NTL GO Digital Dublin - New Channels and EPG Line up

patrickmooney

Hi all,

Received a letter in the post today, explaining that as of 14th Aug 2002, NTL Go Digitial will be re-ordering the EPG, grouping channels by category. They are also launching 6 new Music Channels, namely "The Box", "Smash Hits", "Q", "Magic", "Kiss" and "Kerrang". The EPG lineup still has alot of gaps, hopefully to be filled with additional channels, which they are coming very soon, along with interactive services. I will post up the full new channel lineup later today.

patrick-m

mike65

I take it this is not just a Dublin thing but that Waterford and Galway get these new channels. Mind you we still hav'nt got Cartlon Cinema down here...

Mike.

JTMan

I like the new line up.

I take it this is not just a Dublin thing

The new line up is titled "Channel Line-Up for Dublin" . So it may just be a Dublin thing

HappyDude

That's good news!

I just ordered the service today. Was offered the digital pack for 6.40 per month, as I am a sports pack subscriber. A good deal, me thinks.

If they could only add a few extra entertainment channels, they would really have a package to rival sky digital.

HD

Mountjoy Mugger

If only they could manage to get Sky Sports News, I'd be a happy bunny. Well, that and Sky Sports Extra..

Mark_irl

ITV2 please,

patrickmooney

Originally posted by Mountjoy Mugger
If only they could manage to get Sky Sports News, I'd be a happy bunny. Well, that and Sky Sports Extra..

Well if your going by the new channel numbering, there is an empy space in the sports category......perhaps for Sky Sports News?

DMC

Any sign of that line-up, please, patrick? I wouldn't mind have a butchers at it...

Mountjoy Mugger

EPG was due to be updated today, according to the missive NTL sent. No sign of it happening though.

icdg

No change for me either...remember the same thing happened the last time new channels were added - there was a delay of several days over the announcement date. Mind you, Premiership Plus appeared unannounced last week on #190.

Damien, the new line up (from the circular) says that the only new channels are the EMAP music channels. Basically it is 101-121 Entertainment, 127-133 Kids, 136-147 Music, 151-168 News and Education, 172-177 Sports, 179-194 Movies, 196-198 Pay Per-View, 900+ Radio.

Mountjoy Mugger

Well, they're there today.

patrickmooney

Well the channels where re-ordered around 2am last night. Was watching Sky News on 111 which turned into P Comedy. Still no signs of the Emap Channels. NTL informed me that they are not scheduled to arrive until later this month, around 2 weeks time.

Still the new order just doesn't make sence......it's far too restrictive. Shopping channels grouped with entertainment. Fashion TV on 114 I think.....crazy. I can see another re-ordering withing the year.

(PS Keep on forgetting to bring the full line up into work with me.....so don't have it with me still!)

j. corb

Originally posted by patrickmooney
Still the new order just doesn't make sence......it's far too restrictive. Shopping channels grouped with entertainment. Fashion TV on 114 I think.....crazy. I can see another re-ordering withing the year.

(PS Keep on forgetting to bring the full line up into work with me.....so don't have it with me still!)

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Hey Patrick, I have the channel listing here in front of me, so I'll post it to save you the trouble as you keep forgetting
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(from the official ntl flyer)
CHANNEL LINE-UP FOR DUBLIN, JULY 2002
my note: (* denotes new channel, but may not be "live" as yet)

101 - RTE 1
102 - Network 2
103 - TV3
104 - TG4
105 - BBC1
106 - BBC2
107 - UTV
108 - C4
109 - E4
110 - SKY 1
111 - Paramount Comedy
112 - Granada Plus
113 - Granada Men & Motors
114 - Fashion TV
115 - Disc Home & Leisure
116 - Performance
117 - Sci-Fi Channel
118 - Channel Health
119 - TV Travel Shop
120 - QVC
121 - TV5

127 - Nick
128 - Disc Kids/Wings
129 - Nick Jr
130 - Fox Kids
133 - Disney Channel

136 - MTV
137 - VH1
138 - VH1 Classic
139 - MTV Hits
140 - MTV Base
141 - MTV Dance
*142 - The Box
*143 - Smash Hits
*144 - Q
*145 - Magic
*146 - Kiss
*147 - Kerrang

