Blank TV screens as cable firm ditches analogue

In article , Terry Casey
scribeth thus
hwh wrote:
Terry Casey wrote:
Apart from improved facilities and quality when the analogue STB is
replaced by a digital one, the customer will still get the same end
result!

I wonder why on earth you suppose that cable viewers will actually
benefit from a cable company using DVB-T as a source when moving from
analogue.


Because, no matter how well maintained the network, it is impossible to
distribute an analogue signal without introducing noise and distortion.
The picture retrieved from the digital signal will not suffer these
impairments.

Course not!, just throw away some bits ;..

Simple eh;?...

The headend source is immaterial.

Terry

--
Tony Sayer

On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 19:20:35 +0100, hwh wrote:

Ah, I see what you mean. The headed source should be analogue over
DVB-T, for as long as possible.

If that is the case, then the cable viewers will not get a widescreen
picture but only the 4:3/14:9 picture transmitted on analog.

Duncan Corps wrote:
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Duncanson wrote:

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:04:50 +0000, Duncan Corps

wrote:

if I was an affected resident and
customer then my objection would be "there's no (external) reason to
remove analogue broadcasts from cable in the first place, the Digital
Switchover certainly isn't one".

The crucial point about the Digital Switchover is that is an Analogue
Switchoff.


I see that.

But I thought the only thing the government/whoever was dictating was
Analogue Over Terrestrial Switchoff, and anything else (Analogue Over
Cable Switchoff, Analogue Over Satellite Switchoff) was entirely the
decision of the cable and satellite TV companies, driven by their
commercial desires.

Am I wrong?

Yes but the cable companies want to get rid of the analogue feeds for at
least two reasons.

1 To use the frequency space on the cables to put in more digital
channels that they can charge for.

2 They wouldn't want to have to install digital to analogue converters
and necessary analogue modulators when the analogue service disapears as
transmitted from existing masts.

3 They had to continue to provide analogue off-air signals to customers
even when they stopped paying for extras. This is a very good way of
getting out of this requirement.

4 They want customers to upgrade everything and not use teh analogue to
feed other TVs around the house (as one of my relatives does)

Mike

m wrote:


Duncan Corps wrote:
On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:49:00 +0000, Peter Duncanson wrote:

On Tue, 29 Dec 2009 22:04:50 +0000, Duncan Corps

wrote:

if I was an affected resident and
customer then my objection would be "there's no (external) reason to
remove analogue broadcasts from cable in the first place, the Digital
Switchover certainly isn't one".

The crucial point about the Digital Switchover is that is an Analogue
Switchoff.


I see that.

But I thought the only thing the government/whoever was dictating was
Analogue Over Terrestrial Switchoff, and anything else (Analogue Over
Cable Switchoff, Analogue Over Satellite Switchoff) was entirely the
decision of the cable and satellite TV companies, driven by their
commercial desires.

Am I wrong?

Yes but the cable companies want to get rid of the analogue feeds for at
least two reasons.

1 To use the frequency space on the cables to put in more digital
channels that they can charge for.

Dutch cable networks typically carry 30 analogue channels as well as
about 24 multiplexes, so there is room to grow I suppose.
Still the Dutch companies also want to reduce the analogue offering to
the 10-12 most popular ones. They want to keep those because the ease of
using multiple tv-sets (no STB's) is a major advantage over DVB-T/S.
The extra capacity is needed for more HD output. They can only get two
HD channels (and a bit extra) in one 64Q multiplex.

2 They wouldn't want to have to install digital to analogue
converters and necessary analogue modulators when the analogue service
disapears as transmitted from existing masts.

They probably have them anyway, or at least for most channels.

3 They had to continue to provide analogue off-air signals to
customers even when they stopped paying for extras. This is a very good
way of getting out of this requirement.

Yes.

4 They want customers to upgrade everything and not use teh analogue
to feed other TVs around the house (as one of my relatives does)

Probably not, see above.

gr, hwh

Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:

A cable customer will receive either an analogue or a digital service -
never both!

Oh aye? So the analogue signals I'm getting off my "digital cable" are
a figment of my imagination? BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 Granada, C4,
Five[anamorphic], and BBC News Channel all sit between E22 and E30.


Can you tell me how YOU would migrate your 100% analogue customer base
to a 100% digital customer base without transmitting both analogue AND
digital signals during the transition period?

