Chorus Analog Cork problems. . .

bungeecork

I have the following tech. probs with Chorus Analog in Cork, now is it just me or do other people notice these??;
- widescreen channel E4 and (sometimes) SKY1 are displayed on my TV with the sides missing, so when the E4 DOG is saying "Encore Performance" all I can see is "ance" (is that just my TV?)
- the audio on RTE TWO seems to be twice as loud as the other channels

And the following three I mention only to see if they bother anyone else;
- RTE ONE is on channel 1 and RTE TWO is on channel, erm, 6
- E4 is on channel 3 and TV3 is on channel 4 (What the ???)
- I don't know what's on channel 2 because I never ever look at it, my FC button is programmed to skip it, and I programmed it back in 1991 !

And one curiosity question. Channel 16 used to be snow with a technical modemy noise, now it jumps to TV3. Anyone know why?

a bientot

I hope someone with expertise can answer your query.......

Would you be kind enough to post the list of channels provided in Analogue on cable in Cork? With frequencies if possible....?
Do also say whether or not a channel is sharing a frequency...
How much do you pay?
This information would also be of benefit to Liberty/UPC executives in Holland.

Ulsterman 1690

Surely you can reprogramme your channels to whatever order you like (or is there some kind of locked EPG like on $ky)

Solair

Cork's analogue cable network's encrypted and uses US-style Jerrold/General Instrument set top boxes which are computer addressable over the network.

They can be set up to do things like automatically jump to a different channel if you select one that's locked out.

And, there's no EPG but the channels are locked to channel numbers on the decoder. you can't reogranise them.



That's the box..

Calling it encryption would be a bit generous. It's "scambling"... i.e. the head end removes, suppresses, inverts or modifies various components of the tv signals in a way that makes it impossible for a tv tuner to recognise them as signals. The descrambler box basically corrects the artificially introduced signal problems making the channel watchable. Various methods may be used on their own or in combinations and the method can shift from channel to channel / time to time to prevent hacked boxes from functioning... control signals are sent out over the network addressing the boxes.

It's quite possible that the scrambling system's also messing up your Widescreen tv signals / picture mode signals being transmitted over the network.

It completely butchers Nicam.

The channels arn't actually tuned either. They're assigned channel numbers (based on freqency). Like a US analogue cable network, these frequencies are fixed in stone you can't reorganise anything. Channel 6 refers to a particular frequency etc..

There's really no reason why chorus couldn't do something to make the channel numbering a bit less ridiculous though by reorganising the channels at the head end!

FM Radio's carried on the cork network much as it is on NTL .. in the clear on FM.

Antenna

Solair wrote:

It completely butchers Nicam.

There is no scrambling on the 4 national Irish channels, yet these do not have NICAM - so why isn't NICAM passed on those??

Solair

It's possible that the headend's not sending nicam at all.

Try plugging the tv directly into the cable and see if RTE appears in nicam.

Mossy Monk

somehow i missed this

a bientot wrote:

Would you be kind enough to post the list of channels provided in Analogue on cable in Cork? With frequencies if possible....?
Do also say whether or not a channel is sharing a frequency...
How much do you pay?
This information would also be of benefit to Liberty/UPC executives in Holland.

i am sure the executives in Holland can find out for themselves :rolleyes: keep it on topic

Antenna

Solair wrote:

It's possible that the headend's not sending nicam at all.

Try plugging the tv directly into the cable and see if RTE appears in nicam.

I don't have Chorus cable myself - but this is the experience in friends' house - despite these not being scrambled there is no NICAM on the 4 Irish national stations - including when box is bypassed.
So obviously its not being passed from the headend. The set-top converter should pass the NICAM OK if its there on an unscrambled station (the box doesn't involve demodulation/remodulation, descambling is done at RF).