[bronx2282]

ITV News Channel off Freeview for 9 Months

Do you think they're having a baby?

Oh yeah, ITV3 !!!!

[speculator]

Originally Posted by tedjrr

Will regional ITV News be on D-SAT and cable, or just DTT?

Regional ITV News Channel on DTT will be postcoded by the transmitter you receive your signal. Thinking about D-SAT, I don't think it is possible. ITV News Channel on D-SAT is free-to-air. Therefore the channel does not operate via a free-to-view card encryption so there is no way to tell your set-top box which regional ITV News Channel to appear on your EPG lineup.

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by tedjrr

As for ITV news, apparently the purpose s to regionalise it. But whethet this means running additional bulletins, or just an ITV-1 simulcast is of cource anyone's guess.

A reason for moving ITV News onto MUX2 was to allow the possibility of regional programmes. Another reason was avoiding carriage costs on SDN. It has been on MUX2 for quite some time with no sign of any movement towards introducing regional programmes. With re-engineering it will become much easier technically to insert local content. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen. Be in no doubt, the main reason for re-engineering is to make room for 4 channels on ITV bandwidth.

[paulsalter]

Originally Posted by speculator

Regional ITV News Channel on DTT will be postcoded by the transmitter you receive your signal. Thinking about D-SAT, I don't think it is possible. ITV News Channel on D-SAT is free-to-air. Therefore the channel does not operate via a free-to-view card encryption so there is no way to tell your set-top box which regional ITV News Channel to appear on your EPG lineup.

I am assuming they will do it on dsat the same way that bbc1 is and have all the regions plus you local region on the epg.

Havnt itv just bought a load more space on astra (or am i thinking of channel 4)

[epsilon]

Originally Posted by paulsalter

I am assuming they will do it on dsat the same way that bbc1 is and have all the regions plus you local region on the epg.

Havnt itv just bought a load more space on astra (or am i thinking of channel 4)

Both have more space. Don't read too much into the regionalisation of ITV News. It might be convenient to simulcast regional programmes on ITV 1 & ITV News on DTT, I shouldn't think it would be very cost effective to simulcast on satellite.

[Corin]

Originally Posted by Speculator

Regional ITV News Channel on DTT will be postcoded by the transmitter you receive your signal.

Could you please explain what you mean by this statement?

[SimonBlackham]

Originally Posted by Wayne Moule

It'll be interesting to see what the picture quality is like on the ITV/C4 Mux then when ITV 3 launches in your area, as they will be using stat muxing.

The test transmissions for ITV3 should start tomorrow and they will have to be stat-muxed from then - please could freeview-fan (or someone else using crystal palace) examine all the itv (and C4) channels then to see if there are any quality problems - perhaps start a new thread

Answer to below:
Each transmission can only be one region - so if you receive from (say) RowRidge your local programs will be Meridian (say) if you receive from Crystal Palace they will be London if you receive from Mendip it will be WestCountry - satellite transmits all of them to the whole footprint (area the satellite covers) and the card in your box decides which one you 'want'

[DJ_Hedley]

Regional ITV News Channel on DTT will be postcoded by the transmitter you receive your signal. << In other words, I think it means different transmitters send out different regional news, which is obvious :/

[wilko88]

itv news- no great loss, still have bbc news 24 and sky news

[JamSir]

I think it's safe to say that if regionalisation of the ITV News Channel goes ahead, you will get the same regional news on the News Channel as you get on ITV1.

It depends which transmitter you get your DTT signal from - I get it from Sutton Coldfield, so I get the West Midlands version of Central News on ITV1.

Postcodes have nothing to do with it - That's how Sky Digital satellite handle regionalisation.

[wilko88]

regional itv seems to be on the verge of getting crapper anyway, since the two meridan regions are being incorporated into 1, meaning the loss of the kent and east sussex meridian region

[James Hatts]

Originally Posted by wilko88

regional itv seems to be on the verge of getting crapper anyway, since the two meridan regions are being incorporated into 1, meaning the loss of the kent and east sussex meridian region

That is incorrect - Meridian will still have three sub-regions, but the regional news programming for all three will be produced from studios in the same building, in Whitely, Hampshire.

