While Freeview in glorious HD started earlier this week in Manchester and London, consumers may end up buying “HD” set-top boxes that don’t work with the new service.
It appears that some retailers are marketing Freeview boxes as HD despite the devices being incapable of receiving the new signal in the UK.
Confusion arises over the new broadcast system, DVB-T2 only recently introduced in order to transmit data more efficiently, which will need new components that aren’t available at the current time.
Such boxes that can decode the signal properly won’t be available until 2010, however vendors haven’t stopped selling boxes that can upscale a standard definition picture to high definition or ones capable of decoding high-definition signals used in other countries, such as France’s TNT which still uses the current DVB transmission standard.
Customers have been warned to look out for boxes and televisions that are DVB-T2 compatible in order to watch Freeview HD or carry the Freeview HD logo on them.
Have you seen a “Freeview HD” boxes on sale yet? Does it say it can decode DVB-T2. Let us know in your comments below.
Link: Freeview HD