Tag Archives: dvb-c

Virgin TV 360

No, not to be confused with the Xbox 360

Virgin’s successor to the Tivo and sort of answer to Sky Q.

The familiar colour of purple welcomes us to the 360 and we are greeted with the welcome change on channel… 360. Its a nice touch and goes through the capabilities of the new software. The platform makes use of Horizon 4 platform by Liberty Media, which is the parent company of Virgin Media. Horizon is also used across Europe by VM’s sister company like Telenet and Ziggo. Horizon was previously in use on UPC Ireland, which was later bought and rebranded as Virgin Media Ireland.

The set top box itself remains the same as the V6, using the Arris DCX960 with the same amount of storage (1TB), though a different remote control is used which drops the Tivo thumb buttons but adds a profile button and voice control. By using the same set top box, this allows for an in-place upgrade which can be requested by the customer to migrate the software from Tivo onto Horizon. A new remote is sent via the post during this process and once recited and activated by the customer, the software is upgraded.

One setback is existing recording are lost during the upgrade, so there is a grace period of 5 days before the software is updated automatically. This is likely due to the two platforms using different DRM to manage recordings.

TV Guide

The EPG guide, with the miniTV being displayed on the bottom right of the screen, which is a weird place to put it. The Tivo and even their older Liberate software placed the miniTV on the top right.

Pressing the OK button bring up the information banner which will show what you are watching. And what is on later that day. It will also show you the director, and the cast of the current movie you are watching, in a similar manor to how the previous Tivo platform presented it.

You can also set the box to record the current program, and enable subtitles or audio description.

Scrolling down will also give you options to watch on demand or to purchase it from an online store. You are also given recommendations of similar shows or movies

Channel off air slides, these come from the video stream and are not generated by the box.

Ah my favorite show, Fringe.

Filtering by the channel genre

Pressing Ok will bring up a small menu

Trying to watch an age restricted program outside of watershed hours, pressing Ok will prompt you to enter your PIN.

Navigating the user interface, you can quickly see what’s on next, and on other channels.

FAST Channels

Some of the PlutoTV channels will appear in the guide as streaming channels, however they are not integrated very well. Selecting then channels requires the box to buffer for a few second which cannot be helped, but when leaving the channel you are promoted if you wish to leave, which makes cumbersome when channel flicking. I wonder if this is a side effect of Ofcom, since these are not considered traditional broadcast channels then they cannot be directly accessible from the guide. I should also not these channels cannot be recorded, but their content is available on catch-up via the PlutoTV app.

This message will appear overtime you try to change channels in the top right corner, making it cumbersome to channel surf.

You also cannot pause or rewind for these channels, nor can you record any shows on these channels. Trying to do so will show the above message.

+1 channels now have their own section in the EPG which some might prefer, these are in the 3xx section of the guide. These channel are largely redundant, since you can just record or use the catch-up feature considering you have six tuners at your disposal, there’s little need for these time shift channels.

Voice search is a new feature that comes to the Virgin platform. Here you can press the microphone key on the remote and speak into it, either a command or a show you wish to search. It actually works quite well and is much more convenient than having to type to search on an onscreen keyboard, and it appears to be quite accurate despite having a lot of background noise.

Every so often, the Horizon software will show hints on how to navigate the TV guide interface.

Settings

Profiles are one of the main features of the 360 software, where each user can set their own preferences for favorite channels and language settings.

Favourite channels

A few accessibility options with voice-over options added.

Parental controls where you can lock specific channels or apps to restrict their usage. You can also enable PIN requests for program’s recorded after the watershed.

Video output settings, up-to 4K (2160p) output is supported.

System configuration where you can amend the auto power off. One power lets you turn on both the 360 box and the TV itself at the same time.

You can also switch between the Ethernet connection or to use the WiFi instead, though the box will always try to use the Ethernet connect if its available. You can also rename boxes if you have multiple 360 boxes.

Lastly some information about the box, this one appears to be the Arris DCX960. There is also a Humax version floating about (Humax 1008R-HDD-VM )

According to a few online sources, the box is powered by the Broadcom BCM7252, with 4GB of RAM. The CPU is a dual ore ARM processor though there is no indication as to which core it implements (most likely the Cortex A53)

Lastly adding additional buffering time to recordings.

