Sky have just announced that Sky News, Sky-3 and Sky Sports News are going to be withdrawn from Freeview and the capacity used for a new subscription services, Sky-1 / Sports / Movies, using the MPEG-4 standard.
None of the existing Set-Top Boxes (STB's) will be able to receive these channels and Sky say once the service has launched manufacturers will produce new compatible set-top boxes and other DTT receivers.
Because of its more efficient compression, MPEG-4 allows many more channels to be available on a multiplex. In the coming years, it is likely we will see other media companies follow Sky's example and change to MPEG-4 which would render existing STB's useless.
