Quote:
Originally Posted by alwaysabear
Have you got a reference to fact that Virginmedia is running out of Capacity? It has been mentioned many times on this forum in the past, but I have never seen any proof
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I very much doubt that VM would provide this type of information.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
spiderplant has already told us that if more space is needed, more space will be provided.
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Of course, but this would require further investment. It has been calculated that VM only have enough space left to provide up to four HD channels (obviously more in SD).
They recently deleted the previously reserved space for UHD channels, presumably to accommodate the extra channels introduced over the weekend.
A few days ago a project that analysises the VM network found the current state of play to be one free slot on TSID 30, two free slots on 31 and one free slot on 35.
Enough space for a maximum of 4 additional HD services with the current configuration of 6 HD channels per transport stream.
I doubt that VM would want to incur expenditure when, assuming that they don't return, some or all of the space currently being used by the UKTV channels could be recycled in a little under three months.
My guess is that the current project to rid the network of SD only boxes is being done to enable them to switch off the SD channels where an HD duplicate exists, thus further freeing up capacity.
I also think that before paying for new equipment, VM would squeeze more channels into existing bandwidth. Would this affect the picture quality? Yes, but John Malone is particularly noted for swesting his tangible assets! To be fair, Sky have started doing this to cut costs and Freeview is particulaly shocking in this regard.
The British public, as noted by Ofcom, seem to be more interested in channel quantity than picture quality.