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BBC ONE English Regions on DSAT

Testing Now (June 2003)

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:-(
A former member
cwathen posted:
[quote .... the BBC South West region is considerably smaller than the ITV South West region. And similarly, the BBC West region is geographically twice the size of it's ITV counterpart.


I really don't think this is correct. Both ITV 1 West and BBC West use just the one main transmitter, Mendip while Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

If anything, with BBC SW also using Fremont Point in the Channel Islands they actually have a larger area than Carlton, even allowing for the CI opt-out.

Rob.
KA
Katherine Founding member
rmc posted:
Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

What about Beacon Hill (100K) near Torquay? That's the fifth main transmitter....
NG
noggin Founding member
Steve in Pudsey posted:
hmm maybe there aren't enough contrib circuits to go around in that part of the world yet? I would imagine the Politics Show could use a couple of circuits so maybe there weren't enough back to London?


They shouldn't need to use contrib circuits - the whole point of the change is to move to MPEG2 over ATM circuits instead of the 34 meg contribs. You can't run a 24/7 service for all 15 English regions using contribution circuits - you'd run out of circuits for programmes!!
NG
noggin Founding member
Profound Unsound posted:
Lee M posted:
BBC ONE BM = Midlands
BBC ONE HL = East Yorkshire and Lincoinshire
BBC ONE LS = Yorkshire
BBC ONE MR = North West
BBC ONE NC = North East and Cumbria
BBC ONE NO = East (Norwich)
BBC ONE BS = West
BBC ONE NT = East Midlands
BBC ONE OX = South (Oxford Opt-Out)
BBC ONE PY = South West
BBC ONE SO = South
BBC ONE TW = South East


Is BBC East (West/Cambridge) not available?


Not yet - and neither is the BBC One Channel Islands (Jersey opt out of Plymouth) service. These will probably be carried on a 3rd transponder - also used by BBCi I expect. Given that these are test services I imagine that Cambridge and Jersey will appear later - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if BBC One Channel Islands were to be the last to launch - as AFAIK the vision circuits from Jersey to Plymouth have yet to be installed.
NS
NickyS Founding member
rmc posted:
cwathen posted:
[quote .... the BBC South West region is considerably smaller than the ITV South West region. And similarly, the BBC West region is geographically twice the size of it's ITV counterpart.


I really don't think this is correct. Both ITV 1 West and BBC West use just the one main transmitter, Mendip while Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

If anything, with BBC SW also using Fremont Point in the Channel Islands they actually have a larger area than Carlton, even allowing for the CI opt-out.

Rob.

Carlton's region is probably bigger than BBC South West - many of the areas covered by Carlton (like Taunton and Weymouth) are covered more by BBC West and BBC South but there is a certain amount of cross over depending on where people live.
NG
noggin Founding member
cwathen posted:
Quote:
AIUI the postcode mapping will initially be based on the ITV DSat tables - which are markedly different in some cases to the BBC DSat regions (BBC Southampton and Tunbridge Wells are both in the ITV Meridian region, BBC Nottingham, Birmingham and Oxford are all in the ITV Central region, BBC Cambridge and Norwich are both in the Anglia region etc.) Hopefully the tables were prepared for possible ITV sub-regions and this data can be used - but who knows!

They're using postcode mapping? I thought that viewers had to manually pick their region with an add on piece of software?

They do need to very quickly adopt BBC postcode tables. Apart from those examples you've allready mentioned, an obvious one which springs to mind is that the BBC South West region is considerably smaller than the ITV South West region. And similarly, the BBC West region is geographically twice the size of it's ITV counterpart. ITV's tables might be OK just to get the system up and running, but they need to move to their own very quickly.


No - BBC are buying a regionalisation service from Sky (as ITV have done), so that viewers WITH Sky viewing cards will get a postcode mapped version of BBC One on 101, with other regions in their own locations in the EPG (looks like the radio channels have been shuffled to free space in the 900s) Viewers WITHOUT a card will get a default of BBC One London on 101 - and will have to negotiate the EPG to chose other regions.

