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All posts by js

Below are all of js's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

J
Keelylang Hill Full Freeview transmitter
Tuesday 8 December 2020 1:49PM

Chris.SE: There's corrupt data every week!
Trevor Hill: My psychic abilities fail me. What programmes didn't record?
Supposition: Panasonic PVRs pay attention to DRM messages, which may have been altered.


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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Wednesday 9 December 2020 5:04AM

Mark Winfield: Looking at the spec, this set has a satellite input but does not have Freesat. Thus, if you have it connected to a dish, all you will see is Now and Next because that is all that is transmitted.

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J
Keelylang Hill Full Freeview transmitter
Monday 14 December 2020 8:16AM

Freeview EIT Invalid Character Codes:

To enable anyone interested to see these code errors for themselves, I have uploaded some programme clips.

The clips were recorded by Tvheadend, which happens to record the EIT along with the video and audio streams of the programme.

The full eight day programme schedule repeats every thirty seconds so that determined the clip durations.

The schedules can be seen by installing MediaInfo: MediaInfo - Wikipedia

Download: MediaInfo

Once installed, right clicking on a clip shows the media properties of that clip.

If an appropriate view is chosen, the events scheduled for the next week are also shown.

The included file "North West_BBC A__2020 12 14 053417.txt" shows the events with errors in the current EIT, as determined by my EIT parser.

Looking at those events using the "tree" view, square blocks are seen in the text at the positions of the errors.

If the "xml" view is selected, the events with errors are not displayed because the characters are not valid in xml.

In that case you will see a representation in binary.base64.

An online base64 decoder: Base64 Decode - Online Tool

I have included the MediaInfo.xml outputs for each clip.

Download FreeviewEITerrors.zip
File Size: 16.70MB
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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Monday 11 January 2021 4:07PM

Freesat Diffs:

SportyStuffTV (HD) was added to the Freesat test region.

Comparing files List Freesat 11-01-2021 11 01.txt and List Freesat 11-01-2021 13 01.txt


************************ NEW ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN
SportyStuffTV 25 20027 22631 2094 2 11538V 0 0 Freesat 00001EEE1EEE 250



SportyStuffTV is called "22631" at the moment as it is yet to launch on BSkyB.

There is no Freesat EPG for SportyStuffTV yet but there is BSkyB EPG.

Mostly, it is running the same sequence of events repeatedly:

22631 Mon 11 Jan 15:00 - 16:00 : UK Strongest Man
Coverage of the UK Strongest Man competition (S2, E02)

22631 Mon 11 Jan 16:00 - 16:30 : Mobil 1 - The Grid
Mobil 1 The Grid is back with Series 12 and ready for the new motorsport season

22631 Mon 11 Jan 16:30 - 17:00 : Mobil 1 - The Grid
Mobil 1 The Grid is home for the most exciting motorsports on television, tune in for insider-track racing excitement!

22631 Mon 11 Jan 17:00 - 19:00 : International GT Open 2020
After celebrating its 200th race in 2019, the international GT Open runs its 15th season in 2020, confirming itself as one of the top pro-am racing platforms in Europe. Race 1 from the Hungaroring

22631 Mon 11 Jan 19:00 - 20:00 : UK Strongest Man
Coverage of the UK Strongest Man competition (S2, E01)

...

But then:

22631 Fri 15 Jan 18:00 - 22:00 : RPGTV Live Greyhound Racing
Live greyhound racing. For details of tonight's meetings visit greyhoundbet.racingpost.com. Contact the studio via twitter @RPGreyhounds or by email at rpgtv@racingpost.com


SportyStuffTV is unusual for an AVC HD service as not only is it on a DVB-S transponder but it is statistically multiplexed with MPEG SD services - something I've not seen at 28 degrees East before.

Sporty-Stuff-TV ImgBB


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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Thursday 21 January 2021 6:19AM

Monika: Signal Strength is virtually meaningless on satellite. Quality is what matters.

More info needed: You said "replaced sky box" - was that a sky q box?

What postcode did you enter for the Freesat box? - The first few characters are enough.

