There are still a few issues to be resolved before I can post this information. I had hoped that I could have started by now, unfortunately, it hasn't been that simple.
It would be useful to know what sort of information people want to see. The threads previously posted on other sites seemed to attract praise and criticism in equal measure, with some people expecting the threads to be full of predictions. Occasionally, predictions can be made from the nature of any changes but the thread isn't meant to be a virtual crystal ball. There are many sources of speculative, usually inaccurate, predictions of what may be "coming soon" on other sites. This thread is about changes taking place in the background and, possibly, not yet visible to VM customers, not about speculation.
Historically, this thread has listed changes considered to be operational, such as Sky channel rebrands and the frequently changing flag which we have classified as "sport+". These changes make up the bulk of regular changes to the network data tables, but aren't very useful for the end user. Would forum members like to see this information included in the reports or prefer that it is omitted?
Previously, the thread listed changes to the download streams responsible for TiVo software updates. This information is becoming less important as VM customers replace their TiVo boxes with V6 boxes, which update over the internet and not over "broadcast streams". Would forum members like TiVo software updates to be included in the reports?
A criticism of the old threads was that they referred to channels by TSID (Transport Stream ID) and SID (Service ID) numbers, which some users considered to be too complicated. Nevertheless, it is the best method of referring to individual channels. The NIT (Network Information Table) does not contain EPG channel numbers or VM's unique EPG service numbers (not visible to end users and also not visible on raw data scans such as those on the DigitalBitRate website). Going forward, the NIT analysis will have access to a limited amount of data from the SDT (Service Description Table), so future reports may be able to include EPG channel numbers etc. There are limitations in that the NIT analysis already processes a large amount of data and adding extra data from the SDT increases the processing load. This is a work in progress.
Over the next few days I will be looking at significant network changes that have taken place over the last few months and regular updates should start shortly after that. In the meantime, some feedback would be appreciated.
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