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ITV1 Regions on DSat

(November 2001)

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JN
JNDorset
According to Sky Digital Online, Sky will be broadcasting all ITV1 regions in the 900s on the EPG. What fantastic news!!!!!
MG
MikeG
Old News!!!!!
JN
JNDorset
What do you mean 'old news'? I haven't heard that anywhere else that ITV1 would broadcast all regions.
MG
MikeG
We have been talking about it on these boards for weeks. You may not be able to find the thread however as some have gone missing - don't knoe why though!
AS
Asa Admin
MikeG posted:
We have been talking about it on these boards for weeks. You may not be able to find the thread however as some have gone missing - don't knoe why though!
Erm Mike. We've been discussing the possibility of ITV1 regions being available to everyone on the official day. We have not discussed it as a result of the news that it will deffo be on the EPG. (And I think we can let him off considering the lack of thread listings today!)

I wish IB would be quicker at getting the final new version out Sad

Cheers, Asa
JA
james2001 Founding member
I've looked at Sky Digi online and all it says is 'adjoinign regions will be avilable on 963 and 964' so it looks like you can get your adjoining region (a similar service to what digital cable are offereing) but not all regions.
J2
j2k
I presume all other regions will be available via the Other Channels option, as they are now.
LW
LogoWatch
J2K posted:
I presume all other regions will be available via the Other Channels option, as they are now.


Yeah I think that is likely. ITV don't want to pay Sky to put all of the regions in the 900's section of the EPG, so they will put a couple in there instead, these being your neighbouring regions. The other regions are very likely to be available through the Other Channels option as they are now Smile

It is still actually unclear as to what type of deal has been done with Sky regarding 103. It is thought that the deal DID NOT involve full encryption, but just the Postcode facility. If that is the case which I believe it is, then the other regionals WILL be available through Other Channels. Also, ntl have not been testing with any type of full/hard encryption on these transponders!
NG
noggin Founding member
LogoWatch posted:
J2K posted:
I presume all other regions will be available via the Other Channels option, as they are now.


Yeah I think that is likely. ITV don't want to pay Sky to put all of the regions in the 900's section of the EPG, so they will put a couple in there instead, these being your neighbouring regions. The other regions are very likely to be available through the Other Channels option as they are now Smile

It is still actually unclear as to what type of deal has been done with Sky regarding 103. It is thought that the deal DID NOT involve full encryption, but just the Postcode facility. If that is the case which I believe it is, then the other regionals WILL be available through Other Channels. Also, ntl have not been testing with any type of full/hard encryption on these transponders!


There are conflicting reports on the newsgroups - mainly based around a confusing report from Meridian which mentioned that their 'SUBREGIONS' - Maidstone and Newbury - would be available in the 900s... This is unlikley IMHO. (There are 27 ITV sub-regions... Their press releases have all confirmed that only 16 will be broadcast)

Anglia seem to be confirming that 103 will be your local ITV - but other regions will be available elsewhere in the EPG.

As for the main 16 regions - they all overlap with somebody - so would all need to appear in the EPG somewhere. I think that it would make sense for them to all appear on the same EPG numbers irrespective of location (apart from 103 carrying your local region) Can you imagine the confusion if Meridian viewers got Anglia on 970, but Carlton got Meridian on 970, with Anglia on 971? (Guessing numbers ...)

I would imagine the cheapest option for ITV from Sky would be a single post-code mapping for your 'main' ITV region, with ALL the others appearing in the 800s or 900s. This would work in the same way as the BBC Two Nations. I would imagine that accurately postcod predicting the 3 nearest regions would actually cost more, as the amount of processing required would be considerably more complex. (And as I mention above the channel numbering would be very confusing)

NTL are currently broadcasting ITV on DSat with encryption, which requires a viewing card, though this can be a Subscription-Free (aka BBC aka FTV) card. This implies that Sky do have a deal with ITV allowing encryption (as the BBC do). It also implies - as expected - that ITV reception will not require a Sky subscription, just a Sky receiver. (You can get a free receiver from Sky with no subscription obligation if you pay the more expensive £100 installation fee)

Technicallly this would allow them to restrict down to just one ITV region (as the BBC One Nations are restricted), or allow all regions to be viewed within Britain, but with a chosen 'best bet' on channel 103, and others available elsewhere in the EPG (as BBC Two Nations are restricted) but not allowing non UK Sky viewers (such as those in EIRE) and FTA (non Sky Digibox users) to view.
MG
MikeG
Asa posted:
MikeG posted:
We have been talking about it on these boards for weeks. You may not be able to find the thread however as some have gone missing - don't knoe why though!
Erm Mike. We've been discussing the possibility of ITV1 regions being available to everyone on the official day. We have not discussed it as a result of the news that it will deffo be on the EPG. (And I think we can let him off considering the lack of thread listings today!)

I wish IB would be quicker at getting the final new version out Sad

Cheers, Asa


That's me told! Lol!
LW
LogoWatch
noggin posted:


There are conflicting reports on the newsgroups - mainly based around a confusing report from Meridian which mentioned that their 'SUBREGIONS' - Maidstone and Newbury - would be available in the 900s... This is unlikley IMHO. (There are 27 ITV sub-regions... Their press releases have all confirmed that only 16 will be broadcast)

Anglia seem to be confirming that 103 will be your local ITV - but other regions will be available elsewhere in the EPG.



The subregions of Meridian, or indeed of any other itv1 region will NOT be available in the 900's of the EPG. They would not be able to offer these on the 3 transponders they have without considerably poor pictures. In any case, they would have been testing these subregions by now.

It is likely that your region will be available on 103 - itv wouldn't really want it any other way. As for all the other regions being present somewhere in the EPG, well I still have my doubts about that. It would cost ITV for every EPG slot. The complexity of the postcode system to allow your region to be on 103 with, say, 2 or 3 neighbouring regions somewhere in the EPG isn't really that complex (that's what ntl are being payed to do, and at the end of the day, if itv can cut cost, they will). As you say noggin, it would be a bit confusing over which region would appear on any given slot depending upon where you are located, but I don't really think it matters that much.... There would be, say, 3 EPG slots available for the neighbour regions, each viewer would know what regions are available on those slots. They wouldn't be interested in whether someone got say Meridian on 970 when they get say Anglia on 970. It just doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, nobody really knows what is happening. Its quite interesting to read other peoples comments and opinions however Smile Lets just wait till launch, eh?
LW
LogoWatch
Just to add a bit more to my last post, I can see why itv wouldn't particularly be bothered about all regions being available to everyone. If they would allow neighbouring regions to be viewable, relative to the viewer, then I can't see why they would have a problem with them all be available to everyone!

Lets still hope that they will all be available, after all, I don't want to have the choice of just Yorkshire and Border here in TTTV land!! More Granada Northern s*** !

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