Recordings

Watching recordings, which shows both shows available on demand and recorded program’s. Anything recorded and stored locally is represented by a full circle, whilst on demand is represented by a red ring instead. This is a bit misleading since I assumed the ring meant unwatched programmers, whilst full circles were already watched.

Selecting. show will display the amount of seasons that are currently available, and a list of episodes to select from with a short description of the episode.

A list of recorded shows, what can be sorted by date. You can also view any recording that are planned (and active season passes)s and how much disk space remains.

Like Tivo, you can customize the season passes where multiple episodes can be recorded. You can set to record only new episodes only, or from a specific season. And set to keep at most between 10 – 25 episodes so your storage does not get filled up from one show.

Age restricted program’s will require a PIN to be entered to watch. By default this is set to 1234 but can be changed at any time.

Apps

All the standard streaming apps are available such as BBC iPlayer, ITV X, Netflix and Amazon Prime.

PlutoTV: A free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a variety of on-demand movies, TV shows, and live channels. It operates similarly to traditional cable or satellite TV, with a channel guide that allows viewers to watch content on specific channels at scheduled times. Pluto have expanded the amount of channels steaming with the service since its launch on Virgin Media in 2020.

Radioline: A radio streaming app similar to TuneIn, radio stations and podcasts can be streaming and played through the 360 box, or through your sound system if you have your 360 box hooked up to it. There is an SPDIF audio output on the box for you to connect to an supported audio system.

VEVO: For music videos, had a large catalog of songs but there are certain omissions from popular artists, in that most all their music videos are available. Like Spotify, there are curated playlists available.

The Red button still exists, and can be invoked on the BT TNT Sport channels to quickly access other screens

BBC also still has a red button service, although this is just links to iPlayer instead. No more news headlines or information, that’s all done through the internet now.

A fireplace app, that shows a looping view of a fireplace. No I’m not kidding.

Fit At Home: A video fitness app with pre-recorded exercise segments

News headlines from France24

And the Wall Street Journal, a newspaper who famously tried to claim that PewDiePie was a nazi.

Paramount+ and Disney+ is also a welcome addition to the service. Now we just need Discovery+ to be added, although Virgin offer a lot of their content through their live TV channels and catchup/box sets.

No games though, why?

Full view of the app gallery

Comparison to Virgin Media Stream

Not long after the 360 was launched, Virgin introduced Stream which was offered to broadband only customers. This is a tiny box that connects wirelessly and is independent of the cable network (you still need a Virgin internet connection). Main different is you not receive live V channels through I (in the traditional sense, some apps might allow live TV broadcasts but its not using DVB-C, rather IPTV)

It’s really geared to customers who prefer to stream their shows fully on demand and have no plans to watch live tv, or they are happy with the freebie lineup instead.

Virgin Media App

A few captures of the Android app, running on a Sony Xperia 1 IV. The app will block screenshots when a channel is being streamed but not if browsing the guide. You can push channels and shows directly to your 360 box if its on the local network, and use your phone as a remote control providing its on the same network.

Lastly you can watch live broadcasts on any internet connection, but you are limited to up to 5 devices.

Conclusion & Improvements

My overall though on this was, is that it?

It’s not a bad services, if in fact its a lot better than say BT TV or TalkTalk offer, but there just isn’t that much improvement over the Tivo software that was used previously, This does goes to show how forward thinking Tivo was in its design and feature implementation. But really the move to Horizon 4 was more so that Liberty Media could have their operators migrated to one common platform.

If you’re an existing Tivo V6 user than there is little incentive to upgrade, unless you need the voice search.

Some improvements that could be made are:

Better FAST channel integration: Its a good idea to integrate them into the guide, as many people will simply ignore them if they’re hidden inside an app. But the shortcoming is you cannot channel hop as easy since the box will prompt you if you wish to leave the app, despite the illusion that you are still within the live TV interface.

More storage options: Needed as you lease more mini boxes from Virgin, 1TB isn’t going to cut it for a large household, especially when you consider 4K content. A 2TB upgrade would be very welcome. The box is detachable from the hard drive, though it requires unscrewing from the base. This is really so that Virgin can offer a mini box using the same design, the end user is not authorized to modify the hard drive.

