[Stuart]

Question now is at what point do Scotland Wales and NI get SD closures. The SD for them are on 47 46 and 48 respectively.

I don't see why they wouldn't go at the beginning, the moment the UK wide 'BBC One SD' feed has been created.

[Jimbo2022]

That may still happen of course

[Stooky Bill]

There are no spare muxes currently to. Test them on.

But taking two SD feeds off each mux at a time and alternating does make sense.

South (SD currently on tp 48. Oxford on 48 bit being replaced) 2 on 48 being removed
East Midlands, East (SD currently on tp46 - Cambrudgebon 45 nit being replaced) 2 on 46 1 on 45 removed
West Midlands, Yorks & Lincs (SD also on tp46(
West, South West, Channel Islands, London (West CI and London currently on 45 to be removed. SW us on 48
North East & Cumbria, North West, Yorkshire (All these currently on tp47)
South East (currently on tp47.

Question now is at what point do Scotland Wales and NI get SD closures. The SD for them are on 47 46 and 48 respectively.

Kind of, each transponder will close, convert to DVB-S2, and reopen with a new set of HD services. It's not a case of just closing 2 SD services at a time - a whole transponder will go. So when 48 gets converted BBC1 NI SD will go too. 

But as I said earlier, there's a difference between a service being on the satellite and it being on the EPGs. They might be there before anyone can see them and vice versa

As for the order of regions, I suspect they are spread across the transponders to provide some diversity in case one fails - for example they don't want all the Welsh services on the same transponder, or East and West Mids for example

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That order is logical so far as transponder use is concerned. Two at a time per mux

But the choice of TP seems illogical. They tested using a Sky TP, rather than one from Freesat, so that doesn't really add up.

Freesat doesn't have transponders, the BBC services are on the BBCs transponders.... except the two that currently aren't

[Stuart]

Freesat doesn't have transponders, the BBC services are on the BBCs transponders.... except the two that currently aren't

I didn't realise that. On Lyngsat the BBC (and some ITV/C4) services are labelled as being on Freesat TPs.

[Jimbo2022]

They are labelled Freesat as all the services on those muxes are on Freesat. But the channels also appear in the sky package pages too which is also correct.

[Stuart]

They are labelled Freesat as all the services on those muxes are on Freesat. But the channels also appear in the sky package pages too which is also correct.

I was referring to this page on Lyngsat which lists each transponder, and seems to indicate the owner of the transponder/mux. Many of the C4/C5 services are also on Freesat, but are shown as coming from a Sky TP/Mux.

Astra 2E/2F/2G at 28.2?E - LyngSat
Advertisements News at LyngSat Stream: Aljazeera EnglishGourmet News NetworkMari…
  Source: www.lyngsat.com

Of course, I could just be misunderstanding it, as I'm a complete amateur in these things.

[Jimbo2022]

That is how it's always been because they are on the sky platform so the pages are linked.

[Stuart]

That is how it's always been because they are on the sky platform so the pages are linked.

OK I understand. 

How long does it take to convert a TP/mux from DVB-S to DVB-S2? 

It's just I noticed that Sky have at least a couple of empty DVB-S2 TPs (113 & 114) which could potentially house 12 new BBC HD English Regions between them during the conversion process.

[Stooky Bill]

That is how it's always been because they are on the sky platform so the pages are linked.

OK I understand. 

How long does it take to convert a TP/mux from DVB-S to DVB-S2? 

It's just a case of changing a setting on the modulator, (assuming the modulator can do S2 of course, older ones can't) The same goes for any other settings such as FEC and symbol rate - it's a simple configuration change however... 

You can't change the settings while in transmit mode. Also after the settings are changed the receivers at home won't have the new parameters until they're sent out by Sky/Freesat. 

Crucially the modulator parameters - symbol rate, FEC, modulation standard etc decide what the data rate of the MUX is. If the encoder is putting out the old data rate and the modulator is expecting the old one then it won't transmit. So that needs to be changed at the same time (although in reality that would be all ready to go, either as a spare encode chain or a config ready to go)

It's not a process that can be done in a few minutes, and you wouldn't want to anyway. Plus there's always more than one uplink and encode chain, you'd want to test it all works before it's released to the public's boxes. 

My guess is that they'll point everyone's boxes away from a transponder, reconfigure it, test it and then point them back at the new services. That'll be why it's being done in a certain order

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Freesat doesn't have transponders, the BBC services are on the BBCs transponders.... except the two that currently aren't

I didn't realise that. On Lyngsat the BBC (and some ITV/C4) services are labelled as being on Freesat TPs.

All Freesat do is send out an alternative service metadata alongside the free to air channels. So the EPG on Sky boxes will use their meta data and Freesat will use theirs. 

The transponders themselves are leased to various uplink providers - Sky have a lot of course, as do Arqiva and Globecast, and the BBC has 5 or 6.

[all new phil]

Recently signed up to Sky Stream. It’s great having the local news on BBC 1 HD, but Look North is definitely in SD still and on top of this, the national news looks to be broadcast in SD too. Is there a reason for this? Can understand the local news but not the national.