• Cutting The Cord

    From SquigY0@VERT/SHADOW9 to Nightfox on Monday, July 10, 2017 13:43:00
    REPOST...
    Seems like a good time to switch this topic to a new subject ;)

    I haven't had cable TV for a while; I've just been watching over-the- TV and stuff from Netflix, etc. There's even interesting stuff on YouTube too.. As far as over-the-air TV, in a place that gets good

    There's an app that's available on all platforms at this point (I use it on FireTV and Roku) called PlutoTV which very much mimics a cable TV
    type format but it's really just a streaming playlist of YouTube clips/movies that's currently free and backed by ads. It's one possible entertainment option to those that don't want to pay for cable.

    Digital channels seem to be able to have multiple channels from the s station (for instance, where I live, we hvae a 12-1, 12-2, etc.). Th

    If you have a good antenna or are close to the programming sources, this is another great option. My area's main network channels also have sub-channels like This (a lot of obscure movies from the 60s through
    80s), Decades (shows from 60s through 80s like every Dick Cavett interview), Laff (which seems to only show Night Court reruns, Comet
    (for all your cheesy sci-fi movie and tv needs -- including Stargate
  • From SquigY0@VERT/SHADOW9 to Vk3jed on Monday, July 10, 2017 13:44:00
    REPOST...
    The channel numbers do NOT correspond to RF channels (in fact, RF channels below 6 do not exist in Australia anymore). The numbers are logical numbers that mostly correspond to the RF channels from the analog days from some regional area of the state, The actual RF channels are on UHF in the channels 28 - 50 range, except for the ATV repeater, which is nearly 100 MHz below channel 28 at 446.5 MHz centr frequency (443 - 450 MHz).

    Of additional geeky interest to those interested, some channels in my
    area are selling their bandwidth to the cellphone companies because they are willing to pay top dollar. As a result, the providers will be performing what's called a "repack" which in most cases will keep the front-facing channel numbers the same, but the RFs behind the scenes
    would change.

    A couple stations will be shutting down their operations and relocating
    to sub-channels of other stations they partner with.

    In either cases, the consumer will have to re-scan all their channels to get them again after the repack.
  • From Vk3jed@VERT/FREEWAY to SquigY0 on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 09:07:00
    SquigY0 wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Of additional geeky interest to those interested, some channels in my
    area are selling their bandwidth to the cellphone companies because they are willing to pay top dollar. As a result, the providers will be performing what's called a "repack" which in most cases will keep the front-facing channel numbers the same, but the RFs behind the scenes
    would change.

    This was managed by the government here. Some spectrum has been taken away from broadcast TV and sold off.


    A couple stations will be shutting down their operations and relocating
    to sub-channels of other stations they partner with.

    In either cases, the consumer will have to re-scan all their channels to get them again after the repack.

    Our sstations have still kept their transmitters, though most have changed frequency during a post transition re-arrangement, so we've already had the big "retune" - same logical channel numbers, different RF frequencies. :) By a happy coincidence, the local ATV repeater on 446.5 MHz is logical channel 1 in my ATV STB. :)


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    þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.
  • From SquigY0@VERT/SHADOW9 to Vk3jed on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 11:20:00
    Of additional geeky interest to those interested, some channels in my area are selling their bandwidth to the cellphone companies because t are willing to pay top dollar. As a result, the providers will be performing what's called a "repack" which in most cases will keep the front-facing channel numbers the same, but the RFs behind the scenes would change.

    This was managed by the government here. Some spectrum has been taken away from broadcast TV and sold off.


    Official changes announced for my city: "Channel
    24/WUTB, and a revised over-the-air channel lineup for its Baltimore
    stations, Channel 45/WBFF and Channel 54/WNUV. WUTB, Baltimore's My TV affiliate, will be on a subchannel of WNUV. The Grit and Charge channels will be gone in Baltimore for the time being. The new lineup includes: 54-1 WNUV-HD, 54-2 WUTB, 54-3 American Sports Network, 45-1 WBFF,45-2 Comet TV,
    45-3 This TV, 45-4 Antenna TV....."

