Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
The upper limit being they can only work with 115-860mhz. At 8mhz wide that allows for 92 downstream channels of which 24 are used by broadband.
Of the remaining 68 how many are being utilised? If not, why not?
Virgin have done work changing to 256QAM increasing the total bandwidth by 30% for TV. It can’t all be in use? Moving users to V6 from legacy boxes pushes “on demand” into the 24 broadband frequencies from the TV side.
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Yes, their plan seems to be getting round the problem by using their existing capacity more efficiently rather than paying to create extra.
What I can't understand is why some of the duplicate channels have their own streams instead of both EPG numbers pointing to one?? I'm wondering if VM are deliberately maxing out the system in order to test it out, so this duplicate channel arrangement is being used for this. Apparently, the system appears to be under strain and so, to help it cope, placeholders for pop up channels, long closed channels like The Africa Channel etc have been removed.
Moving the majority of HD channels from MPEG2 to MPEG4 was another way to use existing capacity more efficiently.
Contrary to what some think, i'm not being alarmist, i'm simply pointing out the current position. But is it really that bad that there is only space for four more HD channels (more if SD)? AFAIK we are only missing Sky Atlantic HD, Disney HD and AMC HD as extra channels, with the remaining ones like LFC TV HD taking less space because the SD version will be closed. The remaining SD channels that VM might get are MTV Classics and perhaps some more music channels or football club channels.
So, even at current configuration, most of the few outstanding channels could still be accommodated (reserved space that VM have made for UHD channels is included in the calculations).
When the SD boxes are no longer in use and the SD variants can be switched off, this will free up more space if VM wanted to add the odd missing channel too.
So, my understanding of the situation is, is VM nearing capacity- yes. Does it really matter- no.
NB there are some frequencies that VM won't use because of noise on parts of the network and they won't want to start adding channels to some areas and not others.