Recent changes on the VM Network

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  • The evening scan showed further NIT linkage changes for 32 regions (level 1) and level 3 changes for Hayes. So the NIT linkage (Tivo) changes seem to be back after last week's break.

  • No changes for the weekend.

    On Monday, quite a few channel closures:

    TSID 4:

    SID 403 Club MTV

    SID 409 MTV OMG

    SID 410 MTV Rocks

    TSID 5:

    Horse & Country

    TSID 6:

    SID 608 Vice

    All of which have had the End Of Service and Placeholder flags added and are showing closure information slates.

    On TSID 17 SID 1702 Sky Blockbuster HD (BlkbstrsHD) has been rebranded as Sky Harry Potter HD (HarryPotHD).

    The active hours of TSID 13 SID 1302 Virgin TV Highlights have changed to reflect the latest position after showcasing "Get Moving". Not yet at 24 hours, so further changes to follow.

  • Horse & Country closed early, by at least an hour and ten minutes. VM seem to have a habit of closing channels down before the advertised time.

  • AFAIK only Club MTV carried on until the end, everything else had the info slates up fairly early. SDT linkage hasn't been used, so the video slates will be on the original video streams.

  • Overnight there were NIT CDS frequency changes at Ashford, following the pattern of other recent changes and VOD transport streams were reduced from 4 to 2. VM Hammersmith, Lewisham and Seven Kings had a further adjustment to VOD, seemingly reducing the number of streams from 2 to 1.

  • Overnight there were NIT CDS frequency changes at Ashford, following the pattern of other recent changes and VOD transport streams were reduced from 4 to 2. VM Hammersmith, Lewisham and Seven Kings had a further adjustment to VOD, seemingly reducing the number of streams from 2 to 1.

    Do you think VM are further reducing these VOD streams in the latter areas because they've assessed that demand is so low in these areas they can free up the resources in them?

  • They don't seem to be doing anything with the freed up space on networks that are monitored (and those 3 aren't monitored). Just guessing but VM could have possibly inactivated some of the transport streams before these changes have appeared in the config. Just as the frequencies defined as TSID 42 & 45 are not carrying any data for TSID 42 or 45 but are carrying DOCSIS/data streams.

    On that note, VM Hammersmith continues to allocate one of the transport streams to 530000 kHz when the normal allocation for ex-C&W would be 530750 kHz. It's unlikely that 530000 is being used as it would break 8 MHz channel spacing rules. In order to show the allocation on the frequency map, we added an additional field for 530000, without the extra field, the frequency map wouldn't pick up the associated transport stream for VM Hammersmith. (VM Hammersmith technically uses the same frequencies as Lewisham and Lewisham is assigned 530750 kHz. The 530000 kHz for Hammersmith is assumed to be a typo in VM's CDS config data).

  • AFAIK only Club MTV carried on until the end, everything else had the info slates up fairly early. SDT linkage hasn't been used, so the video slates will be on the original video streams.

    Apparently, MTV OMG! and MTV Rocks were removed at approximately 00:20, however, Club MTV continued until 4:00.

  • Apparently, MTV OMG! and MTV Rocks were removed at approximately 00:20, however, Club MTV continued until 4:00.

    Club MTV continued after 4am into the teleshopping slot. Perhaps VM forgot about it and switched to the slate when they noticed a blank feed. ^^

  • Club MTV continued after 4am into the teleshopping slot. Perhaps VM forgot about it and switched to the slate when they noticed a blank feed. ^^


    On Sky, all the feeds were cut at 10:25am yesterday (except Comedy Central Extra+1 which was still broadcasting off the EPG as at 10:29).

    All the labels for these channels (five on 11.626V and Comedy Central Xtra+1 on 21.141H) had been removed by 11:44. The remaining MTV channels look a lot clearer for now on satellite, not checked if they are any better on VM as I believe that VM obtain their MTV SD feeds from the Astra satellites.

    For posterity, unlike VH1 last January, the MTV music channels got a proper send off:

    Final videos....

    - MTV OMG with Abba - Thank You For The Music

    - Club MTV with Martin Garrix ft. Bonn - High On Life

    - MTV Rocks with Oasis - Don’t Look Back In Anger

  • Fairly typical of VM though, they make these changes on an overnight table refresh rather than scheduling them for the 6am refresh. That way they have time to fix any errors before the 6am update.