Ability to steam to a smart TV or a Android set top box, or function wirelessly: This seems to be a common request for multiroom, as many people would prefer if they could get Virgin TV in another room without the need for a coax connection, like the mini boxes for Sky Q. However being able to stream live channels to another network device might be beyond the 360 hardware capabilities, its designed more as a generic PVR than a server. I really wish Virgin would pull their finger out when it comes to this, as multiroom viewing was one of the things cable TV did well and it seems they are not really trying with the 360.

I’m not sure why the Stream isn’t capable of this, I would assume they are using the same Horizon middleware.

More apps: This will always be a moving goalpost, but investing support for Britbox, AcornTV, Rakuten TV, Sportstribal and Plex TV are useful but they remain niche services.

Gaming services may be preferable in the future, with Xbox Gamepess Cloud, PlayStation Now & Amazon Luna being an example of such services.

Further Information

I should also mention that Virgin marketed the box as the Virgin TV 360, not Horizon 4 which is what the software is referred to internationally and by Liberty Media. Likewise EOS refers to the hardware architecture that Liberty Media has designed, since the hardware is capable of running the Tivo middleware.

As with the V6, the box features six tuners. Multiroom is handled differently with the 360, as mini boxes come linked to the main box to allow recording to be shared. The main box acts as a central server which the mini boxes can playback recording from it. However unlike Sky Q, the mini boxes require a cable feed for live TV, and can only live buffer a certain amount since that relies on the internal flash storage.

The 360 mini box is pretty much the same and the main 360 unit, just with the hard drive section removed. In theory this means you could attach additional storage for one extra monthly fee, though its unlikely Virgin will take advantage of this, We should be lucky the 360 has a hard disk at all, the European versions don’t have one and rely on cloud storage which means recording have to be streaming through your internet connection.

Call me a simple guy, but I prefer having everything on local HDD storage rather than in the cloud datacenter. I can just imagine this stuff being a disaster with not being able to watch back recording due to downtime/maintenance, or not being available due to ‘rights issues’. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Also, like the V6, the 360 does not feature a built in modem like the origin Tivo did, so you will need a permanent connection (Wireless or Ethernet, unsure of the speeds but I guess its enough for HEVC 4K video) to use the 360. Channels are still delivered using DVB-C rather than IPTV as Virgin would have you believe, though anything on demand will require an internet connection.

Further Information

Horizon EOS4

Cable & Wireless guide (Post-Launch)

Leave a reply

The channel banner that shows now and next information. Also supports transparency, a feature of the C-Cube GPU that was in the early Pace boxes

Future events can be found by navigating through the banner

Reminds can be set for future events, this predates the Sky personal planner which wouldn’t debut until 200. Don’t know why the symbol is upside down?

Viewing information about the show itself

The main home screen that appears when you press TV Guide, looks very similar to the Telewest version

The early EPG that was used on these cable guides was known as at-a-glance, and used a grid style layout to show channel listings

Sorting channels by genre

Pressing the i button gives detailed information about the upcoming show

Reminder notification, not sure if the STB will switch over automatically to the show being broadcast

TV on Demand

This is basically a near VOD service similar to Sky Box Office of the time, as true VOD would not launch until the ntl era, 2005

Main on demand screen with a list off currently showing events

Sample error/information box, on this one a warning is shown when the user is watching a copy protected movie

If the event is already showing a warning messages informing you will appear

Selecting the preferred start time

Updating VOD listings

Preferences

Settings area where favorite channels and preferences can be amended

Display aspect ratio can be changed, along with the scart output (Composite and RGB Scart)

Pin control to restrict TV events and channels

Interactive

A few captures of interactive sites that were available at the time, interactive launched in mid 2000 and was built on the Liberate navigator platform. Initial reception to the service was problematic, with issues bring the service being slow to load and some pages refusing to load likely due to the demands being placed on the server and lack of capacity. Supposedly this was due to the DOCSIS upstream being used to upload data as it was meant to, but the downstream being sent over the broadcast/DVB-C as opposed to DOCSIS, likely a carousel based system like Sky and ONdigital did.

Cable & Wireless planned to have up to 100 websites, with a lot being based on a cut down version to be displayed on a standard definition TV. Many sites can be loaded and accessed using a special URL which loads the homepage that the cable services uses.

ITN – Archive Interactive service

Enhanced interactive services were due to be made avaliable later, these used technology developed by TwoWayTV and would have used the full capabilities of the digital services to deliver interactive games and multimedia.

