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BBC Four HD

Intelligent, idiosyncratic and provocative perspectives on every subject, for people who think differently.

Main TV standard-definiton channels

How to Watch: BBC Four HD


Below is a list of all the television and radio channels that you can watch in the UK using one of the free services: DAB (for radio), Freeview, Sky No Card - Sky without a viewing card (Freesat from Sky (or fSfS)) and Freesat.. Where a channel can be watched for free, the channel number is listed below. In addition, if you can watch (or listen) immediately online, press the button in the "web" column.

As some channels are exclusive to one service alone, you may need to get receive more than one service to get all the channels you want. The coverage for Freeview differs too - those channels not provided by the public service "Freeview Light" transmitters the current coverage shown thus (54%), taken from Connected Nations Report 2017: Data analysis'

Key: wb_sunny daytime; watch_later nighttime; account_box funded from the TV License; flags show Freeview channel limits.
Choose from four options: ■ Show everything ■ Just on Freeview ■ Just on Freesat ■ Just on Sky
High definition channels
Channel name arrow_drop_down web radio Freeview Sky Freesat
BBC Four HDaccount_box live_tv   106watch_later 116watch_later 108watch_later

Regional content: National channel with no regional content or variations.

media.info: For full details of broadcaster contacts, see the media.info link icon media.info BBC Four HD page.

Official site: See the www.bbc.co.uk link icon BBC Four HD website.

From Wikipedia: - en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org link icon read more about BBC Four HD on wikipedia (summary by Clipped).

Freeview multiplex: BBC Four HD is on multiplex PSB3 in england flagscotland flagnorthernireland flagwales flag.

Comments
Friday, 10 April 2020
S
Steve B
6:55 PM

Well it's been an education. Long gone are the days when you plugged an aerial into the TV and received all three channels.
Since the Winter Hill February changes I've had 5 HD Channels that I want, a host of total rubbish channels and I'm still not happy. The hunt for BBC 4 HD and Quest HD kicked off again today with a multitude of runs from the loft aerial and back down to re-scan for channels. I was beginning to give up on the missing BBC 4 HD and Quest HD.
Direct feed from the aerial to one TV didn't help. And altering the aerial direction had no effect either. So I plugged the feed back into the distribution box and turned the 'attenuator' knob down half a turn.
Bingo! I now have BBC 4 HD and Quest HD on the TVs but still no joy on the BT Vision PVR. I'll put up with that.
The missing channels came up on Channel 56 with a 90% strength with all others on 100%. Whereas the web page Winter Hill (Bolton, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy indicates that it should be on COM8 (Channel 31). Perhaps this is as a result of the ongoing changes.
Think I'll leave my setup as it is and hope that when the final changes are implemented I may get BBC News HD back. Or maybe I'll lose all my channels. Who knows.
Anyway, thanks for all your advice and if you ever need me to test anything for you, feel free to contact me. I'm getting quite adept at climbing into the loft.
Steve

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Steve B's 7 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:52 PM

Steve B:

I'm afraid the UHF channel listings on this site for many of the transmitters are out of date, as the site owner has not had time to keep up with all the changes resulting from the 700MHz clearance.
For Winter Hill see my post Winter Hill (Bolton, England) Full Freeview transmitter | free and easy to Bob McCulloch at 12:42pm on the 8th April for a full current list of channels.

The final changes may not be implemented until next year according to the data currently supplied by Freeview/DigitalUK. I'd try carry on climbing into the loft a bit longer :) and wind down the gain a bit more. COM7 is on C55, COM8 on C56 and in quite a few places C56 is being received stronger than C55 since they changed the FEC on C56 to a 1/2 instead of 2/3. Neither will be as strong as the other multiplexes because they are transmitted with less power.
If you still have 100% signal on the others, you obviously have plenty of signal and it may still be saturating the front ends, turn it down more - you can always turn it up again if it doesn't help !! As I said earlier, the objective is to get 100% quality on all muxes, it won't matter if the signal level is less than (or at) 100% if it all muxes are received satisfactorily. Let us know how you get on - please.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
Saturday, 11 April 2020
S
Steve B
8:50 AM

Thanks Chris, I'll continue dropping the gain and see what happens. Might not be today as the weather is still great up here in the North West and the garden is beckoning too. I'll let you know the out come.
Cheers, Steve B

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Steve B's 7 posts GB flag
Sunday, 12 April 2020
MikeP
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

11:06 PM

Chris.SE:

Get a life. Read what I said again and you'll realise that what I said was a general comment on why 100% is not good.