  • 2 scans for today, one from the north west scan location, which has been analysed. Another from the usual location which hasn't been analysed (yet).

    First of all, TSID 24 SID 2405 "I See You". Tuesday's scan data showed that the encryption flag had been turned on in the SDT root. The overnight scan shows that this has now been rebranded as...

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    wait for it...

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    Sky Animation HD (SkyAnimatn)

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    Yeah! they did a good job of disguising that one. :/^^;)

    No CDS (frequency) changes at the time of the scan but VOD data indicates that, on the Bromley headend, (Bromley, NGRHEE Bromley & TTA Bromley DMC (Bromley RHE) ) have been reduced from 2 transport streams to 1 and Gateshead has been reduced to 2 (same frequencies as the ex-Telewest Scottish networks etc.).

  • Do you think VM are further reducing these VOD streams in the latter areas because they've assessed that demand is so low in these areas they can free up the resources in them?

    As Seven Kings is the headend that feeds my area, I can say that with so many people living in East London, I doubt that demand is low, just that the demand is being routed over to the streamers now, rather than over the traditional VOD means.


  • - Club MTV with Martin Garrix ft. Bonn - High On Life

    At first I thought that was a strange choice, it's not exactly the best known or most popular dance track ever. But it is quite uplifting and has fireworks... and you can't close a channel down without fireworks...

    I can't help feeling that there is still a place for these channels. It's just unfortunate that it's a place without enough viewers... oh well!

  • As Seven Kings is the headend that feeds my area, I can say that with so many people living in East London, I doubt that demand is low, just that the demand is being routed over to the streamers now, rather than over the traditional VOD means.

    As far as I know, there hasn't been an investigation into what the VOD transport streams are carrying since the change, maybe the config has been changed to carry more services on a single TS. They did seem to be fairly inefficient when compared with the number of channels carried on the regular transport streams.

    No doubt though that the availability of more streamed on-demand content will have reduced demand for the legacy method of delivery.

  • As Seven Kings is the headend that feeds my area, I can say that with so many people living in East London, I doubt that demand is low, just that the demand is being routed over to the streamers now, rather than over the traditional VOD means.

    That was kinda what I was getting at.

  • At first I thought that was a strange choice, it's not exactly the best known or most popular dance track ever. But it is quite uplifting and has fireworks... and you can't close a channel down without fireworks...

    I can't help feeling that there is still a place for these channels. It's just unfortunate that it's a place without enough viewers... oh well!

    I love a lot of dance music, up until a few years ago I co owned a dance club. One night/morning after it had closed, we were having a few drinks with the staff. The fire door was open to let some air in from the fire escape and the fire escape was the outside entrance to the staff accommodation on the floor above.

    By this time I was pretty drunk and saw a VM engineer go up the fire escape. I wasn't expecting that and checked and found that the manager had called them out. In my drunken state I asked him if he knew what was going to be on channel xyz that the forums were talking about. He just said "I don't know, but that's where the adult channels are"! I never lived it down afterwards :P

  • Overnight SID 322 Sky Premiere 1hr had the hide-reversal flag removed, so is now hidden from the EPG, it moved from EPG slot 412 to placeholder EPG slot 33. Meanwhile, SID 2405 Sky Animation HD (SkyAnimatn) was added to the NIT of customer facing and other remaining networks / regions and was moved from EPG slot 413 to 412.

    There were no other changes at the time of the scan.

    Edited once, last by jj20x (July 23, 2020 at 3:08 PM).

  • Overnight SID 322 Sky Premiere 1hr had the hide-reversal flag removed, so is now hidden from the EPG, it moved from EPG slot 412 to placeholder EPG slot 33. Meanwhile, SID 2405 Sky Animation HD (SkyAnimatn) was added to the NIT of customer facing and other remaining networks / regions and was moved from EPG slot 413 to 412.

    There were no other changes at the time of the scan.

    I believe that on Sky this is not classed as a premium channel ie non movie subscribers can get it. Just tried 412 on my Full House package and It's encrypted :(

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