menuMENU    UK Free TV logo Archive (2002-)

 

 

Click to see updates

All posts by js

Below are all of js's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.

J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Wednesday 9 September 2020 5:32AM

It is four weeks since the C50 BBCA was switched off but the data for that multiplex is still being transmitted.

This useless transmission is using a significant amount of bandwidth on each of the North West multiplexes.

It is present also in the Com7 National EIT and SDT.


link to this comment
GB flag
J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Wednesday 9 September 2020 7:24AM

So, there is full 8 day schedule data for a complete but non-existent BBCA being transmitted.

This BBCA still occupies LCNs 751-777, in The Twilight Zone:

Tables read from transport stream 233A.1048

UTC_time = 09/09/2020 04:45:45

networkName = North West
networkID = 302A
NIT version number = 30
number of multiplexes in the NIT = 12
number of multiplexes in the SDT = 18
number of SDT services = 320

List by SDT Multiplex:

BBC A
ONID.TSID = 233A.1048
562 MHz, uhf 32, 8 MHz, 64-QAM, 8k, 2/3, 1/32
Target Regions = (GBR.England.North West)U(GBR.Isle of Man)
(
LCN SID TYPE SERVICE NAME
001 1048 01 BBC ONE N West
002 10BF 01 BBC TWO
009 11C0 01 BBC FOUR
201 1200 01 CBBC
202 1240 01 CBeebies
231 1100 01 BBC NEWS
232 1280 01 BBC Parliament
250 1140 01 BBC Red Button
601 1C00 01 BBC RB 1
700 1A40 02 BBC Radio 1
701 1700 02 BBC R1X
702 1A80 02 BBC Radio 2
703 1AC0 02 BBC Radio 3
704 1B00 02 BBC Radio 4
705 1600 02 BBC R5L
706 1640 02 BBC R5SX
707 1680 02 BBC 6 Music
708 16C0 02 BBC Radio 4 Ex
709 1740 02 BBC Asian Net.
710 1780 02 BBC World Sv.
719 1808 02 BBC Manchester
720 1848 02 BBC Lancashire
721 1849 02 BBC Cumbria
722 1888 02 BBC Merseyside
726 1845 02 BBC Stoke
)

BBC A
ONID.TSID = 233A.1068
706 MHz, uhf 50, 8 MHz, 64-QAM, 8k, 2/3, 1/32
Target Regions = (GBR.England.North West)U(GBR.Isle of Man)
(
LCN SID TYPE SERVICE NAME
751 1068 01 BBC ONE N West
752 10B7 01 BBC TWO
755 11E0 01 BBC FOUR
756 1220 01 CBBC
757 1260 01 CBeebies
758 1120 01 BBC NEWS
759 12A0 01 BBC Parliament
760 1160 01 BBC Red Button
761 1C20 01 BBC RB 1
762 1A60 02 BBC Radio 1
763 1720 02 BBC R1X
764 1AA0 02 BBC Radio 2
765 1AE0 02 BBC Radio 3
766 1B20 02 BBC Radio 4
767 1620 02 BBC R5L
768 1660 02 BBC R5SX
769 16A0 02 BBC 6 Music
770 16E0 02 BBC Radio 4 Ex
771 1760 02 BBC Asian Net.
772 17A0 02 BBC World Sv.
773 1828 02 BBC Manchester
774 1868 02 BBC Lancashire
775 1869 02 BBC Cumbria
776 18A8 02 BBC Merseyside
777 1865 02 BBC Stoke
)



link to this comment
RO flag
J
All free TV channels in the UK
Wednesday 9 September 2020 10:16AM

ASTRA/BSkyB Diffs:

Sky Arts FTA:

Comparing files List ASTRA 08-09-2020 18 01.txt and List ASTRA 09-09-2020 11 01.txt


************************ CHANGED ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN

Encryption Flag Change
Sky Arts 1 1752 5752 2019 2 12071H 1 1 BSkyB 111111111111111 122, 820
Sky Arts 1 1752 5752 2019 2 12071H 0 1 BSkyB 111111111111111 122, 820


