noggin's posts, page 40

Ah yes, think Luci Live is audio, there's so many different ways now I lose track.

What's the one that BBC employees can get on iPhones (annoyingly only iPhones) that allows them to do lives? Or is that Luci?

That is reversed when it comes to satellite, because you can cover the whole country with a single transmission, but then they had to fudge the platform to match what terrestrial did

I’ve seen some setups (often one man band kits that are now deployed as home studios) where talent US and abroad connect the HDMI out directly to the laptop or CNG.

Also is Luci Live just for radio or tv?

The loss of the regional bulletins is definitely hurting BBC Breakfast. 1.3m is low for it, no doubt about it. Last week, it was averaging 1.4m. It's on a downward trajectory.

Hard to believe now that the brand is associated with Virgin in this country but Tivo was available to Sky customers before Sky+ launched, but was quickly discontinued afterwards.

The original TIVO was available to anyone, you could even hook it up to record from analogue if you wanted, I believe.

I remember before it was discontinued there was a lot of controversy over it recording the first episode of "Dossa and Joe" whether people wanted it or not and couldn't even delete it.

That is a gorgeous set. I love the (what I assume is some form of projection) tunnel. Very clever. The bright white, the key colours, the screens, the curves, it’s marvellous.

I mean the obvious answer is the PBS station he's watching on is doing a sloppy opt into a dirty feed and fades the sound up after mixing the vision?

The way that recordings work on Virgin Media boxes is different to the way that Sky do it. My understanding is that whilst the Sky boxes record the encrypted signal as broadcast, the Virgin Media boxes decrypt the signal, but then encrypt it again before saving to disk using a different system and an encryption key that's unique to each box (which is why you can't swap drives between boxes, they wouldn't be able to decrypt a recording made on a different box).

As there is no connection between the encryption system used to broadcast the channels and the system used to save recordings then technically there is no requirement to still be subscribed to a channel to play back a recording. For many years this is how it worked and you could continue to watch recordings from channels that you no longer subscribed to.

At some point Sky decided they didn't like this and required Virgin Media to change they system so that it behaved in the same way as the Sky boxes. This is the point where it went wrong as Virgin Media implemented the new system badly.

The way it works now is that there are restrictions placed on the channels from Sky, but not other broadcasters. The Sky channels are flagged so that the boxes know which channels to apply the restrictions to. When you go to play back a recording the box checks to see if the recording came from a channel that Sky own and if it does then it will only let you play the recording if you still subscribe to the channel. Unlike the Sky boxes there is no technical reason for this restriction, it's a contractual requirement imposed by Sky.
If a recording is from a non Sky channel then the check to see if you're still subscribed isn't done, so you should still be able to play back recordings from non Sky channels that you no longer subscribe to.

The problem is that in order for this check to work the channel still needs to be broadcasting on the system. Shortly after introducing this system a channel closed down and lots of people on various forums complained that they couldn't watch recordings from that channel any more. Because it was no longer broadcasting the check to see if it was flagged as a Sky channel couldn't be done, so the box refused to play back the recording.

As a result, when a channel on Virgin Media closes down it isn't completely removed from the system. The broadcast stops, but the channel remains in the channel tables as a hidden channel for awhile so that any recordings can still be watched. After some time (normally a few months, but it can vary) the channel is completely removed and recordings can no longer be played back.

This can cause a lot of problems, not only when people try to watch old recordings from channels that no longer exist, but also when changes are made to which regional version of a channel is broadcast, or where a channel has gone HD only with the SD version closing. Whilst viewers can still receive the channel, if it's not the exact same version (with the same ID) that the recording was made from then the recordings can't be played back.

That’s a lot of BBC World News these days.

The viewing card is just a lump of plastic with a chip in it, like your bank card. The chip is probably what does all the work in a Sky box, as presumably they can be reprogrammed by the set top box software.

Of course ITV Digital knew all about reprogramming viewing cards, considering they used an insecure system for the pay channels, and the method/technique was cracked. And never changed, presumably because it would cost a lot of money that OnDigital (as it was) didn't have - new cards, new boxes, presumably, and new software. Not cheap. Not that it really mattered in the end as the entire operation had other issues and fell over anyway.

Jim Gaffigan, the US comedian and actor, is a regular commentator on CBS Sunday Morning, which is CBS’ weekly news magazine show (it’s great if you’ve never seen it). This week’s piece focused on his recent news consumption, and he expressed some affection for BBC World News pres:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePkJgy9aeXE

what's a PBU?