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88-476: Movie Central was carried by various Canadian cable , IPTV , and satellite television providers in Western Canada including Bell Satellite TV , Shaw Direct , Shaw Cable , Access Communications , Telus Optik TV , and Westman, among other providers. Its programming was comparable to that of The Movie Network (TMN), a separately owned pay service which is marketed to Eastern Canada, in areas located east of

176-558: A Mountain Time Zone schedule. Because Movie Central operated a singular feed and its license was restricted to broadcast solely in a geographical area covered by the Pacific , Mountain and Central time zones, it resulted in the difference in local airtimes for a particular movie or program between two geographic locations being three hours at most. The premium classic film service Encore Avenue , also owned by Corus Entertainment, operated as

264-521: A cable network ) is a television network available via cable television. Many of the same channels are distributed through satellite television . Alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service , the latter being mainly used in legal contexts. The abbreviation CATV is used in the US for cable television and originally stood for community antenna television , from cable television's origins in 1948; in areas where over-the-air TV reception

352-451: A high-definition simulcast of its third multiplex channel. Movie Central operated a subscription video-on-demand television service called Movie Central On Demand , which is available at no additional charge to new and existing subscribers of Movie Central. Content featured on the service included films and television series from Movie Central and its four multiplex channels, excluding the two Encore Avenue channels. HBO Canada operated as

440-539: A 1996 lawsuit against HBO for allegedly promoting the grey-market availability of U.S.-based satellite television providers. WIC was at the time also a significant shareholder in domestic satellite provider ExpressVu (now Bell Satellite TV ). In retaliation, HBO refused to license any of its programmes to Superchannel. The duelling takeover bids for, and eventual split of, WIC resulted in Superchannel and MovieMax! being transferred to Corus Entertainment , which settled

528-589: A 6 MHz cable channel. In the 1990s, cable providers began to invest heavily in this new multi-channel digital TV technology to expand the number of channels and services available to subscribers. Increased competition and programming choices from direct-broadcast satellite services such as DirecTV , Dish Network , and PrimeStar caused cable providers to seek new ways to provide more programming. Customers were increasingly interested in more channels, pay-per-view programming, digital music services, and high speed internet services. By 2000, most cable providers in

616-513: A cross-provider TV Everywhere service for online and mobile streaming similar to HBO GO or TMN GO . However, selected service providers offered this content through their own apps: Shaw offered a dedicated "Shaw Go – Movie Central" app for this purpose, while Bell Satellite TV and Telus Optik TV made Movie Central content available through their respective omnibus TV Everywhere apps. Movie Central offered an extensive variety of first-run films and television series , most of which come from

704-405: A dedicated analog circuit-switched service. Other advantages include better voice quality and integration to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network providing cheap or unlimited nationwide and international calling. In many cases, digital cable telephone service is separate from cable modem service being offered by many cable companies and does not rely on Internet Protocol (IP) traffic or

792-457: A format of films from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, possibly due to the introduction of Turner Classic Movies in Canada. On November 19, 2015, Corus announced that as a result of a strategic review, it decided to exit the pay TV business in order to concentrate on its national specialty channels, and would discontinue Movie Central and Encore Avenue on March 1, 2016. It was concurrently announced that

880-543: A high elevation. At the outset, cable systems only served smaller communities without television stations of their own, and which could not easily receive signals from stations in cities because of distance or hilly terrain. In Canada, however, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Rarely, as in the college town of Alfred, New York , U.S. cable systems retransmitted Canadian channels. Although early ( VHF ) television receivers could receive 12 channels (2–13),

968-466: A higher rate. At the local headend, the feed signals from the individual television channels are received by dish antennas from communication satellites . Additional local channels, such as local broadcast television stations, educational channels from local colleges, and community access channels devoted to local governments ( PEG channels) are usually included on the cable service. Commercial advertisements for local business are also inserted in

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1056-471: A lag of between 10 and 12 months on average from their initial theatrical release, three to six months after their initial release on pay-per-view services and over 1½ years before their network television or basic cable debuts. Sports coverage was permitted, but in such limited amounts that it is rarely seen, in contrast to HBO and Showtime. For many years, the de facto twin regional monopolies of The Movie Network and Movie Central have been criticised. At