************************ NEW ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN
52188 2 0000 52188 2097 2 11582H 0 0 BSkyB 000000000000000

link to this comment
GB flag
J
All free TV channels in the UK
Wednesday 9 September 2020 10:21AM

Freesat Diffs:

Sky Arts is added to the Freesat test region:

Comparing files List Freesat 08-09-2020 18 01.txt and List Freesat 09-09-2020 11 01.txt


************************ NEW ************************

SERVICE NAME TYPE EPGID SID TSID ONID FREQ.P ENC EIT PROVIDER BOUQUETS LCN
Sky Arts 1 20026 5752 2019 2 12071H 0 0 Freesat 1EEE1EEE1EEE 147

link to this comment
GB flag
J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Sunday 13 September 2020 12:23PM

Bad Codes Update.

Something is happening here. Maybe it's finally being fixed.

There were 1399 invalid codes in the EIT of 2020/09/10. Many have now been corrected, leaving a mere 296 errors in the current EIT.

Who knows how many devices have been crippled by this garbage. A few years ago, all it took was a missing slash character in the EIT data to crash Sony PVRs across the country.

Here is an excerpt from the error report generated by my EIT parser. Note: Some errors are repeated because they are on each of the three Local Multiplexes or both BBCA - real and unreal - multiplexes:


Invalid Character Codes in the EIT off North West multiplex BBC A. Date: 2020/09/13 00:45:19

It has become apparent through observation that invalid bytes in the Freeview EIT text strings are the low-order bytes of the Unicode General Punctuation Block:

Of course only bytes less than 0x20 qualify as invalid codes in the context of EIT text strings.

Since about April 2018, the following invalid codes have been found in the Freeview EIT text items:

0x01, substitute: {0x01} -> Unicode Character: "EM QUAD" (U + 2001)
0x08, substitute: { } -> Unicode Character: "PUNCTUATION SPACE" (U + 2008)
0x0B, substitute: {} -> Unicode Character: "ZERO WIDTH SPACE" (U + 200B)
0x10, substitute: {-} -> Unicode Character: "HYPHEN" (U + 2010)
0x13, substitute: {--} -> Unicode Character: "EN DASH" (U + 2013)
0x14, substitute: {---} -> Unicode Character: "EM DASH" (U + 2014)
0x18, substitute: {L'} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2018)
0x19, substitute: {R'} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 2019)
0x1C, substitute: {L''} -> Unicode Character: "LEFT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201C)
0x1D, substitute: {R''} -> Unicode Character: "RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK" (U + 201D)

There are 296 invalid codes in the current EIT:
invalid code, count, percentage
0x0B, 6, 2.03%
0x18, 2, 0.68%
0x19, 280, 94.59%
0x1C, 2, 0.68%
0x1D, 6, 2.03%

There are 267 events with invalid codes in the current EIT.

The Culprits:
Format:
service_name, number of events containing errors

CBeebies, 2
BBC World Sv., 1
BBC Radio 4, 2
CBeebies, 2
BBC World Sv., 1
BBC Radio 4, 2
YAAAS!, 3
Blaze, 6
Ketchup, 4
RNIB Connect, 3
ADULT Studio 66, 32
POP Max, 137
Sony Movies Classic, 4
That's TV, 29
Sony Movies Classic, 4
That's TV, 29
Sony Movies Classic, 4
CBeebies HD, 2


Events with invalid codes in the eight-day EIT off multiplex BBC A at 2020/09/13 00:45:19:


#1: 202 CBeebies, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B

#2: 202 CBeebies, Wed 16 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B

#3: 710 BBC World Sv., Sun 13 Sep 02:50 - 03:00: title = "Over to You", description = "Many millions rely on it to listen every day, so what does the future hold for shortwave? Plus Weekend is back after earlier this year being {L''}temporarily suspended{R''} due to Covid..", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D