Comparisions

The first generation software was designed and built by Pace, with the operator customizing the end interface of the guide. All follow a very similar design language, which would be replaced by a Liberate HTML based EPG in later revisions for both ntl and Telewest

Cable & Wireless EPG Guide — Telewest Active Digital Guide 1999

Fate

Cable&Wireless home division was acquired by ntl who started merging the network operations with their own digital service. Cable&Wireless customers saw their EPG being rebranded using the ntl design scheme, and would be replaced entirely with ntl CR2. Initially both platforms were ran separately as they differed in return path and SI technology, which made integration difficult. After some time the two platforms would be unified with the Langley CR3 software. After ntl and Telewest merged, the Virgin media guide would be pushed to customers in 2007

Telewest – 2002

Leave a reply

Telewest redesigned their digital TV service in 2002, which saw the TV Guide software undergo a complete rewrite and redesign of the user interface, similar to what ntl undertook with their Bromley TV service.

Like ntl the TV guide was written entirely in Liberate TV middleware, and the entire interface is rendered using the Liberate browser. In contrast, the previous Telewest software used an EPG system developed by Pace, with the Liberate browser being added as a separate component what had to be loaded.

This meant the customer had to wait for the Liberate browser to load before they could access the interactive service, and on screen interactive prompt were not possible since the interactive stack was not running whilst the customer was watching TV.

Viewing TV on Demand listings

The Liberate middleware was upgraded to 1.2, which featured several programme and feature upgrades to the HTML browser used, one of which was the ability to use a mosaic style screen with different video feeds .As mentioned earlier, the Liberate intake now runs constantly, allowing for ‘press Red’ functionality to be used on TV channels, this was essential since Sky and ITVDigital had implemented similar interactive prompt features. These would also be instrumental for the upcoming Big Brother and Wimbledon 2002 interactive services, where customers could choose from different angles and feeds through the use of interactive, of which was not possible with Liberate 1.1 (The mosaic feature mentioned earlier)

A reminder alert for an upcoming program

Also new addition was the mini TV guide feature, where a small screen of the channel the customer was currently watching is displayed whilst the customer browses the TV guide or interactive. The exception to this is when they are browsing the On demand TV section, where the box changed to a Front Row preview channel, the reason being this was to allow the box to get up to date PPV listings rather than rely on cached data, and to do so it was necessary for the box to tune into a specific frequency that carried this data, preventing the use of mini TV.

A weird design decision since Telewest already had a functioning return path due to the internal DOCSIS modem inside the Pace box, why not use that to retrieve the PPV listings?

Adding Favourite channels

Viewing Favourite channels

Pressing reveals information on the selected program, and any program broadcast within the next 24 hours

View of the search and scan banner, known here as the Mini Guide like Sky you can view what’s on other channels

In 2003, a slight update was made to the interface layout, the Telewest Broadband branding is now in effect, and the layout is more square compared to the previous design.

Telewest launch EPG (1999)

Leave a reply

Telewest launched it’s Active Digital TV service in 1999 and was built on the same foundation that Cable & Wireless used for their digital TV service.

These screenshots were originally hosted on Digitalspy and were captured by a forum member, but the links to them were broken in an update, and were no longer directly accessible. From the looks of it they were captured using the RF output, so they are not indicative of the quality available at the time.

Startup Screen

Now & Next bar, very similar in practice to Sky Digital

The main home screen

At-A-Glance

The main TV Guide, called ‘At-A-Glance’, this shows TV listings for the next three days

Pressing i calls up a description of the program

TV-On-Demand

This isn’t true video on demand, at this point only NVOD was supported. the customer selects a convenient time slot showing to view the movie or event

Different categories

Programs-By-Subject

This I imagine is similar to the A-Z listings on Sky, where you can view programmes by their genre. Useful for discovering new or similar programs.

Settings

Main settings area

You can set the reminder notification warning before the program starts. Its worth noting that cable had implemented this before Sky Digital,

Here you can change from RGB to Composite, and set the box to output widescreen or standard. Letterbox options are also available.

Interactive

The early implementation of interactive was done in a separate Liberate browser, that had to be loaded separately. this meant that red button functionality was not yet possible in this build, since the Liberate environment was not yet running full time.

The main interactive menu, very similar to the ntl interactive portal

List of all entertainment interactive services, which are customised websites that are designed for use on an embedded set-top-box.