1144-405: A local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be a priority, but technology allowed low-priority signals to be placed on such channels by synchronizing their blanking intervals . TVs were unable to reconcile these blanking intervals and the slight changes due to travel through a medium, causing ghosting . The bandwidth of the amplifiers also

1232-463: A microwave-based system, may be used instead. Coaxial cables are capable of bi-directional carriage of signals as well as the transmission of large amounts of data . Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as cable internet , cable telephony and wireless services, using both unlicensed and licensed spectra. Broadband internet access

1320-458: A parallel classic movie service, MovieMax! , in the Superchannel service area in October 1994. Originally featuring movies from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the channel's programming later expanded to include older movies (its licence actually allows the channel to air movies that were released more than five years from the present year). When digital cable and satellite television became available in

1408-453: A payment of C$ 211 million to Corus for its services in transitioning MC subscribers to TMN. In 1982, the CRTC licensed Canada's first national pay television services. The commission licensed one national general-interest service – First Choice – as well as a number of short-lived niche channels, and several regional general-interest channels. Allarcom Pay Television, owned by Charles Allard ,

1496-553: A rarity, found in an ever-dwindling number of markets. Analog television sets are accommodated, their tuners mostly obsolete and dependent entirely on the set-top box. Cable television is mostly available in North America , Europe , Australia , Asia and South America . Cable television has had little success in Africa , as it is not cost-effective to lay cables in sparsely populated areas. Multichannel multipoint distribution service ,

1584-452: A receiver box. The cable company will provide set-top boxes based on the level of service a customer purchases, from basic set-top boxes with a standard-definition picture connected through the standard coaxial connection on the TV, to high-definition wireless digital video recorder (DVR) receivers connected via HDMI or component . Older analog television sets are cable ready and can receive

1672-447: A separate SVOD service, HBO Canada On Demand , providing feature films along with series content from American premium service HBO ; it was available to subscribers of Movie Central on most providers at no additional cost. Movie Central On Demand's rotating program selection incorporates select new titles that were added each Friday, alongside existing program titles held over from the previous one to two weeks. Movie Central did not have

1760-723: A separate service under a separate licence – and subscribers to one of the two services did not necessarily have to subscribe to the other. However, Encore Avenue was very frequently sold together in a package with Movie Central. On September 22, 2008, both The Movie Network and Movie Central announced that the two channels would jointly begin offering a dedicated HBO multiplex channel (in both standard definition and high-definition formats), called HBO Canada, on October 30. For Movie Central subscribers, HBO Canada replaced Movie Central 4. For TMN subscribers, HBO Canada replaced MMore and MMore HD. The channel remains available at no additional charge to TMN and Movie Central subscribers and, moreover,

1848-732: A series of signal amplifiers and line extenders. These devices carry the signal to customers via passive RF devices called taps. The very first cable networks were operated locally, notably in 1936 by Rediffusion in London in the United Kingdom and the same year in Berlin in Germany, notably for the Olympic Games , and from 1948 onwards in the United States and Switzerland. This type of local cable network

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1936-417: A special telephone interface at the customer's premises that converts the analog signals from the customer's in-home wiring into a digital signal, which is then sent on the local loop (replacing the analog last mile , or plain old telephone service (POTS) to the company's switching center, where it is connected to the public switched telephone network ( PSTN ). The biggest obstacle to cable telephone service

2024-404: Is a logical channel of data within the physical channel. Technically there can be up to 1024 subchannels in a physical channel, though in practice only a few are used (as the bandwidth must be divided among all the subchannels). There are two ways providers try to make this easier for consumers. The first, accomplished through PSIP , is where program and channel information is broadcast along with

2112-404: Is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables , or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables . This contrasts with broadcast television , in which the television signal is transmitted over-the-air by radio waves and received by a television antenna , or satellite television , in which

2200-422: Is achieved over coaxial cable by using cable modems to convert the network data into a type of digital signal that can be transferred over coaxial cable. One problem with some cable systems is the older amplifiers placed along the cable routes are unidirectional thus in order to allow for uploading of data the customer would need to use an analog telephone modem to provide for the upstream connection. This limited

2288-488: Is not available on a standalone basis. The channel focuses on programming from the U.S. premium service HBO , including several HBO series, specials and sporting events not previously available in Canada; however, some programs that have aired on HBO Canada have aired in the United States on HBO's competitor Showtime . A selection of Canadian films and series also airs to satisfy Canadian content requirements. HBO programming now airs solely on HBO Canada, as opposed to any of

