Recent changes on the VM Network

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  • Given Discovery got Really, Home and Good Food, and only the latter was Pay and that's been closed and merged with FTA Food Network, of course it can't! :P

    True, I keep forgetting about Good Food being closed as the "placeholders" still show up in the comparisons.

    Technically, Really, Home and Good Food all had the pack override flag applied in previous years. So maybe pack override equates to the PSB (non subscription) pack level rather than "M/Player".

  • ScottishSteve on Cable Forum has noticed that one of the channel info slates, the Amazon one, on DigitalBitRate has EPG data that says Nat Geo WILD is going HD only on 265.

    This either contradicts the previous information suggesting it was moving to 262, or it's the first stage in a multiple stage plan where channels go HD first and then a week, or so, later they move EPG number.

    One of the scanners has informed me that, although SID 1209 "Channel Update" does have an EPG entry stating "Nat Geo Wild is now exclusively available in HD on 265", SID 416 "Nat Geo WILD NEW" is fully populated with the Nat Geo WILD programme listings, alongside SID 316 "Nat Geo WILD" and SID 2402 "Nat Geo WILD HD". So. Ummm! Yes. Draw your own conclusions from that.

    He has scheduled the EIT data to be added to the database data on the next scan. If that's available for tonight's summary, I will check it out and add any further observations...

  • Summary of the overnight changes:

    Conditional Access Changes (free to view period):

    Date TSID SID EPG SID Name Conditional Access Changes
    09/12/2019 2 202 245 Eden Pack override flags added to the conditional access
    channel and subscription pack sections of the SDT
    - Start of the Xmas free view period
    09/12/2019 2 203 126 alibi
    09/12/2019 2 209 125 W
    09/12/2019 3 301 191 alibi +1
    09/12/2019 3 307 194 GOLD +1
    09/12/2019 11 1107 190 W +1
    09/12/2019 11 1111 246 Eden +1
    09/12/2019 28 2803 212 alibi HD
    09/12/2019 30 3005 124 GOLD HD
    09/12/2019 33 3301 247 Eden HD
    09/12/2019 33 3303 227 Dave HD
    09/12/2019 33 3304 211 W HD

    Significantly fewer channels that in previous years, which included the channels subsequently transferred to Discovery Inc. and also channels such as Dave, Drama and Yesterday in the M/Player subscription pack. Indicating that the override flag may also make the channels to the encrypted non subscription (PSB) pack (VM's version of FTV)?

    Housekeeping changes:

    Date TSID SID EPG SID Name Flags added Flags removed Notes
    09/12/2019 18 1815 527 BT Sport 1 HD "hidden" "unhide" This takes the duplicate version of
    BT Sport 1 HD out of use and hides
    the service from the EPG.

    Generally, the removal of a sport flag results in
    the addition of a sport flag to another channel.
    This hasn't happened on this occasion.
    09/12/2019 25 2504 528 BT Sport 2 HD "sport"
    09/12/2019 26 2606 527 BT Sport 1 HD "hidden"
    "unhide"

    A confirmed end of the duplicate BT Sport 1 HD service and an unconfirmed end of the sport flag. The removal of the sport flag would please the analysts. Too good to be true maybe??? :P

  • As a contrast, this is the list of channels given the pack override flag last December:

    Date TSID SID SID Name Conditional access changes last year.
    10/12/2018 2 201 Dave Channels given pack override flags in December 2018.
    10/12/2018 2 202 Eden
    10/12/2018 2 203 alibi
    10/12/2018 2 204 Good Food
    10/12/2018 2 207 YESTERDAY
    10/12/2018 2 208 Home
    10/12/2018 2 209 W
    10/12/2018 2 210 Drama
    10/12/2018 2 211 Really
    10/12/2018 12 1201 alibi +1
    10/12/2018 12 1203 Dave ja vu
    10/12/2018 12 1204 GOLD +1
    10/12/2018 12 1205 Good Food +1
    10/12/2018 12 1207 Home +1
    10/12/2018 12 1208 W +1
    10/12/2018 12 1210 Eden +1
    10/12/2018 12 1211 YESTERDAY +1
    10/12/2018 28 2803 alibi HD
    10/12/2018 30 3005 GOLD HD
    10/12/2018 33 3301 Eden HD
    10/12/2018 33 3302 Good Food HD
    10/12/2018 33 3303 Dave HD
    10/12/2018 33 3304 W HD

    That is the data from LAST YEAR if anyone hasn't read the headings.