Interactive is delivered using the internal broadband cable modem built into the set top box, a phoneline is not required and the service is always on

Nearly all of the content and service are built using HTML3, which makes it easy to develop and host service, although there are some differences and restrictions comparted to a desktop class website.

A navigation bar can be used to browse around the service, and to exit back to the tv channel you were watching

An email service was built into the service, and was tied into the blueyonder email service.

Vs Cable & Wireless

Pace DiTV 1000

Leave a reply

The DiTV 1000 was one of the first digital cable boxes released in the UK, and one of the first DVB-C box’s with a built in DOCSIS cable modem.

The DITV1000 was also used by Telewest, where it was branded as the Di1000T, however the internals should be the same, although there may be differences in the memory configuration

Two card slots are present, with the smartcard slot visible behind the front cover flap. Front panel buttons can be used to change channel, move and navigate the on screen cursor and access various different menus.

Power – Mains input

RF Output: Outputs a modulated RF signal to a TV

RF Input: In from antenna

Audio Output: Outputs audio to a HiFi system, useful for radio

Scart Ports: Supports compostie and RGB, and VCR passthrough

IR Remote In/Out: To connect external IR blaster devices, Not officially used but is power enabled

Ethernet Port: Originally used to provide broadband services to a computer using the internal DOCSIS modem, redundant as cable modems are now preferred.

Serial Port: Labelled as RS232, Not Officially used

Pararell Port: Labelled is IEEE1284, Not Officially used

Internals of the DITV 1000, note the various amount of processors in this box, no wonder it runs hot.

It kind of reminds me of the Sega Saturn, which itself had 8 processors for various different tasks. Remember this box has to function as a high end STB and a cable mode, and still has to remain the size of a typical VCR.

Note the lack of a fan, since these box’s run hot they would have benefitted greatly from an additional fan to extract the heat generated by the components. Whilst this would have increased the cost of the stb slightly, the increase in reliability would have paid for itself in time, remember ntl had to pay installers to come out and replace the box once it had failed, and then had to be sent back to Pace in order to be diagnosed and repaired. Also customers are generally poor at maintaining AV equipment, with many putting the boxes in Tv cabinets and stands with closed doors, often on top of a VCR or DVD player that already generates heat. It’s no secret that heat is the main reason electronic components die early, and this was before the days of thermal throttling.

View of the memory and flash chips, with the memory module. Interesting to note the two flash banks, one labelled C&W Flash and the other as Download, wonder if these store two separate images? One for main use and the other for backup?

View of the bottom right side, showing part of the PSU

The main set of processors, from top left working down

Broadcom QAMLink BCM3118BKEF – QAM & DVB Decoder

C-Cube AViA GTX – Graphics processor

C-Cube AViA-600 – MPEG2 decoder

Broadcom BCM3220KPF – DOCSIS Modem

Hitachi SuperH/SH3 Processor – Central Processing Unit

Another view of the main processors

Update Process

So looking into the update process for the Ditv1000 I came to a plausible theory, When pace had written the initial loader for the stb, they neglected to include a function to check for a firmware update on boot up, which the later boxes did support and do. Typically when you boot up a cable box, it checks the default frequency for a valid netID and if there are any updates available for that stb, and the loader application for the ditv1000 may not have done that.

Since the loader is present on some sort of ROM medium and its likely Pace had already manufactured the software on the ROM chips themselves, they did not want to write off these chips since it would be a considerable expense, instead they included a workaround in the software loaded in flash, where once the operator had released a new update, a signal flag would be sent out within the transport stream, of which the software would then corrupt itself in an extent that the loader would fail to boot (possibly by failing a checksum) and would then trigger the download process.

To force an update on the Ditv1000, Hold the power button upon powering on the box from the mains power, release the power button when OHAY appears on the screen. then press

Update Process, this is displayed after you enter the key sequence

Diag Screens

To access, hold the Up/Down front panel buttons together after powering the box from the mains, release once DIAG appears on the front panel.

