Freeview and Cable

[chambece]

Originally Posted by altis

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.

Now I'm sure your knowledge on this is far greater than mine, so don't fire me down.... but.....

Yeah, but that's what I mean, surely NTL can't do that, as there'd be too may channel to broadcast in the range 21-68, what when you include the radio channels too....

But surely the DTT signal(s) is/are broadcast on freqs in that range - I don't know, say one RF frequency for each mux or however it works...

Wouldn't that be sent down just like the 'normal' RF frequencies?

[bob_builder]

Originally Posted by chambece

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....

The STB does not output the "other" channels it simply passes them through and mixes in the decoded digital channel.

The "other" channels will either come from a standard ariel (in the case of newer boxes) on their broadcast frequencies or from the cable itself on different frequences. In the case of newer boxes the DTT channels will also be passed through the STB.

The reason that the DTT channels are not also broadcast down the cable is that the bandwidth is reserved for the digital cable channels.

[altis]

It appears that the BBC's digital-only channels (as on Freeview) may yet appear on analogue cable too. Read the letters at the foot of this page (start at the very bottom):
http://www.culture.gov.uk/broadcasting/bbc.htm#latest

What a good idea. I'm impressed

[asdf]

However with your send all the channels unencrypted down the cable idea you'd be doing exactly what we don't want?

Adding extra analogue channels! ntl want to get rid of the analogue channels as they take up something like 10 times the bandwidth of a digital channel. Once analogue is removed there is space for hundreds of new digital channels. etc.

I think?