Posts by RichardCoulter

Quote from Horizon

Well done on finding this thread OB. Only just noticed this story myself and was pondering where to put.

And without turning this into a mergers thread too much, it does seem that Telefonica is doubling down on its relationship with VM and I wouldn't be surprised if Liberty sell VM to them at some point in the future. And, as per my earlier comments about VM splitting into two with a wholeside (network) side and a consumer side providing services along that network, this news and the impending TalkTalk buyout, would seem to suggest that maybe this is the direction where it's all heading.

But back to the story and this news cements the establishment of a second fibre network to compete against BT's, which can only be good news.

All those poor people who might sign up before realising how atrocious Virgin are

Does anyone know what Telefonica customer service & business practice is like?

I've said for years that the rot is now so deep that the only way to improve things would be for Virgin to go bust and have someone take over the assets, or for Liberty to sell the company on with new management and a change of name.

Quote from OLD BOY

I used to watch music channels and enjoyed them, but these days I prefer to subscribe to YouTube Music and watch the music of my choice without the annoying commercials.

I make good use of it, too, as I watch music videos on TV late on Friday and Saturday nights, and listen to the streams when driving.

It’s not surprising that the viewership of our music channels has declined. MTV and VH1 used to be jolly good channels, but they ruined them, and now they will struggle to get the previous audience back. Such a shame, but now, personally, I have a better alternative.

MTV audience share was declining, so they started showing reality type shows instead.

The latest thing they did to counteract this was to cull some channels in their portfolio.

I can't understand why their channels remain encrypted as all other music channels ate now FTA and some MTV channels are FTA abroad.

Sky & Virgin can't be getting much value from paying for them these days, I assume that the owner insists that they take them in order to gain access to their other pay channels.

Quote from cheekyangus

No information currently if this is swapped out for HD version, similar to what Sky do with HD/SD.

AIUI, it hasn't been swapped. It's been speculated that Sky will need to amend their software before this can be done.

Quote from cheekyangus

Techies will find a way. There will be some open source DIY solutions for the stubborn. I've no doubt. I've seen some marvelous things done in other fields, and TV techies are a passionate and large group, so they are bound to manage something similar in the same spirit.

I do hope so.

Quote from Horizon

It's not now, but I can see the day coming when we will not be able to record tv anymore and with media companies fully controlling the stuff on their streamers. A very backward step in my view, unless we will be able to record from streamers in the future, but I doubt it.

...and a way so that we are forced to watch the adverts.

The move away from VCR's to PVR's gave them more control and what you say is the next logical step.

Quote from cheekyangus

Nice.

I can't see them only launching one more HD channel though, they're bound to do them all.

Was it encrypted?

Hopefully Drama will go HD too, but no sign of it yet.

Yes, it's encrypted. MB said that there's a rumour that Eden will close and its programming moved to Yesterday.

This might be why Yesterday is going HD. Sky viewers would once again gain access to Eden programming in HD and Freesat viewers would obtain access to programming previously only on a pay channel.

Quote from cheekyangus

I'm pretty sure there's a massive time gap between them getting the full iPlayer and their channels going FTA. They were FTA for a long time before. So I don't think that's true.

That's what I was told by someone who works in the industry.

Apparently, LyngSat is showing Yesterday HD as testing on 12.226H.

Quote from cheekyangus

Virgin Media (and their Cable predecessors) are virtually always first with new BBC features and fancy tech thingummys. For a looooong time Sky didn't have the app version of iPlayer, just a folder of selected content, I'm led to understand.

I believe that Sky were allowed to have the full iPlayer service in return for making their FTV channels FTA and putting them on Freesat.

I've never heard of it either.

I don't suppose it will be adopted in the UK as most channels haven't even adopted T2! Also, the licences for Freeview expire in 2030 or 2035, so that might be another stumbling block as they aren't guaranteed to be renewed.

Arqiva have set up a pressure group to try and save Freeview and Ofcom want it to continue, but ultimately it will be down to the Government.

If bits and bats of spare space are on the same mux, I believe that they can be added together to form a longer slot too.

than 6 hours will be impossible to let?

I didn't know about these newish rules on Freeview.

Does this mean that any space consisting of less

Sounds like this is why That's Music started on Com 7 shortly before it closed down (because of this I bet it must have been relatively cheap too).

By doing this they obtained another EPG slot for their 'second' channel for the overnight filler on their main channel.

Quote from cheekyangus

Yeah, confirmed as sharing with TJC shopping channel between 2am and 8am on my V6 just now.

I have a distant memory that it was 24/7 when it launched, could be wrong though.

I guess it helps to bring some money in at a time when most people won't be watching. They say that the lowest point when people are watching television is 4 to 6am. Those stopping up late have finally gone to bed and those rising early don't put the TV on until 6am, probably for breakfast TV.

Quote from cheekyangus

1pm-11pm. The other time is when is when it broadcasts itself and doesn't give to a shopping channel on other TV platforms.

http://www.xhxf.uk/timeshares/

The only tweet I saw didn't say 24 hours, it said, to my recollection, they were looking to extend their hours, with no specifics. This does that.

So it broadcasts from 8am to 2am on satellite etc, but only from 1pm to 11pm/midnight on Freeview. Have I got that right?

Quote from cheekyangus

PBS America is gaining an extra hour on Freeview from 1st July.

Source: @afzok on Twitter alerted RXTV to this news about PBS America Freeview hours change.

https://rxtvinfo.com/2022/pbs-…s-to-midnight-on-freeview

So do they broadcast from 8am to 2am or 1pm to 11pm/midnight? It's confusing as both are referred to.

They tweeted the other week that they were hoping to go 24 hours, I guess their negotiations didn't work out.

Quote from cheekyangus

Apparently That's TV (UK) is taking over its channel number (Ch 65).

I never expected them to be able to afford it. I actually thought that they would close and Freesports would stay.

Quote from cheekyangus

COM7 Freed Space - What Next? article

https://rxtvinfo.com/2022/what…requencies-cleared-for-5g

It would have made more sense to close Com 7 when the frequencies were actually required by EE.

Quote from Horizon

I don't know what happened with me, but I did think I was on the mixit pack, but after reading this I checked and am actually on the mix pack. So, it looks like this happened to me.

It looks like I don't have access to loads of channels like the ITV HD ones, even though I have a 360 box and the mix pack isn't available for the 360 box.

I think that eventually the ITV HD channels will become available to everybody as they are now available for free on the Virgin IPTV box available to broadband only customers.

Quote from cheekyangus

I don't know which instance you are referring to, but channels vary depending on region, so in some instances there will be more than one channel on the same number.

From what I remember it was one of the national factual channels.