Default Frequency settings

Hardware version information and the loaded software information

Software versions for various components

Date & Time Information

That’s a lot of credit

The bootloader status

Memory information for both RAM and Flash memory

Status and a list of logs and events

Signal information for the DVB tuner

Downstream signal information for the cable modem

Information for the DVB Signal Information that is currently being received

Cable modem upstream

Front LCD Display

There are three light’s to the right o the LCD display which indicate the following:

The top light indicates power is being received by the stb
The middle light indicated the return path status of the modem, this light should be steady which indicates it is connected, flashing means the modem is attempting to connect – also means interactive services are unavailable until the stb connects.
The bottom light is for the remote control, and light up when a command has been received

Message	Meaning
PACE	Appears when the stb is powered on
—-	Liberate middleware is initialising, normal part of boot up
LAIT	Wait, The stb is preparing to update
OHAY	Appears when you hold the power button down upon boot, stb waiting for a front panel command
ERAS	Erasing flash
FLAS	Flashing memory, part of the update process
GOOD	Checksum passed, last part of the update process
ERRX	Error code, where X means the error number

DigDebug

DigDebug can be used to test various aspects of the hardware and can be triggered by connecting an RS232 extender cable to the box, and booting whilst DigDebug is active. Whilst connected, PL:03 is displayed on the front LED display.

Additional tests can be completed for the various pools of DRAM used for the CPU/Decoder/Demodulator and a test pattern can be displayed.

Pace Di4000T

Leave a reply

The Pace Di4000T was released in 2002, 3 years after active digital had originally launched, and was a new generation of digital set top boxes.

Like it’s ntl counterpart, certain features were cut in this version in an effort to reduce costs for the cable company.

Looks just like the Di4000N, with the main difference being the large Broadcom chip to the left

The main difference is the removal of the second card slot, it remainted in the Telewest version until the Di4000TC

The Di4000T is powered by the Conexant CX22490, same as the Di4000N and is paired with 32MB of memory

Broadcom BCM3250KPB, DVB demodulator and cable modem controller.

Another view, this time with the chips cleaned

Additional space for more flash memory

Front panel with the cover removed, the Di4000T has the same front panel as the Di1000/2000 series

Rear panel, exactly the same as the ntl version

Software Version: 3.7.37.P12EN.P.KNOW.P4000.R

Diag Mode

Displays the default frequency for the local area

Shows the NetID and the different address used to identify the box, also shows the build of the software

Return path information

Date & Time information

Rf output settings, here you can change the output channel and the colume control

Smart card status

Shows the different images stored in the flash memory

Memory and Flash memory capcities

Reboots the STB, not sure why cold reset is not avaliable

Status monitoring, List of errors and notifications logged by the STB

Shows signal information for the chosen frequency and symbol rate.

Same as the previous screen but with the cable modem downstream

Signal information for the DOCSIS modem upstream

When the box can locate a valid transport stream (multiplex) it shows the details of the DVB-SI, the amount of services found

Information relating to the flash memory

Virgin Media Guide

Other Information

Virgin Media Guide

Pace Di4000N

Cable & Wireless launch EPG

Leave a reply

A few screenshots of the original Cable&Wireless guide have surfaced online. They look to have been taken from a magazine, and may have been an early preview of the software. Similar to the pre launch Sky software that was a redesigned prior to its launch.

There isn’t much to say since it looks remarkably similar to the Telewest guide that was used for its launched, and was possibly based on the same code base. the initial EPG used by both Telewest and ntl was built using by Pace, and was designed to be a basic EPG with the Liberate browser running in background.

The software below is known as CR1, this lacks interactivity as the liberate client was yet to be deployed to the STB’s of the time, and the service was still in the process of launching. ntl later rebranded the CR1 software to their own colour scheme, but the design remained the same until ntl started rolling out CR3, which saw the EPG being completely redesigned to use the Liberate TV Navigator. In some areas of London, the ntl CR1 EPG was still in use, due to the poor condition of the Videotron network that was originally deployed.

The main menu, shows TV on demand (Pay per view), at a glance (EPG guide listings), programes by subject (subgenres) and preferences.

The options and layout of the guide look similar to the Telewest build of the software, and the later ntl rebrand

PayPerView on demand listings, I believe Cable & Wireless used Sky Box Office at the time, rather than Front Row

List of the PPV event along with the show times, again very similar to the Telewest layout

Cable & Wireless Interactive

It’s a shame the pictures appear to be zoomed in and that there are not any better shots of the ‘At-A-Glance’ EPG available

Comparison with Telewest

You can see distinct similarities within the layout the the guide software, I’d imagine the rest of the guide would look the same.