[paulsalter]

Wasnt sure what thread to put this in so this seemed the best

Mux 2 (Assuming there is no ITV3 for the moment)

Currently ITV1 is the only channel on there that is regional and this has a fixed bandwidth allocated

What is involved to change ITV News into fixed bandwidth, I assume this is what is required to make it regional (dosnt sound like a big job)

Is ITV News now using fixed bandwidth in the London Area, If so why wernt all tranmitters updated similar earlier in the year, I dont remember reading that London lost ITV News while this was happening

OR is the London version of ITV News staying the same as it was (as it is London region anyway) and the rest of the country is going to be using fixed bandwidth for the channel

Do we know that the new compression is running in London (I have read that both ITV & C4 now have 4 channels each), if so why coudnt this have been implemented earlier, did London loose any channels while this was being done

Sorry for all the questions but I just cant understand why this work is going to take 9 months

[Corin]

Originally Posted by paulsalter

What is involved to change ITV News into fixed bandwidth, I assume this is what is required to make it regional (dosnt sound like a big job)

No they are not changing the ITV News Channel to a fixed bandwidth, since this would actually be less effecient in optimal bandwidth usage.

What they are doing is installing multiplexing equipment at each of the ITV company regional centers, so that the multiplexing can be done at the regional level rather than the national level. Otherwise, regional inserts would not be possible, if that is indeed what they are intending to do (and thus have the a mechanism in place to make ITV-1 in England and Wales a purely national service while still providing regional news).

So if you think that all of this work is there to improve regional coverage, think again. It is all part of the plan of that great entrepreneur and visionary, Charles Allen, to completely eradicate the last vestiges of regional programming from ITV-1.

Further details at

<http://www.savewelshtv.co.UK/>

[paulsalter]

More regionnal coverage wasnt something i was thinking about, when I mentioned regioanl I was just meaning that ITV NC would have North East (for me) news instead of London

I think I understand what you are saying, but (theres allways a but isnt there) what do you mean by installing muxes in the regional itv centres, isnt this already there as we get a regional itv1

If there is already the ability to tranmit a regional itv1 I would have expected it to be relativly easy to transmit another regianal variation using similar means

As an example itv1 goes to North East tonight at 6pm why cant ITV News do a similar type of thing.

So how does itv1 do it now compared to how itv news will do it in the future

[chrisy]

Originally Posted by paulsalter

I think I understand what you are saying, but (theres allways a but isnt there) what do you mean by installing muxes in the regional itv centres, isnt this already there as we get a regional itv1

If there is already the ability to tranmit a regional itv1 I would have expected it to be relativly easy to transmit another regianal variation using similar means

As an example itv1 goes to North East tonight at 6pm why cant ITV News do a similar type of thing.

So how does itv1 do it now compared to how itv news will do it in the future

ITV1 is currently fixed bitrate, ie. it always takes up 4 Mbps (or whatever) of bandwidth.

ITV News is currently stat-muxed with ITV2, E4 etc and the old price-drop channel. Regional content is inserted later.

In order to make ITV News regional, it either has to be made into a fixed bitrate channel (which will leave very little bandwidth for ITV2), or the stat-muxing has to be performed regionally.

Getting ITV3 into the mux is a separate but related issue. The quality of the stat-muxed channels will suffer if there are fixed bit-rate channels in the mux. The only way ITV can squeeze four channels into half a multiplex, is to ensure they are all stat-muxed together.

Therefore the regional centres need to be upgraded with stat-muxing equipment, to eliminate any fixed bandwidth channels.

Chris

[Corin]

Originally Posted by Paul Salter

what do you mean by installing muxes in the regional itv centres, isnt this already there as we get a regional itv1

The ITV-1 service is a fixed bandwidth service (as is BBC-1). That is why the ITV regional centers and BBC English regional centers can insert their regional programming. If the BBC-1 and ITV-1 video streams were not fixed, and multiplexed at the national level, it would be impossible for a region to insert material.

Originally Posted by Paul Salter

If there is already the ability to tranmit a regional itv1 I would have expected it to be relativly easy to transmit another regianal variation using similar means

This is not possible because ITV News Channel is statistically multiplexed at the national level. What this means is that ITV-2, the new ITV-3, and ITV News Channel are mixed together (multiplexed) somewhere in Greater London, before the signal is distributed to all of the transmitters. So because the bandwitch for ITV News Channel is not fixed, it is not possible to insert regionally.

