ITV on Sky Digital - something's happening

Charles Slane

It looks like something's happening on the ITV front.

There is a channel with the ident "Castle" currently broadcasting on 10.832 H, 22000, 5/6, which is one of the transponders reserved for ITV.

The channel is showing aerial footage of a castle and is very pixelated.

At last we may soon see ITV on Sky Digital.

Anyone know any more details ?

byte

After looking at it now. It's not pixelated with me. Maybe they have fixed the signal a bit. It has very little to do with ITV but that's tests for ya. According to wotsat tests of itv won't begin til 29th of this month.

Hmmm,while channel hopping, last night, on tv3, I came across, what could be loosly be called a movie-with what looked like that castle in it-and you'll never guess what they were at inside it.....:D
Now we Know what ITV do with the stuff that ends up on the cutting room floor!
no pixelling here either
mm

btw.....I mean tv3 praha....!

Charles Slane

According to posts I've read on other forums, all three ITV transponders are now "active".

This doesn't always mean that there's anything actually broadcasting on them and so far "Castle" is the only thing visible on 10.832 H, 22000, 5/6.

I'd imagine that this is a very basic test to establish uplink and positioning etc. but it bodes well that we can receive it.

Does anyone know whether ITV2 will be on Sky Digital. I really want to see Lettman again.

Charles Slane

By the way, the other ITV transponders are -

10.891 H, 22000, 5/6 and 10.906 V, 22000, 5/6.

It might be worth keeping a regular check on them (if you care about it, that is).

Mossy Monk

i tried the frequency posted by Charles and i get a no signal message. but at least some Irish Sky viewers are getting this castle channel. i will try again later

byte

Well at time of posting, the "Castle Channel" has stopped broadcasting. That's probably the reason you cant get it Mossy

Baz999

Since ITV will broadcast via Astra 2D, whose footprint is pretty tightly focused over Ireland and UK, does that mean they may transmit 'in the clear' and not spend money going through Sky's Videoguard encryption?

Charles Slane

The story at the moment is that ITV has not reached an agreement with Sky over the cost of encryption, which is quite high give the number of channels involved.

ITV have said that they intend to proceed with the launch with or without an encryption deal. This would mean that all ITV channels would be in the clear but because of broadcasting rights, some programmes (ie Champions League) could not be broadcast on ITV on Sky Digital.

So which would you prefer, all channels with some programmes missing, or just UTV with all programmes intact ?

I'd personally prefer all channels

byte

I would prefer just UTV with all programmes especially when the removed programmes are Champions League and possibly Formula1.

Cloud

I'd prefer all channels.

bkehoe

I'd prefer all channels too.

Mossy Monk

all channels would be great to see what the presentation is like in the different regions

Four eyes

I'd prefer just UTV if it came down to it. Losing the Champions league would be a big loss

Charles Slane

It looks like we may not have too long to wait to find out.

According to posts on another forum (from someone "in the know"), ITV tests will begin on 22nd or 23rd of this month (next Monday or Tuesday).

I guess the reason I'd prefer the "all channels" option is that I get UTV on NTL cable already, so if anything was blocked out on Sky Digital, I could watch it on cable anyway.

I wonder how many Irish Sky Digital customers also get British terrestrial channels (ie BBC, ITV, Channel 4) through cable, deflector or aeriel.

It would be a nice idea to just have to use one television provider, and ITV's arrival on Sky Digital brings that idea a bit closer for everyone.

So what's keeping Channel 4 ?

charles,I think there was a nielsen survey on that posted here somewhere-havent time to look-but down my area the trend in new houses now is Sky ,RTE vhf aerial and tv3 aerial-no UK aerial-even though the reception is good and free-changing times!
mm

Charles Slane

The British government now seems to be getting involved in the standoff between ITV and Sky regarding carriage on Sky Digital. Check out this article in the Media Guardian -

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,575756,00.html

Once again it's stated that ITV intend to commence transmissions regardless of reaching an agreement with Sky.

Charles Slane

The "Castle" test is back on one of the ITV transponders.

This time it's at 10.906 V, 22000, 5/6.

Tony

Originally posted by Charles Slane
The "Castle" test is back on one of the ITV transponders.

This time it's at 10.906 V, 22000, 5/6.

I notice my box will no longer allow me to add channels, anyone else have this problem?

