Multi-Choice TV (Barbados)
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The television service provider known as Multi-Choice TV or MCTV is a MMDS or DVB-C wireless microwave based broadcast subscription television provider in the country of Barbados. They offer a variety of packages which can be considered as comparatively priced to similar providers throughout the world. The service began operating on December 14, 1987 under the name Subscription Television (STV), which had very few channels offered main channels were (CNN, ESPN, and Lifetime Television) with an occasional option of Pay Per View being offered for local special events and the occasional international PPV sports broadcast. In 1996 it was upgraded to include a new platform called Multi-Choice TV which was an analog wireless microwave broadcast offering many more channels (i.e. BBC, Canada's CBC, TBN, etc.) eventually maxing the bandwidth capacity and having lately to upgrade the service to a digital broadcast system, Multi-Choice TV have not fully converted all of its subscribers as yet. The system relies on line-of-sight propagation so total island wide coverage have proved to be a problem and the provider is looking into alternatives. A recent press release have indicated their interest in a partnership with the local telco LIME . From 1 September 2008 MCTV replaced the Travel Channel on 511 (part of the High Flyer package) by Setanta Sports.
Given that the service uses a Yagi antenna to receive the encrypted broadcast, which in turn is then decrypted by the provider's set top box. The provider now has the problem of signal theft by pirates using modified DVB-C compatible receivers and PCI cards with the most popular being the "Dreambox" manufactured in Germany to decode their signal which is based on Nagravision which is a conditional access control system developed by Kudelski . In order to prevent such activity in August, 2006 the Government of Barbados stiffened the local Barbadian copyright laws, in addition to a strengthening of the laws on cable TV piracy. The CBC provider is presently planning for further circumvention of the Dream boxes in 2009.[1]
Multi-Choice TV also competes against the US-based direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service provider DirecTV in Barbados.
The service uses the NTSC television format.
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[edit] Current channel lineup
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This section is outdated. Please update this section to reflect recent events or newly available information. Please see the talk page for more information. (June 2011) |
Below is a numerical representation of the Multi-Choice TV channel lineup. These channels are arranged in five tiers:
| Channel | Tier | Network | Site | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 108 - 112: Local | ||||
| 108 | Basic | CBC TV 8 | Link | Local government-owned CBC TV-8. |
| 109 | Basic | Discover Barbados TV | * | |
| 110 | Max Pak | Sportsmax | Link | |
| 111 | Basic | "The One" 98.1 FM | Link | (As audio stream only) |
| 112 | Basic | "Quality" 100.7 FM | * | (As audio stream only) |
| 200 - 209: News | ||||
| 200 | Basic | The Africa Channel | Link | |
| 201 | Basic | CNN | Link | |
| 202 | Variety | CNN International | Link | |
| 203 | Basic | MSNBC | Link | |
| 204 | Basic | BBC World | Link | |
| 205 | Basic | Fox News Channel | Link | |
| 206 | Basic | truTV | Link | |
| 207 | Basic | Bloomberg | Link | |
| 208 | Basic | CaribVision | Link | |
| 209 | Variety | China Central Television (CCTV) | Link | the Chinese national television network. |
| 300 - 305: Sports | ||||
| 300 | Basic | ESPN | Link | |
| 301 | Variety | Fox Soccer Channel | Link | |
| 302 | Max Pak | ESPN2 | Link | |
| 303 | Max Pak | FUEL TV | Link | |
| 304 | Max Pak | The Golf Channel | Link | |
| 305 | Max Pak | Speed Channel | Link | |
| 400 - 406: Children | ||||
| 400 | Basic | Boomerang | Link | |
| 401 | Basic | Cartoon Network | Link | |
| 402 | Family | Animal Planet | Link | |
| 404 | Basic | Discovery Kids | Link | |
| 405 | Family | Nickelodeon | Link | |
| 406 | Family | The N | Link | |
| 500 - 511: Educational/Entertainment | ||||
| 500 | Basic | National Geographic Channel | Link | |
| 501 | Basic | Discovery Channel | Link | |
| 502 | Basic | Discovery Health | Link | |
| 503 | Basic | PBS (affiliate unknown) | Link | |
| 504 | Variety | Sony Entertainment Television | Link | |
| 505 | Variety | WPIX-TV (The CW) | Link | New York City, United States |
| 506 | Variety | WWOR-TV (My Network TV) | Link | New York City, New York |
| 507 | Variety | CKVU-TV (Citytv) | Link | Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada |
| 508 | Variety | Oxygen | Link | |
| 509 | Variety | Lifetime Real Women | Link | |
| 510 | Variety | History | Link | |
| 511 | Max Pak | Setanta Sports North America | Link | |
| 600 - 608: Spirituality, music and culture | ||||
| 600 | Basic | TBN | Link | |
| 601 | Basic | 3ABN | Link | |
| 602 | Basic | EWTN | Link | |
| 603 | Basic | VH1 Soul | Link | |
| 604 | Basic | Gospel Music Channel | Link | |
| 605 | Basic | E! | Link | |
| 606 | Basic | A&E | Link | |
| 607 | Variety | Centric | Link | |
| 608 | Basic | Tempo TV | Link | |
| 700 - 712: Entertainment | ||||
| 700 | Basic | WABC-TV ABC | Link | New York City |
| 701 | Basic | BET | Link | |
| 702 | Variety | WSEE-TV (CBS) | Link | Erie, Pennsylvania (Prime Time 24 feed) |
| 703 | Basic | CBLT (CBC Canada) | Link | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| 704 | Variety | Game Show Network | Link | |
| 705 | Basic | Lifetime | Link | |
| 706 | Variety | WNBC (NBC) | Link | New York City |
| 707 | Variety | WSVN-TV (Fox) | Link | Miami, Florida |
| 708 | Variety | TV Land | Link | |
| 709 | Basic | HGTV | Link | |
| 710 | Family | Food Network | Link | |
| 711 | Basic | DIY | Link | |
| 712 | Family | Fine Living | Link | |
| 800 - 810: Movies | ||||
| 800 | Basic | TNT | Link | |
| 801 | Movies | HBO Plus | Link | HBO-Latin America |
| 802 | Movies | Cinemax East | Link | |
| 803 | Movies | HBO East | Link | |
| 804 | Movies | Cinemax West | Link | |
| 805 | Movies | HBO West | Link | |
| 806 | Movies | Hallmark Channel | Link | |
| 807 | Movies | Lifetime Movies | Link | |
| 808 | Movies | Cinecanal West | Link | |
| 809 | Movies | Movie City East | Link | |
| 810 | Movies | Turner Classic Movies | Link | |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Alleyne, Barry (28 November 2009). "DREAM OVER". Nation Newspaper. http://www.nationnews.com/story/dream-over-for-CBC-pirates-copy-for-web. Retrieved 2 December 2009. ""Our investigations also discovered that Dream Box users were able to get a free service since early 2008, because CBC's old encryption software only scrambled their MCTV signal every two minutes, which allowed the Dream Box to recover the signal. But the new security will leave the Dream Boxes crippled. "This is a money business, and encryption is always changing, and not cheap. The new software will actually scramble the MCTV signal every ten to 15 seconds, so Dream Boxes will not be able to keep up, and eventually lose the entire signal," the source added.""[dead link]
[edit] External links
- Official Site
- Dreambox Support
- Cable channels lineup - List of cable service channels
