RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

Apogee · 29-05-2011 2:31pm

Minstrel27 wrote: »

I don't understand why they don't turn off encryption when there is a programme they would have clearance for ie. those available internationally on the RTÉ Player.

Capt'n Midnight · 30-05-2011 12:26pm

tmcw wrote: »

I don't know the arrangements Sky Italia have with RAI, but I understand RTE don't pay Sky (or SES-ASTRA) for carriage on 28E. Changing that arrangement would probably cost RTE, and as an end user who wants the FTA UK channels and the Irish channels, periodic encryption of the Irish channels on 28E would drive me insane, even if it was just for 3 or 4 hours a day.

RAI are the BBC of Italy, same deal with rights issues, but there are few Italian speakers outside their boarders so have been FTA since day 1 , the encryption on football matches was by changing the line sync pulse to three different positions. Almost watchable since it sorta looked like bad ghosting.

On digital it's a black screen.

For sports many games would be FTA somewhere, back in the day you could get sound from one channel and video from another.

http://www.lyngsat.com/freetv/Italy.html - La7 is the only large terresterial Italian channel not FTA on Hotbird

SKY are a late entry in to the Italian market, and are busy buying up as much as they can to gain market share. It's not like here where until the BBC went FTA that they had a defacto monopoly.

Question is whether in future enough people abroad get FTA boxes that don't rely on the SKY EPG in propietry Digiboxes that the advertising RTE could sell in the UK would be not only enough to cover transmission costs , but would also be worth more than selling the programs to BBC etc.

watty · 30-05-2011 1:29pm

How many people outside Italy speak Italian vs % of people in Italy and would actually want to watch RAI compared to People next to us that speak English.

Austrian TV watched by Germans and Swiss would be a better analogy. Or better still Swiss TV in German.

The rights costs even for home produced stuff could exceed transmission costs.

bk · 30-05-2011 1:52pm

watty wrote: »

Because it's Sky and not an RTE feed. Sky is paying for the Carriage. Their contract even forbids them supplying it to Mainland UK. Sky don't know or care what programs can be FTA.

Also even home produced stuff would cost RTE SOMETHING more if FTA over UK.

Personally I see both of these issues as simply failures of RTE to negotiate the best deal possible.

Sky need RTE much more then the other way around. Sky needed RTE to become as successful in the Irish market has they have.

I'm sure during the original negotiations, that RTE could have negotiated the switching off of encryption for Irish produced content, while still getting the deal for Sky to pay the carriage and EPG, etc. Perhaps in return for Sky putting the unencrypted portions of the RTE channel on the Sky EPG in the UK (a nice selling point for Sky with Irish ex-pats in the UK).

As for RTE having to pay producers extra for the Irish content FTA. Again just put your foot down, RTE could have simply demanded FTA rights included in the normal price they paid. If the producers don't like it, then though, they can go see how much TV3/TG4 will give them (hint much, much less).

RTE have a very strong negotiating position in Ireland, they just don't seem to use it.

watty · 30-05-2011 2:41pm

All good points.

To RTE in the past, SKY was simply an NTL without wires. They said practically that in an email to me back just after RTE launched on Sky.

rlogue · 30-05-2011 3:02pm

watty wrote: »

The rights costs even for home produced stuff could exceed transmission costs.

Not so. All that would appear on an RTE International channel would be rights cleared - that would not include live sports as separate agreements cover these.

Dont forget Tara TV showed a lot of live relays of home produced programming and so does the RTE player today. I would expect only these programmes to be available.

Can you give a specific example of where the rights for a home produced programme would exceed transmission costs?

rlogue · 30-05-2011 10:31pm

watty wrote: »

How many people outside Italy speak Italian vs % of people in Italy and would actually want to watch RAI compared to People next to us that speak English.

Austrian TV watched by Germans and Swiss would be a better analogy. Or better still Swiss TV in German.

The rights costs even for home produced stuff could exceed transmission costs.

Interesting comparision with the Austrian and Swiss situation.

