Virgin Media - analogue TV service reduction and switch off

ford fiesta

I have analogue and now have an 'A' at the bottom of my BBC 1 since late last week? D14 area..

The Cush

ford fiesta wrote: »

I have analogue and now have an 'A' at the bottom of my BBC 1 since late last week?

Either analogue switchoff or analogue channels reduction in your area. If you are an analogue subscriber you would have received a letter.

How do I know if I am using Virgin Media’s analogue TV?

You will have one or more TVs in your home that have a limited selection of channels and these TVs will be connected with a white cable without the use of a Digital TV box. Once you receive a communication about the switch off, if you go to BBC1 you will see a logo in the bottom left corner of the screen. You can also check channels RTE1, RTE2 and BBC1 for a scrolling message two weeks before the switch off in your area.

https://www.virginmedia.ie/switchoff
https://www.virginmedia.ie/newlineup/

How do I know if I am using Virgin Media’s analogue TV?

You will have one or more TVs on your premises that have a limited selection of channels (between 11 and 20) and these TVs will be connected with a white cable without the use of a digital TV box. There will be a capital A on the bottom left corner of the screen on BBC1 for 5 weeks before the channel reduction. Also for 2 weeks before the channel reduction there will be a scrolling message on RTE1, RTE 2 and BBC1.

https://www.virginmedia.ie/business/switchover/

Living Off The Splash

dodzy wrote: »

I dunno what's happening with your account but plenty of people, my parents included, were on analogue with UPC and more recently, VM. They were billed 2 monthly. And it was nothing near the price you referred to. IIRC, it worked out at approx €24.50 per month (€49 billed ever 2 mths) for a single TV point. Analogue was never €35 per month.

Thanks dodzy for your response. Maybe because I was paying a year in advance I was charged this amount? Although I don't know why this would be the case.
I have gone back through my annual bills for several years and they are all similar in amount. (Usually a price increase year on year).

manna452121

When I was turned off in June I got a letter giving me details of a rebate on my account within 1 month,I got my money back last week.

Living Off The Splash

manna452121 wrote: »

When I was turned off in June I got a letter giving me details of a rebate on my account within 1 month,I got my money back last week.

In my case they are reducing the analogue output to 9 channels and in 2019 they will be gone entirely. No talk of rebates.

I am going to apply for a rebate though because if I do, the refund I will get will almost equal a years new subscription to their Freedom TV or go toward the installation of a satellite dish.

Apparently those people on analogue TV were being charged all sorts of prices for their service, as they were not advertised on their site. Nobody knew what the real price of the analogue service was. Only digital prices were advertised.

dodzy

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

In my case they are reducing the analogue output to 9 channels and in 2019 they will be gone entirely. No talk of rebates.

I am going to apply for a rebate though because if I do, the refund I will get will almost equal a years new subscription to their Freedom TV or go toward the installation of a satellite dish.

Apparently those people on analogue TV were being charged all sorts of prices for their service, as they were not advertised on their site. Nobody knew what the real price of the analogue service was. Only digital prices were advertised.

Analogue was analogue. The basic 16 or so channels. Cable coming into the back of thousands of TVs across the land for decades. Then came digital....and a box you had to put between your supply and your TV. Frightening stuff it was. But the show kept on running,.....for years, many people, particularly older people, were quite happy to continue paying the 25€ or so per month, the vast majority totally unaware of their options, up until the cut-off which has already arrived for many, or is on the way.

Never once I'd imagine were any of those long term customers aware of the option to switch to a better service with many more channels (a lot of crap in there TBF) but a far better service, record features, series link etc for pretty much the same price as they were paying for the analogue muck. Sure sky was as cheap as analogue at times.
And we wonder why every household, way back then, were not notified by UPC (now VM) of the benefits of switching to digital

ozmo

Not muck at all...

This week I had to setup a new 50” TV for a relative- it didn’t come with scart so while we wait for the box to be swapped for hdmi I plugged in analog- and it’s actually not as bad as I remember - the 4K tv did a great job upscaling it.
Better choice than Saorview and no digital artifacts when lots happening in the screen ( eg fireworks/confetti on those Uk shows cause a LOT of digital mess) - analog isn’t like that- like vinyl or a valve amp it’s a different experience.

Hotblack Desiato

The great advantage of analogue for a lot of people was just turning on the TV and using the TV remote to get all channels.