2376-505: Is specified in SCTE 07, and is part of the DVB standard (but not ATSC ). This method carries 38.47 Mbit/s using 256-QAM on a 6 MHz channel, which can carry nearly two full ATSC 19.39 Mbit/s transport streams. Each 6-MHz channel is typically used to carry 7–12 digital SDTV channels (256-QAM, MPEG2 MP/ML streams of 3–5 Mbit/s). On many boxes with QAM tuners (most notably

2464-667: Is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression . The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previous analog-based cable by the mid 2010s. During the late 2000s, broadcast television converted to the digital HDTV standard, which was incompatible with existing analog cable systems. In addition to providing high-definition video , digital cable systems provide more services such as pay-per-view programming, cable internet access and cable telephone services . Most digital cable signals are encrypted , which reduced

2552-482: Is the need for nearly 100% reliable service for emergency calls. One of the standards available for digital cable telephony, PacketCable , seems to be the most promising and able to work with the quality of service (QOS) demands of traditional analog plain old telephone service (POTS) service. The biggest advantage to digital cable telephone service is similar to the advantage of digital cable, namely that data can be compressed, resulting in much less bandwidth used than

2640-488: The DVB-C , DVB-C2 stream to IP for distribution of TV over IP network in the home. Many cable companies offer internet access through DOCSIS . In the most common system, multiple television channels (as many as 500, although this varies depending on the provider's available channel capacity) are distributed to subscriber residences through a coaxial cable , which comes from a trunkline supported on utility poles originating at

2728-504: The DVR boxes), high definition versions of local channels, and some cable channels are available. Digital cable allows for the broadcast of EDTV (480p) as well as HDTV (720p, 1080i, and 1080p). By contrast, analog cable transmits programs solely in the 480i format (the lowest television definition in use today). The Advanced Television Systems Committee standards include a provision for 16-VSB transmission over cable at 38.4 Mbit/s, but

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2816-611: The high band 7–13 of North American television frequencies . Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario , used a dual distribution network with Channels 2–13 on each of the two cables. During the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access (PEG) created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. As cable penetration increased, numerous cable-only TV stations were launched, many with their own news bureaus that could provide more immediate and more localized content than that provided by

2904-492: The "First Choice" name remained in the east and "Superchannel" was restricted to the west . With the respective launches of The Sports Network and MuchMusic in September 1984, Superchannel reduced the amount of sports programming and concert specials that it broadcast, and converted to a predominantly movie -based service, as did First Choice. Allarcom was later acquired by Western International Communications , which launched

2992-493: The 1990s, Superchannel 2 and Superchannel 3 were launched (which were essentially timeshifted versions of Superchannel 1 on respective two- and four-hour delays), along with MovieMax! 2, which was available on satellite only (operating as a two-hour delayed feed of MovieMax!). During its years under WIC ownership, there was a noticeable difference in programming quality between the WIC services and their eastern counterparts, due largely to

3080-471: The American premium television services HBO , Cinemax and Showtime , as well as critically acclaimed original Canadian series, most of which were co-produced in partnership with The Movie Network. A selected time block on the channel called Metro , aired independent , short , festival , foreign, and subtitled films, documentaries and original programming. Films typically debuted on Movie Central within

3168-572: The CRTC announced that had accepted an application by Allarco Entertainment, while the other three were rejected. This approved application effectively ended The Movie Network/Movie Central duopoly in Canada. On November 2, 2007, the new service was launched as Super Channel . With approval for The Movie Network (now known as Crave) to go national and the discontinuation of the Movie Central service, Canada now has two full-time national premium movie services. Cable television Cable television

3256-669: The HBO lawsuit and began to license programmes such as The Sopranos . On April 1, 2001, Superchannel and MovieMax! were rebranded under the umbrella brand Movie Central, which consisted of six diverse channels while the main channel focused on Movies that came out during the previous year, most of which utilized a common street-themed branding scheme: Movie Central, Adrenaline Drive (focusing on action movies), Heartland Road (focusing on romance films), Shadow Lane (focusing on horror and suspense films), Encore Avenue (focusing on classic movies), and Comic Strip (focusing on comedy films). On March 1, 2006,

