When did Facebook capture the web?

I’ve resisted signing up to Facebook; even a couple of years back, I was not convinced by their privacy policies, and tales of people finding it hard to have their information deleted.

Judging by the torrent of stories about privacy in recent months, I probably made a wise decision. It’s not that I’m not familiar with social networking – I use Twitter, and have been involved in earlier forms, like email lists and newsgroups for over twenty years.

But, frankly, the idea of Facebook never appealed. To people who say “But old school friends can find you,” I reply “They can use Google.” I’m a very Google-able person, thanks to the amount of stuff I’ve written over the years. You’ll find me, and you’ll find a photographer in the north of England with the same name.

I also tend to think that, actually, if I wanted to keep in touch with someone, I’d have done it anyway, without Facebook. My mobile number’s not changed since I got it in 1995; I’m not hard for someone to find.

I don’t want to sign up

Now though, at a time when people are encouraging others to terminate their accounts, and privacy concerns are paramount, I’m noticing an opposing pressure, with companies trying to drive people to Facebook.

The makers of my favourite cigars, Alec Bradley, post a lot on Twitter, and include links to various material which I’m sure would be very interesting, if only I could read it. I can’t. Because it’s on Facebook, and you have to sign up to be able to look at it.

(Update: 2nd June. I pestered them on Twitter and now you can see the content Alec Bradley posts on Facebook, without signing up.)

And right now, part of the Underground station at Liverpool Street are plastered with adverts for Marker’s Mark bourbon, complete with ‘London likes this’ button. The only URL? One for their page on Facebook.

Frankly, the only thing you’ll get me drinking on that front is a nice Islay single malt, but even so, I find it a little alarming that, rather than putting information on the public internet, companies are choosing to put it on Facebook. And, even worse, putting it on Facebook in a way that ensures non-members can’t even see it.

How many companies are going down this route, and how many potential customers are they ignoring by doing it?

Weren’t the days of walled gardens supposed to be over years ago? Wasn’t the failure of AOL a sign (amongst other things) that people were better off with unfettered access to the wider web, rather than locked down content that only some people could see? Are we really supposed to be happy that a single company will be responsible for at least a part of the online presence of many major brands?

It’s not so hard to set up a website, or a blog. It’s not difficult to make your information available to everyone. That’s what the internet’s about, surely?

Personally, I just don’t think it’s good marketing to put your company in a situation where customers can’t find out about your products unless they’re prepared to sign up to a web site that has a pretty dubious record when it comes to respecting privacy.

BBC One HD ident revealed

Want to know what those BBC One HD idents will look like? Here are some images, hot from the BBC Press Office.

BBC ONE HD - Eastenders. Thanks to the BBC for this image

BBC ONE HD - Holby City. Thanks to the BBC for this image

BBC ONE HD - The Apprentice. Thanks to the BBC for this image

BBC ONE HD - QI. Thanks to the BBC for this image

BBC One HD to launch this autumn on FreeviewHD and Freesat

The BBC has announced today that a new BBC One HD channel will launch in the autumn, offering a simulcast of BBC One. The existing BBC HD channel will remain, showcasing HD material from the Corporation’s other channels, and will extend to 12 hours a day.

Programmes including The One Show, Weakest Link, QI and The Apprentice are scheduled to move to HD production by the end of the year.

Other long-running shows such as Songs of Praise, Question of Sport and Blue Peter will also be moving to HD. According to the BBC press release:

“The Autumn launch is the first stage in delivering BBC One in HD.  The majority of programmes in the BBC One network evening schedule will be available in HD at launch, and by 2012 it is expected that the vast majority of all BBC One titles across all hours will be in HD.”

The new service will be available on all digital TV platforms that carry HD – that’s Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media.

So, now we know what the fourth slot on the Freeview HD mux will be used for.

Update: Regional variations

From the BBC Trust website:

“the Trust also recognised that technical and financial constraints currently prevent additional variations, and asked the BBC Executive to take steps to minimise the effects of this on viewers in the nations and regions.”

So, it looks like this will probably be the main BBC One London feed. I suspect that the considerations are largely financial (eg extra capacity on satellite to deliver regional versions), because I recall at the Freeview HD technical launch, it was mentioned that the HD network had been designed to cope with regional variations.

There’s some more on this at the BBC Internet Blog.

6pm update: Want to see the ident?

Audio description on FreeviewHD

One of the less considered aspects of the Freeview HD surround sound situation is that the audio system has been designed the way it has, and decisions taken, so that Audio Description can be provided on the HD channels.

