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March 28

Starting a new TV channel

If I wanted to start a new TV channel to be shown on Sky TV in the UK, how would I go about it? Obviously, I would need to get some idea of the costs involved and work out a budget requirement:

Are there some regulations that stop just anyone setting up a TV channel?
I would need some content (probably under license rather than original programming) - so who would I need to approach about that?
and how do I find advertisers who want to show ads on my channel?
I assume I would need to pay Sky something to get a "slot" on their satellite and a place in the Electronic Programme Guide.
How do I get my content up to the satellite? Do I buy a large satellite dish and lots of expensive relay equipment, or are there places that rent out that service?
Maybe there's some regulatory fees that need paying?

Astronaut (talk) 02:44, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume with the question concerning satellites that yes, you're probably more likely to rent out space although the big TV companies in the UK (BBC, ITV) I have seen driving around in vans with their own equipment. As to the first question, I would assume you'd have to register with somewhere like OFCOM or a association or something. Chevymontecarlo. 08:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Production companies are the ones that produce the programs, so you'd be asking them for question 2. Vimescarrot (talk) 09:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regulation - Ofcom
Content - from trade fairs like Mipcom, or have it made for you by production companies like Talkback Thames. You buy movies via movie trade shows like the Cannes and Aspen film festivals.
Ads - you can do ad sales yourself, outsource that, or outsource it to Sky's own ad sales service as MTV Europe do
Pay sky: yes; I don't know how much
Content to sat: that's called "playout". You can host that youself, outsource it to someone like Arqiva or Advanced Broadcast, or you can outsource that to Sky too. Sky takes care of encryption, so I think all playout has to go to them for encryption, and from there to a dish (which will be run by someone like Cable & Wireless or BT). If you just wanted to be on Astra but not sky, you can deal directly with Astra and playout straight to the satellite - but then you're not on Sky boxes, so most people can't see you. Incidentally I'd love to know whose playout facility this is
Regulatory fees: yes, but I can't find out how much

So, if you're thinking you could run an entire tv company from your spare room, and never touch a cable, a camera, or an actor, you'd be dead right. But it's not cheap. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:08, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a note from Sky corporate about allocation of channels into the EPG, which they say is essentially first-come-first-serve in thematic groups. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:14, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"...run an entire tv company from your spare room, and never touch a cable, a camera, or an actor..." That's kind of what I had in mind - get the content, pay other people to get it up to the satellite and into subscribers homes, and try to pay for it all with advertising revenue. Astronaut (talk) 01:59, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Once you see how much of this stuff (essentially everything) you can buy from someone else, you start to realise how many of those little stations down at the deep end of the Sky EPG work exactly like this. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:18, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The different between NTSC and PAL

I find the answer at http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-ntsc-and-pal.htm. The article I mention above read:

Another difference between NTSC and PAL formats is resolution quality. PAL may have fewer frames per second, but it also has more lines than NTSC. PAL television broadcasts contain 625 lines of resolution, compared to NTSC's 525. More lines usually means more visual information, which equals better picture quality and resolution. Whenever an NTSC videotape is converted to PAL, black bars are often used to compensate for the smaller screen aspect, much like letterboxing for widescreen movies.

I have some related questions about this.

As said above, when an NTSC video is converted to PAL, 2 black bars is used to replace 100 lines because NTSC's resolution contains 525 lines compare to PAL's 625, and the video looks like widescreen movie. I know that widescreen ratio is 16:9. Is NTSC aspect ratio is 16:9 and PAL's is 4:3?
Televisions in PAL territories ratio is 4:3 (I haven't measure my TV yet, but it looks much like my PC's monitor, which is 4:3). What about the televisions in NTSC territories ratio? Is it 16:9? I'm asking about normal TVs, not HDTVs, since all HDTVs ratio is 16:9 even in my country -- a PAL territory.
Console game developers and publishers always release 2 versions of a game: NTSC and PAL. Is there any graphical differences between the 2 versions exclude the frame rate (NTSC is 60 fps and PAL is 50)? The article I mentioned above says that PAL's color is much truer than NTSC's. The NTSC article says that too (NTSC is Never The Same Color). But I've test it myself with NTSC and PAL versions of Final Fantasy X on PCSX2. I take a screenshot from each version at the same point and find no color difference between 2 images!

