ITV1 on Sky

dont wanna sound silly (in view of the fact i havent got sky) but how will they stop someone in holland, for example, viewing the champions league etc. when itv wont be encrypted

I don't think they can STOP them viewing ITV1, but it will make it harder for them as it won't be on the EPG.

Also Champions League matches won't be televised on ITV1 via DSat.

(Edited by J2K at 11:45 am on Oct. 27, 2001)

Carlton HTV West? Carlton HTV Wales? That don't sound good:(

No. Sorry, didn't make it clear in my previous post. A deal has been secured with Sky to stick your ITV1 region on 103 and stop people viewing using the postcoding system. However, all UK viewers will still be able to see any region, either on the EPG (800s or something) or via Add Channels.

That means no new negotiations with programme makers needed and the Champions' League will happily feature on DSat.

Cheers, Asa

Sorry - ignore

(Edited by liam at 1:13 pm on Oct. 27, 2001)

Aah, now I understand....

But couldn't an overseas viewer have a BBC Card shipped if it is sent to a UK address?

There was talk just a couple of days ago about the Champions League and rights issues. What was going to happen was as follows: A 'spare' channel would be used to show the Champions League AND anything else that would require ITV to extend their rights for Northern Europe. ITV would pay Sky to encrypt this channel. This channel would automatically switch your box from the ITV1 region of your choice to the encrypted channel at the start of the programme (and at the end of ads), and switch back to the region you were watching at the end (and at the start of ads). This is actually quite convenient, and completely transparent to the viewer. It means ITV only need to pay Sky for the encryption of 1 channel. It was unclear as to where this extra 'spare' channel would fit it, however. It was either going to added to one of the transponder channels (probably 10.906 GHz), or a region would be used (probably Carlton/LWT) - in other words, you digibox would switch from your region to Carlton/LWT, which would be encrypted when necessary.

I don't know if this is still going to go ahead. I get a feeling that it might, but I doubt it will happen at launch.

This business of Northern Europe is a bit of a red herring. Very, very few people in France, Belgium and Holland (the 3 countries able to easily get 2D) actually have a dish pointed at 28E or a motorised dish. They all have dishes pointed at 19E, 13E or 8W. It really isn't much of a problem.

To put things in perspective, how many people watch VT4 Belgium? How many people have even heard of it for goodness sake!?!?! It's on 8W in FTA and all programmes are in English.

In any case, everyone in Holland and Belgium can get ITV through cable. It's only France that poses a problem, and there you have the language barrier.

(Edited by jason at 7:50 pm on Oct. 27, 2001)

Can they??!

Which region do they get?


#Less than 24 hours to go....!#
#Get ready for ITV!#

ITV may well use a dynamic switching system, at least it's in the draft tech spec so it is probably there in case they do need to toggle an encrypted stream in and out. It is highly likely that this will be used for the likes of the Champions League.

Although they are already at an advanced stage, technically, this feature is unlikely to be incorporated into the initial rollout.

If that does the job, then it's a good idea. I wonder what digital viewers will see during the Champions' League matches? Alternative programming or just a generic ITV1 caption saying 'turn back to analogue'? I expect if the regions are shown on tests from tomorrow, it will be switched off for the Manchester United game on Wednesday.

Cheers, Asa

If watching with a digibox (likely), the box would automatically switch to the encrypted stream during the Champions League. This is completely transparent to the viewer. Should the viewer decide to change from channel 103 to another ITV region, again the box would take the encrypted feed rather than the region. If watching with a non-sky digibox receiver (i.e. standard MPEG II DVB box), obviously the box would take the stream selected (i.e. te region), and this would simply be the station ID during the Champions League. Of course the regional adverts would still switch in and out.

In summary, an example of the dynamic switching system is as follows:

* Viewer is watching Yorkshire on channel 103
* Adverts finish, ITV trailers shown, Yorkshire Ident shown
* At this point, switching signal is transmitted to tell your
digibox to switch to the alternate encrypted stream which
is being used to show Champions League.
* Champions League is being transmitted encrypted and viewer
is watching it.
* Advert time - switching signal toggled to switch digibox back to
the ITV1 region on channel 103. This is to ensure that the
viewer gets their local adverts.
* Adverts finish, switching signal transmitted again to switch
box back over to encrypted stream, ready for second half of
the match
* Champions League prog. finishes, switching signal sent to
tell box to go back to the viewers region on channel 103

The system is not particularly clever, but in effect it's as if the viewer is watching their own ITV1 region the whole time. There is no need for captions telling people to switch to analogue because they won't need to.