All posts by js
Below are all of js's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Chris.SE: Yes, I noticed. It's a pity the links on ukfree.tv with embedded postcodes no longer work.
I spent some time yesterday trying to track down who is responsible for the DTT NIT.
If you remember the "split-NIT", the responsibility for that was said to be DMOL and DTG. See:
"Split Nit problem - report of my meeting with Freeview"
Split Nit problem - report of my meeting with Freeview
The DMOL site is dead but not quite gone - thanks to archive.org:
"What is DMOL
DMOL, DTT Multiplex Operators Limited, is a company owned by the operators of the six digital terrestrial television (DTT) multiplexes.
It is a business to business organisation and its purpose is to provide technical platform management for the DTT platform."
DMOL | Home Page
DMOL was absorbed by Digital UK, who now seem to have been absorbed by Freeview
I didn't find any specific official claims of responsibility for the NIT.
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The Digital UK monkeys still haven't updated the NIT to reflect reality.
Neither have they fixed the EIT errors they are responsible for.
Also, it seems the BBC has not dealt with the root cause of these errors.
All the BBC errors, since the vast majority of their errors were eliminated, have been of the form: {L''}some text{R''}
Here is the latest (abbreviated) automatic EIT error report:
Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North West multiplex BBC A. Date: 2019/11/14 00:15:58
It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block:
Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.
Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:
0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)
There are 601 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.
The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors
BBC Radio 4, 1
Blaze, 4
ADULT Studio 66, 32
Planet Knowledge, 22
Sony Movies Action, 4
Ketchup TV, 16
RNIB Connect, 5
TBN UK, 1
Sony Movies, 16
POP, 86
Sony Channel +1, 23
POP Max, 112
Tiny Pop, 58
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 24
Tiny Pop, 58
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 24
Tiny Pop, 58
Sony Movies +1, 4
Sony Channel, 24
PBS America, 21
Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2019/11/14 00:15:58:
#1: BBC Radio 4, Wed 20 Nov 13:45 - 14:00: title = "50 More Things That Made the...", description = "...Modern Economy. Economists in the 1920s argued in favour of Prohibition. But economics didn't yet have the idea of the {L''}rational criminal{R''}, which helps explain why the ban was so widely flouted.", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D
#2: Blaze, Sun 17 Nov 05:00 - 05:30: title = "American Restoration", description = "Escorter Service: A rare 'Escorter' from the 1964 World{R'}s Fair scoots into the shop for a restoration. Can Rick and the crew provide a restoration that's out of this world?", description error byte: 0x19
...
#601: PBS America, Thu 21 Nov 18:30 - 19:35: title = "Plane Resurrection - Series 2", description = "B25 Mitchell: The plane of choice for the {L'}Doolittle Raid{R'} needs a major winter overhaul to be ready for the air show season, but this little lady proves to be something of a diva. (S2 Ep5)", Huffman coded, description error bytes: 0x18, 0x19
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Chris.SE: He must think we're psychic. Having to resort to guessing his missing channels is a bit much.
He doesn't even tell us if he's tried a re-scan or a reboot, either.
Anyway, like most who ask for help on here, I don't suppose we'll ever hear from him again.
Simply not worth the time and effort.
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It is now four weeks since the three Winter Hill Local Multiplexes changed frequency.
Digital UK has yet to update the NIT with the new frequencies.
Digital UK has yet to fix the EPG text, of which, a summary of the errors therein follows:
Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North West multiplex BBC A. Date: 2019/11/21 06:29:38
It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block:
Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.
Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:
0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)
There are 828 invalid codes in the current EIT:
invalid code, count, percentage
0x08, 13, 1.57%
0x10, 2, 0.24%
0x14, 10, 1.21%
0x18, 17, 2.05%
0x19, 738, 89.13%
0x1C, 21, 2.54%
0x1D, 27, 3.26%
There are 663 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.