    So Comet (the home of endless Stargate SG-1 and cheesy Sci-Fi movies) moves from 54-3 to 45-2 (replacing the weather network and Wheel Of Fortune Behind The Scenes vignettes) and Antenna TV (what Nick At Nite USED to be) moves
    from 54-2 to 45-4 (compressing the bandwidth further than it already is)
  • From Vk3jed@VERT/FREEWAY to SquigY0 on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 08:17:00
    SquigY0 wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    Official changes announced for my city: "Channel
    24/WUTB, and a revised over-the-air channel lineup for its Baltimore stations, Channel 45/WBFF and Channel 54/WNUV. WUTB, Baltimore's My TV affiliate, will be on a subchannel of WNUV. The Grit and Charge
    channels will be gone in Baltimore for the time being. The new lineup includes: 54-1 WNUV-HD, 54-2 WUTB, 54-3 American Sports Network, 45-1 WBFF,45-2 Comet TV, 45-3 This TV, 45-4 Antenna TV....."

    Hmm, OK, yeah we haven't had that sort of shuffling here. Oh, and your TV numbering scheme still uses RF channel numbers? DVB-T no longer uses RF channel numbers, it's purely logical. Each channel has a logical channel number. Channels that are on the same RF stream have the same first digit (e.g. 2, 21, 22, 23, 24 are all from the same transmitter). These logical channels have no relationship with RF channels (channel 2 doesn't even exist anymore). Channel 2 in Melbourne is on RF channel 12, IIRC, and out here, it's somewhere in the 30s, I think.

    Our main networks are:

    ABC (public broadcaster) channel 2 (main), 22, 23 (kids), 24 (24x7 news)
    SBS (public broadcaster) channel 3, 31 (not sure what else they have)
    7 (Metro) channels 7, 71, 72, think there's a 73. Out here, the regional equivalent is Prime, which uses 6, 61, 62, 63 etc.
    9 (metro) not sure what they've done with their channels. Here, the regional version's main channel is 81 (they dropped 8 for some strange reason). Again, several other sub channels, rarely watch commercial TV, and don't have a TV guide handy.
    10 (metro) I think this uses 1, 11, etc. The regional version here is 5, 51, etc.

    My channel 1 is actually the local Amateur TV (ATV) repeater output. The STB interpreted this as channel 1. There are no other channels on the transmitter at this time. There's barely enough traffic for one channel, I guess. :)


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    þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.
  • From SquigY0@VERT/SHADOW9 to Vk3jed on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 12:03:00
    Hmm, OK, yeah we haven't had that sort of shuffling here. Oh, and your
    TV numbering scheme still uses RF channel numbers? DVB-T no longer uses RF channel numbers, it's purely logical. Each channel has a logical channel number. Channels that are on the same RF stream have the same first digit (e.g. 2, 21, 22, 23, 24 are all from the same transmitter).

    The channels are still referred to (from the consumer side) like they're RF channel numbers. But they're definitely logical, because the channel scan shows the same thing that you're describing -- the channel number that you're tuning to will be picked up on a completely different logical number.

    My understanding is when this shuffle happens, they'll put something on the
    old logical IDs saying to rescan so the new locations can be picked up. I'll make note of the IDs then.
  • From Vk3jed@VERT/FREEWAY to SquigY0 on Thursday, July 13, 2017 08:42:00
    SquigY0 wrote to Vk3jed <=-

    The channels are still referred to (from the consumer side) like
    they're RF channel numbers. But they're definitely logical, because
    the channel scan shows the same thing that you're describing -- the channel number that you're tuning to will be picked up on a completely different logical number.

    Ahh, OK, looks like DVB-T is a bit more subtle about identifying which source a channel belongs to. :)

    My understanding is when this shuffle happens, they'll put something on the old logical IDs saying to rescan so the new locations can be picked up. I'll make note of the IDs then.

    I see. :)
    ... Paradox: We have more degrees but less sense.
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    þ Synchronet þ Freeway BBS in Bendigo, Australia.