General : Coming Soon to Virgin Media TV (2016) Vol 2

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by theone2k10

New rumour and source to us VM are in talks with Netflix to offer Netflix original content on vm on demand.
Not sure if this is true or not but in the USA and a few other countries Netflix original content is on other services for example el rey show from dusk til dawn the series.
We will keep you all updated with any further info we find out but we think it's a 10% chance of happening.

I think you may find it actually launched on El Rey , in other countries it was marketed as a Netflix Original.

[theone2k10]

Originally Posted by muppetman11

I think you may find it actually launched on El Rey , in other countries it was marketed as a Netflix Original.

Thanks for info yeah netflix do same with Scream it launched on MTV in USA but in uk it's marketed as Netflix original.
Maybe that's the route vm are going down?
I'm going to ask my source to dig into this a bit.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by theone2k10

New rumour and source to us VM are in talks with Netflix to offer Netflix original content on vm on demand.
Not sure if this is true or not but in the USA and a few other countries Netflix original content is on other services for example el rey show from dusk til dawn the series.
We will keep you all updated with any further info we find out but we think it's a 10% chance of happening.

Not good odds mate...

[denphone]

l would say the chances are nil pure and simple.....

[theone2k10]

Originally Posted by denphone

l would say the chances are nil pure and simple.....

Really and what grounds are these chances based on?
Netflix have already done a deal with Canadian network City to air Netflix original between so who knows? money talks, actually this is vm we're talking about so yeah i can see what you mean.

Originally Posted by Media Boy

-Virgin Media UK will launch Arabic Hafla soon on Virgin UK Channel TBC.
-Virgin Media UK will launch Fox News Channel soon on Virgin UK Channel TBC.
-Virgin Media UK will launch NDTV India soon on Virgin UK Channel TBC.
-Virgin Media UK will launch NDTV Spice soon on Virgin UK Channel TBC.

When spiderplant commented earlier in the month that much of what gets called "testing" on this forum actually isn't, I linked to a website showing all services on all of VMs transport streams in a certain region. I was quite surprised that none of the above were listed in any of the recent scans. Although I don't have any equipment to check for myself, I know an SDR hobbyist and asked if he could figure out what is happening. He wasn't interested enough to obtain the drivers but knew someone who would have suitable equipment.

As spiderplant suggested, there are many services in the service description table which are hidden from the EPG, including every regional variation of BBC, ITV & C4, every local tv station carried by VM, listings for "channel moved" placeholders that at have long since been removed, and many others.

Arabic Hafla, Fox News Channel, NDTV India and NDTV Spice all fall into that category. They are all listed in the service description table and each has EPG data associated with it. None of the services were carried on any of the transport streams, so the conclusion has to be that they are certainly not testing across the entire VM network.

He suggested that they may have been added in preparation for future channels, or that they may have tested in the past and subsequently been removed. The number of "Channel moved" entries seems to suggest that VM doesn't necessarily remove the service description entries when the "service" is removed. No reason why they should as this isn't visible to the customer under normal circumstances. The final possibility being that the services are being tested on an isolated segment of the network, available only to VM staff, but if that was the case, why add the service descriptions globally?

Arabic Hafla: this service is listed as being on transport stream TSid 44 with a service id of 4412. There was no service id 4412 active on TSid 44.

Interesting that the EPG data refers to this as a TIVO service, other services on that transport stream are TIVO related services such as Netflix, Worldbox, Vevo etc. So it may eventually show up as an Arabic version of Worldbox.

Tsid 1 lists various "tiers", "Spanish Tier", "Portuguese Tier", "French Tier" and "Polish Tier". Definitely not new channels but presumably associated with the new Worldbox apps such as Spanish Viva and Portuguese Coleta, which VM don't seem to be giving much publicity. Maybe an indication that French & Polish Worldbox apps may be "coming soon to Virgin Media". Alas, nothing in there for an "Arabic Tier" that could be linked to Arabic Hafla.

NDTV India and NDTV Spice are listed as being services 1031 and 1032 on TSid 10. Again, these services are not actually running on TSid 10.

Fox News Channel is listed as being on TSid 20 with a service id of 2015. As with the above services, there was no service id 2015 present on TSid 20.

Quite disappointing overall to discover that these "tests" are just entries made in service description tables with no active services actually "testing" across the network.

So are there any tests taking place?

