Freeview and Cable

[SMHarman]

Originally Posted by bob_builder

Note that Argos explicity exclude Freeview boxes from the 16 day deal!

But you could buy a new one from Comet and return that to Argos?

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by towny

Why develop one system when you can have three? Heaven forbid that consumers might want to buy one set-top-box and then switch between satellite, cable and terrestrial as their needs, and the market, changes. This way, to switch, they must buy a new STB each time, or sign up with a broadcaster who will give them a 'free' STB in return for a minimum-term contract, and in the case of Sky also on condition that you connect the blasted thing to your phone line so it can run up your bill whenever it likes, without your permission. The winners here are the broadcasters, who have a way to lock you in to their services, and the manufacturers of the STBs, who get to sell more of them.

Unless you tell a Sky box to connect it only ever connects via a freephone number.

[handyman]

Originally Posted by ianathuth

Unless you tell a Sky box to connect it only ever connects via a freephone number.

Not true i'm afraid

I have seen various issues where sky stbs tend to send a redial type code every 9 mins (of course this is a 4.9p connection charge each time)

They can also ring trip and diall basic numbers such as 123,112 etc

123 racks up hella bills if it chooses this.

Simple solution found by myself working with sky tech support is a smart card swap out. In many cases techs are dispatched out by ntl needlessly as some of the faults persons did not bother to read the memo sent out by management regarding this (copied from my findings).

mark

Originally Posted by Proppinupthebar

Or could it be due to the transmission medium in each case ? Not really thought it through have you? A satellite signal has to travel approx 23500Miles to the satellite and then 23500 miles back to earth. Theres a lot of interference in the atmosphere and the signals involved aren't particularly high powered. With the noisy enviroment the transmission method is kept simple. A dish is required to focus the weak signals. QPSK modulation is simple and hence simple to recieve and decode.
DTT using rooftop or indoor aerials has to cope with lots of echos which cause ghosting in the analogue enviroment, hence they use a method which can cope with echoes (reflected signals). COFDM, is thought the best method.
Cable is a relatively noise free enviroment, when terminated properly it doesn't suffer from reflections. Therefore it can use a relatively complicated modulation method (QAM), without the 'echo cancellation' capabilities of COFDM.

So your comments about it being pure greed on the part of broadcasters/manufacturers are cr*p.

Woah, slooow down ... there's no need to get aggressive about it, we're only talking about set top boxes.

I bow entirely to your knowledge of the technical side of this, I know you work in the industry. But all that aside, are you saying it is not possible for a box to be made that would work with all three? Or that one modulation method could never work perfectly adequately for all three?

I'm afraid that when big corporations with big sales and marketing departments get involved with technology, the outcome is certainly not guaranteed to be in the best interests of the customer. Just look at the ridiculous format war now going on over the various kinds of DVD and CD, or the old VHS/Betamax war, or the way the world ended up with three different colour TV systems. I have no doubt that the various manufacturers can all advance arguments in favour of their own product.

Originally Posted by towny

...or the way the world ended up with three different colour TV systems...

...even more when you consider the PAL variants (pos/neg vision modulation, AM/FM sound modulation, different sound offset frequencies etc.)

Originally Posted by towny

are you saying it is not possible for a box to be made that would work with all three? Or that one modulation method could never work perfectly adequately for all three?

I'm afraid that when big corporations with big sales and marketing departments get involved with technology, the outcome is certainly not guaranteed to be in the best interests of the customer. Just look at the ridiculous format war now going on over the various kinds of DVD and CD, or the old VHS/Betamax war, or the way the world ended up with three different colour TV systems. I have no doubt that the various manufacturers can all advance arguments in favour of their own product.

Yeah sorry mate. A slight attack of Fosters induced overreaction!!! ;-)

But yes thats exactly what I'm saying. The three modulation methods are required as the mediums the signals have to travel through are different.
They could produce a single box which could handle all three types of signal, but it would effectively require three demodulators and hence would be more expensive than any of the stb's available now. I have test equipment which can handle the different signal formats, but we are talking 15 or so grand a time.
The different transmission methods werent decided upon by manufacturers, it was the DVB. Thats why the three methods are known as DVB-C, DVB-S and DVB-T. The american ATSC Digital standard again uses different methods to us.
The different colour systems were'nt decided by manufacturers either, ultimately its the governments that decide what will be the standard.
The VCR/CD/DVD standards are more of a manufacturer battle as the accepted standard then needs to be licensed for other companies to use.

Originally Posted by XFS03

...even more when you consider the PAL variants (pos/neg vision modulation, AM/FM sound modulation, different sound offset frequencies etc.)

Theres only two standards as far as I'm concerned and then something the french did just to annoy people!

Negative video modulation is done because humans are more perceptive to noise on a dark scene than they are to noise on a light scene. A dark scene with negative modulation has a higher signal amplitude and so noise has a lessened impact. Hope that makes sense, I haven't described it very well!

Originally Posted by Proppinupthebar

Theres only two standards as far as I'm concerned and then something the french did just to annoy people!

