Quote:
Originally Posted by Kymmy
Surely the interative (RED) button still ends up pointing towards a dedicated channel which is not though on the EPG hene you can;t tune directly to it. If so then any HD sat reciever capable of a manual tune (PID, FREQ..etc) should be able to find it...
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ITV-HD is broadcast as an H.222 data stream. This means any STB that is designed to auto-scan and tune cannot receive ITV-HD, because such boxes do not scan for channels that have been flagged in this way.
If you have a box capable of fully manual tuning, and the necessary information to find ITV-HD, then my understanding is you would be able to set it up. I think the point is, the number of people with the kit and the inclination to do this is vanishingly small. This effectively makes ITV-HD a Freesat 'exclusive'.
Freesat is competing in the free-to-air satellite space with FSFS, whose customers are highly unlikely to even be aware of their STB's manual tuning capabilities. I've read some speculation that Sky engineers could enable ITV-HD on Sky STBs by hitting the digiboxes with a software patch, but it's more trouble than it's worth for them to do this - mainly because ITV would end up with an EPG slot on Sky without paying for it, and that would set a difficult precedent for Sky in future negotiations with channels seeking carriage on their service.