The History Channel, Closedown September 1997

[chaoreturnsforgood76]

The Sci-Fi Channel was NOT owned by Sky it's owned by NBC Universal (now called SyFy)

[AnthonyUK]

Some cable companies received and took all the channel lineup transmitted off Astra 1C satellite channel 47 11.171Ghz/H PAL Videocrypt1 stereo 7.02/7.20Mhz PANDA1 mono 6.50Mhz

50uS rather than carrying the full 24h digital encrypted Sci-Fi Channel UK service off Eutelsat II-F1.

[myanthony1]

Friday September 12 1997

[ROTSSisalive]

my parents 5th anniversary

[Weekrulez]

Obviously at that time Satellite as being analogue took more space than a digital channel, as well as this, Astra satellite had to be shared by channels from a lot of countries, then I guess is that the reason, Cable was obviously stronger as it had more frequencies, but now with digital contrary to is satellite being the winner, as it can have unlimited frequencies using compression, while Cable has limited, though at that time were a bigger amount than Sky's

[steviegTVreturns]

Indeed that is true, although I rarely watched the Astra service my understanding is there were a hell of alot of German channels sharing the platform too, hence why Cable had more channels at the time, Cable never had any of those channels such as RTL, Pro7, we had a timeshare of Sat.1 at most.

[myanthony1]

Hey what's going on here? I expected to see the opening of the Sci-fi channel starting up but instead, no. We see the channel guide. What was wrong with Cable and Wireless?

[steviegTVreturns]

Let me explain for you, on CWC we had Sci-Fi on it's own channel (31) broadcasting from 7.30am to 4.00am, where as on Astra it only broadcasted from 8pm onwards, so obviously CWC blocked it rather than duplicating the service.

[myanthony1]

But why did Sci-Fi have it's own channel?

[steviegTVreturns]

On Cable TV it did, but on Astra it never got a full channel (don't know why) henceforth it timeshared, at some point it became 8pm-12am on Astra to make way for The Adult Channel.

[myanthony1]

I mean why did Cable decide to put Sci-Fi on its own 24-hour transponder instead of having it on the same channel as it did on Astra? Did this happen on September 1st when most of the channels on Transponder 47 got another transponder?

[steviegTVreturns]

Cable had 24hr Sci-Fi long before September 1 1997. Prior to that on Astra it shared with Christian/Sky Travel/Sky Soap/History and Sky Sports 2. Those days SS2 only broadcast from Thu-Sun, on Thu-Sun SciFi was only on between 1am and 4am, then Mon-Wed SciFi was on from 8pm to 4am.

[myanthony1]

The main thing I want to know is that why did Sci-Fi have it's own transponder on cable unlike Astra? Nothing else.

[AnthonyUK]

Wasn't cable who decided to give Sci-Fi it's own channel;originally, Sci-Fi were going to make it free on Eutelsat II-FI to motorised dish viewers across Europe in clear PAL and as a subscription service to cable operators, but in the end they decided to have a fully encrypted 24h digital satellite feed from Eutelsat II-F1 to cableoperators and wait for transponder space to become available on Astra as part of the BSkyB multichannels subscription package which they took.

[AnthonyUK]

Sci-Fi were originally going to broadcast full-time in the clear on Eutelsat II-F1 to european satellite TV viewers across Europe with suitable dish and receiver equipment and make it available to cableoperators for a fee, but they changed their minds and opened up in encrypted MPEG2 to UK and European cableoperators only. They opened up on Astra 1C channel 47 11.171Ghz/H PAL Videocrypt1 for 2 sessions 8pm-10pm/

1am-4am then Astra 1B channel 24 11.568Ghz/V PAL Videocrypt1 expanding their hours.