Flight Arrivals and Weather
Post categories: Sky,ÌýUnder the bonnet
| 10:00 UK time, Friday, 20 March 2009
Last week, a viewer made the following query: "When I access the flight arrivals screen, the picture changes from that which was on television to a rolling weather forecast. Why is this? Why would I want to know about the weather?"
This happens when using ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button on Sky, and there is actually a technical reason behind these seemingly unconnected pieces of content. But before I get into that let me explain how our channels, extra video content and text allocation are set up for the Red Button service on digital satellite.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ makes use of seven to broadcast its channel and text service on satellite. Transponders are collections of channels, which are broadcast together in one bundle. ´óÏó´«Ã½ One is scattered across transponders 1-6 due to its regional variations as bandwidth restrictions mean that we can't broadcast all of these on one transponder. ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two Scotland is broadcast on transponder 2, whilst ´óÏó´«Ã½ Three and ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four are both on transponder 1 (see table below).
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels on digital satellite | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Transponder 1 | Transponder 2 | Transponder 3 | Transponder 4 |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One London | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Wales | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 1 | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Cambridge |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two England | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two Wales | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 2 | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Channel Islands |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ Four | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Scotland | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 3 | ´óÏó´«Ã½ HD |
| C´óÏó´«Ã½ | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two Scotland | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 4 | Ìý |
| CBeebies | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two Northern Ireland | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 5 | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ Three | Ìý | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 6 | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Northern Ireland | Ìý | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button 7 | Ìý |
| Transponder 5 | Transponder 6 | Transponder 7 | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One West Midlands | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One West England | ´óÏó´«Ã½ News | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One North West | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One South East | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Parliament | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One E. Yorkshire & Lincolnshire | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One South England | ´óÏó´«Ã½ Alba | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Yorkshire & N.Midlands | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One South West | Various video loops (e.g. News Multiscreen) | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One East Midlands | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One North East & Cumbria | Ìý | Ìý |
| ´óÏó´«Ã½ One East England | ´óÏó´«Ã½ One Oxford | Ìý | Ìý |
Alongside the channel broadcast, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ also has some bandwidth allocated for the Red Button service on all of these transponders, and here is where it all gets more complicated.
The ´óÏó´«Ã½ has two sets of bandwidth allocation for broadcasting ´óÏó´«Ã½ Red Button text content, one equating to about 2Mbit/second and the other at about 6Mbit/second. The 2Mbit/second allocation ("Tier 1") accompanies all ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels, whilst the 6Mbit/second allocation ("Tier 2") accompanies the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Red Button video such as the News Multiscreen and Children's content.
This means that viewers are able to look at the text service whilst watching a ´óÏó´«Ã½ channel. However, the text service isn't the only thing that is broadcast using this allocation - the application that frames the text service and makes everything work also uses this.
We know that it's important for viewers to be able to check certain pieces of information like the news headlines quickly, and whilst watching ´óÏó´«Ã½ programmes like Breakfast, so we've prioritised some of our content and included them alongside ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels.
Unfortunately we can't include all of the text service in Tier 1, and we also have to balance the need to make this content available against the need to make the content available quickly. Otherwise, if all the Red Button text content was available alongside ´óÏó´«Ã½ channels viewers would have to wait for a long time - a minute, for instance - to load the service to check the day's headlines.
Enter Tier 2. Here, as mentioned previously, we have up to 6Mbit/second of bandwidth for the text and application. Therefore, this is where we put all the content that we know is bandwidth-hungry like share prices, and you guessed it, Flight Arrivals.
When we decided to include Flight Arrivals in the Red Button service, there was a debate about where we should place this content for our service on satellite. Should we place it on Tier 1, thus giving viewers the ability to check this content whilst watching a ´óÏó´«Ã½ channel? Against that, we knew that we would be adding over 140 extra pages to the service, and this would affect the service's loading time.
In the end, we opted to have Flight Arrivals added to Tier 2. This however presented us with another problem. Flight Arrivals content would be presented across the entire screen, but it would need to be categorised into regions and airports, and this must be displayed using existing menus - yet all our menus on Tier 2 require a quarter-screen video to be shown alongside them (see previous screenshot).
Due to the way the Red Button service is structured, our choices for the quarter-screen video accompaniment for Flight Arrivals are limited to the non-channel video content that we carry. In practical terms, this means choosing a piece of video content within the News Multiscreen service. In the end it was decided that it made the most sense to display the weather news video alongside Flight Arrivals; viewers could listen to weather audio whilst looking at Flight Arrivals information.
Farah Fahmy is a Development Producer working in the TV Platforms Group
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