Other than the possible indication of future apps and the BBC Olympic channels, not really, not new channels at least. He discovered some additional transport streams on frequencies above the regular channels. These were labelled "Freq Test" and clearly there to test the frequency range rather than test new channels. The service description tables also listed other services on transport streams which were not actually active. TSid 389 listed as carrying various test streams labelled Test 1 to Test 12 and TSid 399 listed as carrying 2 services: Top Left 4KTV test and Bot Left 4KTV test - he said there were no services listed as carrying Top Right or Bot Right.

I won't speculate about that last one but I daresay that there won't be a flood of 1/4 screen UHD TV channels coming soon to VM.

That's about it, he said that examining the network information table might reveal more but with the hundreds of entries in there, he wasn't inclined to spend vast amounts of time trying to unravel it. On the whole, he said that cable tv is of little interest to the hobbyist. Most of what is carried on VM is encrypted and there is generally a much wider choice of FTA channels available on Freeview and satellite, so no incentive for anyone to explore DVB-C in this country.

[blue666666]

Thank for info jj20x

[denphone]

Originally Posted by theone2k10

Really and what grounds are these chances based on?
Netflix have already done a deal with Canadian network City to air Netflix original between so who knows? money talks, actually this is vm we're talking about so yeah i can see what you mean.

Come on us Virgin customers have to be realistic old chap.

[The Yank]

Originally Posted by theone2k10

New rumour and source to us VM are in talks with Netflix to offer Netflix original content on vm on demand.
Not sure if this is true or not but in the USA and a few other countries Netflix original content is on other services for example el rey show from dusk til dawn the series.
We will keep you all updated with any further info we find out but we think it's a 10% chance of happening.

It is not something I have watched (yet) so I don't know how many series there have been but Netflix USA has series 1 + 2 on it plus 3 movies of it I think I saw listed.

[theone2k10]

Originally Posted by The Yank

It is not something I have watched (yet) so I don't know how many series there have been but Netflix USA has series 1 + 2 on it plus 3 movies of it I think I saw listed.

2 seasons plus 3 movies the 3rd movie is awful lol, 3rd season airs this year i el rey and netflix i think.
It's not a bad show i really hope my source is correct that vm are in talks with netflix as it will be a nice treat for VM customers.

---------- Post added at 12:02 ---------- Previous post was at 12:00 ----------

Originally Posted by denphone

Come on us Virgin customers have to be realistic old chap.

I know that feeling my friend after being with BT but the nightmare is over thanks to BTs price rises although sse who i'm with now have no tv yet.
As i said though i hope vm and netflix do work together it'll be a nice treat for you guys on vm.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by theone2k10

Really and what grounds are these chances based on?
Netflix have already done a deal with Canadian network City to air Netflix original between so who knows? money talks, actually this is vm we're talking about so yeah i can see what you mean.

It's not a case of broadcasters showing Netflix originals , it's the broadcaster in question commissions and shows the content in their home country whilst Netflix jumps in co-producing and distributes in every other region across its global footprint.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by jj20x

That's about it, he said that examining the network information table might reveal more but with the hundreds of entries in there, he wasn't inclined to spend vast amounts of time trying to unravel it. On the whole, he said that cable tv is of little interest to the hobbyist. Most of what is carried on VM is encrypted and there is generally a much wider choice of FTA channels available on Freeview and satellite, so no incentive for anyone to explore DVB-C in this country.

Plus, it wouldn't tell you whether a channel was going to launch or not anyway as cable is a closed off system, unlike satellite.

Satellite capacity costs money, so if someone wants to launch a channel on satellite they either have to do a deal with Sky, or with the satellite operator Astra. So when a test appears, knowing that this costs money to lease capacity, it is likely something will happen and a channel will launch.

But VM's cable system is their own. They could privately have every satellite channel on the cable system "testing", that wouldn't make any difference to cost as they're not renting capacity from anyone, its their's already.

The costs to VM come when they increase capacity and that last happened in 2010 when the amount of streams increased from around 36 to 48. Mediaboy has said new streams are testing in his area, but I have not seen them in my area yet.

Many of the tests are done when these new streams are created to check that they are working properly so that when and if VM want to launch new services, they can do so immediately, ie like when BT Sports channels launched. They just appeared.

When VM want to launch something, they will, and I doubt there will be many tests or anything to warn us about this before hand.