3344-474: The Internet. Traditional cable television providers and traditional telecommunication companies increasingly compete in providing voice, video and data services to residences. The combination of television, telephone and Internet access is commonly called triple play , regardless of whether CATV or telcos offer it. More than 400,000 television service subscribers. Digital cable Digital cable

3432-670: The Ontario-Manitoba border. Movie Central was headquartered at the Corus Quay building in Toronto , Ontario , alongside Corus's national specialty television properties, despite that city being located outside the service's territory. Known as Superchannel (or First Choice–Superchannel ) from its launch in 1983 until 2001, the service held a regional legal monopoly on movie-based premium TV service in Western and Northern Canada from 1984 until

3520-508: The US were offering some form of digital cable TV to their customers. Digital cable technology has allowed cable providers to compress video channels so that they take up less bandwidth and to offer two-way communication capabilities. This has enabled providers to offer more channels, video-on-demand services that don't require a separate telephone line , telephone services, high speed internet services, and interactive television services. Digital cable implements error correction to ensure

3608-485: The United States have switched to or are in the course of switching to digital cable television since it was first introduced in the late 1990s. Most cable companies require a set-top box ( cable converter box ) or a slot on one's TV set for conditional access module cards to view their cable channels, even on newer televisions with digital cable QAM tuners, because most digital cable channels are now encrypted, or scrambled , to reduce cable service theft . A cable from

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3696-458: The applicable regional service. In any event, HBO's parent company Time Warner is not a shareholder, and only licenses the name, logo and programming to Corus and Bell. Unlike the other multiplex channels offered by Movie Central and The Movie Network, both the standard-definition and high-definition HBO Canada feeds (East/West) are available nationally to those television providers who wish to carry them. The Movie Network's master control acts as

3784-404: The basic selection. By subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels. Large cable companies used addressable descramblers to limit access to premium channels for customers not subscribing to higher tiers, however the above magazines often published workarounds for that technology as well. During the 1990s, the pressure to accommodate

3872-563: The cable box itself, these midband channels were used for early incarnations of pay TV , e.g. The Z Channel (Los Angeles) and HBO but transmitted in the clear i.e. not scrambled as standard TV sets of the period could not pick up the signal nor could the average consumer de-tune the normal stations to be able to receive it. Once tuners that could receive select mid-band and super-band channels began to be incorporated into standard television sets, broadcasters were forced to either install scrambling circuitry or move these signals further out of

3960-483: The cable company to change the frequency of a channel without changing what the customer sees as a channel number. In such arrangements, the physical/sub-channel numbers are called the "QAM channel", and the alternative channel designation is called the "mapped channel", "virtual channel", or simply "channel". In theory, a set-top box can decode the PSIP information from every channel it receives and use that information to build

4048-429: The cable company's local distribution facility, called the headend . Many channels can be transmitted through one coaxial cable by a technique called frequency division multiplexing . At the headend, each television channel is translated to a different frequency . By giving each channel a different frequency slot on the cable, the separate television signals do not interfere with each other. At an outdoor cable box on

4136-515: The cable to send data from the customer box to the cable headend, for advanced features such as requesting pay-per-view shows or movies, cable internet access , and cable telephone service . The downstream channels occupy a band of frequencies from approximately 50 MHz to 1 GHz, while the upstream channels occupy frequencies of 5 to 42 MHz. Subscribers pay with a monthly fee. Subscribers can choose from several levels of service, with premium packages including more channels but costing

4224-675: The case of no local CBS or ABC station being available – rebroadcast the programming from a nearby affiliate but fill in with its own news and other community programming to suit its own locale. Many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into today's many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries . Cable specialty channels , starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By

4312-468: The channel. Although Bell did not buy the Movie Central licence, it paid Corus C$ 211 million in exchange for Corus' assistance in allowing TMN's national expansion, including transitioning existing Movie Central subscribers to TMN. The CRTC quietly gave administrative approval to applications to allow TMN and TMN Encore to operate nationally in July 2015, so no further regulatory approval was required. Depending on

4400-498: The chosen channel into the TV set on Channel 2, 3 or 4. Initially, UHF broadcast stations were at a disadvantage because the standard TV sets in use at the time were unable to receive their channels. With the passage of the All-Channel Receiver Act in 1964, all new television sets were required to include a UHF tuner, nonetheless, it would still take a few years for UHF stations to become competitive. Before being added to

