Channel 4 HD coming to Freesat in April 2011
Channel 4 and Freesat have announced that Channel 4 HD will launch on the subscription-free satellite platform in the spring.
It will be availabe Free to Air on freesat HD receivers from April 2011.
Channel 4 HD will become the fourth HD channel on Freesat, joining BBC One HD, the BBC HD channel and ITV1 HD.
Channel 4 HD launched on Sky in 2007 and has since become available on Virgin Media in summer 2009 and the Freeview HD platform in April last year.
It is unknown at the moment what the reception of C4HD will be for expats in Spain and the Costa Blanca, or if the Sky C4HD service will contimue.
The current C4HD service is available with a Sky card and even on a 80cm satellite dish here in Spain.
It is currently unknown if the freesat free to air version of C4HD will be the same (unlikely!), as per BBC1 and BBC HD (big satellite dish required and should be 24/7 coverage), or as per BBC2 England (partial coverage on a big satellite dish)
but in the mean time C4HD is available free to air on
Satellite : Eurobird
Frequency : 12.607
Polarisation : V
Symbol Rate : 28250
Transmission : DVB-S2
FEC : 3/4
Channel Label : 55300
Note: This is a test transmission and may not actually be the final frequency for C4HD
It is also on a frequency that Sky Boxes are unable to be manually tuned to.
Some Freesat HD boxes are able to receive this frequency by manually tuning
I would not really expect a FTA version of this HD channel to be easily available on a wide beam which is nice and easy for expats to receive for long.
But you never know…
But as of today (Monday 14th February), this version is now scrambled, and only accessible with a Sky card…
C4HD expected to launch on Freesat HD on the 1st April 2011, according to reports
Other reports suggest that Channel 4 HD may go free to air tomorrow (on the 10th March), on the frequency 12607 v mentioned above.
But it will not go onto the Freesat EPG until the 1st April.
If indeed it stays on frequency 12607, then this may only be a short term measure, as this frequency can be received where I am (Gandia) on an 80cm satellite dish.
Given the arguments about “programme rights”, and that the UK TV channels should not be made available on such a nice “expat” friendly satellite footprint, it is a question as to how long it will remain on this footprint.
At the moment this version of C4HD is currently encrypted.
Changes are happening all the time with reagrds to C4HD.
It appears that C4HD will move from its current “Sky Transponder” to another transponder provided by Arquiva.
This Arquiva transponder, 12.606V, may mean that C4HD is not available to all who can currently receive C4HD at the moment, especially those using a smaller 80cm dish for C4HD.
an update on the new C4HD frequency:
C4HD may only just be available to users with a 80cm satellite dish, but not for all day.
And there are reports that even on 2,4m satellite dishes, that C4HD can be lost for an hour or so between 3 and 6pm.
Why? Well according to reports,. C4HDs frequency of 12606v is similar to that on another satellite. In fringe reception areas, like the Med and Costa Blanca areas, the frequency of the other satellite is a lot stronger than that for C4HD, and so C4HD loses the battle of the frequencies. Even a big dish may not be the answer as strangely a big satellite dish will actually be able to receive more of the “unwanted” frequency!
That said, C4HD is now available to watch for free with no sky card, in preparation for its launch onto the Freesat EPG in April 2011.