General : Coming Soon to Virgin TV (2019)

[Aguero9320]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

Based on that I'll make a guess. 7 of the Sony Pictures Television channels have +1 channels with that resolution. But VM don't have Pop Max so I won't count that +1.

So...
Movies4Men +1
True Crime +1

True Movies +1
Pop +1
Tiny Pop +1

I'm not including Sony Crime or Sony Movies +1s as they are higher resolution.

---------- Post added at 15:32 ---------- Previous post was at 15:11 ----------

Given I mistakenly added True Entertainment+1 above even though it's on VM already and Pop Max is higher resolution, I'll say the 6th is either Chart Show TV, if Sony Pictures Television UK still own it, or the completely nothing to do with Sony, but often requested, Keep It Country.


All these are complete guesses, but there aren't many obvious channels left to add.

Chart Show TV is now owned by Trace Music.

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by Aguero9320

Chart Show TV is now owned by Trace Music.

Thanks for confirmation. I saw conflicting information and vaguely remembered seeing a headline a while ago, so I decided to go for the one that had definitely owned them at some point.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

Well 711 was one of the recently moved BBC HD children's channels. The removal of those two channels leave a gap of 4 channel numbers.

Why mention this? Well, massively wild guess, POP, Tiny POP and their +1 versions, if added, make 4, so maybe POP and Tiny POP are about to be moved up the EPG and with their +1s fill in 708, 709, 710 and 711.

Obviously this doesn't explain your recording Richard, but it might explain reference to a no longer used channel number.

Well, it would be nice for us to get the bits and bats that are missing from the platform.

It does seem odd that the fairly recently launched Total Country decided (and could afford) to join VM, but the longer established (and, according to it's owner, hugely successful*) Keep It Country didn't appear. Perhaps their new competitor has prompted Keep It Country to join cable too??

* The channels owner has claimed that it gets more viewers than Sky Sports when a major match is on! Mind you, he also claimed that his channel was HD on Freeview, just because it had been added to one of the temporary HD muxes.

These temporary muxes are now slowly being closed and there won't be room for all the channels currently broadcasting on them. I suspect that the tiny amount of capacity available on Freeview will have shot up in price. If he can't find space or cannot afford to go onto a permanent mix, maybe he intends to replace his lost viewers with VM customers??

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

These temporary muxes are now slowly being closed and there won't be room for all the channels currently broadcasting on them. I suspect that the tiny amount of capacity available on Freeview will have shot up in price. If he can't find space or cannot afford to go onto a permanent mix, maybe he intends to replace his lost viewers with VM customers??

And then there's the future aim of Freeview being 5 main multiplexes rather than the current 6 (plus the 2 temporary multiplexes). Because of mobile broadband, etc, etc, blah, blah, reasons.

Though I recently did some rough workings out based on how the temporary multiplexes utilised their space with a mix of HD and SD in MPEG4 and reckon they'll get surprisingly close assuming all the SD channels with an HD version on Freeview get replaced with their HD version and +1s are deprioritised. But that's Freeview and this a Cable thread...so I won't go into it further.

[nodrogd]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Well, it would be nice for us to get the bits and bats that are missing from the platform.

It does seem odd that the fairly recently launched Total Country decided (and could afford) to join VM, but the longer established (and, according to it's owner, hugely successful*) Keep It Country didn't appear. Perhaps their new competitor has prompted Keep It Country to join cable too??

* The channels owner has claimed that it gets more viewers than Sky Sports when a major match is on! Mind you, he also claimed that his channel was HD on Freeview, just because it had been added to one of the temporary HD muxes.

These temporary muxes are now slowly being closed and there won't be room for all the channels currently broadcasting on them. I suspect that the tiny amount of capacity available on Freeview will have shot up in price. If he can't find space or cannot afford to go onto a permanent mix, maybe he intends to replace his lost viewers with VM customers??

Keep It Country has moved to Freeview COM4, but at the expence of losing their coverage in Wales. The proliferation of Scottish & Irish artists sponsoring (and presenting) the programmes is no doubt alleviating some of their costs. The channel is also heavily marketed in the Irish Republic. Total Country ignores this market concentrating on US & English based content.

Total Country has the same owner as Clubland TV
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Country

[Aguero9320]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

Was looking at DigitalBitRate and I see 6 "New" MPEG4 channels without names. They all have resolutions of 544x576 which is basically what a Freeview channel stream that has been crammed into a full multiplex looks like resolution-wise.

Maybe they are just load testing (though weird resolution to pick for that). Or Red Button type streams.

PID1117-1123 on multiplex C034 is what I'm referring to.

In other ponderings, notice the Project 1 and Project 2 below them. Mysterious.

Let the speculation, and maybe ultimate disappointment, begin!

I noticed that CBS Reality is airing on at least 2 streams and the Islam Channel is using 1 of them.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Aguero9320

I noticed that CBS Reality is airing on at least 2 streams and the Islam Channel is using 1 of them.