4488-482: The encoding has not yet gained wide acceptance. Some SMATV systems may carry 8-VSB and QAM signals, mostly in apartment buildings and similar facilities that use a combination of terrestrial antennas and cable distribution sources (such as HITS or " Headend in the Sky ", a unit of Comcast that delivers digital channels by satellite to small cable systems). Digital cable channels typically are allocated above 552 MHz,

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4576-415: The fact that the descrambling circuitry was for a time present in these tuners, depriving the cable operator of much of their revenue, such cable-ready tuners are rarely used now – requiring a return to the set-top boxes used from the 1970s onward. The digital television transition in the United States has put all signals, broadcast and cable, into digital form, rendering analog cable television service

4664-432: The frequency space that would normally be occupied by a single analog cable TV channel. The number of channels placed on a single analog frequency depends on the compression used. Many cable providers are able to fit about 10 digital SD channels or 2 digital HD channels on a single analog channel frequency. Some providers are able to squeeze more channels onto a single frequency with higher compression, but often this can cause

4752-454: The growing array of offerings resulted in digital transmission that made more efficient use of the VHF signal capacity; fibre optics was common to carry signals into areas near the home, where coax could carry higher frequencies over the short remaining distance. Although for a time in the 1980s and 1990s, television receivers and VCRs were equipped to receive the mid-band and super-band channels. Due to

4840-450: The headend, the electrical signal is translated into an optical signal and sent through the fiber. The fiber trunkline goes to several distribution hubs , from which multiple fibers fan out to carry the signal to boxes called optical nodes in local communities. At the optical node, the optical signal is translated back into an electrical signal and carried by coaxial cable distribution lines on utility poles, from which cables branch out to

4928-758: The hub for HBO Canada. Movie Central HD was a high definition simulcast feed of Movie Central that broadcast in the 1080i resolution format. In addition to its main channel, Movie Central also operated high definition simulcast feeds of its two Movie Central-branded multiplex channels and HBO Canada. In December 2004, Movie Central launched its first high definition channel called Movie Central HD, which delivered simulcasted content from Movie Central's various multiplex channels, excluding Encore Avenue and Encore Avenue 2. In 2006, Movie Central launched its second HD simulcast feed, Movie Central 2 HD, which delivered an alternative schedule of HD content from Movie Central HD. In March 2012, Movie Central launched Movie Central 3 HD,

5016-445: The incidence of cable television piracy which occurred in analog systems. In 1990, General Instrument (acquired by Motorola and now owned by ARRIS Group ) demonstrated that it was possible to use digital compression to deliver high quality HDTV in a standard 6 MHz television channel. Using the same technology General Instrument (GI) demonstrated the digital transmission of multiple high quality standard definition programs in

5104-420: The integrity of the received signal and uses a secure digital distribution system (i.e. a secure encrypted signal to prevent eavesdropping and theft of service.) Most digital cable providers use QAM for video services and DOCSIS standards for data services. Some providers have also begun to roll out video services using IPTV or Switched video . Digital cable technology can allow many TV channels to occupy

5192-456: The jack in the wall is attached to the input of the box, and an output cable from the box is attached to the television, usually the RF-IN or composite input on older TVs. Since the set-top box only decodes the single channel that is being watched, each television in the house requires a separate box. Some unencrypted channels, usually traditional over-the-air broadcast networks, can be displayed without

5280-570: The late 1970s), Manitoba , and what is now the Northwest Territories and Nunavut . Allarcom also took control of Aim Satellite Broadcasting (serving British Columbia and Yukon ) and provided the Superchannel feed in those markets on an "interim" basis while Aim could establish its own service. By the spring of 1984, it became clear that the remaining pay service operators were continuing to post substantial monetary losses. In August, AIM and OIPT were merged into Allarcom's operations, and

5368-437: The late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, some of which by this time had expanded beyond 35 channels. By the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulators to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above

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5456-511: The launch of the present-day Super Channel in 2007. On November 19, 2015, Corus announced that it would shut down Movie Central and sister service Encore Avenue in order to focus on its specialty television services. The Movie Network , which previously held a similar regional monopoly in Eastern Canada, subsequently expanded into the West to become a national service. TMN owner Bell Media made

