UPC Dublin on Channel 41

Bazzer2

I think UPC Dublin have just started transmitting/testing some digital services on UHF Channel 41. Previously, I had a CCTV modulator on that channel combined with UPC on a house distribution system. Yesterday, my CCTV picture went extremely noisy.

A little investigation uncovered that by removing the UPC feed, my CCTV went clear again.

Hope that bit of a technical observation will help someone!

Solair

UPC's system is primarily a digital product at this stage. In fact, in Cork it is now exclusively digital, so the analogue channels are really only a legacy service.

They can use the whole bandwidth of the cable service for anything they like pretty much. It could be DVB-C or EuroDOCIS broadband signals that you're picking up on your UHF feed.

In short, you can't really combine a cable TV feed with anything else as you never know what the cable co. might be sending down the line in terms of digital services.

The only thing that I could suggest is that you fit some kind of a filter that would prevent frequencies outside the group of legacy analogue channels from being fed into your distribution system.

Sorry I can't be more helpful, but UPC do not publish their digital frequencies. It's all proprietary equipment and a closed system.

Outside of the legacy analogue channels, they have no signals that are intended for connection to third-party equipment, so they don't publish any details.

Bazzer2

Thanks, but it's not necessarily a problem for me, as I just altered my analogue modulator channel to a 'clear' frequency.

I just thought it might prove interesting to know that UPC may be gearing up to offer more in the way of their digital services, or for the techies amongst us to possibly dabble in that area and see what they can uncover!

icdg

Solair wrote: »

UPC's system is primarily a digital product at this stage. In fact, in Cork it is now exclusively digital, so the analogue channels are really only a legacy service.

Still plenty of people in Dublin who have just one digital box and who use the analogue on second and third sets. It will be the reaction from these customers of the loss of free multi-room that will be the biggest stumbling point to analogue switch off.

There are even (whisper it) some homes with analogue only.

lucernarian

Over the past 3 years of the properties I've visited (all in Dublin) that had NTL, about half used analogue only though this has changed gradually as time has gone with people moving to Sky mainly or else getting UPC digital.

Back when I lived in TCD accommodation, there was a cablelink/NTL wall point where one could plug in their TV and watch analogue cable. TCD's accommodation bought the connections and subscriptions in bulk. No digital set top boxes are provided. It will be interesting to see how UPC handle cases like those where there's 1000 or so connections that are analogue-only and where there will be big security concerns with the hardware used and remotes going missing etc.

Some of DCU's accommodation offers analogue cable, right?

Solair

I'd assume they'll just do what they do everywhere else, i.e. issue a simple STB to people who don't want fancy services like DVR or HD.

In Cork, the situation's a little different as the Cork cable system's analogue feed was encrypted, so a STB was always required even for basic cable. When they had replaced all the old analogue STBs, they were able to simply shut off the analogue headend feed entirely. It just carries RTE/TV3/TG4 in analogue now.

The nicest solution would be a very basic cable analogue pack replaced with a couple of DVB-T muxes. That would mean that any modern TV could pick them up without fuss and it would save huge amounts of bandwidth on the system.

I'm sure that it's possible to inject DVB-T Muxes on a couple of channels without interfering with DVB-C cable. DVB-T receivers in TVs wouldn't see the cable feed and the cable boxes wouldn't see the DVB-C feed.

It would just mean better quality and a huge saving on bandwidth. You could easily get the existing analogue line up into the same space as a couple of analogue channels.

The other alternative, would be to do what UPC do in other markets, and produce a compatible decoder device (CI+ module) which can be slotted into modern TVs. http://www.upc.nl/televisie/wat-is-digitale-tv/ci-plus/ Thus allowing reception of services without a separate STB.

They have essentially stopped advertising or selling analogue cable at this stage though. I can't see it mentioned anywhere on their website / sales material.