For the uninitiated, that’s the descriptions like “The Doctor takes his sonic screwdriver and uses it to open the padlock on the gate” that allow those with visual difficulties to follow what’s happening, even when there’s no dialogue to help them.

It’s a great service, and in my view well worth doing. You can find out more about it at the RNIB, and you might consider that it’s well worth helping them to campaign for more than a mere 10% of programmes on PSB channels to be described in the UK (see the current schedule here) – I was shocked when I realised how low that figure is.

Nevertheless, I fear that Audio Description may become unnecessarily entangled in the various moans and grumbles over Freeview HD’s surround sound problems. Why, some will – and have in various forums – ask, has surround sound been compromised in order to provide a service to people who won’t really benefit from an HD picture. Can’t they watch on SD, and let us have Dolby Digital Plus surround on Freeview HD?

On the face it, a reasonable enough idea, but to anyone who thinks this is a good suggestion to put forward, I say this: don’t forget that people who rely on Audio Description are people with friends, and families too. They don’t exist in a little bubble, having no contact with anyone else.

Audio Description on HD channels means a lot more than just providing a description to a few people with sight problems. It means allowing them to watch a programme with their friends and family, and for them all to watch in HD.

It means that they can enjoy programmes together – and not have to watch in SD instead, in another room, or at a different time, while everyone else is enjoying the HD version.

It is about fairness for its users, enabling them to participate more fully in one of the most common activities we do – watching TV. And I don’t think that should be sacrified.

So, by all means complain about surround sound problems on Freeview HD, and make a fuss to whomever you want. But please remember that Audio Description is not the problem, and don’t suggest taking it away it is part of a solution.

The real issue about surround sound is the lack of a mandatory transcoder, to convert the audio formats used on Freeview into formats the majority of home surround systems will understand.

FreeviewHD and surround – an update

Since my original post about surround sound on Freeview HD and the publication of my roundup of set top boxes on Register Hardware, quite a few people have asked me more about this issue, and I’ve also had some feedback from Freeview. So, now it’s time to update and explain a little more. There’s a mix of good and bad news, really.

Jargon busting

First, though, let’s get some jargon out of the way, because there’s a bit too much of it, and some of the terms sound very similar, even though they refer to different things. Here, in ComputerActive style, is a quick guide to some of the important abbreviations and terms.

• 5.1: Shorthand for surround sound with five channels (Left, Right, rear L, rear R, centre, and the .1 is the subwoofer)
• AAC: A type of audio encoding, which can be understood by the HE-AAC decoders in Freeview HD boxes
• AC-3: Another name for the Dolby Digital audio encoding understood by most home cinema systems
• AD: Audio Description. An additional soundtrack with information to help the partially sighted.
• ARC: Audio Return Channel. Part of the latest version of HDMI, an option that allows a TV to feed its own audio signal (eg from Freeview HD) back to the AV amplifier.
• AV: Audio Visual. Often shorthand for surround sound kit, in the home audio context, eg an ‘AV amplifier’
• Co-axial: A type of connector used for digital audio, with a ‘photo’ type plug on each end
• Dolby Digital: The most common format understood by home AV gear
• Dolby Digital Plus: An updated version of Dolby Digital, which can support audio description, and may be used on Freeview HD
• Dolby Pulse: A Dolby version of the HE-AAC format
• DTS: Another fairly common surround sound format, understood by most home AV gear
• E-AC3: Another name for Dolby Digital plus
• HDMI: The connector used for high definition video. It can also carry digital audio signals too
• HE-AAC: High Efficiency AAC. One of two types of audio encoding that can be used on Freeview HD
• MPEG: A type of video and audio encoding; on standard definition channels, MPEG audio is used
• Multi-channel: Another way of describing surround sound – audio that has more than just left and right channels
• Optical: A type of connector used for digital audio, made of fibre-optic material
• PCM (aka L-PCM): Yet another type of audio encoding, which most AV gear understands. Can be used for stereo, or multi-channel sound
• S/PDIF: A standard for digital audio connections using Optical or Co-axial connections
• Transcoding: Converting audio from one format to another, for example from Dolby Digital plus to Dolby Digital, or from HE-AAC to Dolby Digital

Ok, so where are we?

Jargon out of the way, what’s the current situation? Well, if you want to buy a Freeview HD box and plug it into your existing AV setup, then the way I think that most people are likely to connect up the sound is via S/PDIF. For instance, you might connect the box to your TV via HDMI, and then use the S/PDIF to link the audio output to your surround sound system.

