NTL "This Channel Is Not Broadcasting" Slide show broken

dannyboi2003 · 07-03-2005, 11:04

Hi Guys,

I'm in the Swansea area and I have got all the TV's in my house linked up to the spare NTL point behind my TV so we can get a crystal clear picture, before anyone jumps in saying I cant do that due to line noise etc. then dont panic as a frind of mine is an NTL engineer and he made me up the co-ax cable and gave me a filter thingy which he said would be ok. I have tuned in my TV'S ro recieve 1-5 but have also picked up loads of other channels, one of them being E4. Well I was cruising the channels this morning while having breakfast and one of the channels wasnt broadcasting and had the usual purple "This channel is not broadcasting" slide show on it, but the slide show wasnt working and smack bang in the middle of the screen was a MS Windows system error, it said something like "file access denied". I just wondered if anyone else saw it as it made me laugh, no wonder NTL's services are a bit dodgy most of the time if they rely on MS Windows to run their network.

All the best
Dan

russellelly · 07-03-2005, 14:44

I've seen that a fair few times in Glasgow over the years!

Dee V. Bee · 09-03-2005, 13:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by dannyboi2003

I just wondered if anyone else saw it as it made me laugh, no wonder NTL's services are a bit dodgy most of the time if they rely on MS Windows to run their network.

Or more likely using a PC has a cheap character generator with a graphics card that has video out.

This is quite common as a pro character generator or stills store can cost a fortune.

A lot of broadcast kit is now based on a Windows from end. Companies like Quantel which in the past used dedicated hardware/software. Now use Windows 2000 (and lots of custom hardware) in its new range generationQ products. Only the video servers are custom made.

09-03-2005, 13:11

our 'local channel' is left with a continuous loop running on a PC, over the weekends, as it sometimes gets a BSOD which lasts until someone can get into the studio to sort it out

nate · 09-03-2005, 14:42

most of these dodgy channels (the dating channel, reality, and stuff like that) are run on dodgy PC's with tv-out, probably what that was.

You can often see them moving the mouse around the screen, opening videos files etc. then it launches into the programme :P