US Telco Support → Verizon → Verizon FiOS TV > [Channels] MPEG-4 is now being used for the .TV channels

[Channels] MPEG-4 is now being used for the .TV channels

Within the last week, the .TV channels have been transitioned from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4. While the mapping for now remains the same, all 6 .TV channels could fit in one 256-QAM carrier.

QAM 100 (651 MHz): 558 ES.TV, 599 Cars.TV, 695 Comedy.TV (MPEG-4)
QAM 101 (657 MHz): 633 Pets.TV, 674 MyDestination.TV, 676 Recipe.TV (MPEG-4)

Is it really a surprise that the first batch of channels to transition to MPEG-4 are the little watched .TV channels? The HBO and Cinemax channels should follow the switch to MPEG-4 this fall.

[Channels] Re: MPEG-4 is now being used for the .TV channels

Hardly a surprised. They were suppose to be done months ago. They probably found they had replaced all those STB for those who were subscribed and and asked for the new boxes.

I wonder if this was the reason for the STB updates many of us saw last week? It's a great first sign, several YEARS behind schedule of course. As usual I am surprised by the lack of notice they give to customers. Anybody without Ultimate package see if the .TV's say you need to upgrade your box?

I'd prefer not forcing everything to h.264 as it would require recoding many channels. But their are many other channels that are already being distributed by the suppliers in h.264, ex HBO, and all those should be distributed to us as h.264.

Oh, man. People should take a look at these channels before they start jumping on the h.264 bandwagon. Very YouTube-esque.

I'd say at least 80-90% of channels are now distributed to Verizon as MPEG-4.

There are very few MPEG-2 channels on Verizon's system that they are not re-encoding from a MPEG-4 source.

So whenever anyone tells you that Verizon passes through all their channels "untouched" or "uncompressed" unlike other cable providers - they're lying.

This MPEG-4 transition will only be a good thing, as it means Verizon is no longer re-encoding the feed they are receiving for that particular network.

am I the only one who sees a jitter/frame drop every second or so on the MPEG4 channels? We noticed it on both beIN's about a month ago. It was fine for months. I just tuned to one of the .TV channels and I see it there as well. MPEG2 channels are fine.

For the record, we do not have any FiOS STB's. We have 2 HDHRPrimes + WMC7 + xbox360's as media extenders.

I took a look at them when they first came out. A long, long time ago, but I don't remember them being this bad and I probably would have since it's so striking.

This information can be gleaned by examining the encoding used on the various C-band satellites used to distribute the feeds for networks to cable providers. Look at all this MPEG-4 on Galaxy 13, AMC 11, and AMC 10 (there are even more satellites than these three that supply providers but these three carry a huge chunk of the cable networks).

These satellites are where Verizon gets the networks. They retrieve them with their satellite dish farms at their Super Head-ends in Illinois and Florida, re-encode them to MPEG-2, and then pass them on to their VHOs via their fiber optics backbone.

Would be nice if we could just use our own C-band satellite dishes and subscribe to the networks directly, but nope, we've gotta go through obnoxious middlemen like Verizon, the cable providers, and DirecTV/Dish Network with their stupid "pizza pan" dishes. The networks will only sell receivers with access to these encrypted feeds to cable providers, not end users.

The days of being able to pick your channels a la carte and watch the network feeds directly from the source are long gone; cable industry and pizza pan satellite greed killed that business model off long ago.

As someone who grew up with a big C-band dish, those days were fantastic, and choices were limitless. But it was a lot cheaper getting packages than a la carte.

[Channels] Re: MPEG-4 is now being used for the .TV channels

Well, the question is how long until we see HD channel adds?

Darn! The first channels that I subscribe to finally go MPEG-4...well at least they're only the unwatched .TV ones. I'm still trying to milk my older equipment as much as I can...I'm one of the few that's enjoying VZ's delay of MPEG-4 as it keeps me from having to get new equipment if I want to watch those channels on TVs with older STBs.

(Sidenote: I don't have any VZ STBs [except for 3 DCT-700s] so it costs me to buy new STBs)

Take your time VZ...you're good at that anyways

They weren't this bad. The conversion has further degraded their quality.

Can't wait to see what happens to channels that actually look good now. Should be great!

Am I the only one who has them and they look great ?

The picture quality all depends on how the source provider sends the channels on C-Band to the distributor. The old saying Garbage in, Garbage Out applies here, just as it did with AMC packing four MPEG-2 HD channels per QAM slot last year.

The .TV channels originate on AMC 18 at 105.0 degrees West on Transponder 11. The six HD .TV channels share the transponder with three other HD channels and two other SD channels. This makes for a C-Band transponder with 9 HD channels and 2 SD channels encoded in MPEG-4 with 8PSK modulation and 5/6 forward error correction yielding usable bandwidth of 75 MB/second for the entire transponder, compared to only about 39 MB/sec for a QAM-256 RF channel. IF the entire C-Band transponder were to be carried, two QAM-256 RF channels should be allocated for no loss in picture quality. The average bit rate for the .TV channels should be in the 6 to 8 MB/sec range. Therefore, the best configuration would be to load five MPEG-4 channels per QAM-256 slot, which is exactly the ratio being used for MLB, NHL, NBA, and Spanish MPEG-4 HD channels. Even though the .TV channels have been transitioned to MPEG-4 for FiOS delivery, they remain loaded only 3 per QAM slot (this will soon change) so there is plenty of leftover bandwidth right now. This would imply that the quality of the C-Band source is substandard.

Definitely garbage in from .TV, their PQ was never great.

In the last week, four additional channels have been converted to MPEG-4:
Ch. 571: ESPN Goal Line/Buzzer Beater HD
Ch. 597: World Fishing Network HD
Ch. 744: MGM HD
Ch. 1002: ESPN 3D (being discontinued by the provider at the end of 2013)

This brings to a total of 10 of the previously announced 20 channels to convert to MPEG-4. Five Cinemax HD channels, four HBO HD channels, and The Tennis Channel HD await transitioning.

With the new MPEG-4 mapping, there is room for five additional MPEG-4 channels in the following slots:
* QAM 84 (585 MHz): 571 ESPN Goal Line/Buzzer Beater HD, 597 World Fishing Network HD, 744 MGM Channel (MPEG-4)
* QAM 100 (651 MHz): 558 ES.TV, 599 Cars.TV, 695 Comedy.TV, 1002 ESPN 3D (MPEG-4)
* QAM 101 (657 MHz): 633 Pets.TV, 674 MyDestination.TV, 676 Recipe.TV (MPEG-4)

In addition, an open QAM frequency at 333 MHz has been created by the moves.

Will all new HD channels going forward be mpeg-4? That would seem to make sense.