Negative video modulation is done because humans are more perceptive to noise on a dark scene than they are to noise on a light scene. A dark scene with negative modulation has a higher signal amplitude and so noise has a lessened impact. Hope that makes sense, I haven't described it very well!

Yep...I understand the reasons for negative video modulation, but the point I was trying to make is that even "standards" can be incompatable.

The PAL "standard" has different variants. A typical British TV would not work properly in (say) Germany, even though both countries use the PAL system, since the UK uses PAL I and Germany uses PAL B,G.

I think even NTSC & SECAM have variants too, although not as many as PAL.

As for the French, I believe they insisted on being different to try & protect their domestic TV manufacturing industries. I wonder if it worked?

Originally Posted by XFS03

Yep...I understand the reasons for negative video modulation, but the point I was trying to make is that even "standards" can be incompatable.

The PAL "standard" has different variants. A typical British TV would not work properly in (say) Germany, even though both countries use the PAL system, since the UK uses PAL I and Germany uses PAL B,G.

I think even NTSC & SECAM have variants too, although not as many as PAL.

As for the French, I believe they insisted on being different to try & protect their domestic TV manufacturing industries. I wonder if it worked?

I think the main differences in the variations on PAL are the mono sound carrier frequency, you will get pictures but no sound!

I have heard that not many if any companies make any SECAM equipment for studio/editting so the processing is mainly PAL and then the output is converted for transmission. Not sure if thats true tho!!

Some more useless information,

NTSC Canada, U.S.A, Mexico, Peru, Japan
PAL U.K., Germany(W), Spain, Italy, India, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China
M-PAL Brazil
N-PAL Argentina, U.K., Germany(W), Spain, Italy, India, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, China
SECAM France (Well come on they have to be different)
MESECAM Germany(E), Greece, Russia, Egypt, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

For years when making internal communications videos to send to staff at our hotels round the world, we dilligently produced tapes in either PAL, PAL-M, PAL-N, SECAM, SECAM-V and NTSC (I'm told this stands for Not The Same Colour ). Only recently, when we switched to a different Video production company, did they tell us that it's not necessary to produce VHS tapes in any of the variants. Apparently the variations in the standards only become important when you're working with broadcast quality material. We decided to go with it (and save a fortune) and produce our tapes in the three basic standards. We had no complaints.

[altis]

There's a description of world analogue TV standards here and a list of countries and which standard they use here.

Let me run this one up the flagpole. I'm sure it will get shot at from all sides but here goes.

Say NTL were to charge all their cable customers perhaps £3.50 per month as line rental. In return they would supply all the Freeview TV and radio channels in an unencrypted analogue format (TV on UHF channel 21 to 68 and radio on VHF 88 to 108 MHz) so that they can be received on the customer's own equipment.

This would generate a lot of revenue for NTL. Customers could get the Freeview channels without buying a Freeview box. It could be a halfway-house for migrating existing analogue cable customers to digital. It would be ideal for customers with a poor terrestrial service. With an analogue pass-thru or splitter, customers with VCRs or multiple TV sets would be able to access many channels simulataneously. There are a few cons but I'm sure you'll spot them for yourself and no doubt post them too.

Yes, I know it's not the latest technology but, with digital TV is in such a state of flux, it would provide a good service for the customer with little outlay from NTL. As many customers have already found out, NTL already provide such a service for channels 1..5 plus a few others. All my suggestion would do is legitamise and enhance this service.

I think it's a great idea m8, which is precisely why NTL will never do it.

I've been saying this for ages as it would also let NTL make more money. Lets face it some of those customers just might go for higher packages after awhile and stay on them. Other's might just stay on them for abit but go back again. NTL would have those people though. Its a good simple idea but like towny has already say it will never happen. NTL dont work that way, which is why their in debt and staying in debt

[chambece]

Originally Posted by altis

Mmm, not quite sure if I follow all that

The DVB-C (digital cable) signal is decoded by the STB and is then transmitted through the RF output connector in a format that is identical to a plain old analogue terrestrial system. It doesn't generate a DVB-T (digital terrestrial) signal.

If you want to add this then you'll have to put up a terrestrial aerial and feed the signal into the RF input connector. The STB will combine the two before sending them to the RF output. However, the television at the receiving end will have to understand both analogue and terrestial digital - and I'm not sure that most systems will do this.

PS. I volunteer to edit the acronyms page on ntli.info

Sorry it's been a while since I posted but.....

I understand that the STB decodes the DVB-C singnal and then will o/p in RF through the ariel, or through the scart, and you can tune in to what ever RF frequency the STB is transmitting on. But in addition to this, I also (with out any other ariel in) get BBC1, 2, ITV, C4, C5 RF channels as well, on their standard broadcast freqs. Coincedenly the RF also shows a poor Sky Sports 2 Picture, even though we don't have that channel.

Now I don't know which RF Freq the DTT channels get broadcast at, but I was wondering if the STB would also output that....