If the multiplexing is done at each regional center, then the regional center can replace the national feed with the regional feed prior to the multiplexing.

What I would like to know is, is ITV-1 going to change from fixed bandwidth to be statistically multiplexed along with all of the other services on the 50% ITV side of the Digital 3 and 4 multiplex transmission?

[paulsalter]

Thanks for the info, I think I understand what is happening now

Still cant see how it takes 9 months though

[Wayne Moule]

Originally Posted by paulsalter

Thanks for the info, I think I understand what is happening now

Still cant see how it takes 9 months though

They probably mean up to 9 months.

[The Magic Monkey]

............

[wilko88]

Originally Posted by James Hatts

That is incorrect - Meridian will still have three sub-regions, but the regional news programming for all three will be produced from studios in the same building, in Whitely, Hampshire.

oh right, sorry ,my mistake there

[tedjrr]

Originally Posted by Corin

It is all part of the plan of that great entrepreneur and visionary, Charles Allen, to completely eradicate the last vestiges of regional programming from ITV-1.

Quite so - but retain the ability to sell local advers though!

[tedjrr]

Originally Posted by speculator

Regional ITV News Channel on DTT will be postcoded by the transmitter you receive your signal. Thinking about D-SAT, I don't think it is possible. ITV News Channel on D-SAT is free-to-air. Therefore the channel does not operate via a free-to-view card encryption so there is no way to tell your set-top box which regional ITV News Channel to appear on your EPG lineup.

The postcoding element arises where platform operators (in this case Sky) allocate service PIDS to EPG positions on the basis of a subscription postcode in their database. One reason why they charge a lot of money for this is that every Sky receiver has to be individually addressed by the subscription centre, to tell the digi-box which region it is in, this is then written to the viewing card.

DTT has no comparible process, the only way in which DTT is regionalised is by your ability to receive the signal from a particular transmitter. There is no logical process of mapping involved at all, just topology, propogation and luck.

The question about the regional nature of the ITV news channel are :

Will the regional element on the ITV News channel be just those that are also broadcast on ITV-1, or ate they planning to introduce extra local content?

If there is extra local content, will this include local adverts?

If I live in a particular region will I get the main regional news, or my appropriate sub-region. So, say I lived Maidstone (which I don't) then would I get a show on the ITV News Channel with Uncle Fred in it, or will it have the Kent sub-region?

[tedjrr]

Originally Posted by Corin

What I would like to know is, is ITV-1 going to change from fixed bandwidth to be statistically multiplexed along with all of the other services on the 50% ITV side of the Digital 3 and 4 multiplex transmission?

Good question.

Will all the occupants of D3/4 be sent as a uncompressed (or low compression) feed to each of the regional insertion points, and then form one statmux for each sub-region?

Or, will ITV-1 and ITV News and C4 be statmuxed into a fixed rate combination to be jouned by a national statmux with ITV-2, ITV-3, E4 (encrypted), interactive adverts and a shopping channel or 10?

I'm wondering however if some clever form of dynamic mux relocation is proposed.

Say, ITV-1 ITV News C4 etc are normally statmuxed into macro-regional varients. (LEMNUS etc) When the local news (or local ad spot) comes on, the variation occours.

ITV News stops brodcasting, the PID allocation is dynamically altered to map ITV News, to ITV-1. (This would be analogous to the dynamic change that occours when C-BBC becomes BBC-4)

The saving in statmux bandwidth gained by dropping ITV News allows ITV-1 to become fixed bandwidth, the macro-regional statmux having been reconfigured to allow for this.

At this point all the sub-regions in the macro-region opt-out in a fixed bandwidth, by switching the MPEG treansport stream. Thus all the regional variations don't need ther own (expensive) statistical multiplexor, and conbination occours at some convinient point, possibly even the transmitter site.

Hey presto anyone who selected ITV-1 or ITV-News in the sub-region is watching either :-

(1) The correct local news programme, or advert, or :

(2) Nothing, because the box didn't take to having its PIDS dynamically reconfigured and crashed.

[andybev]

so is the engineering consensus here that ITV News will in future carry local news and ITV1 will not?.......does that look like what they're planning?