No faffing about with a box, a box remote, switching inputs on the TV, or using two remotes. Yes there are ways around these problems but a lot of people aren't very tech savvy.

A good analogue cable signal will look a lot better than the very highly compressed satellite/cable SD channels if there's anything much in the way of motion in the image.

Cushie Butterfield

dodzy wrote: »

Never once I'd imagine were any of those long term customers aware of the option to switch to a better service with many more channels (a lot of crap in there TBF) but a far better service, record features, series link etc for pretty much the same price as they were paying for the analogue muck. Sure sky was as cheap as analogue at times.
And we wonder why every household, way back then, were not notified by UPC (now VM) of the benefits of switching to digital

My recollection of things is different, being bombarded with flyers by post & inserts in bills plus media ads pointing out the benefits of digital tv. This was back in the NTL days around 2005/6. Free installation, free activation, €1 a month for first 6 months increasing to approx €20 per month thereafter. At the time I was paying around €26 per month for analogue, so it made sense for me at the time to switch to digital.

Before this some people were paying extra for extra analogue tv points (me included), until someone told me to just ring up & cancel the extra tv points because they would still work, you would just no longer be charged.

Then we had the advent of ‘bundles’ & the rebranding to UPC, which made it more attractive to get broadband, digital tv & phone. Again this was cheaper than separate subs to different providers.

For quite a number of years if someone had broadband only from UPC they had to pay a standalone charge of approx €7 per month as they could actually receive the analogue tv channels by default by simply splitting the signal. The standalone charge was removed following complaints but was in place for a number of years.

It was also quite common for people to move house & find they had analogue as UPC rarely bothered disconnecting cancelled analogue signals. It was always the case that if you switched to digital that you still had analogue.

So anyone who was paying for analogue tv for at least the past decade were paying more than they would have for digital tv. They can’t blame Virgin Media for that. If people ignored the numerous Go Digital Campaigns, all the flyers & advertising from NTL/UPC over the years plus word of mouth from relatives, friends & neighbours, not to mention all the media surrounding saorview, then they shouldn’t really be blaming Virgin Media & now that the inevitable has happened should really just get on with things & go digital or legal IPTV - it’s not like they have any choice.

10000maniacs

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The great advantage of analogue for a lot of people was just turning on the TV and using the TV remote to get all channels.

No faffing about with a box, a box remote, switching inputs on the TV, or using two remotes. Yes there are ways around these problems but a lot of people aren't very tech savvy.

A good analogue cable signal will look a lot better than the very highly compressed satellite/cable SD channels if there's anything much in the way of motion in the image.

That seemed to happen only on the SD channels and not as much these days. Rarely in the HD channels.
I used Virgin analogue for the BBC radio stations. Is analogue radio getting zapped too?

coylemj

10000maniacs wrote: »

I used Virgin analogue for the BBC radio stations. Is analogue radio getting zapped too?

The analog signal being discussed here comes from the TV port on the wall, the same source that you'd connect to a digital TV box. The FM signal comes from a different port and is not affected, at least for the moment. I expect that the bandwidth requirement for the existing FM signal is miniscule so it's probably not under threat.

Delta2113

Analogue radio is getting switched off as well.

coylemj

Delta2113 wrote: »

Analogue radio is getting switched off as well.

I just checked the letter I received a couple of weeks ago informing me that my analog channels would be reduced to 9 on Aug. 20th and switched off in 2019. There is no mention whatsoever about FM radio.

10000maniacs

Delta2113 wrote: »

Analogue radio is getting switched off as well.

Thats a joke. I have used that FM radio service for 30 years. What are we supposed to do now for BBC radio? Get a seperate virgin digibox and tv monitor in the bedroom to switch the radio stations?
They keep putting up prices and removing stuff. The removal of the UKTV network was close to the final straw but the removal of FM radio is it but good for me.

The Cush

Conflicting information on analogue radio switchoff recently

Dinarius wrote: »

Anyway, I just had an online chat with a Virgin support person.

This is the gist of the conversation, after I asked why two BBC channels were still available, but the rest not....

"The (analogue radio) service will be removed totally for 20 August 2018 and the channels are being removed bit by bit."

