeah as I understand, HD fulltime, but anything that is not of HD source will naturally be upconverted before transmission to maintain an consistant image format, trying to manage switching formats at the broadcasters end could be a nightmare and introduce glitches in presentation.
Cyril
That is the plan for TV 1 and TV Two, but nothing has been confirmed by MediaWorks at this stage.
The standards do allow for on the fly format changing, but I'd be very surprised to see any local broadcasters use it.
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