Note that Swiss citizens outside Switzerland are entitled to a viewing card that gives access to the Swiss channels for the price of the Swiss licence fee. The SF Info channel is FTA.

ORF 1 & 2/ATV is soft encrypted and any box ranging from Dreamboxes to Vus to Technomates can open them. ORF2 E is FTA across Europe on Astra 1.

RTE/TV3/TG4 is only available on Sky Ireland and NI subs. It is far harder to watch Irish TV abroad than the Austrian and Swiss models cited by Watty. Far harder. At least the Austrians offer a limited FTA service and Swiss nationals can watch all their TV.

We cannot. And it remains a disgrace.

dolandy · 31-05-2011 1:18am

Hey guys,

A small bit off topic, but two queries for you guys none the less

When it is expected that the saorsat service will be broadcasting RTE 1/2 TV3, 3e as opposed to the test loops?

Anyone have any idea on suppliers of head-end systems for either saorview/saorsat? Have a couple of units installed in hotels and such that combine the satellite/terrestrial signals to discrete HF channels on the down-wire. The choice not to encode in the standard DVB-S/T formats is going to be costly on a good few business' me thinks!!!

The Cush · 31-05-2011 3:05am

dolandy wrote: »

When it is expected that the saorsat service will be broadcasting RTE 1/2 TV3, 3e as opposed to the test loops?

http://www.saorview.ie/what-is-saorview/saorsat/

By October 2012 SAORVIEW will be accessible to 98% of the population. Due to topography it is not possible for the SAORVIEW service to reach 100% of population.

Approximately 2% of the population will not be able to receive the SAORVIEW service.

RTÉNL is currently in the process of developing and testing a free-to-air satellite service, SAORSAT, which will make it possible for 100% of the population to access Irish free-to-air digital television channels and services. This will provide coverage to the homes not covered by SAORVIEW.

RTÉNL expect to be able to make more information publicly available about this new service in late 2011.

boffin54321 · 31-05-2011 12:54pm

So when saorsat is launched, you'll be able to receive RTE1/2/TV3 etc on a satellite dish - is that right?

So if u already have a sattelite dish it would make more sense to wait for saorsat rather than get a saorview aerial/set top box?

Thanks

The Cush · 31-05-2011 1:12pm

boffin54321 wrote: »

So when saorsat is launched, you'll be able to receive RTE1/2/TV3 etc on a satellite dish - is that right?

So if u already have a sattelite dish it would make more sense to wait for saorsat rather than get a saorview aerial/set top box?

Thanks

1. Yes.

2. Maybe not, different satellite position to Sky/freesat. Different LNB and receiver required. The aerial and Saorview STB/iDTV might be the more flexible and cheaper option. In due course all TVs will have a Saorview DTT tuner built in, Saorsat will always require a separate receiver.

Trevord · 31-05-2011 6:13pm

bk wrote: »

Personally I see both of these issues as simply failures of RTE to negotiate the best deal possible.

RTE have a very strong negotiating position in Ireland, they just don't seem to use it.

Imagine what would happen now though if RTE got tough and it disappeared off SKY due to a contractual disagreement even for a short period.

Print media would be quickly on board to slag off RTE (remember who owns some of these papers). The principles of the arguement would be lost in a clammer to get RTE back on Sky.

TV3 would still be on Sky I presume so Sky customers would get irate with RTE. (Something similar is happening right now with Sky customer complaining on this forum that they can't get RTE HD/Saorview on Sky).

I think the train has long left the station and too many people nowadays expect RTE to be part of the "Sky Package".

Maybe RTE did a bad negotiation, not because they were poor negotiators, but because they did not realise at the time how valuable their product would be for Sky.

The Cush · 01-06-2011 2:11pm

Ka-Sat is now operational

EUTELSAT’s KA-SAT HIGH THROUGHPUT SATELLITE GOES LIVE

New-generation Tooway™ broadband services now available
across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin

Paris, 31 May 2011

Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) today announced the commercial entry into service of its KA-SAT High Throughput Satellite, marking the official launch of its new-generation Tooway™ broadband service.

