Blank TV screens as cable firm ditches analogue

Terry Casey wrote:
For the benefit of anybody puzzled by the reference to S channels, this
refers to the 'Special' channels which covered the gaps between BI and
BII (I think these were only used in Belgium)

Well, they were certainly used more in Belgium than in the Netherlands,
but some stations were put on the special channels. Including Filmnet in
some places, as their STB's had no problem with that :-)

By the way, another interesting detail is that many cable networks used
VHF channels 5 through 12 continuously until a few years ago.
One of the biggest companies (Ziggo) now only uses UHF for their 30
analog channels. Digital is mostly between about 280 and 400, with some
exceptions.
Everything under 87,6 MHz is used for internet transmission. This has
been the case for some time now. Ziggo provides about 120 Mbps now in
places, for 70 Euro including analog and digital tv plus VOIP.

In fact competition between cable companies and DSL providers has
contributed for a large part in the success for broadband in the
Netherlands.
gr, hwh

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:29:59 +0000, Duncan Corps wrote:

It's demonstrably possible to transmit a 16:9 (letterboxed or
anamorphic) picture over an analogue system. Some PAL VHS videos did
this.

Indeed that has been the case with PAL Plus but as far as I am aware
only Channel4 bothered to do this, but ceased doing it (maybe when
DVB-t transmissions started).

So that does not alter the fact that current analog transmissions in
the UKofGB&NI only offer a 4:3/14:9 picture, and thus digital cable
viewers would be deprived of a 16:9 wide picture if the cable company
used the analog broadcast as source material.

Paul Martin wrote:
In article ,
Terry Casey wrote:
Paul Martin wrote:
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!

I can't. Not since December 4th.

However VM have taken the trouble to provide analogue versions of six
now-only-digital channels on their cable system. I fully expected them
to disappear when the off-air analogue signals went off.


So, perhaps they still have analogue customers that they still need to
provide service to?

However, you said earlier that you are a digital customer of VM, so how
would you know what other services they carry unless you are breaking
the contract you have with them?

Terry

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:19:44 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

I think you just did - well, at least some of it. I'm certainly not
aware of any cases when "all legacy analogue boxes had to be changed
over to other analogue boxes". All I can think of is that you might be
referring to cases where some very old analogue 'non-frequency-agile'
boxes were changed for more modern types (or something similar) - but I
don't think that this would have been part of the migration to digital.

Well, the possibility does exist that the highly trained cable
installation engineer who visited me was telling me an utter lie and
swapping my perfectly servicable analogue STBs for no reason, but they
confidently asserted that I could not keep my Jerrold 550 boxes (I
think it was) because they were "not compatible with digital", and
that instead I had to be changed over, immedately, to the superior
(and still resolutely analogue) CFT 2100s instead.


--

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:06:40 +0000, Terry Casey
wrote:

Was this to get rid of Switched Star technology, by any chance?

Not as far as I know. As I say, there does remain the possibility that
the twelve year olds they have installing cable TV these days were
lying or mistaken, of course.

I do think the US approach of analogue/digital hybrid boxes has
something going for it, though. It makes a lightswitch so much easier,
and means that you don't necessarily have to use (apparently scarce)
network capacity in simulcasting channels in both analogue and digital
format until that time.
--

On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:49:10 +0000, Terry Casey
wrote:

If you are suggesting that customers take advantage of analogue signals
on the network and find their own way of accessing them, that is a
different matter entirely as the entire network is VM property and it is
a standard condition of supply that only VM equipment can be connected
to it.

Some STBs (built in) or installations (external) offer the analogue
channels on a 'pass through' to the TV, so you get the four/five
terrestrials plus the output of the cable box on a single UHF cable.

Admittedly I believe that nowadays this is largely unsupported /
forgotten about, presumably because it's used by relatively low
numbers of people who matter, and even those who do can instead just
get told to rent a second cable box if they want to recieve more than
one channel at a time.
--

Zero Tolerance wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:49:10 +0000, Terry Casey
wrote:

If you are suggesting that customers take advantage of analogue signals
on the network and find their own way of accessing them, that is a
different matter entirely as the entire network is VM property and it is
a standard condition of supply that only VM equipment can be connected
to it.

Some STBs (built in) or installations (external) offer the analogue
channels on a 'pass through' to the TV, so you get the four/five
terrestrials plus the output of the cable box on a single UHF cable.

Admittedly I believe that nowadays this is largely unsupported /
forgotten about, presumably because it's used by relatively low
numbers of people who matter, and even those who do can instead just
get told to rent a second cable box if they want to recieve more than
one channel at a time.

But, unless you've got me completely confused, we were talking about
customers with, or migrated to the digital service.

AFIAK no DTV STBs have any form of analogue by-pass.

You say "Admittedly I believe ..." so you have based all your posts and
arguments in this thread on guesswork and supposition, which you have
presented as hard fact and wasted an awful lot of other peoples' time,
whether just ploughing through your demented ramblings or attempting to
address them.

Welcome to my killfile!

(I won't bother with New Year's greetings - I wouldn't include the word
'happy' if I did!)

Terry

Terry Casey wrote:
AFIAK no DTV STBs have any form of analogue by-pass.

I own one, a Humax 5050 (DVB-C). It has a hard disk recorder build-in.
The bypass facilitates the use of a TV set with built-in DVB-C decoder
or analogue.

This seems to be a very sensible thing to have for DVB-T as well.

gr, hwh

In article ,
Zero Tolerance wrote:
On Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:19:44 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

I think you just did - well, at least some of it. I'm certainly not
aware of any cases when "all legacy analogue boxes had to be changed
over to other analogue boxes". All I can think of is that you might be
referring to cases where some very old analogue 'non-frequency-agile'
boxes were changed for more modern types (or something similar) - but I
don't think that this would have been part of the migration to digital.

Well, the possibility does exist that the highly trained cable
installation engineer who visited me was telling me an utter lie

[Snip]

I once met a'highly trained' cable tv engineering manager who told me that
I was wrong in saying that a fly lead was losing 20db since the was only
+10dB at the wall outlet. Luckily his boss from head office heard him say
that.

--
From KT24

Using a RISC OS computer running v5.11

hwh wrote:
Terry Casey wrote:
AFIAK no DTV STBs have any form of analogue by-pass.

I own one, a Humax 5050 (DVB-C). It has a hard disk recorder build-in.
The bypass facilitates the use of a TV set with built-in DVB-C decoder
or analogue.

This seems to be a very sensible thing to have for DVB-T as well.


Sorry, I was referring to UK CATV STBs, not DTT.

Terry