HD from relay stations

"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
From what I can recall of channel viewing figures posted here quite a
while back I think it's very possible, but if you dispute it, why not
try and find some up to date figures?

Well the figures as they are collected are he

http://www.barb.co.uk/report/monthlyViewing?_s=4

But as I have said they prove nothing at all wrt this question.

The e.g figures for ITV3 of 35 minutes per week average, could be

100% of the population watching ITV3 for 35 minutes.

or 1% of the population watching ITV3 for 58 hours per week

Or anything in between. There really is no clue at all.

tim

Java Jive wrote:
No. Before digitisation, the companies had to (I think, certainly NTL
around here did so) supply analogue access in the clear to the
standard five analogue channels, so why not the standard FTA muxes
after digitisation?

Because the infrastructure requires maintenance, and that costs. You wouldn't
expect to be able to use a BT phone line, free of rental, to make 0800 calls ?


--
Mark
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www.paras.org.uk

Java Jive wrote:
On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 21:02:36 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

Because the infrastructure requires maintenance, and that costs.
You wouldn't expect to be able to use a BT phone line, free of rental, to
make 0800 calls ?

If the FTA channels were to be relied on to recoup infrastructure
costs, there would be no foundation to their business model.

For the BBC their infrastructure costs are recouped from the licence fee,
for commercial TV from the advertising they carry, for subscription TV from
the subscriptions.

FTA channels carried on cable networks, have the extra infrastructure of that
network, someone has to pay. You can't expect the broadcasters to contribute
to paying those costs, it's the cable network's subscribers.

The cost
of the inftrastructure is recouped by subscription services.

I really see no reason why the same conditions as were applied to the
cable companies before digitisation should not be applied after.

The only cable networks I'm aware of that carried FTA services, 'free of
charge' were in areas where the local authority banned the use of aerials.
Instead they paid cable companies to provide core channels FOC, except they
weren't FOC, because who finances the local authority ? I'm not sure those
arrangements exist in many places now. Possibly Milton Keynes ?


--
Mark
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Mark Carver wrote:
Java Jive wrote:
No. Before digitisation, the companies had to (I think, certainly
NTL around here did so) supply analogue access in the clear to the
standard five analogue channels, so why not the standard FTA muxes
after digitisation?

Because the infrastructure requires maintenance, and that costs. You
wouldn't expect to be able to use a BT phone line, free of rental, to
make 0800 calls ?
You can make free 0800 calls with GiffGaff PAYG

Steve Terry
--
Get a free GiffGaff PAYG Sim and £5 bonus after activation at:
http://giffgaff.com/orders/affiliate/g4wwk

Java Jive wrote:

FTA channels carried on cable networks, have the extra infrastructure of that
network, someone has to pay.

AIUI, there'd be no or hardly any extra infrastructure involved. Just
don't encrypt those channels that are availalble on Freeview!

OK, so imagine this scenario. I move into a house that has a cable feed, how
do I decode the DVB-C signals without a DVB-C box ? Or if you're suggesting
the channels are in DVB-T format on UHF, (which I'm not sure they can/will
be), then fine. However, what happens when someone sticks a spade through the
cable running to my house ? I ring the cable company, and say, 'I'm not a
subscriber of yours, but can you still come and fix the cable please ?'.

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

www.paras.org.uk

Mark Carver wrote:
Java Jive wrote:

FTA channels carried on cable networks, have the extra infrastructure
of that network, someone has to pay.

AIUI, there'd be no or hardly any extra infrastructure involved. Just
don't encrypt those channels that are availalble on Freeview!

OK, so imagine this scenario. I move into a house that has a cable feed,
how do I decode the DVB-C signals without a DVB-C box ? Or if you're
suggesting the channels are in DVB-T format on UHF, (which I'm not sure
they can/will be), then fine. However, what happens when someone sticks
a spade through the cable running to my house ? I ring the cable
company, and say, 'I'm not a subscriber of yours, but can you still come
and fix the cable please ?'.

Local councils often make free carriage of the basic channels a
condition of access to their estates. They can't stop the cable co
digging the street up but they can stop then crossing the gardens and
drilling holes in the houses.

Bill

Java Jive wrote:
On Tue, 08 Feb 2011 07:21:05 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

Java Jive wrote:

FTA channels carried on cable networks, have the extra infrastructure of that
network, someone has to pay.
AIUI, there'd be no or hardly any extra infrastructure involved. Just
don't encrypt those channels that are availalble on Freeview!
OK, so imagine this scenario. I move into a house that has a cable feed, how
do I decode the DVB-C signals without a DVB-C box ?

Get a Dreambox with a cable tuner.

