Multi-Choice TV (Barbados)

Multi-Choice TV (Barbados)
Multi-Choice TV

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, Lifetime Television, Cartoon Network and TNT LA.) 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.

Contents

Current channel lineup

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

See also

References

  1. ^ 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]

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