5544-425: The local utility poles or underground utility lines. Coaxial cable brings the signal to the customer's building through a service drop , an overhead or underground cable. If the subscriber's building does not have a cable service drop, the cable company will install one. The standard cable used in the U.S. is RG-6 , which has a 75 ohm impedance , and connects with a type F connector . The cable company's portion of

5632-468: The mapping between QAM channel and virtual channel. However, cable companies do not always reliably transmit PSIP information. Alternatively, CableCards receive the channel mapping and can communicate that to the set-top box. The standard for signal transmission over digital cable television systems in the United States is now fixed as both 64-QAM and 256-QAM ( quadrature amplitude modulation ), which

5720-423: The maximum number of channels that could be broadcast in one city was 7: channels 2, 4, either 5 or 6, 7, 9, 11 and 13, as receivers at the time were unable to receive strong (local) signals on adjacent channels without distortion. (There were frequency gaps between 4 and 5, and between 6 and 7, which allowed both to be used in the same city). As equipment improved, all twelve channels could be utilized, except where

5808-526: The movie channels The Movie Network and TMN Encore , now owned by Bell Media as the successor to the former First Choice, would expand into the Western Canadian markets that were previously served exclusively by Movie Central, giving them wider distribution. Bell also acquired Corus' interest in HBO Canada (a jointly operated multiplex channel of both TMN and Movie Central), giving them full ownership of

5896-448: The nearest network newscast. Such stations may use similar on-air branding as that used by the nearby broadcast network affiliate, but the fact that these stations do not broadcast over the air and are not regulated by the FCC, their call signs are meaningless. These stations evolved partially into today's over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e.g. NBC 37* would – in

5984-408: The old analog cable without a set-top box. To receive digital cable channels on an analog television set, even unencrypted ones, requires a different type of box, a digital television adapter supplied by the cable company or purchased by the subscriber. Another new distribution method that takes advantage of the low cost high quality DVB distribution to residential areas, uses TV gateways to convert

6072-454: The other TMN/Movie Central multiplex channels. The HBO Canada schedule was common to both services, with the exception of timeshifting for the Eastern (TMN) and Mountain (MC) time zones. Although, when it launched, essentially operating as a joint venture of Corus and TMN's parent company Bell Media , the east and west feeds are technically separate channels wholly owned by the parent company of

6160-504: The programming at the headend (the individual channels, which are distributed nationally, also have their own nationally oriented commercials). Modern cable systems are large, with a single network and headend often serving an entire metropolitan area . Most systems use hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) distribution; this means the trunklines that carry the signal from the headend to local neighborhoods are optical fiber to provide greater bandwidth and also extra capacity for future expansion. At

6248-451: The programming without cost. Later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups. About this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to

6336-476: The range of reception for early cable-ready TVs and VCRs. However, once consumer sets had the ability to receive all 181 FCC allocated channels, premium broadcasters were left with no choice but to scramble. The descrambling circuitry was often published in electronics hobby magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Electronics allowing anybody with anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of broadcast electronics to be able to build their own and receive

6424-462: The resulting channel exited the Ontario market. Meanwhile, the formerly national service First Choice agreed to serve only Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada . As part of their agreement, Allarcom and First Choice agreed to jointly market their services under the name First Choice Superchannel , in which the Superchannel "star" branding was predominant. This practice continued until 1989, at which point

6512-401: The service provider, Movie Central provided up to six multiplex channels – four 24-hour multiplex channels; one of which ( HBO Canada ) was also available on a two-hour delay, two of which were simulcast in both standard definition and high definition – as well as a subscription video-on-demand service (Movie Central On Demand). Movie Central broadcast its primary and multiplex channels on

6600-418: The signals are typically encrypted on modern digital cable systems, and the set-top box must be activated by an activation code sent by the cable company before it will function, which is only sent after the subscriber signs up. If the subscriber fails to pay their bill, the cable company can send a signal to deactivate the subscriber's box, preventing reception. There are also usually upstream channels on

6688-474: The sub-brands were dropped due to confusion among subscribers regarding the meanings of the channel's names; four of the channels remained under the Movie Central brand (but using numbered names rather than a combination of the parent network's name and a sub-brand, a common naming scheme for North American premium television services), and the two remaining channels became Encore Avenue, each of which were diverse in their schedules. The Encore Avenue channels adopted