-- Livy the pixie (talk) 15:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NTSC is 4:3.
Sounds like the same situation as where you are. Almost everything seems to be LCD/HDTV these days and they are 16:9. But it all used to just be 4:3.
I don't know, but SteveBaker probably does. I don't know if he reads this desk; you might post this to Computing, which is probably a better place for it. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:26, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If NTSC and PAL are both 4:3, how can one have 525 lines and the other 625 without having different numbers of vertical rows as well? How could you lose only vertical information converting between different 4:3 standards? —Akrabbim^talk 18:52, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article above does not mention vertical conversion at all. It is the reason make me think that NTSC must be 16:9 because its horizontal rows are lesser while vertical rows remain the same, so the screen size is wider. I hear that the TVs' display method is different from the monitors' (I'm not sure 'bout it. I know almost nothing about this field). The monitors display in pixel (width x height) while the TVs display in lines. Do the SDTVs have an exact vertical resolution just like the monitors? -- Livy the pixie (talk) 01:46, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

NTSC and PAL are intrinsically analog encodings. That is, unlike computer monitors, there isn't an explicit horizontal rasterization. (Theoretically) there is a completely continuous intensity function as the electron beam makes its horizontal sweep. As a practical matter, there may be some "lumpyness" in the signal because it's easier to make sensors/displays with discrete elements, but NTSC and PAL encodings themselves don't recognize any horizontal pixelization. -- 174.31.194.126 (talk) 21:26, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With traditional NTSC and PAL TV equipment, the image is drawn by a continuously moving electron beam striking phosphor dots on the inside of the TV's cathode ray tube. The image is "painted" one horizontal line at a time, with the electron beam flying back to the left to start each new line. In NTSC, 525 lines are painted 60 times per second; and in PAL, 625 lines are painted 50 times a second (actually, that is not exactly true, lines were interlaced and colour adds a layer of complexity, but hopefully you get the idea). The length of each line (ie. the width of the TV) is irrelevant, but by convention screens were made to be in a 4:3 ratio. When NTSC is converted to be shown on PAL TV systems, it is often easier to add 100 black lines than do some magical jiggery-pokery in order to reinterpret the 525 lines to fill 625 lines. Modern high-def digital TV is totally different, with a cable or satellite box converting the raw signal into a discrete number of pixels and encoded into a form suitable for a LCD/HDTV.

For technical reasons explained in NTSC#Comparative quality, the colour stability of NTSC was inferior to PAL, leading to it being dubbed "Never The Same Color". In reality, the difference is hard to see when comparing vague memories of how TV used to be, but it is particularly noticable when comparing good and bad signals in a lab or when NTSC is shown on a PAL TV. Strangely though, syndicated shows made by US production companies look great on my PAL TV while things like live news, or Jay Leno look pretty poor. Astronaut (talk) 12:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does that mean that with the black lines on the top and bottom, the NTSC image becomes skewed? Livy's original question seemed to imply that NTSC converted to PAL looked normal with a non-4:3 ratio. —Akrabbim^talk 14:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used to convert videos from NTSC to PAL and back (and also to and from SECAM). All are 4:3. When converting, you get a full 4:3 image - no black lines visible on the screen. You do get wider or narrower "black bars" which are not visible to the viewer. The black bar is a term used to refer to a sync on the signal. It tells the television when to start drawing the picture on the screen and when to stop. It does not draw big black bars on the screen. -- kainaw ™ 14:09, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used to think that there're 2 black bars on the top and the bottom of the screen just like watching a widescreen movie on a 4:3 TV. So, these black bars are not visible and the ratio still remains 4:3 after conversion. Got it. I was wondering... NTSC's resolution and color are poor compared to PAL's, but why do the US and JA not use PAL? NTSC must have some pros (advantages), right? The only pros that I know is that NTSC has a higher frame rate, which makes the movie/game run smoother. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 07:26, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

When widescreen movies first started being shown on TV they were panned and scanned to fit the 4:3 aspect ratio. People complained that some of the movie was missing (particularly in spagetti westerns which made good use of the panavision or cinemascope movie formats. For example: see this screenshot from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly). Gradually, more and more films were shown on TV with black bars added top and bottom in order to fit in the full width of the movie. Those black bars are totally different from black bars added when converting NTSC to PAL.

According to the NTSC article, the standard was developed in 1941 with colour being added to the standard in 1953. World War II had a major impact on TV development, with most European broadcasts ceasing during the war and only returning after the war. PAL was developed as a standard in Europe in the 1950s, by which time there were a huge number of NTSC TVs in use in the US and it was too late to change standards to PAL. Incidentally, before World War II, TV was broadcast in variety of different systems (see Television systems before 1940 if you're interested). Astronaut (talk) 12:25, 1 April 2010 (UTC) (actually, I added this yesterday)[reply]

I've got the answer for my third question. I've tested Shadow of the Colossus on PCSX2. There're 2 display mode: PAL and NTSC. I config PCSX2 to display the game at the native resolution of PlayStation 2. By default, PAL mode is selected, and I can see the resolution is 512x512 (it is shown on the game window). When switch to NTSC display mode, the resolution is 512x448. The NTSC version has higher frame rate indeed, but lower resolution. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 11:50, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]