BBC 1 Regions on DSAT

Oh no, course not

The interactive football was very good though, I assumed it would be a News24 style rip-off of Sky, but it wasn't

No - you have a 'Murdoch Crippled' box that hides interactive applications from the Other Channels menu (and cannot be added using Add Channels). If you are lucky enough to search the transponder weeks in advance and find them before they have time to block them, add it and you can enjoy watching the tests (same as Big Brother 2001).

FTA boxes do not have a viewing card, and (no surprises here) can only tune into FTA channels.

Even then, the ability to watch the BBC ONE regional tests would be doubtful as (AFAIK) they are encrypted in VideoGuard (the Sky encryption method).

Hope that helped.

I suspect we will see a numeric '1', but not the same as the 1991-97 one. A tad too old-fashioned for the 'funky' new BBC1.

Is it right that the concrete, specified start date is the 21st January?

More information:

More regions are now ready and waiting to go, with full (news only) transmissions on the BBCi transponder on Astra 2B.

The following regions are now available (encrypted in VideoGuard and hidden from a standard digibox):

BBC 1 Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

BBC 1 North West

BBC 1 Midlands

BBC 1 South

Also the BBC 1 Regional Interactive Applet has been uplinked.

Transmission times:

Mon-Fri 2pm-3pm & 7pm-8pm and 11pm-midnight
Sat-Sun 6pm-7pm

I think the times above are in CET so deduct an hour for GMT.

(Edited by Mr Videowall at 12:58 pm on Jan. 10, 2002)

Hmm - that's interesting, that implies that the 1300-1400, 1800-1900 and 2200-2300 hours will be available, so the regional headlines (and promo in the Six) as well as the 1330, 1830 and 2225 programme will be available.

I heard very strong rumours that the service would initially only cover the 1800-1900 hour...

I believe that testing has been taking place all week - certainly there are feeds (and bookings) from 1730-1900 all week of BBC One South,BBC One Midlands,BBC One North and BBC One North West to London. (It is possible to watch all of these on the ring main in the News centre - though the actual feeds are sent to a different bit of the building)

I expect that the 'Press Red' button will be triggered at the beginning of the news as now, but will offer additional choices to change regions as well as access the news interactive services? Be interesting to see if the regional BBC Ones have an onscreen graphic, either interactive generated or burnt in to confirm the choice of viewing during the main BBC One news - I guess this will also be part of the regional service so the integrated headlines/promos are available?

I tend to agree that it might only be 18:00-19:00 (GMT) initially, as there was nowt on that transponder at 13:10 today, as far as I could see.

I AM hunting in the right woods, aren't I? 12.441, Vert, 27.5, 2/3.

Normal Sky digiboxes won't show anything up (sadly)

Aha! Merci.

Will you be able to see all regions or only your local region? 'Cos I do like to keep tabs on what's going on regionally with News24 Ceefax, BBCi UK Regions and creating my own ITV1 UK Today by regionsurfing between six and half past... will this be possible on BBCi regionscreen?

You'll be able to see 'em all

I had heard there were arguements over putting them all on since it could clash with 24h interactive stuff like Walking With Beasts.

Some people in the Beeb seem to think that regional news isn't worth putting on Dsat, aside from the fact it picks up 6million a day...