Well I thought it would be too good to be true, looks like I will have ****
Granada still. Oh well, at least by January the BBC will have a dominence over ITV if ITV only lets us watch our own ITV region, whereas, overtime when all the BBC regions are added to DSAT fron January onwards, we will be able to watch whatevery English regional programming we like.
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 Lets just wait till launch, eh?
Yep - I think the sub-regions are very unlikely.
And as you say - 103 is the only place to put your local (or best bet to be local) ITV region. Anything else would seriously disadvantage ITV.
As for EPG entry, multiple regions and NTL...
Are NTL also responsible for 'subscriber' entitlement-management, as this is the data which would be used to allocate postcode regionality (for both 103 and possible overlap regions)
I thought NTL were only involved with uplink.
(EPG data and 'subscription'/entitlement are not uplinked in the same manner as the audio and video - the EPG/subscriptions are handled via a data link to BSkyB rather than a signal on a single transponder)
I hadn't seen that NTL were involved with EPG/subscriber management mentioned anywhere. I would imagine ITV are likely to join the other subscription-free broadcasters (BBC,C4, C5) and use the BT operated service, which was set-up to take over from Sky. (BT manage the subscription-free 'Sky' cards, and send data to Sky to arrange authorisation over the air)
I would imagine that the cost of EPG entry is going to be for 16 channels whatever happens - in that 16 different channels will need to be available via the EPG across the UK - whether they are visible to individual viewers is not likely to alter the cost of EPG entry is it? I would imagine the EPG cost is for linking the scheduling data and channel number with the video and audio streams - which will be needed for all 16 ITVs - and so will not change in cost by only allocating a few EPG channel numbers per subscriber?
Anyway - I expect we'll find out tomorrow... Or maybe not!
My interpretation of this means that Sky will block the other regions via the EPG.
Surely it would be NDS they would have to see to get a full encryption system?
Therefore, as I have said from day one - I think all regions will be available to everyone, albeit via the Other Channels option.
DC
DaveCheltenham
Not necessarily as Videoguard is very versatile and has the options to do almost anything. Less complicated but BBC1 cannot be viewed out of Post Code.
The mechanism appears to be different from the basic encryption and seems to be tied to a separate data base. When authorising a card, the basic is there straight away but anything area related can take up to 24 hours. The clue seems to be ‘Channel not Available' as opposed to ring somewhere to subscribe. The favourite is still 103 plus a couple of adjacent regions on the EPG.
Viewers may have just noticed before the news Granada did a rarety and showed an ident with full sound! It was lines!! which I think was generic from Leeds as 'Granada' wasn't mentioned
I wouldn't worry about the rights issue particularly.
1) Keeping channels out of the EPG is protection enough. As I understand it it is more expensive to totally protect (as with BBC1) than just keep out of the EPG (like Channel 4).
2) If the channels were going to be restricted we'd have seen the testing by now (after all they are supposed to launch Tuesday!!!!!)
3) The neighbouring channels bit just makes it easier to get a selection of cards to circumvent the restriction anyway.
RO
robroy
Sorry to alarm you all but today's Metro has an article on ITV &
Sky which summarising states;
'ITV have reached a GBP17Million deal with Sky which will
fully encrypt ITV1 down to the correct postcode.'
All of the regions now have a name but you will have to retune the frequencies to get them in the EPG.
All english regions (except Channel) have the name;
ITV 1 [region name]
On Channel it says ITV Channel Ilds
On Scottish and Grampian it says Scottish tv and Grampian tv.
On UTV, surprisingly enough it says UTV.
There is also ITV 1 London, ITV 1 Border Scotl, and ITV 1 HTV Wales.
Very interesting to see 'ITV1 WCountry' and 'ITV1 Central' - might be a long shot but it does increase the chance of the names being brought back, or at least becoming the dominent name - 'Carlton Central' for example.
Lets just wait till launch, eh?