#4: 704 BBC Radio 4, Tue 15 Sep 16:00 - 16:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D

#5: 704 BBC Radio 4, Wed 16 Sep 21:00 - 21:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D

#6: 757 CBeebies, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B

#7: 757 CBeebies, Wed 16 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. Also in HD. [S]", description error byte: 0x0B

#8: 772 BBC World Sv., Sun 13 Sep 02:50 - 03:00: title = "Over to You", description = "Many millions rely on it to listen every day, so what does the future hold for shortwave? Plus Weekend is back after earlier this year being {L''}temporarily suspended{R''} due to Covid..", description error bytes: 0x1C, 0x1D

#9: 766 BBC Radio 4, Tue 15 Sep 16:00 - 16:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D

#10: 766 BBC Radio 4, Wed 16 Sep 21:00 - 21:30: title = "Costing the Earth", description = "Peter Gibbs looks into housing developments and asks how we respond in an environmentally positive way to Boris Johnson's call to arms to "build build build{R''} post lockdown.", description error byte: 0x1D

#11: 212 YAAAS!, Mon 14 Sep 10:00 - 14:00: title = "Cracking! Wallace & Gromit", description = "Wallace{R'}s inventions are truly imaginative if not always the most efficient!Cracking Contraptionsis a showcase of 10 short films about Wallace{R'}s wonderfully eccentric ideas.", description error bytes: 0x19, 0x19

#12: 212 YAAAS!, Tue 15 Sep 14:00 - 17:00: title = "Swamp Chats With Shrek & Donkey", description = "Shrek and Donkey dish the dirt on all fairytales in this talk show. They give the scoop on things like Prince Charming{R'}s dating life, or how to make Little Red Riding Hood stew.", description error byte: 0x19

#13: 212 YAAAS!, Sat 19 Sep 06:00 - 10:00: title = "Purr-fect Puss In Boots", description = "Known the world over as the most daring swashbuckler ladies{R'} man, and all around coolest cat, Puss In Boots shares advice, stories and tasty titbits with his fans.", description error byte: 0x19

#14: 063 Blaze, Sun 13 Sep 20:00 - 21:00: title = "Ray Winstone's Sicily", description = "Palermo, Fit for a Duchess: Ray discovers Palermo{R'}s markets and its traders. They try the opera - which isn't a great success - and charm a Duchess.", description error byte: 0x19

#15: 063 Blaze, Mon 14 Sep 22:00 - 23:00: title = "Ronnie O{R'}Sullivan{R'}s American...", description = "...Hustle: Chicago: Ronnie and Matt's road trip continues in Chicago, where the snooker champion faces one of the game's deadliest players, 'Black Widow' Jeanette Lee.", title error bytes: 0x19, 0x19

...

#265: 050 Sony Movies Classic, Fri 18 Sep 15:40 - 17:00: title = "Micki & Maude", description = "A TV reporter longs for a baby, but when both his wife and his mistress announce they{R'}re pregnant, he finds himself with more than he hoped for. Stars Dudley Moore, Amy Irving, Ann Reinking. (1984)", description error byte: 0x19

#266: 205 CBeebies HD, Tue 15 Sep 09:15 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Don Quixote{}. Pug needs a story about how to be brave, so Dog and Pug meet the great Spanish knight Don Quixote and his partner, Sancho Panza. [S] [HD]", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x0B

#267: 205 CBeebies HD, Wed 16 Sep 0915 - 09:20: title = "Dog Loves Books", description = "Dog Loves Amazing Facts{}. Dog and Pug are talking about facts, and they go on an adventure to check one of Pug's. [S] [HD]", Huffman coded, description error byte: 0x0B

link to this comment
NL flag
J
All free TV channels in the UK
Tuesday 15 September 2020 3:47PM

Peter J O'Reilly: Actually, the three channels you cited are in the current official Freeview Channel listings Channel listings for Industry Professionals | Freeview

link to this comment
US flag
J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Tuesday 15 September 2020 3:54PM

js: When I see errors that probably will not be seen by anyone else, that may cause problems, I feel the need to alert people to them.