Eutelsat’s high-capacity all Ka-band system, combining satellite and on-ground infrastructure, opens a new chapter in the market for satellite-based IP services. As a powerful new platform for delivering high-bandwidth services to users beyond range of terrestrial networks, it can deliver cost-effective and competitive solutions that contribute to building inclusive digital economies across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin.

Michel de Rosen, Eutelsat CEO commented on the entry into service: “The entry into service of KA-SAT, the world’s most powerful spotbeam satellite, turns a new page in affordable and immediately available IP solutions, and places Europe at the forefront of high-capacity satellite technologies that can serve to quickly close the broadband gap. We look forward to working with our service and technology partners to unleash the huge potential of this new pan-European wireless infrastructure.”

...

Broadcasters and video service providers can also take advantage of the spotbeam coverage of the KA-SAT satellite architecture to deliver content in a single beam or multiple beams for regional and local television and corporate TV networks.

http://www.eutelsat.com/news/press-releases.html?idCp=901

bob11 · 02-06-2011 10:28am

Slightly off topic, but interesting that Digiweb are offering Tooway satellite broadband via Ka Sat already:http://www.digiweb.ie/home/tooway/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJL5qqCRbqE&feature=player_embedded#at=70

Super fast 10Mb Broadband
Anywhere in Ireland
- Great introductory price from just €19.95 per month
- Next generation satellite broadband
- Order today and get setup within 10 days

A question for the techies out there.

If Digiweb put up a dish for Tooway, can it also be used to get Saorsat ??

watty · 02-06-2011 10:36am

Yes it can. You just split the coax from the ODU to Modem RX (not the TX cable!)

A satellite IF 950 ... 2100MHz splitter is needed not a TV type.

But the cap is pathetic on Tooway, latency is 700ms+ and the install is much more expensive than a regular Sat TV one.

Better to wait till the domestic LNBFs are available and have dual feed with Freesat.

Tooway and Hylas are only for people that can't get anything else.

Things like Ajax, Google docs, gaming and other real time activities are poor to unusable on satellite Internet.

It may be better than Mobile 3/Meteor/O2/Vodafone 3G/HSPA in some cases.

The Cush · 02-06-2011 12:19pm

bob11 wrote: »

If Digiweb put up a dish for Tooway, can it also be used to get Saorsat ??

This is what Conor Hayes of RTÉ said last year

Mr. Conor Hayes: ...

Our satellite option would operate on the Ka band as opposed to the Ka band. The Ka band is typically used for telecommunications purposes or contributions between broadcasters. The Ka band is used by the single largest pay television operator in the US, DirecTV, which uses it to deliver high definition television. It works on a consumer basis and is a proven product in weather conditions.

People are offering satellite services over broadband. If one has a broadband service over satellite, one is capable of offering telephony or voice over IP, VoIP. If we are up there in the clear, some bright spark might offer people broadband, telephony and Irish channels — RTE, TG4, TV3 and so on — without their needing to spend much money.

http://debates.oireachtas.ie/MAJ/2010/07/14/00003.asp

watty · 02-06-2011 12:50pm

Updated two articles
http://www.saortv.info/satellite-saorsat/saorsat-reception/
and
http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/saorsat-coverage

Attempt at clarified explanation and illustration of differences of French Calais spot having carrier in same part of band or not.

(via Techtir)

Each spot is only 1 x 238MHz bandwidth transponder.
There appears to be only actually two transponder frequencies/bands and two polarisations giving four flavours of spot,

New graphic has closer to Eutelsat spot colours.

When RTE/Saorsat is using two carriers from the Autum/Winter 2011, then they will be using 1/5 to 1/4 of the spot bandwidth as they are only running QPSK with a very robust FEC of 1/2. Actual Internet services may run APSK with FEC 5/6 giving higher Mbps/MHz than RTE NL is using.

It's possible also that if the signal is stronger / more robust than needed they could use FEC 3/4 and APSK or some more efficient combination and use less of the capacity.

