Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Over on DS it's reported that upgrade promos are on Ch119 see http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...&postcount=246

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

God I hope so. Those Bromley peeps have been subjected to crappy software for far too long :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

If you read on the status page of ntlworld, there are currently lots of upgrades and maintence going on. Could this be related? Some of the upgrades are to the billing systems. Could this be to enable VOD in areas which don't have it yet? You need to sort the billing systems out first, otherwise customers can't buy anything., unless they are going to give us VOD for free!

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

The "billing system" upgrades are unrelated. NTL is currently migrating a dozen or so legacy billing systems, inherited from the companies they too over, into one new "Harmony" system. It is possible that Harmony is required to bill VOD correctly, but VOD certainly isn't the driver for Harmony upgrades.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

no it cant be happening nooooooooooooooooooooooooo please somebody tell me this is a april fools joke

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

doesnt seem to be here in brighton


thought we were bromley

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Doesn't seem to be here yet in sunny East London yet.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

How do you know which one you are on?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Two ways to check:

1. If BBC1 is on channel 1 on your STB, then you are in Bromley. If it is on channel 101 then it is Langley.

2. You could use this: http://www.dslzoneuk.net/ntl_region.php

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Thanks Punky (have to green rep you later).

We are on Langley then.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Dont wanna sound stupid but what are we getting? :confused:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

New faster more reliable set top box software that looks better for bromley:) and eventually Video On Demand.
-Chris

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

How long is this software going to take to roll out across Bromley?
And then how long afterwards is VOD going to take to roll out after that?:confused:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

1) Quite a while.

2) A lot longer than that.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Where exactly on Channel 119? I had a look earlier this evening and after about 15 minutes of wall-to-wall football clips I gave up in case it softened my brain.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Only in the areas where the rollout is imminent. At the moment, I believe it is only the York area.

Browneggsandham :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Hmm.

*waits for Manchester people to start reporting upgrades, then expects to wait another two to three weeks after that before he sees them in Leeds*

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Would be nice to see some actual upgrades in BROMLEY, I mean it's only a super headend.. :(

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You've obviously not seen the building - it's far from super! :p:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Oh yes I have..... Used to drive past it regularly... :D

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I'm a bit confused here. If it's all happening up north in York, why is this thread entitled Bromley upgrade starting?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

NTL essentially have two types of network. Langley (or original NTL) covers one half of the country, and Bromley (ex-cable and wireless) covers the other. Apparently, they are named after where the super-head end is. York is on the Bromley network

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

So, York has now moved down South to Bromley. And Bromley covers half the country, not just the London Borough of Bromley. Have ntl hired a few spin doctors from Number 10? :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Basically.. *whispers "It's all part of a secret plan to take over the world".

Actually, seriously, in terms of networks, what you said is right. The EX-CWC areas are fed from the Bromley super head end (hence the name).

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Probably completly unrelated, but I've noticed that my Samsung box here in East London is loading the tv guide faster. It used to take anything from 10 to 20 seconds. Over the last couple of days, its been loading in about 2 seconds. A more noticeble change is that once the tv guide has already been loaded once in a day, the next time I press the guide button, it loads instantly. The guide has *never* been this quick before...Perhaps things are happening in the background and ntl are finally making their things work as they should.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

So i wonder when in this cunning plan to take over the world does manchester get invaded :confused: :D

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

..just pressed the other main buttons and I can't remember which ones worked before, but they seem to be working faster for me:

help button - menu is instant.
interactive button - still takes about 10 seconds to load, but a bit quicker than it was.
favourites button - loads instantly.
on demand - takes 2 seconds to load, which is faster than it was.
guide button - as said, takes 2 seconds to load, then when pressed again is instant.
settings button - still does not work.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Think we're the forgotten people. :D

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Just to clear up a couple of things:

• You'll know when you've got the new software - it's blue instead of purple.
• No normal customers have got the new software yet (as of 25/07/2005) - only triallists
• No, I don't know when it's coming to your area. Release schedules have yet to be finalised.
• This release DOES NOT include VoD software. There will be another software upgrade when VoD is available on the Bromley platform.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

ok im now a ntl tart and ill bend over backwards for any ntl upgrade :shocked:

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Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

....Even for Ex VIDEOTRON customers? Or are they not counted as Bromley / Langley or even NTL customers, for that matter any more!!!???