The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors
CBBC, 1
BBC World Sv., 3
Blaze, 2
Blaze+1, 2
ADULT Studio 66, 32
Planet Knowledge, 18
Sony Movies Action, 4
Ketchup TV, 29
CBBC HD, 1
RNIB Connect, 5
TBN UK, 10
Sony Movies, 10
POP, 122
PBS America, 12
Sony Channel +1, 22
POP Max, 115
Tiny Pop, 55
Sony Channel, 25
Tiny Pop, 55
Sony Channel, 25
Tiny Pop, 55
Sony Channel, 25
PBS America, 18
PBS America +1, 17
Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2019/11/21 06:29:38:
#1: CBBC, Wed 27 Nov 18:00 - 18:20: title = "Dragons: Race to the Edge", description = "When Thor Bonecrusher is needed to rescue hostages taken by the Bandits, Snoutlout tries to help but accidentally brings to life Thor's evil twin, Anti{-}Thor, who sides with the Bandits. [S]", description error byte: 0x10
#2: BBC World Sv., Mon 25 Nov 13:32 - 13:50: title = "The Why Factor", description = "How the so-called {R''}man box{R''} can inform male behaviour. We delve into the box to reveal its contents.", description error bytes: 0x1D, 0x1D
...
#663: PBS America +1, Thu 28 Nov 21:50 - 22:50: title = "Marked Man: Martin...", description = "...Luther King and the FBI: Documentary telling the true story of how the Civil Rights leader was subjected to a campaign of intimidation by J. Edgar Hoover{R'}s FBI.", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x19
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Mark A.: As you know, E4+1 replaced Film4+1 on D3&4 so there was no capacity change there.
As far as BBC B, dog nose! Bring BBC Three back? Do the decent thing and put BBC FOUR HD/ CBeebies HD on it? Not likely!
Weren't they trying to sell the spare capacity? Maybe Smithsonian Channel or PBS America could dump their TWO sub-Standard Definition channels and go HD on this.
On the other hand, BBC, like Channel 4, seems to delight in transmitting Null Packets by the ton, so maybe nothing will change.
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Freesat Diffs:
5Star+1 has been added to the Freesat test region:
Comparing files List Freesat 27-11-2019 18 01.txt and List Freesat 28-11-2019 14 49.txt
************************ NEW ************************
SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN
5Star+1 1 28006 7717 2057 2 10964H 0 1 Freesat 1EEE1EEE1EEE 143
Note: 5Star+1 was taken off Freesat 132 on 04-04-2018 and deleted from Freesat on 24-10-2018.
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Extended Event Descriptors offer an opportunity to describe a programme in greater detail.
Freesat has had these descriptors for at least eight years but I've never heard mention of them. They are probably only available on G2 devices.
Here is an example event that has an Extended Event Descriptor:
Channel 4, Wed 04 Dec 00:10 - 01:05: Our Guy in Japan
Guy Martin visits a slum in Yokohama; pays his respects at Hiroshima, and takes a dip in the mildly radioactive waters; and joins in one of the country's oldest fireworks festivals. (Ep2/2) [AD,S]
<extended_event_descriptor lang = eng>
EpisodeNumber = 2
SeriesNumber = 1
AlphaSortIndexEventName = Our Guy in Japan
TEXT:
Travel series in which truck mechanic and motorcycle racer Guy Martin goes on a 2,500-mile journey around Japan. Guy continues his journey by visiting a corner of Japan that is rarely spoken about: a slum in Yokohama where he sneaks in to love hotels, illegal gambling dens and the yakuza-organised crime gang headquarters. Unlike any other slum in the world, it is clean, orderly and equipped with free Wi-Fi. The rest of his off-beat itinerary includes working with the maintenance team on the world's longest, strongest and most expensive suspension bridge, and training under the mystical guidance of one of Japan's last remaining swordsmiths. Guy also makes a special detour to pay his respects at Hiroshima, where he finds the tram that was up and running just three days after a nuclear bomb destroyed the city in August 1945. Guy also spends leisure time in the mildly radioactive waters of a hot spring. Finally, he participates in one of the country's oldest fireworks festivals [AD]
</extended_event_descriptor>
Does anyone see this level of detail on their Freesat device?
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There's a new "service" on BBC B, currently without LCN and nameless, showing TBN UK in Sub-Standard-Definition 544x576.
