Virgin Media EPG number changes

Major reshuffle on the Virgin Media EPG this morning. The Sky channels have all swapped numbers with their HD equivalent, meaning the Sky Sports channels in SD are back in the 510s again, and Sky Arts has moved from Lifestyle to Entertainment.

The Factual section now starts all the way down at 245, presumably because they were already running out of space in the Entertainment section and it was spilling into the 200s anyway. The Sport section has also had a reshuffle and, again, the HD channels now come before the SD channels.

This isn't consistent anywhere else, though, so I wonder if this is the first part of a major reorganisation of the channel numbers. It's long overdue in any case.

https://my.virginmedia.com/customer-news/articles/TV-updates.html

It's all very well swapping Sky 1 around with its HD counterpart when they're right next to each other. I'd like to see Dave, Comedy Central and More 4 to name but three swapped around so I don't have to delve into the near-200s to find a channel relatively low (or high, depending on your perspective) in the EPG in HD.

That's what I'm hoping for with the decision to move the factual channels to 245, that they'll be able to put the HD/+1 channels next to the original channels instead of them being all over the place. It was actually very organised until a few years ago.


When some of the HD channels for Dave, Watch, Comedy Central etc. first launched, the +1 channel was moved to the backend of the Entertainment section and the HD channel took its place. However after a while they decided to reverse this, and moved the +1 channels back and the HD channels at the backend of the section, which is why Comedy Central HD for example moved from 133 to 181.

If they can't swap them depending on your package it would surely be best just to have a specific HD section rather than them randomly mixed in amongst the lower end of the entertainment section.

(bump and slight thread creep)

Who controls the info on VM's TiVo EPG - VM or the channel?

Reason I ask is The Naked Gun (from the files of Police Squad) is on Dave at the moment, but the EPG is showing it to be an obscure 1956 film of a similar name "Naked Gun" complete with a list of stars including Willard Parker. Only problem is the summary of the plot is for the Police Squad film! It's half a dozen of one and six of the other.

The Freeview EPG has the correct information of the 1988 film.

I *believe* the VM Tivo EPG comes from Liberty Global. On other platforms it comes from the channel (although often through an outside company - Dave, like many channels, uses Ericsson).

The EPG will come from Virgin, the data will come from the channel. How quickly Virgin take that data and update their EPG is another matter

Don't know about the Virgin Media implementation, but historically Tivo used to source their own data from a third party listings provider, rather than source it directly from broadcasters. This allowed it to have more metadata than would be provided by the standard broadcaster DVB listings information (particularly for movies) Windows Media Center also has this as an option (though on MCE you can chose to ignore the MS provided listings and use the DVB in-band EIT stuff instead)

Wonder if the Tivo implementation on Virgin has followed the 'third party listing' model - or has some engine that adds metadata to broadcaster provided listings?

I used to notice how VM would never give any specific details on The One Show, yet Sky and Freeview would establish who was the guest at the very least.

I notice this with ITV News. Freeview says who the presenters will be, (sometimes wrong on weekends). However VM doesn't do this.

Tivo's epg is not dynamic, unlike the others, and only updates once a day. So if there are any updates to the schedule, it often doesn't account for this, likewise, overrunning programmes. Very annoying as a viewer.