AIUI the BBC will no longer be requiring the user-choice option to be added by Sky (which is a major architecture change for the EPG) - instead they are using regional mapping via the viewing card (which can be implemented independently of encryption - S4C recently moved to this) To get this underway quickly the ITV postcode mapping table will be used for 101 - but all regions will also appear in the EPG elsewhere - unlike ITV (where the advertisers would get annoyed if this were possible!)
CW
cwathen Founding member
Quote:
I really don't think this is correct. Both ITV 1 West and BBC West use just the one main transmitter, Mendip while Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

Officially, BBC South West is the English region for Devon and Cornwall. Also officially, Carlton Westcountry is the ITV station for Devon, Cornwall, part of Somerset and part of Dorset. There is obviously overlap between the South West and West regions, and BBC1 South West and Westcountry might well be available to more or less the same area, but they do not officially transmit to the same patch, and so with a postcode allocation system being based on official broadcast areas, using an ITV system for BBC regions will not be correct.
NG
noggin Founding member
Katherine posted:
Regarding the South West, I wanted to see the South West Politics Show but for some reason, the channel for BBC South West was switched off, and all I got was a black screen looking at me. Will it be that some of these test channels from now to official turn-on will on occasion be switched off? If so, why is this?


The fact that they are unofficial test channels means that they can be removed from service to allow for equipment to be tested, altered, reconfigured etc. I would imagine that the Plymouth service could be liable to more interruptions than most, as equipment will need to be added to create a BBC One Channel Islands feed.

The other explanation is that there was a fault on the main Plymouth DTT opt-out gear!
NG
noggin Founding member
cwathen posted:
Quote:
I really don't think this is correct. Both ITV 1 West and BBC West use just the one main transmitter, Mendip while Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

Officially, BBC South West is the English region for Devon and Cornwall. Also officially, Carlton Westcountry is the ITV station for Devon, Cornwall, part of Somerset and part of Dorset. There is obviously overlap between the South West and West regions, and BBC1 South West and Westcountry might well be available to more or less the same area, but they do not officially transmit to the same patch, and so with a postcode allocation system being based on official broadcast areas, using an ITV system for BBC regions will not be correct.


AIUI the postcode database is based on transmitter footprints, combined with a degree of local pragmatism on the overlap regions - not official editorial areas? Certainly areas well outside the ITV1 London editorial area, but within receiving distance of Crystal Palace, get ITV1 London as well as Meridian in my experience...

The more interesting aspect is that the BBC will be carrying more regions - and if the ITV database is only as coarse as the current regions they carry then the Beeb will have problems with Nottingham, Tunbridge Wells, Oxford, Cambridge, Hull etc.
:-(
A former member
cwathen posted:
Quote:
I really don't think this is correct. Both ITV 1 West and BBC West use just the one main transmitter, Mendip while Carlton Westcountry and BBC South West both use the main four south west transmitters at Stockland Hill, Caradon Hill, Huntshaw Cross and Redruth.

Officially, BBC South West is the English region for Devon and Cornwall. Also officially, Carlton Westcountry is the ITV station for Devon, Cornwall, part of Somerset and part of Dorset. There is obviously overlap between the South West and West regions, and BBC1 South West and Westcountry might well be available to more or less the same area, but they do not officially transmit to the same patch, and so with a postcode allocation system being based on official broadcast areas, using an ITV system for BBC regions will not be correct.


BBC South West does cover up as far as Yeovil and Taunton - they certainly swap material with Points West periodically
DM
Dominic M
noggin posted:
The Quantel system that is being rolled out by BBC regions is very similar in hardware terms to the server infrastructure also being introduced to BBC National News. AIUI Norwich will be the first region to move to it when they start broadcasting TV from the Forum building later this year.


Noggin's right..Norwich will be broadcasting regional television from the Forum in the Autumn.

Larry Scutta posted:
According to something I read elsewhere, it's next week. Radio Norfolk moved a few weeks ago.


In fact, it's Radio Norfolk that starts broadcasting from there as from this Saturday (the 28th of June).
KA
Katherine Founding member
Seen a Spotlight lunchtime - odd to see two Scottish people in the team, is there a mass exodus of Scots to the south west happening? Where were the cider drinkers and the mangel wurzels? Wink

Gillian Miller read the bulletin......

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