Video Bitrate (Mbps) sampled at 34 <= dPCR <= 36 ms intervals over 10 seconds for BBC B North West (03/12/2019 17:45:53)
maximum | minimum | average | service_name
06.478 | 02.746 | 03.999 | BBC TWO HD
11.020 | 02.663 | 05.294 | ITV HD
11.507 | 02.851 | 04.775 | Channel 4 HD
09.580 | 01.708 | 04.448 | Channel 5 HD
01.555 | 01.375 | 01.465 | BBC ONE HD
05.849 | 02.869 | 04.255 | CBBC HD
04.372 | 01.033 | 01.693 | noname SID = 4EC0
20.472 | 02.678 | 12.118 | Null Packets
03.644 | 01.504 | 02.163 | All Other Streams
40.210 | 40.209 | 40.209 | TS Bitrate
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Here's another hefty tome from the Freesat 4seven EPG. The TEXT here is 1532 characters long.
Is anyone seeing this stuff on their Freesat EPG?
4seven, Thu 05 Dec 01:15 - 02:20: The Royal House of Windsor
In 1947, as Britain suffers from post-war austerity and the worst winter on record, a lovesick Princess Elizabeth and an ailing George VI visit South Africa on a fraught royal tour. (Ep2/6) [AD,S]
<extended_event_descriptor lang = eng>
EpisodeNumber = 2
SeriesNumber = 1
AlphaSortIndexEventName = Royal House of Windsor, The
TEXT:
Six-part series telling the story of one of the great dynasties of the last 100 years, with the help of family insiders, fresh research and unique access to the royal archives at Windsor Castle. The series combines never-before-seen film archive and new interviews with key members of the Queen's extended family. This second episode reveals how a lovesick Elizabeth and her ailing father, George VI, kept up appearances while crises loomed on every front. In 1947, the royal family are on a tour of South Africa. Britain is suffering from crippling post-war austerity and the worst winter on record. Behind the smiles, the King is suffering from the strains of the war, the smoking that would eventually kill him and anxiety about his eldest daughter. Elizabeth has told him that she is secretly engaged to her cousin, Prince Philip, but the King asks his daughter to wait until after South Africa before announcing her news. The royal tour is billed as a way of thanking the South Africans for their war effort, but in reality the mission is to shore up the crumbling British Empire. The king is frustrated at the attempts by the racist Afrikaners to try to stop him even shaking hands with black people, referring to his police minders as 'the Gestapo'. The fraught tour reaches its climax when Princess Elizabeth turns 21 and she famously broadcasts around the world promising to devote her whole life to 'service'. Within four years, the King is dead and a young, newly married Elizabeth is suddenly thrust onto the throne [AD]
</extended_event_descriptor>
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Thursday 7 November 2019 12:47AM
Eighteen months on and the monkeys that call themselves "Digital UK" still don't know they are putting out garbage.
Clearly, they are too busy patting themselves on the back, for doing such a fine job, to notice.
Here is an abbreviated version of my automated error dump:
Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North West multiplex BBC A. Date: 2019/11/06 22:51:23
It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block.
Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.
Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:
0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)
There are 553 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.
The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors
BBC Radio 4 Ex, 1
Blaze, 5
ADULT Studio 66, 32
Planet Knowledge, 15
Ketchup TV, 19
RNIB Connect, 3
TBN UK, 1
Sony Movies, 10
POP, 108
Sony Channel +1, 12
POP Max, 94
Tiny Pop, 63
Sony Movies +1, 2
Sony Channel, 14
Tiny Pop, 63
Sony Movies +1, 2
Sony Channel, 14
Tiny Pop, 63
Sony Movies +1, 2
Sony Channel, 14
PBS America, 16
Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2019/11/06 22:51:23:
#1: BBC Radio 4 Ex, Mon 11 Nov 22:30 - 23:00: title = "Bridget Christie Minds the Gap", description = "4/4. Bridget discusses Russell Brand, wearing an {L''}end FGM{R''} badge and the women problem in politics. With Fred MacAulay. From 2015.", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D
#2: Blaze, Fri 08 Nov 16:00 - 17:00: title = "Hangar 1: The UFO Files", description = "UFOs Over Texas: Texas has been a hotbed for extraordinary UFO activity for decades. Patterns point to Texas{R'}s unique role in a larger government conspiracy.", description error byte: 0x19
...
#553: PBS America, Tue 12 Nov 08:00 - 08:35: title = "The Aviators", description = "GlasAir, Legend Cub, Terminals: We fly the GlasAir, and explore today{R'}s most popular American-manufactured light sport aircraft, The Legend Cub. Plus, how are airport terminals designed? (S4 Ep8)", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x19