Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

BBC2 Scotland is quite different to BBC2 England - not just 20 minutes of Newsnight.

From 7pm to 9pm tonight (19th Oct) - BBC2 Scotland is different to the main BBC2.

Saturday and Sunday evening are also different.

Most evening the BBC2 nations have variations from the BBC2 England service.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Thanks for the correction.

If this is what's going on, because of their platform neautrality commitment, I imagine that they will want to do the same on satellite and DTT, however, when 700MHZ is eventually cleared aren't the PSB channels expected to emit in HD only? If this theory is correct, it would be scuppered by this. Maybe the BBC expect to be able to afford to make the regions operate in full HD by 2020??

---------- Post added at 19:48 ---------- Previous post was at 17:48 ----------

@ jj20x Do the scans give any indication of any DVB type that might be used?

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

I highly doubt BBC channels would be among the 16 hidden channels. This is a bit of a mystery, but I think POP Max may be one of them. This is because Kix Power disappeared and data is still available for channel 738, so I wouldn't rule out the likes of Pop Max and Chart Show TV.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Freesports hopefully is one of them.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Basically very expensive and at the moment, with most of the local news studios still not upgraded to HD, a lot of expense to upscale SD at source.

Unlikely that VM would go to this much trouble if the BBC isn't driving the change. The BBC has the PSB remit, not VM.

Not every VM customer gets the correct local region on 101. For some, their correct region is offered as an alternative on channel 858. Introducing the sort of channel swap you describe would probably need additional local networks set up within VM to make it work properly. Not really likely to happen.

But it ignores the fact that all BBC One & ITV HD regions are on regional TS ID 104, not on national TS ID 44.

An incredibly expensive method to avoid having to press a few buttons.

---------- Post added at 01:46 ---------- Previous post was at 01:33 ----------

That theory is popular on DS Forums but not really anywhere else, more a case of wishful thinking by certain posters than the actual plan. The end of simulcasting in SD & HD will free up cash resources which could be used to fund HD only infrastructure. There's no actual indication that it will happen at the same time as 700 Mhz clearance. Remember that clearance has already started in some areas and that those areas haven't been converted to HD only for the PSBs.

The DVB type is for the whole transport stream rather than individual services and hasn't changed.

---------- Post added at 01:56 ---------- Previous post was at 01:46 ----------

When channels are removed, it is normal for a limited amount of residual data to be left in the SDT. Users will have made recordings from these channels, so some data is generally left behind to support that.

Usually, when broadcasts cease from a channel, the data has a couple of flags, indicating that it is a placeholder and that it is at the end-of-service. 738 only had the placeholder flag. That state is normally used for pop-up channels, likely to return at some point, such as the BBC Red Button additional streams.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

From what I remember it was Ed Vaizey, when he was a minister, who put the idea forward that SD for the PSB channels should be switched off to cut costs and to create space to help with the loss of the temporary muxes.

Not heard anything about this though after he was no longer in post.

I do hope that it does happen as they may not be enough space for channels like Talking Pictures, Keep It Country etc to continue on Freeview. Without exposure on Freeview, I fear that some channels like Talking Pictures may not be commercially viable and may end up closing on VM & satellite too (incidentally I was talking to someone from Talking Pictures earlier and they were very pleasent to deal with).

Maybe the local inserts into the sustaining HD feed won't come from TS ID 104, but be sourced from TS ID 44 as regular daily pop up channels at 18:30, 22:30 and derived from the internet in the same way as the BBC Red Button services for events like Wimbledon etc.

Do you think that could be possible? It could switch 108 from HD to raw SD from 18:30 to 19:00 so that no upscaling would be involved??

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

It was, but it doesn't really matter. A throwaway comment made by a minister can easily be taken out of context by a forum member and used to support their view of how things should happen. A mandatory switch to DVB-T2 would require funding from the Government, he didn't reveal any plans to do that. As things stand, the Government are quite happy to avoid funding a mandatory conversion and to leave the decision to the broadcasters. The Government would probably prefer to auction off the entire UHF broadcasting spectrum to mobile operators at the earliest opportunity. The uncertain long term viability of the platform will hold back funding from the Government and from commercial operators.

