[Karen]

NZ have recently bought out Freeview which can be viewed via a transmission box (in the same way as in the UK). I bought a TV in the UK about 4 years ago with the Freeview box incorporated into the TV so l could watch UK Freeview without having to have a seperate box or ariel.

My question is, does anyone know if my UK TV will pick up the NZ frequencies needed to watch Freeview TV over here?

Karen

[willowshouse]

I reckon StevieD is your man for this one:

Have a look at this thread in the meantime -

http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11597&highlight=video

Dawn

[Karen]

Cheers Dawn

Will pm StevieD and see if he's able to shed some jargon-free light on the matter!!

Karen

[barryp]

The current answer is NO. NZ Freeview operates via satellite only at this point, on an entirely different band of frequencies than UK Freeview, which is not a satellite source at all.

You'll need another set top box, costing $150-300.

[IanW99]

And it would appear that the later answer will also be NO.

Early in 2008 they will start doing terrestrial broadcasts in NZ which allows you to use the TV aerial instead of a satellite dish.

Although UK and NZ will both use the same DVB-T standard the datastream being delivered on them is different and not compatible.

The UK broadcasts MPEG2 whilst NZ are proposing to use MPEG4 for terrestrial transmissions.

So it is unlikely that a UK Freeview decoder will work in NZ.

Of course you may be lucky and NZ may decide to use MPEG2 instead in which case it should work. BTW, most Freeview decoders sold in the UK can only handle MPEG2 but there are apparently a (very) few that can also handle MPEG4?

Ian

[aggelon]

Why would NZ use the 20 year old MPEG2 standard when they can jump straight to the more current MPEG4. Although if it had been my decision I would have gone for AAC+2

[IanW99]

I can think of several reasons actually but agree that it is unlikely.

The current DVB-S that they are using in NZ is MPEG2.

The Freeview UK is a much larger market than NZ and so if they were to use the same decoders / chipsets then the costs should be lower.

To be fair, I would expect the NZ decoders to be able to work with MPEG2 and MPEG4.

I have also read that they they need to go with MPEG4 so that they can provide HD (high definition) pictures, so would expect the UK to move over to MPEG4 also?

Ian

[Karen]

OK

So, in layman's terms then...................there's not much hope of my UK version working in NZ!!!!!!!

Thanks guys.

Karen

[StevieD]

Probably not Karen, no.... :(