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MikeP's 3,056 posts GB flag
Monday, 13 April 2020
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:00 AM

MikeP:

Your arrogance is beyond, you are so obsessed with your 70/85/100% figures and completely missing the point of the situation, apart from which, I will repeat 100% of an arbitrary figure - you have NO idea what margins it may represent. And in addition I was already talking about the possibility of overload in my post on the 8th April before you came along with your obsession. You really should stop criticising and try and be constructive, almost every post where someone has stated they have 100% signal and you have responded, you've immediately said that's too much signal without any further analysis of the situation. Just give it up.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
S
Steve B
9:26 AM

OK, last night I turned the 'attenuator/gain' knob down to it's minimum.
C56 was lost and the remaining channel's signal dropped down to approximately 85% Strength with Quality of 80%.
I then crept the gain up in small increments, re-tuning each time. Eventually C56 came back on the TV with an 80% Strength/32% Quality. But C55 remained a lost cause.
I then continued to increase the gain until I had 90% Strength/100% Quality on C56 on the TV.
However, throughout this, the BT PVR never managed to receive either C55 or 56.

Ultimately, I've got BBC 4 HD and Quest HD back on the TV and I'm not going to miss C55's BBC News HD. Think I'll just have to wait until Winter Hill finish the clearance re-tune and repeat this all over again.
Thanks for your assistance.
Steve B

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Steve B's 7 posts GB flag
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

1:53 PM

Steve B:

Thanks for the update. You have approached this issue in just the right way. Shame about C55, you may be in one of those not spots due to it being an SFN, however Winter Hill is still listed for Planned Engineering, so without touching the gain control at present, it may be worth periodically trying a manual retune on C55 as it's impossible to say if that engineering is affecting C55 at your location. Undoubtedly you'll still have 100% signal on the other muxes as previously mentioned when you had 90% on C56, but as long as the quality is 100% for all that's the main thing.
Your TV must have a better front end than that BT PVR if the latter was unable to decode C56 at anytime whatever % signal you had. Some are undoubtedly better than others.
There's been some reports about the possibility of Tropospheric Ducting over the bank holiday & next few days, so I've been having at look at some other UHF channels to see if any DX reception was possible. One channel yesterday was giving me 14% signal and 0% quality, yet amazingly I had no break-up for the time I was watching !!! I couldn't believe it was performing so well. The day before, the same channel had occasional break-up but still very watchable.
Let us know how you get on if things change.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
S
Steve B
3:11 PM
Preston

Cheers Chris, will do. Not sure what 0% quality looks like. It should be total garbage. :-)
What surprises me is that with such a shortage of available frequencies, we're still giving broadcast space to some extremely dubious channels. I guess they must be paying handsomely for the privilege.

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Steve B's 7 posts GB flag
Steve's: mapS's Freeview map terrainS's terrain plot wavesS's frequency data S's Freeview Detailed Coverage
C
Chris.SE
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:20 PM

Steve B:

That's what I would have expected with 0% quality! But I can only guess that the particular design (probably in firmware) has specified that an error rate above level "x" will be 0%, but the error rate "x" is still not quite bad enough for it to decode!
As for the dubious channels, well it takes all sorts :o say no more.

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Chris.SE's 4,101 posts GB flag
N
nobody
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:19 PM

Chris.SE: "Reporting of signal strength and quality has recently been standardised by the DTG (the UK body that lays down technical requirements and compliance for all DTT receivers). YouView have implemented this new standard as part of this update, and so the signal-strength reported by your STB may have increased, but will now be comparable with other compliant devices."

Signal strength

If you want to find out more about what they've done, it'll cost you:

"Full Membership (of the DTG) costs 12,750 per annum. Members have access to the Freeview technical specifications (the D-Book) and all outputs from DTG meetings and Working Groups including the DTG UK UHD Forum, plus a host of other supporting benefits."

Become a Member | UK Digital TV Collaboration | DTG

The D-Book continues to be the foundation of all UK DTT based platforms including Freeview Play, Freeview HD, YouView, EETV and NowTV and the UK DSAT platform, Freesat, as well as several international adaptations. The DTG continues to ensure European harmonisation wherever possible while meeting the needs of the rapidly developing and highly successful UK TV market.

D-Book | Digital Terrestrial TV Requirements for Interoperability | DTG

A bunch of money grubbing capitalist pig bastards, totally lacking in any sense of decency, stunting the free flow of information, and thereby, the advancement of humanity.

It's no wonder that someone put their precious D-Book on wikileaks.



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nobody's 47 posts SE flag
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