You might do that, I might do that, some in this group might do that, but none
of the millions Currys Digital/Argos shopping general public wouldn't even
know they could do that, let alone, do it, and why would they go to that
expense and complexity ! So it wouldn't be worth all the fuss to make
provision for.

However, what happens when someone sticks a spade through the
cable running to my house ? I ring the cable company, and say, 'I'm not a
subscriber of yours, but can you still come and fix the cable please ?'.

In that scenario, the householder is no longer connected to the cable
network, so he can hardly expect to receive cable channels. He, then
has to decide whether to pay the cable company to fix the fault,
whether to pay the cable company's minimum subscription for a minimum
period in order to get the fault fixed at no extra charge as a
subscriber, or to adopt another means of reception. Of course, the
cable company may find that the damage actually affects the running of
their network in the area, so may fix the fault anyway, or they may
just disconnect that house as the householder is not a subscriber.

Cable cos, are only interested to in doing one thing, making money. Allowing
'free' access to their networks won't make them any money. As far as Ofcom are
concerned, the primary delivery platform for FTA TV is DTT, they don't
consider D-Sat in the same way (they stood back with their arms folded in
2003, when the BBC and C4 stopped issuing FOC Sky FTV cards), so cable (aka
Virgin Media) isn't even on their radar. You could write to them, see what
they say. Tell you what though, take a look at the picture I posted in the
'Virgin Media Class Act' thread, I wouldn't touch that bunch of cheapskate
cowboys with a barge pole.

TV, Internet, and phoneline supplied via that shambles ? Ha !


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

www.paras.org.uk

Java Jive wrote:

In that scenario, the householder is no longer connected to the cable
network, so he can hardly expect to receive cable channels. He, then
has to decide whether to pay the cable company to fix the fault,
whether to pay the cable company's minimum subscription for a minimum
period in order to get the fault fixed at no extra charge as a
subscriber, or to adopt another means of reception. Of course, the
cable company may find that the damage actually affects the running of
their network in the area, so may fix the fault anyway, or they may
just disconnect that house as the householder is not a subscriber.

In cases where the cable co has had to get council permission to cover
the estate they have to fix faults even if said faults don't affect
paying customers.

Likewise, some of our council-owned distribution systems serve private
houses, since many council houses have been sold off over the years.
It's in the deeds that the owner has to provide reasonable access for
maintenance, whilst they get free use of the TV system and in many cases
aren't charged ground rent for the upkeep of communal outdoor areas.

Years ago we had to link a very low-lying bungalow estate to an aerial
on a tall ex-council building that was now a private house. The owner
was absolutely fine about it and let us put an aerial and cabinet on his
roof (this was where I got nearly deafened by the bell in the bell
tower, but that's another story), but the guy who owned a garden between
the tall building and the bungys wouldn't let us put an overhead cable
above his land. So we got planning perm for two telegraph poles at the
bottom left and bottom right of his plot and ran the cable via the two
poles, just skirting his land. It looked 'orrible. It stayed like that
for twenty years then one day we got a call and someone had climbed on a
bungalow roof and pulled down a lot of the cable. We replaced it, then
in 2007 the bungalows were demolished to make way for a private nursing
home. Thing was, they started the demo job at the top of the hill while
there were still people living in the bottom two rows. We had to do
temporary Freesat jobs for them.

Bill

"Java Jive" wrote in message
...
So you go by the most useful figure available which is Share of Total
Viewing, which adding together ITV3 plus ITV3+1 is about 2.5%. That's
a minority channel, no argument.

I know it's a minority channel.

My point is that "share of total viewing" says absolutely nothing about what
percentage of the population watch the channel each week.

It says: of the 30 hours (average) per week that every single person in the
UK spends watching TV, an average of 2% of that 30 hours (of every single
person in the UK), or 35 minutes, is spent watching ITV3.

The numbers watching ITV3 could be 1% of the population or 100% of the
population and you could still get a 2% (average) share of total.

tim

"Mark Carver" wrote in message
...

Tell you what though, take a look at the picture I posted in the 'Virgin
Media Class Act' thread, I wouldn't touch that bunch of cheapskate cowboys
with a barge pole.

TV, Internet, and phoneline supplied via that shambles ? Ha !


Although.. I'm with Virgin and have been since the days of United Artists,
Cableinet and Blueyonder, I have their basic 10 meg broadband package (which
always tests out pretty close to that) the free cable package (which I
rarely use) and phone line, which I've had since day one and have to speak
as I find, any minor problems I've had over the years I could probably count
on the fingers of one hand and in case you think I've just been lucky, I
could probably think of at least a dozen people off of the top of my head,
who are also customers, who would say the same.