When the subject matter is complex, if there are no appropriate avenues of contact, it becomes impossible to communicate.

Regarding the invalid codes in the Freeview EIT data, I have tried to get the message through on a number of occasions, both to DUK and the BBC, evidently without success.

In case it is thought that I am making some mistake and the errors are mine, here is the proof that they are real:

In this example event, the Freesat description contains a "zero-width space", Unicode 200B, and the Freeview description contains the invalid code 0B in its stead.

For those, like me, who don't know what a "zero-width space" is, see Zero-width space - Wikipedia

The same program is used to read both Freeview and Freesat EITs.

When the EIT is Huffman coded, which is the case for all Freesat data and all Freeview HD data, the utf-8 output bytes of the Huffman decoder, which are untouched by my program, may be compared directly as follows:

Freesat:
CBeebies HD, Mon 21 Sep 09:15 - 09:25: Dog Loves Books
Dog Loves Calm.
Huffman: 44 6F 67 20 4C 6F 76 65 73 20 43 61 6C 6D E2 80 8B 2E


Freeview:
CBeebies HD, Mon 21 Sep 09:15 - 09:25: Dog Loves Books
Dog Loves Calm{}.
Huffman: 44 6F 67 20 4C 6F 76 65 73 20 43 61 6C 6D 0B 2E

Freesat: E2 80 8B
Freeview: 0B

E2 80 8B in binary is 11100010 10000000 10001011

For 16 bit codes U+0800 U+FFFF, 3 bytes are used for the utf-8 representation: 1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx

1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
11100010 10000000 10001011

So the Unicode code bits are 0010 000000 001011 which in hex is 20 0B

All we have on Freeview is 0B, an invalid code, which is the low order byte of 200B.

link to this comment
NL flag
J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Tuesday 15 September 2020 3:58PM

Another example, this time in the title:

Freesat:
Channel 5 HD, Tue 22 Sep 04:30 - 05:25: Now That's Funny
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 E2 80 99 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79


Freeview:
Channel 5 HD, Tue 22 Sep 04:30 - 05:25: Now That{R'}s Funny
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 19 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79


Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 E2 80 99 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79
Huffman: 4E 6F 77 20 54 68 61 74 19 73 20 46 75 6E 6E 79

E2 80 99
19

1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx
11100010 10000000 10011001

0010 000000 011001 = 20 19


Unicode/UTF-8-character table - starting from code position 2000

link to this comment
NL flag
J
All free TV channels in the UK
Wednesday 16 September 2020 5:47PM

The Freesat streams have been re-mapped to Spotlight TV and BLAZE:

Channel Diffs from 11/09/2020 00:09:03 to 16/09/2020 17:36:45

Changed:

Spotlight TV (50331) 11082H
Number of streams changed from 2 to 7
new stream, PID = 3841 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3840 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3842 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3844 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3843 Type = 0x05 : private_sections

BLAZE (50350) 11082H
Number of streams changed from 2 to 7
new stream, PID = 3841 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3840 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3842 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3844 Type = 0x05 : private_sections
new stream, PID = 3843 Type = 0x05 : private_sections

Not shown yet on digitalbitrate yet - last scan was at 15 Sep 19:49

https://www.digitalbitrat…=mux


link to this comment
FR flag
J
Winter Hill (Bolton, England) transmitter
Thursday 17 September 2020 5:22AM

Seeing some tropo again. D3&4 off Ridge Hill, last seen on the 12 August, 190km distant, coming in on 506MHz C25.

As always now when tropo is about, Com7 is intermittent, on or below the cliff edge with around 20dB s/n.

A Hisense telly reports C55 as 86% strength with quality jumping between 0 and 100%.

Back on Feb 7 am, picked up all three PSBs off Mendip 275km away.

I won't see those again now Winter Hill is on the same frequencies.


link to this comment
US flag