All posts by Michael Perry
Below are all of Michael Perry's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
neil:
You're quite right that there are few consumers with a FTTH service, but some do have though through providers other than BT or Virgin.
Telegraph poles have their uses - in rural areas like mine. Our landline is all via overhead copper (it's that old) and any improvements that do not entail digging trenches in roads with no footpaths and narrow verges, if any, will be a more cost-effective method of delivery. It was tried in part of Berkshire, south west of Reading, and I gather it was quite successful, though there was no information about how it was structured nor what delivery method was used.
Not all the rest of the network is fibreoptic. A few small rural exchanges still do not have fibre feeds and so no 21CN capability either. In my area they are just now laying a fibre feed to our exchange! That will, I gather from a local friendly Openreach engineer, replace several coaxial feeds.
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One interesting point: when the first Astra satellite was launched in early 1989 and then put into orbital position at 19.2 E, tested and then SES allowed broadcasters to make use of it, for a free of course, all the services were unencrypted analogue with Panda1 audio compression. Then British Satellite Broadcasting started on March 26th 1990(see http://en.wikipedia.org/w…ing) but soon fell to the grabbing policies of Sky, around November 1990. The Marco Polo satellites were sold off as well in 1992 and 1993. So Sky inherited an encrypted service that used a DMAC digital system.
So Sky started as an unencrypted 'free' service paid for by advertising revenues, but it was never enough. So as the technology became viable and available, Sky went digital and encypted and you had to pay to have an authorisation card - and still do.
So the advertising couldn't pay enough for Sky to make enough profit as well as provide programming that people wanted to watch. They saw that encryption with a monthly subscription was the only way to make the kind of profit margins they sought. The method they chose is not cheap and simple so is expensive to operate and requires equipment that is specifically designed for the job.
I suspect the viewing market would not support a second system of subscriptions to watch even more programmes, many of which appear to be repeats of repeats!
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Dimitris:
Firstly, UK Free TV is not a broadcast channel but a privately run website available on the Internet.
Secondly, reception of manychannels outside of the UK would break the copyright terms of many of the programmes shown in the services mentioned.
So I, for one, will not be helping in this matter.
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Mike Davison:
Where did I say that it remained 'in the clear'?
At the start of public broadcasting via the Astra 1 satellite all the services carried were clear. Encryption came later and Videocrypt was just one of the several methods used by different broadcasters. I remember they were all hacked pretty soon and even I built a decoder, for personal use, for several of the channels I was interested in.
I was working at the time as a Technical Training Manager for a TV rental company and my responsibility was primarily for satellite and video camera systems. I produced the first channel 'line up' charts that were agreed with Sky at the time. I also produced the training manuals for satellite dish installers that was adopted by the CAI.
The 2 Wikipedia articles I know of were originally authored by a colleague and me with subsequent additions by other authorised contributors.
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Mike Davison:
Then you misread what I said. Many of the Sky services in their early days carried advertising in much the way that ITV did and still does. They were and are not PSBs.
I also did not single out Sky Movies, so any discussion on that is not relevant to my point, which is that Sky started as an unencrypted analogue service and carried some advertising. Then they started using encryption and charging viewers to the services. Later they became a digital transmission service with access control and advertising plus carrying other channel services, at a cost to them, for providing the uplink.
Remember too that in those days you had to buy your own satellite receiver and several firms made them, such as Pace, Grundig, Amstrad, et al. They all had connections on the back for decoders as had been envisaged in the original Spec released in 1988 (there was an earlier consultation spec in 1987) but not implemented until later. Sky originally used Videocrypt when they started using encryption but others used different schemes, some of which did not require an access card system.
I will not enter into discussion here about free-to-air or paid-by-subscription aspects.
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Mike Davison
You're right about the amount of advertising time. In those days the relevant laws allowed a maximum time and I think it was about 7.5 minutes of actual adverts per hour, as you suggest. It has changed since then and now we get rather more adverts and less programme content. You hear many people complaining about the quantity of adverts and about how the sound of them seems louder somehow!
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Mickey
It is normally a temporary interruption of either the uplink signal being sent up to the satellite or otherwise a temporary interruption of the downlink signal from the satellite to your dish. As long as you can get other services at the time the 'no Signal' message appears then your equipment does not have any faults. Do nothing apart from checking other programmes can be viewed.
It happens on my Sky + HD pox as well as a Sky + box and at the same time! So it is not something to worry about. Depending on the cause, could be aircraft perhaps, there is nothing the broadcaster can do either. In my experience of satellite broadcasting, going back to 1989, this has happened from time to time.
If your equipment was faulty you are likely to have lost *all* services at the same time.
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Where I live in a rural part of Wiltshire, we get pretty good AM (LW & MW) reception, marginal VHF FM reception and very poor DAB reception. If they close the AM transmitters we will only have variable FM reception or unrelaible DAB or be forced to try internet radio which is suspect as we have poor broadband (we're in an 'intervention' area but no likelihood of any developments anytime soon!).
That's not an untypical scenario for many rural areas and that's why it is essential that the AM transmissions be maintained for the foreseeable future.
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B Copcutt:
That above being said, do check whether your Sky + HD box actually does have an RF out coaxial connection - not all do! It should look like the 'traditional' aerial input socket fitted to most TV sets that takes a 'male' plug or else be an 'inside out' version that takes a female plug.
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Sunday 6 April 2014 10:22PM
Robert Rainey:
This happens from time to time and there is usually nothing you can do about. You could try simply changing the programme being viewed to check whether other services are still available - if they are then there is no fault with your equipment.
On my Sky + HD box and the previous boxes this happaned on occasions and I believe it is caused by either interuption of the uplink signal (from the ground base station up to the satellites) about which you have no control, or an interuption of the downlink signal (from the satellite to your dish). That can be caused by aircraft flying at relatively low altitude through the direct line from your dish to the satellite (it often happens near airports or RAF bases) or it can be caused by trees having grown and now affecting the signal path to your dish. There can, of course, be other causes, but it is very rarely your equipment.