We already have these channels, maybe they are due to move frequency? Satellite usually dual illuminate channels changing transponder, not sure if VM do the same. They could also be dual illuminating with the SD channels being moved over to the more efficient MPEG4.

Alternatively, these feeds might be being used for testing purposes for channels that VM don't yet want people to know about. On satellite, feeds of channels for services that were never intended to join the EPG or duplicates of channels already on the EPG are sometimes used.

If this is the case, I wonder which channel VM want to keep quiet until an official announcement is made

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by Aguero9320

I noticed that CBS Reality is airing on at least 2 streams and the Islam Channel is using 1 of them.

Can't say I see what you are seeing. I just see CBS Reality once, the other one is the +1 channel. There is nothing else labeled CBS Reality on C066 or any other multiplex. Everything on C066 is MPEG2.

[Aguero9320]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

Can't say I see what you are seeing. I just see CBS Reality once, the other one is the +1 channel. There is nothing else labeled CBS Reality on C066 or any other multiplex. Everything on C066 is MPEG2.

My apologies. Thanks for clarifying.

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by Aguero9320

My apologies. Thanks for clarifying.

No worries. I'm no expert, I'm relatively new to the DigitalBitRate data and am still learning to interpret it. I could be wrong.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by Aguero9320

I noticed that CBS Reality is airing on at least 2 streams and the Islam Channel is using 1 of them.

We also seen Horror Channel and S4C on that so called new channels.

[cheekyangus]

Originally Posted by Media Boy

We also seen Horror Channel and S4C on that so called new channels.

All I see are Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1, and they are both MPEG2, so they would have been there for a while. I don't see a "New" indicator on them. What are you seeing that makes you say they are New?

The S4C situation is weird, 2 SD versions, 1 Audio Description version and one labelled "Old S4C". Then there are two HD versions which are labelled identically and look identical and are both on the same multiplex, so the only explanation I can think of is load testing. Oddly there is a similar HD duplication for the new BBC Scotland Channel.

I'm guessing S4C has went HD only on VM, except for the AD channel, so I'm guessing it's just that the SD version is still on the network but hidden and relabelled as Old. The recently HD swapped Premier Sports 2 is still there in SD form so it's probably just how VM do things.

[Media Boy UK]

Project 1 and Project 2 has been testing on that stream since last summer (Broadcasting Pick and Challenge). They was said at the time to be testing for the launch of Eleven Sports 1 and Eleven Sports 2.

But Eleven Sports 1 and Eleven Sports 2 was remove from testing an week later.

---------- Post added at 17:10 ---------- Previous post was at 16:49 ----------

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

All I see are Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1, and they are both MPEG2, so they would have been there for a while. I don't see a "New" indicator on them.

-CBS Reality
-horror channel
-horror channel +1
-CBS Reality +1
-Islam Channel English
-S4C Audio Desc.

Look Virgin Media are set to move to the new stream and broadcasting in MPEG4.

http://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.ph...ng=en&mux=C066

[nodrogd]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

All I see are Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1, and they are both MPEG2, so they would have been there for a while. I don't see a "New" indicator on them. What are you seeing that makes you say they are New?

The S4C situation is weird, 2 SD versions, 1 Audio Description version and one labelled "Old S4C". Then there are two HD versions which are labelled identically and look identical and are both on the same multiplex, so the only explanation I can think of is load testing. Oddly there is a similar HD duplication for the new BBC Scotland Channel.

I'm guessing S4C has went HD only on VM, except for the AD channel, so I'm guessing it's just that the SD version is still on the network but hidden and relabelled as Old. The recently HD swapped Premier Sports 2 is still there in SD form so it's probably just how VM do things.

Don’t know if it is still the case, but the BBC used to block some sports programmes with rights issues from being viewed outside Scotland. The existence of 2 BBC Scotland versions, one intended for Scotland & the other for elsewhere would therefore make sense.

S4C also shows a lot of Welsh commentary sports that another channel may have rights to.

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by cheekyangus

All I see are Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1, and they are both MPEG2, so they would have been there for a while. I don't see a "New" indicator on them. What are you seeing that makes you say they are New?

The S4C situation is weird, 2 SD versions, 1 Audio Description version and one labelled "Old S4C". Then there are two HD versions which are labelled identically and look identical and are both on the same multiplex, so the only explanation I can think of is load testing. Oddly there is a similar HD duplication for the new BBC Scotland Channel.

I'm guessing S4C has went HD only on VM, except for the AD channel, so I'm guessing it's just that the SD version is still on the network but hidden and relabelled as Old. The recently HD swapped Premier Sports 2 is still there in SD form so it's probably just how VM do things.

The old SD versions will have to be kept there so that customers can view anything that they recorded in SD. This used to be for three months, but alately they seem to have extended this to twelve months.

Btw, I wonder why they use the french term 'Sans Nom' for 'No name' or 'anonymous' in these tables??