Perhaps you've got a solution nobody else has stumbled on? In which case
we could all have had instantaneous ASO/DSO on both cable and DTT years
ago ...

Terry

Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Ian Jackson wrote:
In message , Paul
Martin writes
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:

A cable customer will receive either an analogue or a digital service -
never both!
Oh aye? So the analogue signals I'm getting off my "digital cable" are
a figment of my imagination? BBC1, BBC2, ITV1 Granada, C4,
Five[anamorphic], and BBC News Channel all sit between E22 and E30.

But do you still have an analogue STB? If not, I presume that you are
receiving them directly on the TV or VCR, and the rest of the service is
digital (for which you will need a cable STB). It's unusual for a
customer to have both and analogue and a digital STB.

I have had a digital box since they first became available (when the
cableco was called CWC). The few analogue signals are still there if I
use a hyperband tuner (but apart from the ones I listed above, they
are scrambled).


I've got a Freeview PVR and watch everything via my SCART connection
but, if I connect my aerial to my TV, I can get five analogue signals as
well!

Do you not see some similarity here?

Terry

hwh wrote:


Dutch cable networks typically carry 30 analogue channels as well as
about 24 multiplexes, so there is room to grow I suppose.
Still the Dutch companies also want to reduce the analogue offering to
the 10-12 most popular ones. They want to keep those because the ease of
using multiple tv-sets (no STB's) is a major advantage over DVB-T/S.
The extra capacity is needed for more HD output. They can only get two
HD channels (and a bit extra) in one 64Q multiplex.


There is a major difference here between the Dutch and Belgian cable
networks and the situation in the UK.

On the continent, set top boxes were used in the early days due to the
use of out-of-band signals but receiver manufacturers soon added tuners
covering the S channels and, later, the Hyperband (which means receivers
have continuous tuning from 47 - 862MHz). STBs were no longer needed and
the cable feed was connected directly to the TV. This situation probably
came about because most, if not all, of the channels carried could be
received directly off-air in many places, provide suitable aerial
installations and multi-standard TVs were used. Cable succeeded because
subscribers could save money as they now no longer needed to install and
maintain expensive aerial installations or buy very expensive
multi-system TV sets. Not a model for success in the UK, obviously!

The UK followed US practice, with all cable customers being supplied
with a STB and most channels scrambled due to the multiple tier pay model.

This, from memory, was the channel line-up from one Belgian cablenet in
the mid 70s:

BRT1, BRT2, RTBF1, RTBF2, NOS1, NOS2, BBC1, BBC2, ITV, TF1, A2, FR3,
RTLi, ARD, ZDF, Mosaic channel. RAI uno was added after a couple of years.

There was also one scrambled subscription channel - Filmnet - with the
decoder being connected to the SCART socket on the TV.

Terry

Terry Casey wrote:
There is a major difference here between the Dutch and Belgian cable
networks and the situation in the UK.

On the continent, set top boxes were used in the early days due to the
use of out-of-band signals

Not in the Netherlands. I have never seen one, for analogue that is.
Except when...


This, from memory, was the channel line-up from one Belgian cablenet in
the mid 70s:

BRT1, BRT2, RTBF1, RTBF2, NOS1, NOS2, BBC1, BBC2, ITV, TF1, A2, FR3,
RTLi, ARD, ZDF, Mosaic channel. RAI uno was added after a couple of years.

There was also one scrambled subscription channel - Filmnet - with the
decoder being connected to the SCART socket on the TV.

....you subscibed to Filmnet. Home-made descramblers were quite popular
until Filmnet started using a new system that used Nicam for its sound,
which was not normally available over here (we use the German dual FM
carrier system).
Channel line up should be right. In the Netherlands they used street
cabinets with converters. In the transport network, no UHF channels were
used but in every street cabinet all channels transported on special
frequencies were converted to standard UHF channels.
A typical layout was like this:
Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 24, 28, 31, 35, 38, 42, 45, 49, 52.

Later on, better amplifiers and converters, combined with tv tuners
designed for cable use allowed many more channels, without the
converters per channel.

gr, hwh

On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:51:28 +0000, Mark Carver
wrote:

Interesting, are they (now as Virgin) still doing it ?

I believe that it stopped not long after Virgin took over.

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On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:55:52 +0000, Terry Casey
wrote:

A cable customer will receive either an analogue or a digital service -
never both!

Many digital cable customers will still make use of the analogue
off-air channels which still come down the same cable.

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