cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
3,081 Views
Message 1 of 15

Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Hi

I have the BT Pro box, but for some reason channels that use HBBTV don't work via the bt box but does work via my TV.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks 

14 REPLIES 14
3,077 Views
Message 2 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

The streaming Freeview packaged channels have never been enabled on any BT box I have ever had.


@Dh40wrote:

Hi

I have the BT Pro box, but for some reason channels that use HBBTV don't work via the bt box but does work via my TV.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Thanks 


 

0 Ratings
Reply
3,068 Views
Message 3 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Maybe that might change since com 7 is closing down. Hopefully a bt moderator on here can find out some information 

0 Ratings
Reply
3,032 Views
Message 4 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

I just got struck on the head by a low flying pig 😄


@Dh40wrote:

Maybe that might change since com 7 is closing down.


 

2,954 Views
Message 5 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Technically the box can handle hbb, it does use an alternative technology. As bbc crb works fine and also one channel does work. SBN actually boots up and streams. Can't be that hard to enable it. 

0 Ratings
Reply
2,947 Views
Message 6 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Most likely a BT decision that they will not be enabled then.

0 Ratings
Reply
2,933 Views
Message 7 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Could be a freeview certified thing. Like licencing 

0 Ratings
Reply
2,831 Views
Message 8 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Nothing to do with licensing, HbbTV was designed to be an open standard and is used by broadcasters around the world. In fact, it’s usage was nudged forward by the Beeb as a way of delivering a unified experience across platforms. 

In this case, it’s simply that many steamed channels on DTT use Arqiva‘s backend product, which uses MHEG-IC. YouView doesn’t support this. 

MHEG-IC is older than HbbTV, but there are more devices out there that support it through the Freeview spec, and unsurprisingly they couldn’t dump it without dropping support for a considerable number of devices.

When Arqiva became involved in YouView, a number of years back, they said they wanted to make these channels available to YouView users, so this essentially meant creating an HBbTV app that’ll pull in the stream when a YouView device is detected. It’s why the apps look a little different. 

It’s a basic and crude way of getting it to work, and it’s only really used on single stream channels, or those with a dedicated HbbTV app of their own. For services with multiple streams, or those using only MHEG-IC, Arqiva would need to develop a different app just for YouView. 

All this means, at least for the short to medium term is that YouView likely won’t be able to deliver the same streamed channel experience as Freeview Play devices might. Long term, everything should be ported from MHEG, but at the moment there are simply too many devices that use it.

1,177 Views
Message 9 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

Hi Folks, is this issue ongoing as it seems to have gone a bit quiet? I have today taken delivery of a brand new EE TV Pro box as part of an attempt to resolve a few issues. One of these issue is IP provided Freview channels that won't play on the box but do on the TV. To summarise I have the new EE box pro and a 2022 Samsung Smart TV. Both are wire-connected to the BT HomeHub using identical ethernet cables and the TV aerial goes into the EE box, and is taken from the EE Box pass-through outlet to the Sammy TV. Both box and TV show the same channel list and programming in their respective EPGs, but whilst these will play on the Sammy TV, I just get a channel splash screen on the EE TV Box. The affected channels are 237 to 295 with the exceptions of 263 and 265 which will play for some reason. I can watch the channels fine on the TV, but would like also to access them on the EE box so that I can pause, rewind and record etc.

0 Ratings
Reply
1,060 Views
Message 10 of 15

Re: Channels that use HBBTV technology.

@kanturner 

It’s being actively discussed at the moment over on the EE Community:-

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/TV/Multiple-channels-showing-quot-On-Now-quot/td-p/1402456

There are reports that the Pro box won’t play any of these internet channels, but your observation that you can play 263 and 265, but none of the others in that range, agrees with my observations that my T4000 will play these two, and my scepticism that the Pro box wouldn’t.

The reason that these two play is that they are HbbTV channels, which YouView boxes can decode, and all the others are the older standard MHEG, which YouView can’t decode.

Freeview used to mandate that TVs should support both, but now supporting MHEG is optional. But most TVs still do, and you can see why, with the poor penetration of HbbTV across these channels.

YouView never followed the Freeview rules, so it never did have MHEG.

—————————————————————————————————————
*** Longtime YouView box owner, BT Broadband customer, finally an EE TV subscriber ***