The Virgin Media Television thread

It's not Saorviews fault, its the data rate that Challenge buy by the Mbs.

Virgin Media channels not in HD either on their app on the Firestick.

Makes sense if they're HD on other device VM players.

We were talking here before about Medialive's data appearing to look odd - certainly 330k for Wales v Ireland on VM1 would seem an extreme underestimation, given how Six Nations matches generally perform, even allowing for the early KO time.

It was in HD on BBC. So HD v crappy Sd ?

No contest, I did not even switch for the half time analysis. I surely was not alone.

I agree, but they must notice that more and more viewing is done directly from a smart TV's App Bar, with so many subscribers to Now, Netflix, Amazon, Disney etc, plus the free content from Players and YouTube. Then you have the external box market of Firestick, Xbox etc.

Fitting out their player with free HD, and enabling it on as many devices as possible will position them to have a primed base for paid content on their player. It surprises me that this isn't already a model for any of the the delivery systems, it seems its all free or all paid, though I think some stuff is free on Apple's own site, and Samsung have their own free suite of live channels on their Tizen OS, which are added to the end of the terrestrial EPG, but no paid product either

There are a few TV operating systems that don't support VM player, Samsung Tizen being the major one. It is avaliable on LG's WebOS afaik, and any 'Android for TV' brand. It's up to VM to compile their App for the outliers, I'd say they're on to it, as their app for 'Android for TV' itself is only a very recent addition, and sits nicely beside the others apps in the menu bar. I was using VMplayer via the TV's browser before they delivered the app. #galtee boy posted that he watched VM in HD 'from the Internet', was this using the TV browser? If so, then any smart TV or device with a browser might deliver HD VM to your screen, though it's clumsy to use.

I can stream Virgin Media player live channels in HD on my Samsung Qled via the Internet app ( virginmediaplayer.ie ), just a pity that Samsung don't have the Virgin Media Player in their app store.

Apart from Virgin Media live channels being available in HD, are there any other advantages of an Apple TV 4K box over an Amazon Firestick ? One great plus for a Firestick is that you can sideload apps etc, can you sideload on an Apple TV box. ?

True, but it's down to cost. The decision to go low quality was/is down to RTENL (aka 2RN) trying to gouge then TV3 for moving it's two channels to digital, even though they previously occupied two full analogue channel bandwidths for these, which is the entire current Saorview broadcast bandwidth. One of these Digital channel Mutiplex carries multiple HD and SD channels. What they were paying to carry analogue TV3 alone on the airwaves should have entitled them to an entire Mux to themselves if they bought their own digital encoders, but the creation of Saorview ruled the day. Ironically, it gave TV3/VM leverage for their Cable service and their Sky channels which are HD, but subscription. I sense thought that the SD is a yoke around their neck in terms of terrestrial viewership, which perhaps is what the HD player is trying to address without forking out for inflated terrestrial HD channel fees.

However it was done it was unfair. It's as if we could suddenly fit ten times passengers in the same aircraft, but the fares per passenger go up, not down. It was a cash grab, and it failed. Its eleven years on, and they are only now getting traffic for the empty mux slots, and using the empty bit rate to HD TG4. I Don't know if there are any plans to add new Mux, but there was no demand previously given the pricing model, and oneway broadcast media is not a great fit anymore for peoples expectations. The Internet was the game changer on all of this. The live/Catchup interactive nature of the ITVX project, and the Freeview/Freesat merger will produce a hybrid that ultimately will be indistinguishable to the end user.

While idly (i.e, bored out of my t*ts) scrolling the channels, I took a look a Challenge. Still going out at 1.2Mbps, that's barely enough for audio, and no headroom, max BR is also 1.2, so it must be a fixed rate channel. What are they paying for that I wonder, €2 a day? The show was an old Bruce Forsythe thing, converted ( i won't dare say UPscaled) from what appeared to be a VHS tape. As soon as Bruce moved, or even spoke, his features disappeared into a lattice of pixel blocks. It was like watching a show broadcast by Minecraft characters. It brought me back to the days of worn Xtravision rental tapes, smeared images and wandering colour blobs. Bring back the Commodore 64! (It's back actually, exact physical replica, plus games all preloaded and an hdmi port). I bought one as a Xmas gift for my 42 year old son. Nearly brought tears to his eyes. MicksGarage has them.

The deflectors! That brings back memories. My last job in RTE was in reception surveying, plotting out the main and relay transmission maps. We were supposed to hunt down and log the deflectors, but in parts of Donegal that was the only source of signals in the valley towns. I do remember working in Castlebar in 1981, staying in the Travellers Friend. There was a TV dealer up in Foxford or Swinford or God knows where, small town anyway, asked us to survey his deflector outside the town on a hill, his clients were complaining of fringe reception. We obliged of course, and advised accordingly. Gas times, it took a working day to drive from Donnybrook to Castletownbere or Creeslough in a whiney air cooled rear engined VW transporter with all our kit and a telescopic mast bolted to the back. Must have looked like hippies.

I remember some kind of a deflector aerial put up on Cnoc on Oir hill around that time (1980ish) I remember getting BBC1 and 2 if my memory serves me correctly, but the picture wasn't that good either, very snowey.