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Ex Videotron Cable London customers (currently using CR1) will be getting this upgrade to what's being called "Bromley Upgrade 2" (or BU2), hopefully before the end of this year.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Please, please, please, let's not start adding more confusing names for software versions!

The version that's going to be rolling out will be Bromley 3.2 -- let's just stick to that!

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Actually, the version that's going to be rolling out will have a version number like "3_2B_PxxN-N_P1000" - you can call it that if you wish, but I'll stick to BU2...

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Are you trying to say that I am not normal, :p: ;) :)

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BU2, eh. Good job they didn't call one of the areas Folkestone. :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Any screenshots of the new software?

As I understand it the upgrade will show 7 channels at a time on the EPG however my CR1 software (Ex Videotron) already displays this amount so how much of a change will this new softward download bring really?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

The good news is that the Bromley Upgrade 2 software will roll out to all Bromley set-top boxes which are currently able to take the download, circa 740,000. Unfortunately ntl will not be able to upgrade approximately 80,000 further set-top boxes which remain on a network which needs upgrading. Work is at hand to upgrade these customers.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

So Videotron customers won't get the 3.2 download... which kind of makes sense really, as they didn't get the 3.0 or 3.1 versions...

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

This might sound dumb but when is Surrey ( Leatherhead area ) going to get the upgrade? :dunce:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

How do we know if the set top boxes we have are the ones that can take the download thing? https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2005/09/21.gif
Or, doesnt it matter bcos all set top boxes will get it in the end? https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2005/09/21.gif

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

If your EPG software is currently purple, then you will be in line for the new upgrade.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

At the risk of sounding a saddo, will another benefit be ability to adjust volume with the NTL remote? It's bad enough trying to find one remote let alone two when you've got nippers in the house so this would be a welcome move!

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

and fix the problem with the STB where it doesnt send the AV switch signal when you turn it on if the channel is in Widescreen mode

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

You are quite right, the volume buttons now work.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

There are fixes for aspect ratio signalling issues in this release. We follow the Digital TV Group standard (originally defined by the BBC) which has been adopted by the industry, although there will be a relatively small number of TV's that do not follow this standard and therefore will not work.
After receiving the new download if your TV is not behaving consistently to your preference, go to Settings/Visual Settings/3. Scart AV control is... and switch the feature OFF. This will then require you to manually press your AV button on your normal TV remote when you turn your TV on.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

That's not sounding like a saddo bcos it is soooo annoying that the volume change doesnt work https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2005/10/27.gif ..will be cool when it does work https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2005/10/16.gif

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Yeah, it's fixed.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

On our old pace box we were given a shiny new remote which we could link with the TV so it controlled the volume on the actual TV rather than on the STB - worked a treat (until the kids got hold of the remote and removed the batteries when bored). The samsung remote does the same in that you can link it to the TV to control that - meaning only need 1 remote. I quite like it like that really.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

We got updated here in Sunderland on Monday. There doesn't really seem to be much of a speed change to anything other than the tv guide. most of the changes seem purely cosmetic

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Out of curiousity, what kind of box have you got? Pace or Samsung?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

It is alot more cosmetic. When you get the VOD software you will start noticing the speed changed

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Pace, havent gotten round to ringing ntl to change it to samsung for the broadband speed increase yet

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

when will BROMLEY get the BROMLEY update ........ ? :Yikes:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

...end of the month once the trial in York is sucessfully completed.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

how is the trail getting on or cant u say?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

No idea, sorry. The info was from the Cable Forum news section. Anyone in the York area care to comment on how things are going?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

:tu: The trial of the BU2 software seems to be going ok here in York, the software hasn't developed any major bugs or glitches, just a couple of niggles that need tweaking please ntl:

• Pace box specific - off air channels show in the clear rather than behind the "off air" slide caption. This disappears after about a second and you then get the Pace 4000 thinking the channel is still broadcasting, even though there's only the Sky slide and looped minidisc music on if you catch a channel off air late on. It doesn't happen on the SMT2100c though - slide stays static and onscreen.
• The favourites bug is sorted out for 2100C users, no more dropouts of channels to the end of the menu in Favourites, BUT, on both 2100c, and Pace boxes the old channel names "bug" (BBC Choice instead of BBC Three etc!) has moved across into the Reminder and Diary functions instead of being in the Favourites list.:erm:

Apart from those two bits, everything else seems fine with our SMT2100C, which is much faster, and our elderly Pace 4000 (recon) shows an improvement in EPG stability and responsiveness. It still locks up and freezes on a regular basis though, with UN400 errors on interactive sometimes too, so I don't think that can be blamed on the code - it still had to be rebooted on the old B3.1 code, usually at least once every 24 hours.

:rolleyes: We had the same trouble the last time ntl: put a 4000 in, and that was soon swapped for our Samsung because it messed up our internet.

Overall though, It looks good for a network wide rollout - it's miles better than B3.1 For once, I think the people at ntl have got the code right. All we're waiting for now is the VOD code and we're caught up with Langley platform.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

So When will VOD roll out in Bromley? (End of the year?)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Speaking personally, I'd say that's probably around the right timescale, but considering that ntl: won't mess around with the service across the Christmas/NewYear period, and the other parts of Bromley platform will take a couple of months to switch across to BU2 from B3.1, after the end of August it would leave a tight window to get the second update done,even though they're speeding up the VOD code release over on the Langley side as it improves network stability, I suspect that we're looking at early 2006 (Jan/Feb time?) for that.

However, I'll defer to anyone from within ntl: that can give a better estimate of timescales for Bromley VOD.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I don't have any sort of insider information, but I'd be very surprised to see VOD on the Bromley network anytime in 2005.

Which is a shame, as it's quite good...

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Thanks Tristan, that seems to confirm the way I was thinking - it would be a risk to try two downloads close together, and it gives leeway for the VOD people to sort out the niggles with the Langley VOD which would mean that the BU3 (VOD software?) could incorporate all of the bugfixes in code/servers so that Bromley's version would work straight after downloading into a pilot area - much as BU2 is now.

Nevermind though on the delay - all good things come to those who wait!:D

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I've never really understood why ntl use their own off the air slide captions, why not just get rid of them completely? some channels show promo's when there off air, and without sounding like a complete geek, surely it would be nicer to see a channel logo and a bit of looped music than it would be to see a black screen saying channel not broadcasting?

Or am I missing a major point somewhere?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

....I guess its a capacity issue. Looped promos take up more than one dark static screen with a bit of writing on it.

This is where Sky have the advantage over the cable cos in two areas. If Sky want more channels or bandwith they buy the space on the satellites. So, potentially Sky can have unlimited capacity. With cable, there's only certain frequencies that can be used and only x capacity available on the network. Secondly, whereas Sky is all digital, the bulk of ntl's bandwith is taken up with its analogue service. Until analogue is switched off, ntl only have a certain capacity available for their services.

What confuses me is that if ntl can offer 10mb internet over the same pipes that we get out tv from. Why isn't there more capacity for tv, when there seems to be ample for broadband services?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

That was what I initially thought but after reading a couple of posts on here, I could be wrong (and I probably am!) but it seems that the channel is still broadcasting across the ntl network with the promo's etc at night but the set top box itself puts the black screen and caption up (presumably after receiving a signal)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

look i dont care all i want is to get rid of this horid pink

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

...as do we all.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

huh? is this a symptom of drunk in the middle of the night and turn the computer on syndrome? :D

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Aye that'd be nice... I think it used to be blue once before... WHY did they think "oh, changing it to a pink colour would be a good idea".

I cant wait for blueness to return, hopefully our interactive will actually work this time around, and we wont have to wait 20mins before realising it aint gonna work and then reboot the box!