Inside a Pace Di4000

2 Replies

Earlier I went though the ntl CR3 Bromley software which was introduced in 2002 and was the basis for ntls new interactive services.

The Pace Di4000 was a redesign of the previous 4001 and 1000/2000 series box. Its worth mentioning that Pace’s model numbers don’t seem to follow a specific scheme, you would assume the Di4001 was the successor to the Di4000, however the Di4001 was the launch box for ntl in Langely areas and was a DAVIC based box, with the Di1000/DiTV1000 being its DOCSIS equivalent for Telewest and ntl Bromley areas.

These early generation boxes were designed around the Hitachi SH3 CPU with C-Cube Chipset for MPEG2 decoding and descrambling. The Di4000 replaces that with the Broadcom demodulator and the Conexant MPEG2 decoder which contains the ARM CPU.

Left Pace Di4001, Right Pace 2500 Sky Digibox

The main difference you will notice between the two is the reduction of components, with the Di4000 only having two main processors. The previous generation was split over 5 different processors. this reduction means the mainboard is smaller and the box produces less head as a result. In fact its not too far off an average Sky Digibox.

The Power supply is now separated from the main board, like the Sky Digibox design, allowing for the PSU to be replaced independently from the main board.
The audio out jacks have been removed, no you can no longer connect the box to a Hi-Fi system unless you use a scart breakout adaptor. The design for it still exists on the main board however.
The Serial port and Printer part are removed in favor of a single USB port. the serial port still exists and can be access using a VCR to RS232 adapter.
The second card slot has been removed, this was originally designed for Mondex cashcards.
The remote control protocol now supports IRDA and RC5

Conexant CX22490 – ARM920 based core, 160Mhz – 175MIPS

Broadcom BCM3250KPB – Demodulator

CrystalLAN CS8900A-CQ – Ethernet controller

Conexant Bt861KRF – Video encoder for Scart/AV output

Broadcom datasheet Download

Conexant CX22490 datasheet Download

The tuner modules, one for TV and the other for data/DOCSIS modem

Power Input
Ethernet – For internet connectivity for the internal cable modem
USB port – To connect additional devices, never used officially by ntl or Telewest
IR in/Out – never used by ntl or Telewest
Scart ports
RF Input/Output
Cable Input

Diag Screens

To access these on this box, hold down the Up & Down buttons whilst the STB is booting, and continue to hold them down until you see this screen. The front panel LED display will change to ldr and will then go blank once you have entered diag mode.

Sets the default frequency which is checked when the stb boots up, this frequency carries the netid for the area and any software updates

Shows build information about the software loaded, and the hardware identifier of the box.

Cable modem IP address information

RF output configuration

Shows recent PPV purchases

Shows contents of the flash memory

Signal information

With cable feed connected

Ntl Bromley CR3

1 Reply

The replacement to CR2 software that saw the launch of interactive services for the bromley platform, CR3 saw a rewrite of the guide software, with everything now being written in the Liberate browser, and Two Way TV support for downloadable applications, whilst Liberate being used for interactive. This software would form the basis for Langely CR3, and would be the next step in unifying the platforms in terms of feature set.

Sadly not all areas had access to CR3 with former Videotron areas in London being stuck on pre-interactive CR1 blue to the networks inability to support a return path connection. ntl would have to upgrade and repull the network in order to provide support for broadband and on demand services, all of which are dependent on a return path.

The software here is running on a Pace Di4000N

The user interface of ntl digital, not a fan of their purple/pink colour scheme and the bad thing is that its everywhere, thankfully they changed the scheme by the time it can to Langely.

Interesting is the listing for interactive settings, rather than be part of the list it looks like a separate link,

Now & next

Unfortunately the purple makes it’s way onto normal viewing, with the now and next bar

I’m not sure why these early cable TV software did not allow for the volume to be changed via the STB remote, since the Telewest side also did not support changing the volume. One theory was that customer would complain to ntl about how they were unable to her any sound through their TV, unaware that the volume on the analogue box has been set to a low level or mute, so to prevent further calls that disabled the feature.

In the end they enabled the volume control in a later build ofCR3, along with Telewest. Maybe they got fed up of the support calls asking why the volume control isn’t working on their box. In hindsight they should have followed the Sky design where the STB remote controls the volume on the TV at launch (they ended up doing this later, with the newer remotes)

The options button gives a small menu, allowing for access to the help function and a shortcut to the diary. The audio Language lets to changed the language of the audio, or enabled narrative audio description, Sky would later implement a similar feature in its Sky Guide.