Regards Tony

chris

Hi Tony,
i've noticed today that the add channells is takeing longer but after about 30 seconds it works.

Charles Slane

Tony,

My Add Channels is working fine.

Are you still having problems ?

When I read your post first, I had a bad feeling that Sky might have been tinkering with the digibox software to prevent people adding the ITV channel tests (when they begin). But I guess if that was the case, we'd all have probelms with Add Channels.

Tony

Originally posted by Charles Slane
Tony,

My Add Channels is working fine.

Are you still having problems ?

When I read your post first, I had a bad feeling that Sky might have been tinkering with the digibox software to prevent people adding the ITV channel tests (when they begin). But I guess if that was the case, we'd all have probelms with Add Channels.

Still not working but perhaps its a software fault in my box

Tony

my add channels is also fine at the momemt-I too have a bad feeling about this:(
better add as fast as we can!
mm

chernobyl

Originally posted by Tony


Still not working but perhaps its a software fault in my box

Tony

I assume you can get the box to scan the TP for the ITV feed but what then..when you hit select to add it to "other channels"

Tony

Originally posted by chernobyl



I assume you can get the box to scan the TP for the ITV feed but what then..when you hit select to add it to "other channels"

It adds it but when you go to select the channels from "other channels" you get the info page on how to add channels , in other words it does not store correctly

REgards Tony

Four eyes

I've tried the 3 ITV transponders and it's just showing a "No Signal found"

It looks like we'll be waiting longer for ITV, even "Castle" has disappeared now....

chernobyl

Have you got lots of channels in the "other channels" list..just maybe the system memory is full.
its a weird one.
have you tired adding standard channels that are already in the EPG etc etc.

Charles Slane

Tony,

Ever since the Planner software downloaded I've also had a problem with "Other Channels". They were all being deleted every now and again and I'd also get the info page on how to add channels.

From reading other forums it seems that Other Channels is automatically cleared if you go over a certain number of channels (I think I read 30, but I'm not sure). This is a bit of a drag when you use Other Channels to store the BBC Radio channels because it doesn't leave much room for tests.

It'll be all the more annoying if all the ITV channels need to be stored in Other Channels. You'll already be using 25-ish places.

I don't know if this bug is affecting all digiboxes (mine is a silver Grundig) , but hopefully it will be sorted before the ITV tests start.

And on the ITV subject - the first rumoured dates (22nd and 23rd) have passed with no sign of any proper tests .....

And still no news of ITV2 .....

Tony

Thanks Charles, I had some channels in there but no where near thirty, anyway deleted everything and it seems to be ok now. Thanks guys for all the suggestions.

Regards Tony

byte

Well my old Pace used to like deleting stuff from Other Channels usually after about 20ish. Once I managed to retrieve the Other Channels by rebooting but other times were fruitless. These problems only started when the PersonalPlanner was introduced. :mad: Will have to fill up the Panasonic I have now to see how well I get on....:rolleyes:

Charles Slane

If we're dependent on the "Other Channels" feature to store the forthcoming ITV channels, it will be put under even more pressure with the announcement of the Beebs plans for it's extra digital radio channels (which I assume we'll have to store on Other Channels like Radios 1 -4 etc.).

Article here http://www.produxion.com/asp/nframe.asp

It's possible that Irish customers won't have room to store all the regular test channnels when ITV appears and the "deletion bug" won't help matters.

ITV may not be interested in paying for EPG space on the ROI version of Sky Digital, although hopefully the channels will be free-to-air.

Charles Slane

Very positive news this morning !!

9 new tests have appeared on 10.832 GHz Horizontal, 22000, 5/6.

There is no station id fro any of them so far, but nine blanks appear.

When you store them, each one comes up as colour bars and the name "William Road".

But even more interesting is that when you press the info button, it brings up programme info for ITV !!

Finally, something tangible......

Charles Slane

There are now 9 test channels on each of the three ITV transponders. Each with the colour bars and programme info, but a few seem to be in widescreen at the moment.

The other transponders are 10.891 H, 22000, 5/6 and 10.906 V, 22000, 5/6.


That makes 27 channels (?).

I know these are just tests that may not represent the final number of channels, but it would be nice to get ITV2.

