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Originally Posted by ianathuth
One thing that doesn't appear to have been considered is whether the Sky Sports streams that Sky uses can be run on NTL. Presumably the streams contain instructions for the Sky digibox to take advantage of them which may render them unusable with NTLs software. If that is the case then would it be Sky or NTL that would have to modify the streams (if this is possible) to be able to make them available via NTL. Who would bear the cost of this if it is possible?
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Actually, the existing four Sky Sports channels are sent uncompressed along a cable from Sky HQ to Langley, where NTL encode and multiplex them themselves. This is done to ensure the best quality picture at the end. That's not to say that the other 8 channels would have to be done that way though. As they'd be used only once or twice a week, NTL could conceivably just take them off the satellite as they do with scores of other channels.
And no, the video is just standard DVB(-S, converted to DVB-C very easily). There would also be an interactive datastream for the Sky box, but this would just be ignored. Someone would need to write a Liberate version of it. On satellite, this is always the job of the broadcaster, so that's another cost that Sky would most likely be unwilling to meet.
What it comes down to is that it's perfectly possible to do, if Sky are willing to pay for it. And if you were a businessman, would you spend a lot of money for zero return, do your biggest rival a favour, and lose on of your own USPs?