Internet/Broadband Capacity
The 70Gbps of ka-Sat is a bit misleading, though true. That assumes clear sky, ample dish, more efficient APSK, FEC and also is adding uplink and downlink capacities. Also sum of all 82 spots!
In reality on Irish spot more than 1000 customers at 10Mbps would exceed 50:1 contention,
If they get 20,000 customers per spot the contention is then 1000:1 and congestion limited by a very low cap.

There is no gap at Portsmouth or wherever on the English South Coast. At apparent gap of two or three spots any of the two or three spots can be used for Internet.

If the "Irish Spot" was full for Internet, many in Ireland would be able to use N.I. or Welsh spots with a bit larger dish (or same size dish near the spot).

See http://www.spacenews.com/satellite_telecom/110531-ka-sat-enters-service.html

Note it's not really Broadband, but always on Internet. The Latency is too high and cap too low.

Interestedly
If the UK was to use it for Regional TV, the England spot can be received in Scotland and Wales with larger dish (and in Northern part of Ireland an NI with a very big dish), but East Scotish and Welsh can't be received in England or Ireland (Scottish maybe in N.I.). West Scotland and NI share a spot that's likely OK in East Scotland and Ireland. But likely not OK in England and Wales.

Stinicker · 02-06-2011 6:17pm

Does anybody know when Saorsat is launched will RTÉ actively promote it? eg. will there be Saorsat approved receivers, similar to Saorview eg. with MHEG5 for Digital Aertel and the 7 day EPG?

Or will it be left to the masses to provide their own FTA HD Satellite box, quite alot of which don't have MHEG5 and are very ungranny proof. Ideally a receiver that works similar to the Saorview one would be the way to go; with automatic retuning for any new channels and the seven day epg and would work easily for the masses.

It would be similar to how well the branded Freesat boxes work on Astra 28.2° filtering out the junk and how messy a standard FTA receiver eg. a lidl box can be tuning in all the rubbish including tests and about 10 different versions of BBC1, ITV etc. While there will only be Saorsat channels on Ka-Sat @ 9.0° East, I still feel RTÉ should make the effort to get a good box out there especially as the people who will depend on Saorsat will quite often be in quite rural locations and may not have had Digital TV up to now so a simple easy solution would be the best, saving installers the hassle of having to go out to houses for such simple things. EG. HDMI's lack of automatic switching compared to scart is a total pain in the ass especially for people who can hardly turn on a TV to begin with.

My own mother is in her 60's and she can't work Sky hardly, she only ever watches RTE anyway in the evenings and I had to rig up the Sky HD box via the RF coax on UHF tuned to channel 0 to make it easier for her to watch! She's so bad with this sort of stuff that when her old mobile broke I had to get a second hand one on eBay of the exact same model as she couldn't figure out how to work the new one she got ! :eek:

watty · 03-06-2011 6:33pm

The courier arrived.

I only have a loan ...

Too hot to actually go near the dishes, so photos and explanations.

This is ONLY for mad experimenters. If you find wiring a plug challenging then wait for proper ka Band LNBF for Saorsat, likely 1/5th the price...

http://www.techtir.ie/hylas-odu-saorsat-1

Part 2 will measure performance on 44cm dish, 80cm multifeed and 90/95 Multifeed.

The horn is for a markedly elliptic dish, so I will design an easy to make circular one. I'll also see if the polarising conversion unit is easy to copy and adapted to LNB without an Orthomode converter (which is not needed for us).

Apogee · 04-06-2011 12:37am

watty wrote: »

The horn is for a markedly elliptic dish, so I will design an easy to make circular one.