Are there any pics of what the new software will look like yet?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I wonder if this is the upgrade my STB received today, as NTL don`t seem to want to make it easy to find out what the upgrade I got was. There was a button on the screen for me to select if I wanted to find out what the upgrade featured, clicking it takes you to a screen saying that channel is no longer broadcasting, and the channel that it then tells you to go to is just showing infomercials. Wonderful NTL logic.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Reading is on the Langley platform, so you won't have received this particular update. You've got an update to the software that enables VoD on your box - although this doesn't necessarily mean that VoD is coming to the area immediately. This software has some other improvements as well.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Thanks, at least someone knows, even if NTL don`t want to make it easy ;)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Received the mailshot for the upgrade in Portsmouth on Saturday, apparenlty will display a message when it's done......

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

So if I read this right ... (I live in Walthamstow ex-CWC ) i am looking at least until 2006 for this upgrade and even then I still wont get VOD ?

I have only been waiting for over 6 years now for NTL to finally bring ex cWC into line with the rest of NTL ( still no caller display on the phone ) .... so I guess my 10 mb broadband upgrade is a long time away too !

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Received a letter in Watford on Saturday, any idea what dates the rollout is planned for?

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People in Leeds and Wessex franchises should receive the code if they leave their boxes in standby from today.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

are you on the Seven Kings headend?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I just got my letter this morning, it just says within the next month for us.
I just hope its not a month of sundays.;)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Got a letter about this in Peterborough last week

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Apparently we are (I'm in Waltham Forest too)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I hope that it goes as far as Salford ;)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Damn right and it screwed up too.
Box froze after update and constantly kept freezing at same point after ten second unplug. Rung up customer service and they said someone would be out tomorow!
But this was in the middle of football so I decided to fiddle. I held power button on the pace box when I plugged NTL box in and then it said 'OKAY' on the LED and I had to put in a 4 digit code, this didn't work for first 4.
BUT THEN! I tried 1144 'ok' and it totally reset the box came up with some factory reset message and then re-downloaded the update and sky sports came back up!
I used all my luck guesssing this code so I didn't win my best though

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

It's quite possible for an update (any update) to kill the box, if the NVRAM hasn't been written to in a while. It's just the nature of electronics. I wouldn't cancel the engineer visit though - the box may well die properly in the not too distant future!

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Will start on the 5th of October in Watford

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That's probably what happened, don't think it had ever had an update... Oh well if it breaks again I'll just ring up - was well chuffed at guessing the code out of 9999 possibilities, before I started guessing I came on here but couldn't see anyone with the code to enter...
Again it's 1144.

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

What software is currently running in WATFORD is it still CR1 Bromley?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Thanks very much, is it for all STB's on Standby, reboot or forced?

Is it make and model specific, Pace STB's before Samsung etc?
__________________

Bromley CR3 - this download should be MR2 or does it include VOD?

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Ours was upgraded the day after we got our 'upgraded within a month' letter https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2005/10/16.gif

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Ive just gotten home from a LOOONG weekend away to find an "Upgraded Within The Month" leaflet by the telly, noone had bothered to reboot, after a quick power cycle i now have a nice flowing blue colour scheme interface which seems to work a lot nicer than the clunky garish horrible pink one. Yay!

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

I had my letter two weeks ago - and not yet upgraded...

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Oh when will we ever get the upgrade down here in sussex i am starting to get an irratonal hatred of the colour pink :disturbd:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

Channel 119 is now showing the upgrade info here in Manchester on the Baguley Headend. :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

sadly i moved out of manchester 11 years ago

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

i had to reboot our box to receive the upgrade, try that every so often

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i know we are going to have a long wait down on the east coast

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

How do you know this. Have inside information do you. ?

Do we have a bloke in the pub down south for DTV :)

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

i wish


more like a unheathy pessimistic outlook on life :mis:

Re: Bromley upgrade starting....
 

sorry I have no idea ? but seemingly we are ?? does that give us any idea when things are likely to happen ?