The Freeview marketing campaign rolled on over the weekend, with the second commercial being shown on all the FTA networks at 6:29 last night. But does it clear up all the confusion over extra channels? Hell no!Essentially just a montage of big moments in TV history, the clip ends with the statement: “More moments. More Channels” emblazoned across the screen while the voiceover tells us that there are “five more channels… for free”. There’s no mention of the costs involved in upgrading your hardware to “Freeview” branded equipment so you can enjoy the benefits of not being able to skip ads, nor any mention of the fact that you’ll get to enjoy all the same benefits with any digital equipment, not necessarily Freeview branded gear.
And as for those 5 extra channels – what are they? Are they including ONE HD? Or is it five extra channels compared to analog TV. And if we want to be picky, it’s really only four, because switching to digital means you lose any community TV stations you might watch (at least at the moment).
All told, this is still a confusing shambles for the average consumer, and nothing more than a marketing campaign designed around maintaining a dying revenue model.
[Freeview]
Michael
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 12:02 PMI got the impression they were claiming that you already get 5 new channels by switching to digital – SBS 2? (I assume they mean SBS world news), ABC2, One, 7HD&9HD (not that I believe they can really be called “new” channels when they show exactly the same as their SD counterparts 95% of the time)
EvilBob
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 2:09 PMONE HD logo on Diana funeral footage – is that promoting HD car racing in a Mercedes?
ricrageous
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 2:11 PMMaybe it’s just me, but does anyone else think that the Freeview people come across as huge douchbags?
bornfree
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 2:52 PMWith apologies. To the tune of Born Free. Viral it people!
Would love someone to sing this and dub it over the ad.
FREEVIEW
Freeview, well it just blows
Now watch the same shows
Or ones we didn’t want at the start!
Freeview. the future surrounds you
The downloads compond you
To an irrelevant life in the past
Freeview, your EPG divides you.
But PVRs are a roaring tide
And ICE TV had the victory!
Freeview, my life is worth living
Timeshift and torrent – no misgiving
’cause I’m free of programmer arrogancy!
Freeview the future surrounds you
But PVRs are a roaring tide
And ICE TV had the victory!
Freeview, my life is worth living
And here’s my misgiving
You stole 60 seconds from me.
Franky
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 4:25 PMWell oh well, here is my go at all this Freeview and HD TV stuff:
This whole experience is doomed in my personal point of view before it hasn’t even taken off yet.
You have to see I am one of those bad nerds that spends way too much time reading readme.txts, how to pdfs and watched lynda.com stuff.
On Thursday my girlfriend told me she heard there is a channel called ONE that could get us the F1 GrandPrix’s streamed LIVE to our HD plasma (we never even use).
Now me being me i go “cool, i’m nerd enough – girl: this ONE ain’t one, it is TEN sorta in disguise. we gotta get some digital HD receiver in order to get it – but then i am not sure what the whole freeview is all about that’s sort of around the corner”.
Honestly here goes: I know everything about damn HTML, AJAX, JS, PHP, Objective-C, Pro Tools, Final Cut, etc. blahblah – but I still have not a single idea as to what’s going on in the HD TV/Freeview and so on thingy.
I feel – naked at the least! With the latter a good thing though if you don’t have the right answer for your girl friend.
Not getting it.
(ps: i watch movies in iTunes and all converted to MPEG4 SD – much more happy than running scratched DVDs – this is where i come from – i don’t need yet an additional confusion, and super shit break ups like foxtel with it’s ‘every hour or so’ digital encoding trouble right when the lovers drop their clothes).
PS: loved the error page for this post on first submit:
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Justipoo
Monday, April 27, 2009 at 11:18 PMhttp://freeview.com.au/
its nothing new, (so to speak) but its just the HD channels plus ABC2, SBS2 etc… talk about a waste.
fail.
Jackie Beasley
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 12:24 PMThis is what you will get: 7SD 7HD 7?coming soon – 9SD 9HD 9?coming soon – 10SD OneHD OneSD – ABC1SD ABC2SD ABCHD – SBSoneSD SBStwoSD SBSHD – 15 all up