Arqiva don't feel that the time is right to convert the commercial DTT multiplexes to DVB-T2 and there's little chance of it happening until they are ready. They will keep the temporary multiplexes running for as long as they are allowed. Unfortunately, when the temporary multiplexes close and these low budget channels are faced with the cost of financing carriage on a national multiplex, I fear we may well see a few departures from DTT.

The local SD channels are already there on TS ID 101 for the BBC. I can't see VM setting up 16 additional SD streams for a few minutes each day on a national transport stream. In any event, switching would be clunky and horrible, switching between screen resolutions and between streams which are out of sync with each other by several seconds.

With a lot of coding and a vast amount of wasted bandwidth if they were to follow your idea. There would still be fairly large areas switched to the wrong local channel. Where a regional network carries overlapping BBC regions there is no easy way of knowing which is the correct region for an individual viewer.

Just let the viewer select the appropriate channel. The BBC put the annoying red slate up for a reason, to prompt the viewer to change channel.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

I think it's unlikely SD will be switched off for some time. There are still a lot of people who do not have HD ready TVs, particularly the elderly.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

The PSB channels will continue in SD for the foreseeable future. A forced move to MPEG4 was discussed, but there are many standard DVB-T only sets still out there & this is unlikely to happen.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Yes you are quite right OB as there are millions out there still who do not have HD ready TV's.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

I was surprised to learn that it was Arqiva that had encouraged the Government to clear 700MHZ/switch off the temporary muxes earlier than planned. I wondered why they would, at face value, shoot themselves in the foot and lose the additional revenue earlier than planned! Turns out that Arqiva also have their fingers in the mobile phone pie too...

I'm sure you're right and the Government would love to flog the whole of the spectrum to mobile phone operators. Maybe this could be feasible with the advent of Freesat (along with commercial availabilities like VM and Sky)?

I think that Freesat has better coverage than Freeview, it has much more bandwidth available for more channels (and in HD too) than Freeview could ever offer.

A radical move like this would appeal to a Conservative Government as it would help commercial entities like VM & Sky, (whilst still offering a non profit and better alternative to Freeview). It would bring cash into the public coffers and could pay for any enforced switchover for various groups.

The Thatcher administration presumed that satellite would be the future and not DTT and more TV's seem to be having a satellite tuner included as standard.

Well, if these new services aren't for local radio or local TV inserts (I am now more inclined to think they would be for the latter), I really don't know!

I can't imagine a plethora of extra TV channels coming (and, as you say, they're in an unusual place for this), plus why the code names??

People have suggested Pop Max and Freesports, but, other than some of the low budget niche channels on Sky, I don't think that there's anything else to add apart from Sky Atlantic.

Maybe the huge amount of apps that Cindy Rose promised are about to arrive? Are apps added and 'broadcast' in the same way as linear TV channels? I'd have thought that they wouldn't be and that they just prompted the TiVo to connect to the internet and take an online feed instead, but you'll know better than me.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Interesting that, despite your job with TiVo on VM, you don't have a PVR. This reminds me of a late friend who taught computing at a university.

When I first visited him at his home, I said that I was surprised that he didn't have a computer of his own. He replied "don't you think I see enough of the things at work all day, without having one at home as well" :D

---------- Post added at 18:17 ---------- Previous post was at 16:25 ----------

Because we are now getting the Asian channels temporarily for free, some of their programmes are appearing in my planned recordings.

As TiVo knows that I like horror films, it's tending to pick up a lot of this genre.

I'm surprised that the Asian channels are showing material like this as their religions tend to frown upon anything of a supernatural nature (I know some won't be religious, but most that I know purport to be so to various extents).

I might even watch some of them out of interest; anyone know what will happen when it's in Planned Recordings and VM encrypt the channels again?

Think I'll give the film about a man who married a tree a miss though :D. These foreign channels do show some odd things!

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

I'm just not a big TV watcher. I could happily live without it (in fact I did for several years).

Obviously I have loads of PVRs at work.

You'll be able to watch them. The "can't watch after unsubscribing" restriction only applies to Sky-owned channels.

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

I meant for programmes that TiVo has placed into Planned Recordings into the future after the free period ends.

Will they simply be placed into Recording Hiccups?

Re: Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2017)
 

Oh I see. Yes, they'll fail and go into Hiccups