EXCLUSIVE: Several TV vendors who last week got their Freeview specifications documentation under a non disclosure agreement are now saying that there is every chance that the TV manufacturers will not support the introduction of Freeview in Australia due to demands being made by the Freeview backers and because of the time it takes to deliver Freeview-compliant TVs.
The backers of Freeview are the free-to-air TV stations in Australia – Ten, Nine, Seven, SBS and the ABC.
In April Freeview is set to roll out a multimillion dollar advertising campaign to promote 14 HD channels that are available via free-to-air TV stations. 12 of those channels are currently available on air via a Foxtel service or via a TV that has an electronic programme guide.
Under the new guidelines buyers of Freeview-compliant devices are going to find it very hard to cut out TV commercials due to the proposed introduction of specifications that restrict ad skipping.
What Freeview is promoting as unique, say TV vendors, will be available via any integrated TV. They also claim there is no real benefit for consumers and that all the proposed marketing campaign will do is add an additional layer of confusion for consumers.
As one vendor said bluntly “Freeview is designed to slow down the skipping of TV commercials and to muddy the Foxtel message that they have over 100 channels of TV including all the Freeview channels which with Foxtel can be recorded and the advertising skipped through”.
Also of concern to the TV vendors is the roll out by the Federal Government of a TV campaign promoting the cutting off of analogue TV for a digital TV service at the same time as the roll out of the Freeview TV campaign.
“To roll this campaign at the same time that Freeview is spruiking their service is going to confuse consumers,” said a senior executive at a major Japanese TV Company.
“Freeview is not going to fly. There is a lack of support from TV manufacturers and it is clear from the NDA documentation that the Freeview backers have not got a clue about manufacturing processes and the time it takes to deliver a modified product into the Australian market”.
At a high level meeting of the Australian Digital Suppliers Industry Forum last week which was attended by the likes of Carl Rose the Managing Director of Sony, David Brand the Marketing Director of LG, Kurt Jovias the Marketing Director of Samsung, Paul Reeves the General Manager of Consumer Products for Panasonic and Laurie Nolan the Marketing Director at Sharp not one single vendor said that they would support Freeview in light of the issued specifications.
ChannelNews has also been told that a special meeting of ADSIF has been proposed to formulate a formal response to Freeview.
Three of the major TV vendors who do not want to talk on the record have said that there is no way that they can meet the guideline’s set down in the documentation. One Japanese TV vendor said this week that they had been contacted by Harvey Norman who told vendors that they would not stock TV’s unless they were Freeview compliant”.
“This is not going to work. The only people who will be selling Freeview boxes in April will be set top box manufacturers” said a Korean manufacturer.
What Freeview is proposing is a two stage approach to the roll out of their service in Australia. However many TV vendors fear that the specification for phase 1 will differ significantly for phase two During phase 1 the Freeview boxes will not have an EPG due to the use of MPEG 2 technology which is a standard for “the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information.
It permits storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission bandwidth.
During phase two Freeview is proposing that vendors move to MPEG-4 which absorbs many of the features of MPEG-2 and other related standards. It adds new features such as (extended) VRML support for 3D rendering, object-oriented composite files (including audio, video and VRML objects), support for externally-specified Digital Rights Management and various types of interactivity. AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) was standardized as an adjunct to MPEG-2 (as Part 7) before MPEG-4 was issued.
For Freeview the benefits are that they can better manage digital rights management issues and control the skipping of TV commercials. A senior TV executive of a Korean manufacturer said “what is being proposed is two lots of technology that will result in boxes or devices purchased during stage 1 become useless during stage 2 as newer technology is introduced. Among several vendors there is real concern that Freeview will not deliver any consumer benefits and that their message will do nothing other than confuse consumers any further. I do not believe that it will get off the ground in Australia.
All of the executives refered to in this story are either employed by a Company that has signed a confidential non disclosure agreement.