TV Guide

The main TV guide grid. No channels here since the box is not connected to the cable feed.

Here would have been a list of all channel genres, such as Movies, Sports, News, etc

Pressing the i button shows a short description of the program

TV Guide: Diary

The diary is ntl’s version of the personal planner, and is used to store reminders for future events and shows. Future PPV events appear here.

Subject Search

The subject search feature can be thought of as an alternative to the A-Z listings of Sky Guide, showing programs rather than the channels themselves. The idea is that the customer can find a program they like by the genre of the show.

Sadly the TV guide only has 3 days of TV listings, compared to the 7 days offered by Sky Digital.

A list of subgenres

Searching for a specific program via text

The on screen keyboard, not sure if this is the way it’s supposed to look since a lot of the text to the right being cropped off.

ntl customers could also purchase an optional keyboard to make it easier to enter text.

One nice feature is the ability to save personalized genre lists, here you choose the type of programs to like to see and you can easily search for that list without having to manually select categories.

Interactive

Trying to load interactive services which sadly no longer exist. the Liberate middleware was used to deploy the interactive microsites, with the TwoWayTV middleware being used for the interactive applications such as games.

On Demand

Looking for PPV events, this was before true video on demand had launched

Settings

The parental control feature

Changing TV settings, not sure what Enhanced Programming corresponds to?

Favourites

The favorites feature, very similar to Ntl Langely CR3

Help

There’s a help system but with no content stored on the box.

Diag Screen

Diag screen that shows the software an signal information

Using with Virgin Media

Somehow I was able to get the box to bootup on a modern Virgin media connection, with many Channel and TV listings being loaded. Sadly I was not able to get any TV channels to load, not even radio channels which still broadcast in MPEG2

ntl: CR3 Langely

1 Reply

A look at ntl’s CR3 software for the Langely Platform

CR3 was ntl’s long awaited upgrade for their Langely customers who had previously no access to any interactive services, unlike the Bromley division that had full interactivity for some time. Part of this was due to the different return path technology used, ntl had originally went with DAVIC compared to Telewest and Cable & Wireless who deployed the DOCSIS standard for their TV return path. Although they are similar in terms of functionality, the differences meant ntl could not adapt the Cable & Wireless software for the Langely platform. In addition, Langely areas also ran different software with the original EPG being provided by Pace with the Liberate 1.2 browser being installed. CR3 would see a rewrite of the entire guide with everything now being done in Liberate, this meant that the Liberate browser was loaded on start-up, unlike earlier versions where the user had to wait for the browser to load.

CR3 saw a drastic change in the user interface, with the new ntl colour scheme being adopted

Screenshots below shows the stb without any channels loaded, I have to force boot the stb by holding they down key until Boot came up on the front panel display. Sadly I was unable to get the box to load with the cable feed.

Now & Next

TV Guide

The main user interface layout, you can see the Sky Guide influence with its layout

Viewing all channels, this would be populated with all subscribed channels, unfortunately the STB does not pick up any channels, either it cant load the NIT or the tuner inside the box is knackered

Viewing channels based on genre, up to 7 channels can be displayed at any time

Diary function, this is like the Personal Planner on Sky Guide, you can schedule future programmes to be entered here. Unable to test further since the box can’t load any programmes

On Demand

Ntl revamped replace its PPV service with a full on demand service, the programmes ordered could be watched easily. This software seems to be from before on demand was implemented as despite the menu saying ‘On Demand’ the box shows PPV options instead.

Interactive

Not functional 😦

Settings

Rearrange Channels

ntl had the ability for the customer to rearrange the channels in their EPG, allowing for channels to have their own number. This feature was removed when they migrated over to the Telewest based UK1 software

I can soft of understand why the feature was cut, in a family household one could easily rearrange the channel numbers which would cause issues with other members trying to figure out the channel numbers, and probably resulted in increased support calls from customers trying to figure out what had happened to their channel list.

Changing the picture settings

Never seen this before with digital TV, the ability for the box to sound an alert, with Sky boxes you can only sound a beep, and that’s only if there’s an error or if there are subtitles on programme being watched. Three alert sounds are available. Sadly this feature was cut when they migrated to the Virgin UK1 software.