Analogue cable was more fun!

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Plus, it wouldn't tell you whether a channel was going to launch or not anyway as cable is a closed off system, unlike satellite.

Satellite capacity costs money, so if someone wants to launch a channel on satellite they either have to do a deal with Sky, or with the satellite operator Astra. So when a test appears, knowing that this costs money to lease capacity, it is likely something will happen and a channel will launch.

But VM's cable system is their own. They could privately have every satellite channel on the cable system "testing", that wouldn't make any difference to cost as they're not renting capacity from anyone, its their's already.

The costs to VM come when they increase capacity and that last happened in 2010 when the amount of streams increased from around 36 to 48. Mediaboy has said new streams are testing in his area, but I have not seen them in my area yet.

Many of the tests are done when these new streams are created to check that they are working properly so that when and if VM want to launch new services, they can do so immediately, ie like when BT Sports channels launched. They just appeared.

When VM want to launch something, they will, and I doubt there will be many tests or anything to warn us about this before hand.

Analogue cable was more fun!

Never had analogue cable, did they test channels prior to launch in full view of the public?

[Horizon]

...not in full view, no, but there were ways and means. These days, only VM staff would be able to see real tests on specially modified boxes. Everything else is just "noise".

Originally Posted by Horizon

Plus, it wouldn't tell you whether a channel was going to launch or not anyway as cable is a closed off system, unlike satellite.

True, but I don't think he was really concerned about possible launches, more about what additional FTA services cable has. SDR enthusiasts are generally more interested in unusual services they can use than rather than basic tv services they can't use. He did point out that a local tv channel was "present" and encrypted. It isn't available on Tivo, so presumably this is only made available at specific local hubs and not to all properties served by the regional headend. Perhaps a little over-restrictive for a channel available to everyone over the internet.

But VM's cable system is their own. They could privately have every satellite channel on the cable system "testing", that wouldn't make any difference to cost as they're not renting capacity from anyone, its their's already.

But if they are running infrastructure and not renting it out to anyone, there would be operating costs. Having said that, the digitalbitrate scans indicate that TSid 44 had reserved capacity for additional BBC RB services off the EPG.

The costs to VM come when they increase capacity and that last happened in 2010 when the amount of streams increased from around 36 to 48. Mediaboy has said new streams are testing in his area, but I have not seen them in my area yet.

Indeed, locally Tivo claims there are 52 transport streams. Ok, there's 45 transport streams carrying national channels (TSids 1-45) and 3 carrying regional services (TSids 101, 102 & 104), 4 used to deliver VOD and a further 4 carrying frequency tests. That's 56 in total, presumably Tivo ignores the frequency tests.

I'd be interested to see confirmation of what is actually testing with actual video/audio streams present in the transport streams in mediaboy's area. If the "tests" are just service descriptions picked up by scanning for cable channels on a basic tv with a cable tuner, they aren't necessarily real tests. I would say that a service description not linked to an actual service doesn't qualify as a test, although it could still be an indication of a service "coming soon".

You raise a point about services testing in certain areas. I thought that NGTV was supposed to bring a uniform delivery across the network. I don't see why different versions of the national transport streams (1-45) would be made available in different regions. All of these "tests" are on those transport streams.

Many of the tests are done when these new streams are created to check that they are working properly so that when and if VM want to launch new services, they can do so immediately, ie like when BT Sports channels launched. They just appeared.

BT Sport channels share capacity with pre-existing channels on various transport streams, so it's a given that the transport streams are working. If the feeds arriving at the central headend and the EPG data is correct, substantial testing shouldn't be required and new services should be able to be added quickly. Sure, there are still procedures to follow and tests to be done but it shouldn't take months.

TSid 22 and 23 seem to be held in reserve for new services and have recently populated with BBC Olympics HD channels. The service description tables have entries for "hidden 22" and "hidden 23", so these transport streams presumably go dormant when not in use. Similarly there is a "hidden 103" in the service description tables, so presumably a dormant TSid 103. I'm not quite sure how much demand there is likely to be for a pop-up regional transport stream.

When VM want to launch something, they will, and I doubt there will be many tests or anything to warn us about this before hand.

Unless they are BBC channels and the BBC Blog warns everyone long before VM does.

Analogue cable was more fun!

Although it didn't have the capacity to satisfy the current level of demand for "more channels".