Hi Charles-this indeed is great news!!!
Have just checked all 27-Its a good time to do it as just after the ITV lunchtime news theres a lot of regional variations:

On 10832h the fifth test shows Westcountry news-so Itv carlton westcountry, a lot of them have shortland street so they could be anything including HTV
on 10891 the fifth has "lunchtime live" after the ITV lunchtime news,the sixth has wildlife sos, the seventh has North eat today,and the eight also has "live lunch"
on 10906, the fourth has Scotland today and the fifth has "the people Versus"
mm

I'm talking about the programme information that come up when you press select-picture is just the testcard ...william rd
mm

Four eyes

Perhaps we're inching a little closer to seeing ITV on SKY. I had a day off today and just checked the ITV transponders under the "Add Channels" option and under each transponder 9 "unidentified" channels came up. When selected each revealed "William Road".
Perhaps ITV may be sorted out before the weekend, or will it hold on till Monday?

Charles Slane

It's unfortunate that none of the tests had programme info for ITV2 (I really do miss Letterman).

The colour bars disappeared earlier, but I stored all the tests before then.

Each channel is now blue screen, but all now have channels ids showing. 1-1, 1-2, 1-3 etc. through to 1-9, and then 2-1 to 2-9, and 3-1 to 3-9.

Mark McG

Getting nothing on those transponders now - NO SIGNAL FOUND on all three. Is that just me, or are they not broadcasting any more?

Mark.

byte

When ITV does launch, I doubt if the channels will be via Other Channels and if UTV is FTA, I reckon it will have an EPG number in ROI as UTV has a massive audience in ROI

rlogue

Originally posted by Mark McG
Getting nothing on those transponders now - NO SIGNAL FOUND on all three. Is that just me, or are they not broadcasting any more?

Mark.

I tried today at about 2pm but got nothing. Haven't got anything tonight (Friday) either.

Richie

Four eyes

I orignally received those ITV tests yesterday but did not store them and I haven't been able to access them again either since...I'm sure they'll turn up again ... Monday maybe...

I stored them-they numbered them since then as Charles said above-from reading other forums-those tests come on for a few hours only-especially morning thru lunch
mm

Charles Slane

My "Extra Channels" have all been deleted.

How annoying is that ?

A question to anyone with the tests still stored - are the channel ids still the same ?

It seems that the Granada-owned channels will be grouped on one transponder, Carlton-owned channels on another and the remainder on the third transponder.

I've read posts on British forums stating that ITV have an agreement with Sky that your local ITV channel will appear on EPG103 dependent on your postcode. If that's the case, what will that mean for ROI viewers ? Will UTV be prepared to pay Sky for a place on the Irish EPG ? I'd imagine they would, but will we see it on 103 ?

Has anyone in the installation business had any info from Sky about any of this ?

charles-the channels are still numbered , the same way as you saw them.
so HTV will be on 10832 then?
UTV being truly representative of the I in ITV should see the commercial sence in appearing on the Irish EPG-and in fact I would argue that they will be-why else would there be strong speculation,in todays papers that RTE are going on to the Irish EPG in the new year?
Its extremely unlikely that you will see UTV on 103 on the Irish EPG, as this will most likely be taken by TV3,who given their relationship with Granada, and commercial pressure to boot, will probably most likely quickly follow the ITV lead.

So you see IMO it's all posturing (especially by RTE and TV3) and all the "Terrestrials" will be there soon-like Domino's, they will fall, when faced with Money.
Even Channel four( with a bit of luck) as they've plucking to do down here also.
mm

chris

This was on another forum, look's like it's Monday

---

ITV Digital Satellite

Test transmissions of all 16 ITV1 services are to begin on digital satellite from Monday, October 29.

Viewers can tune in to the channels by using the "add channels" facility of their digital set-top box.

---

Cloud

Is digitalspy down? I can't seem to connect.

chernobyl

down, down, down....
seems terminal..only kidding.

_Kaiser_

Hi all,

well its Monday 1pm and no tests that I can see (maybe its just me tho?) and yea, I cant get onto Digital Spy either

byte

I can't access DS either. I can't get anything on the ITV tps either but maybe there is something there that can't be seen by a digibox. Maybe someone with a FTA box can get someting??

Four eyes

It's a bit irritating to look at this thread title "something's happening", when there doesn't appear to be!

DSPY as the lads said seems to be down today and as for the great 29th Oct ITV testing - not much happening there either.

Does anyone who stored the test channels the other day see any signs of activity on them?