I've worked it out now - UK Gold's OFAH block last night meant that a 2 hour special episode started at midnight, and wouldn't finish until 2AM. Rather than just show part of it, they instead didn't start it at all. I hope they find something else as a filler soon though - the trailer they were running is the shorter version without the channel inserts in the middle - it must have played out over 100 times in that 50 minute slot. What's most odd is that they kept it encryped - surely they could have used the chance to run a free view for people without it?
EDIT - since the UK Gold dog stayed up throughout, was this actually being transmitted by UKTV? When ITV Digital was running, they did establish separate feeds for them - towards the end trailer endboards listed the ITV Digital channel numbers. I'm wondering if this is a custom Top Up TV feed they are working from? If so, then since they had a 50 minute slot left, they could surely have scheduled a 30 minute OFAH episode instead rather than just run the trailer?
Is it not fantastic that people are prepared to pay to watch 50 minutes of advertizing trailers?
This is hardly TUTVs fault - more UKTV Golds inability to schedule properly within their channels slot - after all it seems there is a seperate feed for TUTV, so why not put on filler programs for the bits which are currently down time?!
Now that TopUp TV has been running for a few days, how many of the subscribers on here would say that it is value for money? How much of the programming broadcast do you watch? Any criticisms?
I'm a bit p*ssed off with Top Up TV to be honest. I avoided buying an ITV Digital box because it was old technology & now I need one to f*cking watch top up tv.
I have the Daewoo one & have no complaints with it at all
I'm a bit p*ssed off with Top Up TV to be honest. I avoided buying an ITV Digital box because it was old technology & now I need one to f*cking watch top up tv.
Well that's not Top Up TV's fault. None of the Box Makers realised that there was a chance a Pay DTT service could be introduced, so didn't build their Boxes with Card Recievers (apart from one certain type of box, but if I remember correctly, someone on here mentioned that the Card Reader wasn't actually connected to anything so there was no way it could be made to work).
Now that TopUp TV has been running for a few days, how many of the subscribers on here would say that it is value for money? How much of the programming broadcast do you watch? Any criticisms?
Well I've been working a lot of evenings this week and so admittedly am getting the thin end of the wedge atm, coming home to a channel choice of E4 (which goes distinctly downhill in the wee small hours) and TCM.
Daytime viewing is now much improved, with the option of Discovery Channel and Home&Leisure in the mornings (I can once again watch Bob Ross - unfortunately I now have to actually wake up at 9AM to see him instead of being able to watch it on the +1 at 10 ).
Most evenings are quite good, with UK Gold's weekday evening schedule not being too bad atm (particular on a Friday). Sadly weekends have gone down with their all day stacks (i.e. today you're a bit buggered if you don't like Porridge) and E4, also with the option of something a little more intellectual on Discovery if you'd rather watch that.
There is of course room for tweaking. I'd get rid of Bloomberg - I resent paying for a business news channel that is free on all other platforms, and indeed free on the internet too. And however exciting they tried to make it sound in the barker loop, it's a very niche channel which is only of any real interest to a select number of people and those people will probably want to see it for more than just the morning. I'd get rid of that, and stick something else on the space. In consideration of the hours available, I'd guess a children's channel like Nickelodeon?
I'd possibly consider extending the broadcast hours of Home&Leisure into the early afternoon, and see about getting UK Gold to run overnight - when you come in from work at 1AM UK Gold is often quite a good choice which of course atm isn't available to me, and considering that they do have the space, this imo should happen.
All in all though, it is good value for £7.99 - Sky's minimal package costs more and offers less. Top Up of course isn't perfect, and as I said I would like to see a bit of tweaking over the coming weeks and months, but it's about as good as you can get for the space they have and the money it costs, and the terms it's offered on (i.e. no contract so they don't have a guaranteed first year ARPU from each subscriber). And for me it's still improved DTT no end.
I have however got one serious complaint with them; they really do need to get to grips with the transmission times vs scheduling issue. Today for instance, if they started E4 at 4PM, they'd come into the last hour of the Hollyoaks omnibus, which started at 2:50. So they've instead decided to start an hour late at 5PM. A couple of days ago they ran the barker loop ad nauseum, today they've taken the bizarre step of running the E4 audio, but replacing the picture with a colour bars testcard (in widescreen no less). This situation of constantly having channels failing to run to their published broadcast hours because of scheduling clashes is unnacceptable.
Either they need to run the channel to it's published hours even if that means missing part of a programme (and the 'solution' they're using now of running programme audio but taking away the picture is ridiculous), they need to get their channel providers to provide fillers to run out time at the start/end of a channel's block if they can't start/finish on time (and when UKTV are apparently providing a separate feed for Top Up TV, there is no excuse for this not happening), or they need to convince their channel providers to ensure that there is a junction when channels are supposed to come on and that they do finish a programme when a channel is supposed to go off (and when Top Up TV are paying carriage fees, they surely should have a certain amount of say in scheduling)
There doesn't seem to be much choice when the featured channels on Top Up TV have one of their "feature weekends" with complete blocks of the same show. ie. Porridge on UK Gold today, Industrial Revolutions all day on Discovery tomorrow, Ground Force for the whole weekend on UK Style next week etc etc.
Yes, I know it's the same for these channels on other platforms, but the limited channel line-up on Top Up makes it seem even less value, unless of course you are a particular fan of one of these shows.
How do TopUp TV handle the switch from one channel to another when one time slot finishes and another begins?
For instance, do they broadcast a caption for a few minutes/seconds? Is there a "goodbye" message from the previous broadcaster and a "welcome" message from the next? Or do they do something else?
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