You can buy feedhorns for that Hylas/Hughes gear on ebay.com for ~$15.

http://cgi.ebay.com/74M-Prodelin-Radio-Feedhorn-hughesnet-1W-/180658290512?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a1012bf50

http://cgi.ebay.com/HughesNet-FeedHorn-Raven-Internet-Satellite-Dish-/300560554638?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45face1a8e

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hughes-Net-Satellite-Conversion-Adapter-Spaceway-Kit-/160594523815?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item25642df6a7

watty · 04-06-2011 9:28am

Apogee wrote: »

You can buy feedhorns for that Hylas/Hughes gear on ebay.com for ~$15.

http://cgi.ebay.com/HughesNet-FeedHorn-Raven-Internet-Satellite-Dish-/300560554638?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45face1a8e

Thanks.
The second one looks more suitable. The one for a "Raven" dish.

Postage will bump the price a lot.

I'm sure some people here will enjoy hacksawing some 1/2" copper water pipe to save $20 to $25

JeanLucPicard · 04-06-2011 11:21am

Hi

Can someone please explain this to me please?

I have an old sky box that I am using to receive Free to Air stations. Can I get RTE digital on this same setup now?

If not what do I need to do. As I am not a techi minded person please keep replys in layman's terms.

Thank you

Vince Cable · 04-06-2011 11:39am

JeanLucPicard wrote: »

As I am not a techi minded person please keep replys in layman's terms.

They're still talking about making waveguides out of copper pipe, I think that's your cue to wait a while & see what develops.

watty · 04-06-2011 11:56am

However an old Sky box will never work.
A "Sky HD" box in theory can work, but likely never will as Sky would need to change the software. There is disincentive for Sky to do that.

Apogee · 04-06-2011 2:06pm

watty wrote: »

The horn is for a markedly elliptic dish, so I will design an easy to make circular one. I'll also see if the polarising conversion unit is easy to copy and adapted to LNB without an Orthomode converter (which is not needed for us).

Given the shape of your feedhorn, it most closely matches the shape of a Sky minidish - would be interesting to see what the performance is like and how much on an impact the perforation of the metal has on the signals.

What is the weight of the combined feedhorn/polariser/OMT/LNB?

watty · 04-06-2011 2:57pm

The OMT is very heavy (likely filters in it). It's not needed at all when there is no TX/BUC and if you have a single port dual polarity LNA (or even single polarity for Ka-Sat TV). The LNB is about 2x normal wieght as it has separate H and V waveguides/Ports.

Anyway... Current configuration without the BUC is 938g, nearly 1kg. I think with sensible horn and no OMT (none is needed even for dual polarity) and single port LNB (single or dual polarity) the weight could be 400g or less.

The horn is far more elliptical than sky dish horn.

The Hughes LNB has two rectangular ports (separate H & V) and the depolariser/re-polariser thing has obviously a square wave guide (H & V) at one end and round at horn end. For matching you maybe need a minimum amount of circular waveguide between horn and polariser.

watty · 04-06-2011 4:02pm

Apogee wrote: »

Given the shape of your feedhorn, it most closely matches the shape of a Sky minidish - would be interesting to see what the performance is like and how much on an impact the perforation of the metal has on the signals.

20GHz
wavelength = 1.5cm

Rule of thumb is that holes, roughness and error from paraboloid shape should be less than 1/10th wavelength = 1.5mm

I have not got a Sky perforated pasta strainer here to test. Flaking rust will be a bigger issue too.

I agree that horn looks more suited for Sky dish. I must find spec of F/D for it. Likely it's for quite different to regular dish. VSAT often are.

Noreen1 · 04-06-2011 4:06pm

watty wrote: »

20GHz
wavelength = 1.5cm

Rule of thumb is that holes, roughness and error from paraboloid shape should be less than 1/10th wavelength = 1.5mm

I have not got a Sky perforated pasta strainer here to test. Flaking rust will be a bigger issue too.

I agree that horn looks more suited for Sky dish. I must find spec of F/D for it. Likely it's for quite different to regular dish. VSAT often are.

I lol'd.

watty · 04-06-2011 4:26pm

Lidl and Aldi sell woks though!

but the handles are awkward.

mar1us · 08-06-2011 11:42pm

that is the beghining
http://www.lyngsat.com/9east.html

RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

Comments