Unfortunately, if you do that, then you probably won’t get surround sound from the Freeview HD programmes that include it (and not all do; a good source of information about what’s in surround is DigiGuide, incidentally).

That’s because of two things. Firstly, all the channels broadcasting on Freeview HD at the moment are using AAC audio, even for surround sound programmes, instead of Dolby Digital plus. (In earlier pieces I’ve referred to this as HE-AAC; Freeview has pointed out that it’s actually AAC, and will be HE-AAC in future, but frankly that technical point makes no difference to the overall outcome).

The second factor is that the majority of boxes available at the moment do not transcode from AAC/HE-AAC to Dolby Digital. And without that, you’re not going to get surround sound via the S/PDIF link. All you’ll get is stereo PCM.

There are some rays of light, however. Firstly, I’ve put together a list of equipment that can convert the signal to Dolby Digital. Secondly, at least some kit can be updated to do the transcoding, so even if you’ve bought a Freeview HD box that doesn’t, like the Humax, it may do in future. As I hear about planned updates, I’ll be adding those to my list too.

HDMI audio

There’s a second bit of fairly good news, in this response from Freeview to my questions:

“It is mandatory now to either transcode to AC-3, DTS or Linear PCM with the same number of channels as the broadcast.”

What this means, effectively, is that if a box isn’t outputting Dolby Digital (AC3) or DTS – and most of them aren’t – it should at least be creating an L-PCM signal, with the same number of channels. So a 5.1 AAC or HE-AAC broadcast will give you 5.1 channels of PCM audio.

Unfortunately, the S/PDIF connection isn’t designed to support anything more than stereo PCM; it doesn’t have the capacity for surround sound in PCM format. So you’re out of luck if you want to connect via co-axial or optical links. But if you have an AV amplifier or receiver with HDMI inputs, you should be able to connect your Freeview HD box to that, and receive multi-channel audio.

I say should for two reasons. Firstly, I don’t have AV kit with HDMI inputs to verify this, and secondly, not all kit with HDMI inputs will support multi-channel audio via HDMI, so you need to check the specs before you buy anything.

The normal way of connecting up like this will be to plug the Freeview HD box into your AV system, and then the output from that into your TV. However, it’s also possible, with some TVs, to have the TV pass the audio out through the connection back to the AV gear. Typically, you’d use that option if you have a TV with Freeview HD built in and want surround sound from it, but you’ll need to make sure both TV and AV kit can work together like that.

So, in summary, still not great news for people who want to connect via an optical or co-axial S/PDIF link – you need to choose your kit carefully. But if you do have equipment that supports HDMI multi-channel audio, then you should get surround from Freeview HD. Please do let me know how you get on.

Updating FreeviewHD boxes for surround sound

One of the obvious questions raised by the way surround sound is broadcast on Freeview HD is whether or not existing boxes can be updated to add the transcoding functionality that’s needed to make existing home cinema equipment produce proper 5.1 surround. If you’ve not been paying attention at the back, you should start with this article.

The good news is that it appears it will be possible, at least on some. For example, on the day my roundup of boxes was published at RegHardware, Humax subsequently confirmed to me that they will be adding transcoding in an update to the HD-FOX T2. When I hear about other boxes, I shall add appropriate notes in my list of transcoding Freeview HD receivers.

How is this possible? I think it’s probably because a lot of these receivers will have been designed with a European perspective, so that the same core design can be used in several countries. In many European countries HE-AAC transcoding is required, so it’s likely the boxes will include appropriate chips. The Dolby MS10 design, for example, is used in some digital TV chipsets, and can handle all the formats used on Freeview HD, as well as converting them all to Dolby Digital.

However, many manufacturers seem to have been under the impression that surround would be using Dolby Digital plus on Freeview and that, together with the fact that transcoding is not a mandatory requirement in the UK, means that they may not have added the appropriate options to transcode, and to provide settings in the user interface to enable it.

Clearly, in the case of the Humax it will be something along those lines, since they’ll be adding transcoding in their update. There may be other boxes where it isn’t possible to do an update, but that’s still an area that I’m looking into, so stay tuned.

FreeviewHD receivers tested

My test of Freeview HD receivers has just been published on Register Hardware. Here are some links to take you directly to the key parts:

• Introduction
• Buyer’s guide
• Bush DVB680
• Goodmans GDB300HD
• Humax HD-FOX T2
• i-Can EasyHD 2851T
• Icecrypt T2200
• Philips DTR5520
• Sharp TU-T2
• Best buys