NTL single-channel NICAM

bazzer

Has anyone noticed that for the past few weeks, Sky News has been transmitted on Dublin Cable using single-channel NICAM, instead of the usual dual-channel stereo setting?
In the past few days, this has also happened to Discovery.

Anyone know of any reason for this?

chorus techy

Sometimes NTL source their channels from "specialist" equipment with nicam encoders built into them - at other times they source their channels from sky digiboxes (at one stage, most of their digital TV channels were re-digitised feeds from sky digiboxes) so if they use sky digiboxes, I don't think it is possible to easily encode nicam with them.

Mossy Monk

at least ye get nicam

in waterford you get nicam on RTE, TV3, TG4, Sky One, MTV

everything else is mono on analogue

then they say to enjoy these channels in anything but mono subscribe to digital tv

some joke

lensman

don't know about the rest of you but the audio from the non digital channels
on NTL (Dublin 7 area) is far superior to the audio from the digital stations, the nicam on the 17 basic channels is excellent, well defined and separated but on the digital channels I find it dull , muffled and no way as clear, I also noticed the poorer sound when I had the sky dish, anyone else think this ?

chorus techy

Well ntl source some of their channels from fibre, the rest from satellite. Unfortunately, they max out the compression on digital as much as possible before people start complaining of very poor picture and sound. Sound over digital isn't NICAM, just stereo. I found ntl's digital service had muffled sound and a very "blurry" picture overall, whereas sky's picture at least remains sharp and the sound is crisp.

lensman

exactly,.guess we'll have to wait for HDTV,

Mossy Monk

have NTL any plans in the near future for HDTV?

the only ones i have heard of is Sky's due next year and Euro something or another already broadcasting on 19.2 degrees east

chorus techy

Mossy Monk wrote:

have NTL any plans in the near future for HDTV?

Let's let them sort out converntional MPEG2 digital broadcasting first!
If they can only manage to squeeze in 100 or so channels at the moment, would you rather about 20 HDTV ones on their digital instead?

Capt'n Midnight

On NTL (Dublin) analog SKY seems to have Stereo (can't confirm since am not using the original remote. - but the Stereo logo pops up on the TV )

chorus techy

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

On NTL (Dublin) analog SKY seems to have Stereo (can't confirm since am not using the original remote. - but the Stereo logo pops up on the TV )

Analogue sky one has perfectly okay nicam stereo sound - but sky news seems to be transmitting on the left NICAM stereo channel only, resulting in the TV set to automatically adjust into mono mode. Discovery is the same (also, has anyone noticed vertical "banding" on discovery analogue? It's getting worse as time goes by - very annoying!)

Marcopolo85

chorus techy wrote:

Analogue sky one has perfectly okay nicam stereo sound - but sky news seems to be transmitting on the left NICAM stereo channel only, resulting in the TV set to automatically adjust into mono mode. Discovery is the same (also, has anyone noticed vertical "banding" on discovery analogue? It's getting worse as time goes by - very annoying!)

Discovery UHF or VHF?

chorus techy

Marcopolo85 wrote:

Discovery UHF or VHF?

You mean there's TWO?! :eek:
And they say they don't have enough bandwidth to add more digital channels!
Methinks UHF - not too sure though.

The tax man

chorus techy wrote:

Methinks UHF - not too sure though.

Well Discovery on VHF will be the first channel your tv will pick up.
depending on the tv you'll see ch1/cc1/48mhz/VL/B1 etc.
If its on uhf you wont see the above

Sounds like ingress from a baby monitor somewhere nearby.
They transmitt on 49.25mhz ie on top of Discovery.
Alot of the upgraded network D.24 etc dropped the Band1 chs and stuck them up on UHF. Most of the network still use Band1 although you might be able to see E4 on ch21 on the UHF band.

I was up in Ballyfermot (D.10) a few weeks ago and noticed this on Sky News. On my grandmother's TV it always displays the audio mode when a channel is selected. It usually says "DIGITAL STEREO" but on Sky News this changed to "DIGITAL DUAL I". I've also noticed that E4 is in mono only. My brother in Lucan has a TV card in his PC that can only handle NICAM, therefore he gets no sound on E4 at all.

I always remember Channel 4, Eurosport and Super Channel having banding interference on them when I lived in Dublin, but that was back in 1996, lol. Same reason though, they were all on VHF Band I. I remembered I could pick up an CNN feed at the end of Band I, but the picture quality was terrible and it was encrypted too. Never knew why it was there in the first place.

Round Cable

Also Discovery has been unwatchable on both my TV's, I mean huge interference, the last week it suddenly came clear, it's like watching digital now, what happened there?

The tax man

CNN was only on the system for hotels etc.
Since Eurosport went any channels that took over on 64mhz have always been transmitted in mono.

bazzer

Update 23 May 2005:

Sky News has reverted from single-channel to stereo NICAM, Discovery is still single-channel, but now NICAM stereo has disappeared from CNBC altogether, leaving it in mono only.

I'm also amazed that E4 is still mono - ever since it started some years ago.

John R

bazzer wrote:

I'm also amazed that E4 is still mono - ever since it started some years ago.

It has to do with the distribution system in hotels, I think that it is on the same frequency as the PPV system or something like that, that channel has been without NICAM for as long as I can remember, long before E4 occupied it.

John R

John R wrote:

It has to do with the distribution system in hotels, I think that it is on the same frequency as the PPV system or something like that, that channel has been without NICAM for as long as I can remember, long before E4 occupied it.

Yeah it was never in stereo. Eurosport, which was on that frequency before E4) was mono also, but analogue Eurosport was never in stereo even on satellite. It only used audio subcarrier 7.02MHz, and still does today. So back then it was ideal for that frequency.