  • No sign of the EIT data yet, so I'll leave that until tomorrow and get back to looking at the radio station database and updating that for the latest provisional CMA findings on the Bauer takeovers. Off topic but you can read about it here if interested: [link removed as users have reported issues with accessing the site]

  • No sign of the EIT data yet, so I'll leave that until tomorrow and get back to looking at the radio station database and updating that for the latest provisional CMA findings on the Bauer takeovers. Off topic but you can read about it here if interested: https://radiotoday.co.uk/2019/12/hold-s…radio-stations/

    Just tried to take a look, but there's a Google Play Protect ad obscuring the info which I can't seem to get rid of.

  • The situation with the duplicate BT Sport 1 HD channel and the "unhide" flag has raised a few questions. We've known for a while that the "unhide" flag made "hidden" services visible on TiVo / V6 boxes. A neat solution to the problem of having to hide MPEG-4 channels from legacy boxes, which would have ignored the "unhide" flag but allowing the channels to be visible on newer boxes.

    BT Sport 1 HD on SID 1815 carried the "unhide" flag without the "hidden" flag, which is odd. The most popular theory was that "unhide" without "hidden" actually hides the channel from the EPG. The "official" name of the flag on the database has always been unhide+ which, sort of, gives enough flexibility for this situation but maybe another name would be better going forward.

    As the duplicate channel has now been removed, this appears to have been some sort of test / experiment by VM.

  • Just tried to take a look, but there's a Google Play Protect ad obscuring the info which I can't seem to get rid of.

    Go to the main page and look for the article. It was trying to get me to install flash earlier, but from the official website for flash. They seem to be having "issues".


    "Hold Separate extended for Bauer’s new radio stations" being the relevant article.

    Hmm, I just checked with a phone. Yeah, don't click on the Google Play Protect ad.

  • Interim overnight scan results:

    Date Old TSID Old SID Old EPG Old SID Name (EPG Name) New TSID New SID New EPG New SID Name (EPG Name) Comments / Flags added Notes
    10/12/2019 4 416 262 Nat Geo WILD NEW (WILD NEW) 3 316 264 Nat Geo WILD (WILD) Channel 262 was only used for the tests Now available in the L/Fun subscription pack
    10/12/2019 3 316 264 Nat Geo WILD (WILD) 3 356 28 Nat Geo WILD OLD (WILD OLD) "hidden", "end of service" & "placeholder" flags added Original channel moved to a placeholder SID
    10/12/2019 18 1815 527 BT Sport 1 HD (BTSport1HD) n/c n/c n/c n/c "end of service" & "placeholder" flags added

    So the original version of Nat Geo WILD has been moved to a placeholder SID & EPG slot and given the flags associated with a placeholder service.

    The new version of Nat Geo WILD has moved from SID 416 to SID 316 (the original SID number), using the original channel number of 264 and carrying the L/Fun pack flag over from the test service. Channel 262 used for the "test" has been dropped. The new service has been added to the NIT of all VM regions.

    Further moves to remove the duplicate BT Sport 1 HD took place with "end of service" and "placeholder" flags being added.


    The scanners also noted comments in the VM service / support data streams referring to BT Sport being no longer available to some older boxes after December 9th. So this change was possibly linked to that removal.

    If there are any further changes on the final overnight scans, I will update later.

  • The scanners also noted comments in the VM service / support data streams referring to BT Sport being no longer available to some older boxes after December 9th. So this change was possibly linked to that removal.

    They were actually looking for the pop-up texts. VM doesn't link service data streams to the PAT/PMT, which means that the scanning software won't analyse them.

    If there are any further changes on the final overnight scans, I will update later.

    There were no further changes.

  • I'm wondering how they roll out the pop-up messages. Clearly, based on the Cable Forum photo, some people are getting a message about the channel going HD-only, but I put 264 on earlier and nothing, except I could previously get the channel and now I can.

  • At a guess, some sort of scripting language that works in a similar way to MHEG on DTT. The scanners are trying to find the text used on the pop-up, which is probably embedded in some obscure data stream. Until VM started using pop-ups, I thought they didn't have anything comparable to MHEG, the ugly error messages tending to support that view. It seems they do, but probably didn't start using it until the legacy boxes were removed.

    Finding anything on VM's data stream will be tricky, they are full of BBC Red Button support data, lots of other broadcasters red button support and tons of messages for Liberate firmware.

  • It just saw a typo. It should have read "except I couldn't previously get the channel and now I can."

    I just thought it strange that some people in some areas are getting a pop-up on their V6 about the HD change on Nat Geo Wild, but I wasn't. Like maybe they roll the pop-up out regionally.

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