Originally posted by Virgin Media: Brian

Nope, the analogue radio channels aren't affected by the analogue TV switch off :-)

Cheers

tsue921i8wljb3

coylemj wrote: »

The analog signal being discussed here comes from the TV port on the wall, the same source that you'd connect to a digital TV box. The FM signal comes from a different port and is not affected, at least for the moment. I expect that the bandwidth requirement for the existing FM signal is miniscule so it's probably not under threat.

The frequencies used for FM radio can be part of the DOCSIS 3.1 upstream so depending on how much spectrum they need it may be under threat. See table 2 here:

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/DOCSIS-3.1%3A-scaling-broadband-cable-to-Gigabit-Hamzeh-Toy/7d5c65c4511c1e58fc929172f4a2b37cce835442

coylemj

The Cush wrote: »

Conflicting information on analogue radio switchoff recently

Well the piece about the 'channels' (radio stations) being 'removed bit by bit' is rubbish, I just checked and they're all still there.

It's not like this is an obscure signal that they don't know about, I have a UPC wall box that's no more than 5 years old with separate TV and FM ports.

Hotblack Desiato

The FM band is only 20MHz so doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the broadband scheme of things.

I still think they'll kill it off though, as there's a cost (not much, but still a cost) in providing and maintaining it, and there's no revenue out of it - and 99% of their customers won't care.

C'est la vie.

coylemj

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

The FM band is only 20MHz so doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the broadband scheme of things.

I still think they'll kill it off though, as there's a cost (not much, but still a cost) in providing and maintaining it, and there's no revenue out of it - and 99% of their customers won't care.

You could same the same about several of the TV channels at the bottom of the TV Guide but there would be less negative reaction if any of them was shut down vs. killing the FM signal.

JDxtra

A few people love the FM service. But that's the problem, it's only a few. Most don't know it exists or don't care or need it. It's certainly not going to attract any new subscribers, so it's a defunct service I'm afraid.

coylemj

JDxtra wrote: »

A few people love the FM service. But that's the problem, it's only a few. Most don't know it exists or don't care or need it. It's certainly not going to attract any new subscribers, so it's a defunct service I'm afraid.

I agree it might not attract new subscribers but considering the miniscule cost (money and bandwidth) of keeping it there, I can't see any sense in killing it. A lot of people have old amps with an FM Port and I have an AV receiver which also takes the signal and shows me the station name for most of the radio stations (incl. BBC1-5).

Pulling the FM signal might just be the tipping point for a lot of people to up sticks and move to Sky or go for the free TV bundle of Saorview & Freesat.

Virgin Media: Brian

The Cush wrote: »

Conflicting information on analogue radio switchoff recently

Hey The Cush,

We don't normally post outside the Talk To but we just wanted to clear up any confusion about the analogue radio stations :-)

Just to confirm - the analogue radio signal won't be affected by the analogue TV switch off and we've updated our FAQ page to include that:

https://www.virginmedia.ie/switchoff


Thanks.

Hotblack Desiato

Boards Poster Power won the day

SPDUB

Virgin Media: Brian wrote: »

Hey The Cush,

We don't normally post outside the Talk To but we just wanted to clear up any confusion about the analogue radio stations :-)

Just to confirm - the analogue radio signal won't be affected by the analogue TV switch off and we've updated our FAQ page to include that:

https://www.virginmedia.ie/switchoff


Thanks.

Unfortunately your answer looks a lot like a specifically suspicious denial

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuspiciouslySPecificDenial

And in this country that has led to tribunals

icdg

Okay, look Brian has been very helpful to come in clarify the situation, right now we have no reason to doubt his bone fides

L1011

The FM setup there always feels like its basically the remit of one engineer who makes extensive use of it himself.

At least the pilot frequency is gone and the overhead network doesn't leak like it used to!

marno21

I have never seen the FM service marketed and I was surprised it was still on air in Limerick in 2014. I didn't think it would outlive this switchoff but good to see it is.

mike2084

I make plenty use of the FM Radio service and am glad to see it staying.

ozmo

mike2084 wrote: »

I make plenty use of the FM Radio service and am glad to see it staying.

Never tried it but curious now- what stations would it give you that a regular Antanae doesn’t? Ta.

coylemj

ozmo wrote: »

Never tried it but curious now- what stations would it give you that a regular Antanae doesn’t? Ta.

BBC1-5 and World Service. It used to be possible (on a good day) to pickup the BBC R2 signal from Divis on 90.1 MHz in Dublin but it's now obliterated by the Spirit FM signal from Bray/Greystones.