free eurosport ?

[marinyork]

Nope sorry marinyork, you've got me there. Give us a clue mate.

David Harmon and Sean Kelly are the commentators for eurosport international. Originally in the UK we got just international, then in 1999 British Eurosport launched. In 2008 Eurosport HD launched, this is the international feed. They weren't able to launch the British version back then. This is the end of the 4 year anomaly sadly.

On 25th of July British Eurosport 1HD will replace Eurosport (international) HD.

The channels aren't the same. For a start if you flick between the two you'll see Harmon talking about something whilst a studio with Richardson is doing a bit of analysis on British, sometimes with Richardson overlaying the same pictures Harmon is talking about! Let alone looking at the listings in detail. British Eurosport shows more snooker and other things and on the whole less cycling than international.

 

[ColinJ]

I hope that Eurosport Player keeps on streaming British Eurosport 1 & 2 plus the International feed, as now!

 

[marinyork]

I hope that Eurosport Player keeps on streaming British Eurosport 1 & 2 plus the International feed, as now!

That's quite an interesting one. I hope so too, I don't actually know the answer to that.

 

[The Bear]

Thanks marinyork, now I understand. I did know there were differences bwtween British ES and International - don't forget I've only just lost the analogue version a couple of months ago. For years International showed more cycling than British, or at least coverage typically started earlier. But British Eurosport has surged ahead in cycling coverage terms, because it now shows more actual races than International. Two channels help of course.

All I've been trying to find out is whether paying for SKY really was the only way for me to receive ES with English commentary.

 

[classic33]

If all the relays (repeaters) had had 6 multiplexes the government wouldn't have been able to sell off a load of channels for 4th generation mobile phones, at a huge profit. Same goes for making proper provision for HD.

Not that that would have influenced anything would it?

Freesat is probably your best option at present.

But which would you rather have. A shiny new 4G phone or the TV. The disused analogue frequency will be used for the 4G phones when they come out. Which means that even digital TV will be affected in some areas.

 

[The Bear]

One observation. There's absolutely no doubt that Eurosport in standard definition is BLURRED compared to ITV4 standard definition. I'd love to know SKY's explanation for this, but bearing in mind the massive hard sell for HD, I'm very suspicious what SKY may be doing to the signal.

Anybody else noticed the difference? ITV4 is definitely sharper.

 

[marinyork]

One observation. There's absolutely no doubt that Eurosport in standard definition is BLURRED compared to ITV4 standard definition. I'd love to know SKY's explanation for this, but bearing in mind the massive hard sell for HD, I'm very suspicious what SKY may be doing to the signal.

Anybody else noticed the difference? ITV4 is definitely sharper.

It's to do with satellite capacity. It's not particularly to do with sky at all (although ITV have signed a deal with sky and eurosport is on one of their transponders too). ITV4 used to be godawful. ITV4 now sits on the brand spanking new, all singing all dancing super duper luper wuper Astra 1N and more capacity is on the way. It's also why the BBC is able to offer a truly insane 24 feeds for the olympics. It sits on a transponder that is run with an acceptable number of channels on it. On satellite the ITV4 bitrate average is generous in historical contexts. It was not always thus. On Freeview ITV4 gets a particularly bad deal running at lower res (still I think) and far lower bitrate. It looks awful. It's the same with many freeview channels where they run on sub-SD resolutions.

Eurosport is on a fairly rammed transponder these days with lots of weird stuff on it. The bitrate is not the lowest ever recorded, but it is definitely on the low side for what it needs. The difference between bitrates accounts for the picture quality difference.

There was never an era during the Peloponnesian war when eurosport SD had an ultra crisp and amazing SD picture. It's SD, what do you expect?

 

[The Bear]

The trouble with you marinyork is you're just too clever. Seriously, thanks for the answer - that all makes sense.

Being a prize chump I rang SKY and asked them - the telephone agent didn't have a clue.

 

[ColinJ]

That's quite an interesting one. I hope so too, I don't actually know the answer to that.

Nope!

I just logged in to see if there was any coverage of San Sebastian (Replay on Saturday afternoon before the Vuelta coverage) and the International feed has disappeared - only British Eurosport 1 & 2 now.

 

[fimm]

... the International feed has disappeared - only British Eurosport 1 & 2 now.

That might make my other half rather cross - he was enjoying biathlon and cross country ski-ing coverage on Eurosport player last winter (he's from Austria) and you can bet that "they" don't expect there to be much demand for that sort of thing in the UK...

 

[marinyork]

Nope!

I just logged in to see if there was any coverage of San Sebastian (Replay on Saturday afternoon before the Vuelta coverage) and the International feed has disappeared - only British Eurosport 1 & 2 now.

Damn, as feared.