Sky Sports HD channels - ? end of C/S for Virgin

[johnny bravo]

from what i was told by my cs provider end of january...

 

[icemen]

I did read they will be offering all customers free v6 boxes soon

 

[river4ever]

Just thinking ahead....
With many getting letters/emails about upgrading to non C/S boxes from vermin.
Could anyone in the REPUBLIC OF IRELAND confirm if they have got those letters/emails please?

no reports of irl going that way yet

So not all doom and gloom.
(taxi to Dundalk for those in uk)

Just like brexit the ones in the euro still earn big money.

 

[Kryton]

They can force the boxes for there HD viewers, holding them for ransom that there HD channels will go off if they dont accept.

Not everybody will take kindly to this so its a gamble on VM's part.

But i can live with SD channels if it does go to plan...just live it out like we did in the SKY days....took years for SD to dissapear after HD was killed.

 

[hackmax]

@[U]Kryton[/U]

SD will disappear. VM will not keep the old encryption on for a few stuborn customers who don't swap boxes. It will NOT take them years.

There is a difference here. Sky, you own the box - so forcing upgrades is considerably more complex. Here, VM own the boxes and if they want to replace them they will. The customer can not say no, VM will just terminate there services. Yes they will take this gamble.

 

[buzzer]

I got a tivo box (which i don't use) with HD channels as part of my package.
I aint heard nothing from them regarding new boxes..
what they going to do, switch it off then deal with the complaint?

 

[hackmax]

The Tivo's already run off the new encryption system (CAID:1850) so don't use a smartcard - as such these will not go off, are not required to be replaced - but VM are kindly offering to upgrade you anyway for free so may as well take it. You get a better box running off the same encryption system.

The issue here is they are upgrading the older boxes (small Cisco HD, and any older SD boxes - Samsung/SA/Pace) - these run off the older N3 (CAID:1841 that C/S is currently running off - and as such, lots of IPTV streams get supplied by)

 

[spaceship9876]

Those of you that don't have a V6 box can get a free upgrade here: Virgin Media Customer? Upgrade your TV box to the latest V6 model FREE OF CHARGE @ Virgin Media - HotUKDeals

I suspect that virgin will probably ditch cards all together this year and force everyone to have a TiVo box or a v6 box. This would also allow them to switch to h264 for video instead of mpeg2 as some of the older boxes can't decode h264. This would give them a nice storage advantage when over sky when recording SD channels. It would also save a lot of money on bandwidth costs and reduce network congestion. It would reduce technical support costs too as everyone would have the same user interface.

 

[cokeaddict]

Those of you that don't have a V6 box can get a free upgrade here: Virgin Media Customer? Upgrade your TV box to the latest V6 model FREE OF CHARGE @ Virgin Media - HotUKDeals

I suspect that virgin will probably ditch cards all together this year and force everyone to have a TiVo box or a v6 box. This would also allow them to switch to h264 for video instead of mpeg2 as some of the older boxes can't decode h264. This would give them a nice storage advantage when over sky when recording SD channels. It would also save a lot of money on bandwidth costs and reduce network congestion. It would reduce technical support costs too as everyone would have the same user interface.

They have already switched most hd channels to H.264, you can tell this as the quality is now SHITE

 

[spaceship9876]

They have already switched most hd channels to H.264, you can tell this as the quality is now SHITE

as far as i'm aware they are still using mpeg2 for all sd and hd channels, do you have any evidence they are using h264?

 

[cokeaddict]

as far as i'm aware they are still using mpeg2 for all sd and hd channels, do you have any evidence they are using h264?

Yes the fact that the bitrate has dropped and the codec has changed to H.264

 

[cokeaddict]

Forgot to attach the pics

 

[spaceship9876]

Forgot to attach the pics

View attachment 121468View attachment 121469View attachment 121470

It says that I don't have permission to view the photos, I guess I have to make a certain number of posts or something. When did virgin switch to h264, is this for all SD and HD channels? I thought there were a lot of boxes that couldn't handle h264 still out there, do we know if virgin contacted them and offered them a newer box or something? Thought I would have heard about this, can't find any info on google about switching codecs.

 

[cokeaddict]

Sometime in the last week or two.

Just HD channels atm I think

 

[hackmax]

I actually think some of it is reduing the bandwidth a channel takes up, allowing them to put more channels per TP.

This could free up other TP's to broadband usage on higher speeds.

I suspect in the future, broadcast channels will disappear in favour of some form of streaming (like Netflix)

This way you only get broadcast the channel(s) you are watching/recording. Currently a lot of bandwidth is wasted on 300+ broadcast channels that just aren't of any value to 99%

 

[cokeaddict]

I actually think some of it is reduing the bandwidth a channel takes up, allowing them to put more channels per TP.

Yes but this also reduces bitrate which then reduces the picture quality too, which is what I noticed and made me look to see what had changed.

 

[spaceship9876]

I think card sharing was supposed to have been switched off yesterday, has it?

 

[chookey]

I think card sharing was supposed to have been switched off yesterday, has it?

Well it's not a case of "switching them off", lol. That would infer the provider had some control over it in the first place. My Sports HD channels have gone today though.

 

[JonMMM]

Watch sky sports main event HD and its fine

 

[cokeaddict]

Well it's not a case of "switching them off", lol. That would infer the provider had some control over it in the first place. My Sports HD channels have gone today though.

Rescan your channels