151 - ITN News Channel
152 - Sky News
153 - CNN
154 - CNBC
155 - Bloomberg
156 - BBC World
159 - Disc
160 - Disc Travel & Adv
161 - Disc Sci-Trek
162 - Disc Civilisation
163 - Disc Health
164 - Animal Planet
165 - Natl Geo
166 - A1 (Adventure One)
167 - History Channel
168 - Biography Channel

172 - Xtreme Sports
173 thru 175 - Sky Sports 1, 2, 3
177 - MUTV

179 - The Studio
180 - Turner Classic Movies
181 - Carlton Cinema
182 thru 186 - Sky Movies Premier 1, 2, 3, 4, widescreen
187 thru 191 - Sky Movies Max 1-5
192 thru 193 - Sky Movies Cinema 1 & 2
194 - Film Four

196 - Playboy
197 - PPV Channel
198 - PPV Football

901 thru 914 - Basic Radio Stations (as before): Rte Radio 1, 2FM, Lyric FM, Today FM, R na G, BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio 1 thru 5(Live), BBC World Service, Classic FM, and WRN
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I also have to agree with you on the choices of where to move some of the channels. Absolute rubbish!
SKY News gets watched alot in this house and having it on channel 111 was a godsend as it was so simple to click on the remote... just hit 1 three times!
Fashion TV should in NO WAY be in the top 20 channel listing! I used to have it in the Favourite listing as it was so far down the list - just in case I ever wanted to watch it (like, when??), but now I will just remove it from the faves all together as it's in a ridiculous location now.
Disc Home & Leisure should be with all the other Disc channels. It's really dumb to leave one Disc channel in the top 20 channels when all the rest are placed in an orderly fashion. I often wonder what these ntl folks smoke.
Channel Health, TV Travel Shop and QVC also have no place in the top 20 channels. Very strange arrangement.

Apart from moving Sky News further down the listing, and moving the aforementioned channels up the listing, I like the new arrangement - it's more orderly.
Now... if we can just get them to give us some decent new channels rather than just 6 filler music channels (though they are entertaining at times, I must admit)!

There are so many other really great channels I would like - I just hope the letter they sent with the new channel line-up means they actually will deliver some more new and decent channels before the end of the year.
From the letter: "and the good news is that there are more channels to come."

It remains to be seen if they will be any good... :rolleyes:

DMC

Thanks j. corb, good stuff!

Genghis

That's a fairly good line-up imho - along with the analogue channels, overall a good package. Shame they aren't in my area, though.

thegills

Question. Do the individual tv stations have a say in their channel placement. i.e. can Fashion TV 'pay' to get higher up the list??

mike65

Do the individual tv stations have a say in their channel placement. i.e. can Fashion TV 'pay' to get higher up the list??

Interesting question, I'd say no as I can't belive anyone
would spend money on pushing Fashion TV or Travel Channel
up the listing.

Meanwhile here in the Sunny South Eastern sticks the new line-up has taken root but with a big hole where those music channels
may yet reside.

Mike.

JTMan

Originally posted by thegills
Question. Do the individual tv stations have a say in their channel placement. i.e. can Fashion TV 'pay' to get higher up the list??

Of course you can pay for a good EPG placement. It is part of the deal that NTL reach with the media companies. I suspect the price that NTL paid for E4 was infulenced by the fact that NTL agreed to place E4 in the corner while you look at the Guide section and that E4 was placed first after all the teresterial channels.

Gadgie

Originally posted by j. corb
136 - MTV
137 - VH1
138 - VH1 Classic
139 - MTV Hits
140 - MTV Base
141 - MTV Dance
*142 - The Box
*143 - Smash Hits
*144 - Q
*145 - Magic
*146 - Kiss
*147 - Kerrang

Still no MTV2 though - bizarre.

kamobe

FFS!!

Where is the interactive service!!! I swear I'm gonna drop this if the don't introduce it soon...

Sales guy said we'd have it within weeks when we ordered it. That was 5 months ago.

j. corb

Originally posted by Fungus
I suspect the price that NTL paid for E4 was infulenced by the fact that NTL agreed to place E4 in the corner while you look at the Guide section

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This has nothing to do with E4 or any other channel/company paying to be in the small viewing box while using the menus (guide, on demand, etc)
This is determined by whichever channel was last added in the analouge channel line-up, which in this instance is E4. Previous to that it was TV3. (cNBC didn't count when they "added" it as a replacement to Eurosport as it was a channel which was previously available on analouge. I'm not sure about the logisitics of this, but it has something to do with signal location and parity, and E4 was completely new to analouge, just as TV3 was when it first launched.) And actually, this isn't supposed to happen at all. It's apparently a loophole that ntl (as per usual) have neglected to fix as that "little corner screen" you mention is supposed to be blacked out whenever you revert to certain sections of the menus.

