ITV1HD

Are you saying there are three separate video PIDs - or are two of the service IDs pointing to the same video (and audio?) - like BBC HD and 6945 (which is also BBC HD)?

Also - is the encrypted one DVB-S or S2 and on a 2A/B/Eurobird or a 2D transponder?

Thought they were pleading poverty or summat?

Amazing how you can suddenly find money. Bad as the Government!

Hello noggin,

see here

http://en.kingofsat.net/tv-28.2E.php
&
http://en.kingofsat.net/tv-28.5E.php

There's not actually that big a financial investment required - ITV are providing an HD clean feed to the regional companies, with the local elements (news, local progs, comms etc) upscaled if an HD version doesn't exist..

ITV2 +1, 3 +1 and 4 +1 have finally been added to Virgin Media today on 116, 174 and 175 respectively. Men & Motors being removed.

YAY!

I get fed up missing Judge Judy at teatime, or Hell's Kitchen if there's something else on and I forget to switch over.

This pleases me.

Who were pleading poverty? Broadcasting in HD is pretty essential and a long term thing and not really something thy can ignore

As has ITV1 HD, with a 'coming soon' caption.

I always regret asking such questions as someone usually comes back with all the details, but how does broadcasting space work with cable, as Virgin seems to have expanded quite considerably, with HD at least, over recent months. Do they in theory have an infinite amount of space to broadcast from, or is there some kind of transponder/mux type thing going on?

I'm not really clued up with it all but I read a book about L!VE TV which detailed the start of cable TV in this country. Aparently the fibre optic cables are pretty much the best way to distribute TV, phone and internet because they are so adaptable to every new development going. They were built for the future and interactivity, long before it was ever possible to use it for that.

You are not the only one, Brekkie. I have often wondered the same.

A cable network will always require as much upgrade as a satellite, but the cost would vary. I have no idea of the cost differential between two.

There is a limited amount of capacity on cable. The fibre-optic is only as far as the street cabinet, from there to the set top box and modem it's co-ax.

The services provided are multiplexed into the bandwidth on that co-ax. This is a snapshot of how the bandwidth on NTL digital cable was in 1999: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/article/ds1897.html Obviously since then the analogue TV and radio bandwidth will have been replaced by digital streams but the principle is the same, the space is divided up into carriers. Cable boxes and modems are effectively radio receivers and transmitters (unlike DTT and satellite they are 2-way). It doesn't have transponders (they're only found on satellites) but it does have multiplexes of sorts, although to the viewer they're irrelevant compared with DTT or satellite... there's no reception issues about getting some but not others.

On cable the owners of the network have a say on how that bandwidth is carved up (unlike satellite and to an extent DTT)... it's all theirs. As their network is enclosed it's not regulated like the airwaves so they can't really interfere with anyone and as they built the network there's little regulation on what they do with it. However unlike DTT and satellite, it's not all used on broadcasting, some is taken up by VOD and internet traffic and there's also a return path (used for VOD, the internet and interactive services)

It does seem that Virgin's cable platform is virtually full, I've had it for about 5 years and it does seem like it's 1 in 1 out in terms of channels, although we have gained a load of HD services recently without losing much. I suspect that the extra space has been freed up by improvements in encoding and the loss of things like Front Row