Recent changes on the VM Network

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  • I wasn't talking about the customer when I used the word "unforeseen", and I thought it was obvious in the context at the time I posted it. But clearly I was wrong.^^

    It was clear enough, I was just making the point that the customers had been given enough notice and could have switched months before Covid-19. They don't even have the excuse of delaying to watch a backlog of recordings - not with that box.

  • I've had some equipment shipped over from Germany on Friday for investigation but I'm not touching it until tomorrow to allow any viral particles to de-activate.

    That reminds me of the package I had delivered from Northern Italy a couple of weeks after that area went into lockdown. It had been ordered before I knew about the outbreak and I wasn't really sure about what to do with the package when it arrived.

  • It was clear enough, I was just making the point that the customers had been given enough notice and could have switched months before Covid-19. They don't even have the excuse of delaying to watch a backlog of recordings - not with that box.

    True, but there will always be some people that don't get round to doing things until they absolutely have to, or for some technical reason want to keep the old box for as long as they possibly can, such as heero yuy.

  • VM aren't immune to taking current circumstances into consideration...just recently they postponed closing Mobile PAYG, people only found out as they accidentally published a webpage with broken links (though I'm still not clear how they found it as there were no links to it I could see).

    That's interesting, do you have a link please? VM moved me off PAYG and started charging me £7 a month, which I didn't want.

  • I vaguely recall talk years ago that VM implied that the V HD could be upgraded to Tivo software, with the recording aspect disabled naturally, but either that was bull or they deemed the hassle not worth it.

    Tivo and V6 use virtual decoder cards, I don't know if that was possible with Liberate. Possibly why the sports channels were removed as physical cards can't be updated in the same way and new cards would be needed to keep up to date with the latest encryption technique.

  • It is MPEG2 because the "Welcome" channel is usually static video, so no advantage in using MPEG4. Presumably the carriage of Get Moving is a temporary thing. The feedback from the scanners is that there has been activity on SID 1306 for the last couple of days but it hasn't been monitored or captured. Apparently it is carrying the Virgin TV UHD out of hours loop in HD overnight but in 1920x1080i HD. I guess this needs monitoring, if we can find anyone with enough time to monitor it.

    Virgin TV UHD in HD under a Get Moving logo. I guess VM are using a single playout for both. Which would explain why the UHD channel now goes to the off-air slate outside its active hours...

  • The scan analysis showed that the changes didn't get rolled back. A couple of NIT Linkage changes at TTA Knowsley DMC (Hayes_RHE), presumably with the rest of the NIT Linkage changes to follow later in the day.

    32 networks in the ex-Telewest / ex-C&W cluster had level 1 NIT linkage updates (Tivo support) during Friday.

    No changes noted on Saturday & Sunday.

    The only development work (to analysis modules) this weekend has been to the routines to generate external tables for NIT Services data. It was a minor change and probably the last of the changes. Unless VM starts to make significant changes with the introduction of Horizon software...

  • Virgin TV UHD in HD under a Get Moving logo. I guess VM are using a single playout for both. Which would explain why the UHD channel now goes to the off-air slate outside its active hours...

    Is this likely to mean that 'Get Moving' isn't going HD and that it simply means that the UHD channel and channel 997 are now timesharing??

  • I don't know, it looks like they are using the same playout for both. Maybe there will be a new Get Moving stream, maybe the UHD channels is getting a HD version. Anything is possible with VM. As well as carrying UHD channel content, this service also carries "Get Moving" content when it isn't actually being shown on channel 997, so it has extra content.

    Channel 997 and the UHD channel aren't actually timesharing but possibly using the same playout. (If the UHD channel didn't go to the off air slate, viewers may get to see Get Moving content from the playout stream).

  • Apparently, BT Sport UHD recordings are skipping audio. SP has said that this should be fixed with an update that is to take place- he didn't say when this would be done.

    Do the scans routinely show the purpose of any STB software updates?

  • Apparently, BT Sport UHD recordings are skipping audio. SP has said that this should be fixed with an update that is to take place- he didn't say when this would be done.

    Do the scans routinely show the purpose of any STB software updates?

    Nothing for V6 updates and just a config for Tivo updates. V6 updates are online, the actual Tivo update streams may contain more info but they aren't in a readable format unlike the javascript support streams used by Liberate boxes.

  • I've had some equipment shipped over from Germany on Friday for investigation but I'm not touching it until tomorrow to allow any viral particles to de-activate.

    Or, you could've just cleaned it. (lazy sod8o)


    That reminds me of the package I had delivered from Northern Italy a couple of weeks after that area went into lockdown. It had been ordered before I knew about the outbreak and I wasn't really sure about what to do with the package when it arrived.

    Another one!^^^^^^

    Anyone heard of cleaning?

  • Or, you could've just cleaned it. (lazy sod8o)


    Another one!^^^^^^

    Anyone heard of cleaning?

    It's an anti-blister cream for when I'm out walking. I cleaned the tubes but was more concerned about the cream being contaminated. It was in the early days of the pandemic when little was known about how it could be spread other than "wash your hands regularly".

  • Overnight SID 102 Get Moving migrated to SID 1306 with the HD flag added. The active hours are 23:59:59-17:30:00 UTC which is 1am to 6.30pm BST - replaced via SDT linkage by the Off Air Slate between 6.30pm and 1am. 6.30pm to 1am being the hours of the UHD channel, basically confirming that the same playout is being used. At the time of the scan the SDT linkage for the Virgin TV Highlights channel was still set as SID 102.

    There is no obvious technical reason why VM couldn't use this stream for a HD simulcast of the UHD channel. Perhaps, VM are still trying to use the UHD channel to encourage users to switch to the V6, if a few hours a day of "exclusive" content is attractive enough to do that.

    There were NIT CDS (frequency) changes for Haringey with TSID 31-34 being grouped together adjacent to the cleared transport stream band and the VOD transport streams reduced from 4 to 2. The VOD transport streams and TSID 31-34 bands have not been allocated the same frequencies as the other ex-Telewest regions, possibly indicating a change of policy. In this case the VOD band has moved to the same frequency range as recent ex-C&W changes. We did wonder why the VOD band for earlier ex-Telewest changes had been placed between the cleared transport stream range (now DOCSIS / data) and the mothballed TSID 31-34 range. Ex Telewest networks in Scotland, Edinburgh 1, Edinburgh 2 / Dundee, Uddingston, Perth, & Falkirk also reduced VOD to 2 transport streams, again using the same frequency range as the recent ex-C&W network changes. There were no NIT CDS changes noted for the ex-Telewest networks in Scotland.

    Finally, there were a couple of level 3 NIT linkage changes on the Hayes network.

    Edited 2 times, last by jj20x (July 7, 2020 at 1:41 PM).

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