6776-403: The subscriber's residence, the company's service drop cable is connected to cables distributing the signal to different rooms in the building. At each television, the subscriber's television or a set-top box provided by the cable company translates the desired channel back to its original frequency ( baseband ), and it is displayed onscreen. Due to widespread cable theft in earlier analog systems,

6864-474: The television signal is transmitted over-the-air by radio waves from a communications satellite and received by a satellite dish on the roof. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet , telephone services , and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables. Analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation. A cable channel (sometimes known as

6952-675: The time, no other similar premium services had broadcast within Canada. Critics argued that this limited competition and consumer choice, while proponents said that there was very little in content or functionality that was not already offered by the existing services. In July 2005, the CRTC, the Canadian federal broadcast regulator, announced that public hearings would begin on October 24 of that year on four applications for new national pay television licences from different groups. Each applicant claimed that they would commit to invest and develop more Canadian-produced programming content . On May 18, 2006,

7040-476: The upper frequency of cable channel 78. (Cable channels above channel 13 are at lower frequencies than UHF broadcast channels with the same number, as seen in North American cable television frequencies .) Between 552 and 750 MHz, there is space for 33 6-MHz channels (231–396 SDTV channels); when going all the way to 864 MHz, there is space for 52 6-MHz channels (364–624 SDTV channels). In

7128-532: The upstream speed to 31.2 Kbp/s and prevented the always-on convenience broadband internet typically provides. Many large cable systems have upgraded or are upgrading their equipment to allow for bi-directional signals, thus allowing for greater upload speed and always-on convenience, though these upgrades are expensive. In North America , Australia and Europe , many cable operators have already introduced cable telephone service, which operates just like existing fixed line operators. This service involves installing

7216-461: The video quality of the channel to degrade. The addition of this capability complicates the notion of a "channel" in digital cable (as well as in over-the-air ATSC digital broadcasts ). The formal names for the two numbers that now identify a channel are the physical channel and the subchannel. The physical channel is a number corresponding to a specific 6 MHz frequency range. See: North American cable television frequencies . The subchannel

7304-433: The video, allowing the consumer's decoder (set-top box or display) to automatically identify the many channels and subchannels. The second (also accomplished through PSIP) is where, in an effort to hide subchannels entirely, many cable companies map virtual channel numbers to underlying physical and sub-channels. For example, a cable company might call channel 5-1 "channel 732" and channel 5-2 "channel 733". This also allows

7392-552: The wiring usually ends at a distribution box on the building exterior, and built-in cable wiring in the walls usually distributes the signal to jacks in different rooms to which televisions are connected. Multiple cables to different rooms are split off the incoming cable with a small device called a splitter . There are two standards for cable television; older analog cable, and newer digital cable which can carry data signals used by digital television receivers such as high-definition television (HDTV) equipment. All cable companies in

7480-446: Was initially granted the regional concession for Alberta . However, by the time Allarcom's service, Superchannel , launched on February 1, 1983, Allarcom had apparently also gained control of a second regional channel, Ontario Independent Pay Television. By January 1984, Superchannel had received approval to expand its service area to Saskatchewan (replacing Teletheatre, a province-wide pay-cable network that had been operating since

7568-444: Was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. In 1968, 6.4% of Americans had cable television. The number increased to 7.5% in 1978. By 1988, 52.8% of all households were using cable. The number further increased to 62.4% in 1994. To receive cable television at a given location, cable distribution lines must be available on

7656-427: Was limited, meaning frequencies over 250 MHz were difficult to transmit to distant portions of the coaxial network, and UHF channels could not be used at all. To expand beyond 12 channels, non-standard midband channels had to be used, located between the FM band and Channel 7, or superband beyond Channel 13 up to about 300 MHz; these channels initially were only accessible using separate tuner boxes that sent

7744-559: Was mainly used to relay terrestrial channels in geographical areas poorly served by terrestrial television signals. Cable television began in the United States as a commercial business in 1950s. The early systems simply received weak ( broadcast ) channels, amplified them, and sent them over unshielded wires to the subscribers, limited to a community or to adjacent communities. The receiving antenna would be taller than any individual subscriber could afford, thus bringing in stronger signals; in hilly or mountainous terrain it would be placed at

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