Around the end of this past July was there an Encore freeview? Sometimes I receive those channels and sometimes I don't. Even on the Guide, where the channels I am not subscribed to are greyed out, the Encore channels are not, even when I am not receiving them.
Due to the Viacom retransmission dispute and the corresponding loss of all Viacom channels for a brief time, DirecTV provided the Encore channels for all subscribers until the end of July.