EUMETCast Basic Service channels reorganisation - UPDATE

This reorganisation aims to achieve the following:

• Optimise the bandwidth usage on EUMETCast Europe First Transponder (E10A-C4) by reducing the capacity allocated to the Basic Service.
• Simplify the DVB receivers/card setup by reducing the number of PIDs used; PIDs 300 and 301 will be emptied and channels moved to PIDs 100 and 500.
• Simplify the Tellicast Client setup by reducing the number of channels, removing unused channels, and merging some channels.
• Reorganise the dataset allocation to the channels for better harmonization with other EUMETCast services (Africa and Terrestrial).

As part of the reorganisation, channels will be renamed in a more meaningful way, following a specific convention indicating the transponder, the EUMETCast service the channel is active on, and the datasets that the channel is carrying — e.g. E1B-GEO-1, where:

• E1: EUMETCast Europe Transponder 1.
• B: Basic Service.
• GEO-1: EUMETSAT Geostationary mission data (e.g. MSG) channel 1.

Note: some channels already follow this naming convention and will, therefore, keep their current names.

The table below provides more details about the migration from old to new channels.

Change implementation phases

In order to allow users to change their setup and migrate from the old to the new channels as smoothly as possible, the change will be implemented in three phases:

Phase 1 (3 weeks starting from 7 February 2022)

The new channels will be added without moving any data flow from the old channels, and dummy files will be disseminated on the new channels.

Phase 1 will consist of two sub-phases:

• Sub-phase 1: from 7 February 10:00 UTC to 17 February 10:00 UTC
  The dummy files will be announced but never delivered to the target directory of the new channels. Users can check their log and see if they are receiving announcements on the new channels, e.g.
  • VRB:2022-02-01 07:15:45.658:Received filelist 6e61bfb600a4512e on channel `E1B-TPC-5'
  • VRB:2022-02-01 07:15:45.659:Deleted filelist 6e61bfb600a4512e
  • MSG:2022-02-01 07:15:46.862:File transmission 6e61bfb600a4512e ended: filelist missing/incomplete
• Sub-phase 2: from 17 February 10:00 UTC to 24 February 10:00 UTC
  The dummy files will be delivered to the target directory of the new channels. If the dummy files mentioned below could be an issue for any processing tools running on the reception station the user can change the target directory for the new channel under cast-client-channels_bas.ini (or the equivalent file) to a different location.
  The dummy files will be disseminated on each of the new channels every 10 minutes, with the following file naming:
  _YYYYMMDDTHHMM00_DUMMY.FILE.CHA (~10 Bytes)
  Example: E1B-GEO-1_20220201T120000_DUMMY.FILE.CHA
  This will demonstrate that the channels are working and will give users the time to implement the changes needed to receive the new channels and test them.

Users will be given access only to the dummy flows on those channels where they have active subscriptions, e.g. a user subscribed to 0° High Rate SEVIRI on EUMETSAT Data Channel 2 will be subscribed to the dummy flow on E1B-GEO-3 and in the sub-phase 2 above (17-24 February) will receive dummy files on the target directory defined in channels.ini.

In Phase 1, users will keep receiving the data on the old channels.

User-side configuration changes

• Users need to make sure that PID 500 is enabled on their DVB receivers/cards, in case this PID is not already enabled.
• Scripts allowing users to implement the needed changes on the Tellicast configuration (cast-client-channels_bas.ini) are provided at the bottom of this page, with a few instructions. The target directory that is already defined in the cast-client-channels_bas.ini will also be used by the new channels.
• Users are requested to check the cast-client-channels_bas.ini file after executing the script, and if the dummy files mentioned above could be an issue for any processing tools running on their station, to change the target directory for the new channel to a different location by commenting the target_directory line and adding new line below it with another location.

Phase 2 (3 weeks starting from 1 March 2022 10:00 UTC)

All datasets will be moved to the new channels, except EARS and MSG mission data.

Note: The MSG 6-hourly products will be moved to the new channels.

Users who have changed the target directory for new channel(s) in their channels_bas.ini in Phase 1 (sub-phase 2) above, must set it back to the initial value in order to start receiving the data on the right target directories.

Phase 3 (22 March 2022)

The remaining data (MSG and EARS) will be moved to the new channels and dissemination will stop on the old ones.

Note: Please be aware that for some of the old channels, the datasets are migrated to more than one new channel, in particular data currently disseminated on EUMETSAT Data Channel 12 will be migrated to E1B-TPC-6, E1B-TPG-1 and E1B-TPL-1. Also, in some cases old channels are merged into one new channel, e.g. EUMETSAT Data Channel 3 and EUMETSAT Data Channel 4 are migrated to E1B-GEO-4.

Basic Service old v new channels

Notes:
(1) If E1B-TPG-1 is predefined in channels_bas.ini then FY2 will be delivered in the target_directory of E1B-TPG-1, otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 12.
(2) If E1B-TPL-1 is predefined then data is delivered in its target directory otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 12.
(3) If E1B-TPC-6 is predefined then data is delivered in its target directory, otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 12.
(4) If E1B-TPC-6 is predefined then data is delivered in its target directory otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 8.
(5) If EUMETSAT Data Channel 3 is predefined then data is delivered in its target directory otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 3.
(6) If EUMETSAT Data Channel 4 is defined then data is delivered under its target directory otherwise in the target directory of EUMETSAT Data Channel 4.

For more information, contact our User Service Helpdesk.