I think the best thing they could have done, especially when perusing the onscreen guide, is make the small corner screen show the channel you were previously viewing, so that you can continue watching your programme (albeit tiny), and look at the listings at the same time. I think this is a software limitation of the decoder they are using. I have seen other Pace decoders in other countries which utilize this feature. Leave it to ntl to not use bang up to date equipment. They probably got a deal on decoders from Pace because these were not the most recent generation available.

Also, some of you using ntl digital may or may not know this, (I'm fairly sure it's NOT in the literature they distribute with the decoder boxes - however I could be wrong!) but there is another way to get current programme information for the program you're watching besides the route of pushing Browse:Highlighting the programme at the top of the list:More Info (which then puts the programme you're watching into a small corner box - very annoying). I only discovered a couple of days ago by accident (after 8 months of operating with digital service) that if you push the "Select" button in the middle of the remote (surrounded by arrows), that a small box comes up in the bottom righthand of the screen that gives a brief synopsis, and how many minutes are left in the programme. Very handy! And all without decreasing the screen size of what you are watching
As I said, some of you may already know about this feature, but for those of you like myself who didn't - it's good to know!

RasTa

have any of yous gotten these "new channels" yet?
because i still havent

icdg

The "little corner box" as people have referred to is intended for UK EPG #107, Front Row Guide, a channel which loops Front Row previews 24 hours a day. Problem is this channel is not on the Irish service, and with good reason - the version of Front Row provided by NTL Ireland is a rather cut down version of the UK service, and many of the trailers would not appy.

Which brings me to a question: has anyone ever had any problems with ordering Front Row movies. I tried ordering one on Thursday night, but was told "no movies are currently available" (despite the fact that the EPG told me otherwise), and then transferred me to NTL technical support. Which happened to be closed...

j. corb

Originally posted by icdg
The "little corner box" as people have referred to is intended for UK EPG #107, Front Row Guide, a channel which loops Front Row previews 24 hours a day. Problem is this channel is not on the Irish service, and with good reason - the version of Front Row provided by NTL Ireland is a rather cut down version of the UK service, and many of the trailers would not appy.

Which brings me to a question: has anyone ever had any problems with ordering Front Row movies. I tried ordering one on Thursday night, but was told "no movies are currently available" (despite the fact that the EPG told me otherwise), and then transferred me to NTL technical support. Which happened to be closed...

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I had heard this about the small corner box as well, but have been told by many at ntl that this is supposed to be blacked out for the reason you state (that the version of Front Row movies is quite different from the UK version, therefore, they don't show it.) Barring that's what it should be, they obviously can't seem to work out that their attempts at "blacking out" the little corner box just do not work - which brings me back to my explanation of the most recent channel that is added to the analouge service. The incompetence of ntl once again rears it's ugly head. (I swear it's like a damn Hydra!)

On the subject of Front Row movies, I have been unsuccessful in either ordering them via the instructions they give on the screen or by entering my details on the "order line". Every time we have purchased a movie, we have had to be on hold while we wait for an ntl rep to assist us. The longest wait took about 8 minutes. So my advice to others looking to purchase movies is do it well ahead of time as you may have to wait on the line to have someone help you with it. Once again... did I mention incompetence...?
Also, though we find it quite convenient to ring up and watch a movie without needing a trip to the video store and then worrying about returning it, I have been less than impressed with the quality onscreen. It has blanked out intermittenly on all the movies we have viewed, and during the last one we bought (A Knights Tale), it blanked for about 30 seconds and we missed a crucial bit of dialouge as a result. Very annoying.
They also can't seem to coordinate the actual start time of the movies. For instance, the last movie was supposed to start around 8:25, but it was closer to 8:50. The times always seem to be off by 20 - 25 minutes of what the onscreen guide says. Quite odd. Why don't they just say: "Purchase this movie between such and such time and we'll show it to you whenever." This is all beginning to sound like Microsoft *LOL*

j. corb

Originally posted by RasTa
have any of yous gotten these "new channels" yet?
because i still havent

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No-one has these channels yet. I recall reading somewhere on here that someone said we're supposed to get them by the end of the month...? I'm not sure where this information came from though.