Channels are divided into two groups by polarisation horizontal and vertical. If there is a fault with the polarisation then half the channels would be missing.

All those channels you mention - apart from maybe ITV+1- are horizontally polarised.




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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Thursday 21 January 2021 11:28AM

Freesat Diffs:

SportyStuffTV has launched on Freesat 250.

176 Live 360 was DELETED:

Comparing files List Freesat 20-01-2021 18 01.txt and List Freesat 21-01-2021 11 01.txt


************************ CHANGED ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN

Bouquet Change
SportyStuffTV 25 20027 22631 2094 2 11538V 0 1 Freesat 00001EEE1EEE 250
SportyStuffTV 25 20027 22631 2094 2 11538V 0 1 Freesat 000011111111 250



************************ DELETED ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN
Live 360 1 13002 55180 2095 2 11553H 0 1 Freesat 111111111111 176

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Freeview invalid EIT character codes update.

New information regarding these errors has emerged.

All the errors so far had been the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block, but not this one:

Al Jazeera Eng, Fri 05 Feb 20:00 - 21:00: Chocolate's Heart Of Darkness
The dark side of a $100 billion industry where enslaved children can still be found toiling the cocoa {0x01}elds for the chocolate we love and crave.

The invalid code in this case is the byte 0x01, which is the low byte of the correct Unicode Character 0xfb01

Unicode Character 0xfb01

Verified here:

Chocolate's Heart Of Darkness ALJAZ July 29, 2020 900am-1000am +03 Free Borrow & Streaming Internet Archive

Donate icon


So how do Freesat and Sky cope with this odd character?

Freesat replaces it with an underscore:

Al Jazeera Eng, Fri 05 Feb 20:00 - 21:00: Chocolate's Heart Of Darkness
The dark side of a $100 billion industry where enslaved children can still be found toiling the cocoa _elds for the chocolate we love and crave.


Sky replaces it with a question mark:

Al Jazeera Eng Fri 05 Feb 20:00 - 21:00 : Chocolate's Heart Of Darkness
The dark side of a $100 billion industry where enslaved children can still be found toiling the cocoa ?elds for the chocolate we love and crave.


Freeview puts out the invalid code 0x01




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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Monday 1 February 2021 11:34AM

ASTRA/BSkyB Diffs:

SportyStuff HD has launched on BSkyB 437:


I thought this peculiar:

Comparing files List ASTRA 29-01-2021 11 01.txt and List ASTRA 29-01-2021 13 01.txt


************************ CHANGED ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN

Renamed
S1TEST 1 1328 5309 2023 2 12149H 1 1 BSkyB 000000000000011 398
SportystufftvHD 1 1328 5309 2023 2 12149H 1 1 BSkyB 000000000000011 398

So didn't report it.

But:

ASTRA/BSkyB Diffs:

Comparing files List ASTRA 29-01-2021 18 01.txt and List ASTRA 01-02-2021 11 01.txt


************************ CHANGED ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN

Renamed, Bouquet Change, LCN Change
22631 25 1223 22631 2094 2 11538V 0 1 BSkyB 000000000000010 1029
SportyStuff HD 25 1223 22631 2094 2 11538V 0 1 BSkyB 111111111111111 437

Renamed
SportystufftvHD 1 1328 5309 2023 2 12149H 1 1 BSkyB 000000000000011 398
S1TEST 1 1328 5309 2023 2 12149H 1 1 BSkyB 000000000000011 398

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J
All free TV channels in the UK
Saturday 20 March 2021 9:08AM

Jonathan : ITV no longer has region names so they have to be added manually.

I think this is correct:

Freesat English Regions 19-03-2021.htm:

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Simon Shearn: Since the date of the last sample of SDN I can find, 17 September 2020, superfluous "Data Broadcast ID" descriptors have been added to the PMTs of:

Create & Craft
Blaze+1
TCC
ITVBe+1
ITV4+1
ITV3+1

If the reboots are caused exclusively by these then that might be the reason, but repeated descriptors shouldn't cause problems.

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