RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

Mike 1972 wrote: »

What other channels are likely to be available on Saorsat (i.e have an other broadcasters stated an intention to use Ka band at 9E on the Irish beams)

Probably none. It's just a fill-in and backup feed copy of Saorview.
If you want UK TV use Freesat. A single dual feed dish is possible.

It's for the 2% to 7% that won't get DTT (terrestrial). It's a totally pointless satellite for any broadcaster not on DTT to use. If someone joins DTT (Saorview) they will automatically be on Saorsat.


It's not unlikely that some UK broadcast would use one to four of the UK spots to feed DTT sites or Virgin Media Cable head end. At the moment Intelsat 907 is used.

Scotland, West Scotland/Isles/N.I. Welsh and England 9E spots.
The N.I. and Welsh spots might be possibly received in most of Ireland.

The main purpose of the Satellite is the "Tooway" VSAT based Internet service, not TV. It's just "handy" and cheap to solve RTE NL's lack of coverage problem, yet need to be FTA.

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Was this not a breach of their licence conditions ?

Probably. But MANY people have been in breach of Comreg licence conditions. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056045133
Little to Nothing is ever done.

I think it will be costed as part of DTT as it's not promoted as platform of itself but Fill in and Backup feed for ALL the TX sites. Being on Saorsat isn't optional for DTT channels.

So it has to be a copy of Saorview. 1.5M extra for fill in is much cheaper than the terrestrial TX costs. There won't be an "extra charge". Roughtly 200K per channel p.a. compared to millions for DTT.

They can't use it as a cheap backup easily without it simply having everything (a Transport stream copy). The extra cost is a fraction of what extra DTT transmitters would be. I think you are reading too much into what he says.

Yes, TV3 have to pay to be on DTT. Unlike Analogue it will be all or nothing carriage charge and less than what TV3 pays now. TV3 and TV3e are proposed to be part of PSB Mux, Saorview, not on the Commercial PayTV Mux.

With Analogue full coverage of a channel is the electric and maintence for an entire transmitter at about 170 sites plus entire feed of aprox 22Mbps per channel on main sites.

With Digital full coverage of a channel is only about 1/10th of the cost of one transmitter at 51 sites plus about 1/10th of cost of approx 25Mbps per Mux.

So DTT is about 51/170 * 1/10 = 3% approx of cost of Analogue for Transmitter maintenance and electricity. Feed costs may be not be much cheaper as although it's about 1/8th per channel in bitrate, about x4 as many sites are fed (none by Rebroadcast/Transposing). There are also other costs I haven't written about. But the main ones are Spare parts, RTE NL staff (inc 24 x7 on call staff), electricity, maintenance and feeds. The big change is 51 x 2 = 102 transmitters for 9+ channels versus approximately 170 x 4 = 680 transmitters for 4 channels. The DTT in many cases may be lower power than Analogue is. You would not like RTE NL's electric bill.

If Satellite DVB-S2 carries copies of the MPEG-TS used for DTT (Done already in some countries), then the backup feed per Multiplex is an single satellite receiver with the TS carried on a single coax cable in ASI format direct to an automatic change over switch on Modulator that detects fail of fibre/Microwave feed. If the Saorsat isn't a copy then there has to be a very expensive TS DeMultiplexer /Multiplexer for each Multiplex transmitter. Also it's not acceptable to lose a channel or two on the PSB muxes in event of failure of feed.

If there was a payTV operator, then they would have separate Commercial Multiplexes and the PayTV operator would have to pay for satellite. If there are ever Commercial Multiplexes, those are NOT automatically on Saorsat as they are not part of Saorview.

It's not like Freeview and Freesat which are different platforms with different content actually run by different people.

I could be wrong, but I'll be very very surprised if my interpretation is wrong.

I think there is a difference between RTEcosts and RTE NL costs.

RTE NL costs are fixed. They are not lower or reduced by TV3.

RTE (broadcaster) costs are lower if TV3 and TG4 are paying RTE NL also? That can only be true if RTE NL are paying for full copy of Saorview Transport Streams on Satellite, whether TV3 and/or TV3e are in them or not.

So I think we have been at cross purposes. Perhaps I'm reading too much into my own interpretation. I know more about how Distribution and RTE NL work than about how Dáil Committees or RTE the Broadcaster works.

It's not worth arguing as we may never actually know the answer.
We don't even know
"Public Launch" Date
When TV3 is going to join DTT
If TV3e will be on it at all
If Ka-Sat will work and thus Saorsat
Start of Saorsat service

Peter Henderson wrote: »

Is that the same as free to air or the same as free to view ?

Don't forget that free to air and free to view are both free of charge, in theory.

FTA or FTV are not relevant to whether TV3 will be uplinked by RTÉNL free-of-charge or not. The channels will be transmitted FTA on Saorsat regardless of whether that includes TV3 or not. No point going on Ka-band otherwise.

2 way internet is nothing to to do with uplink costs.

The main uplink costs if you have your own Earth Station is simply the capital cost. A 4.8m dish, P.A. motors, controller etc is expensive. But once installed your uplink cost per channel in transponder is minuscule.

The only significant Ka-Sat cost is cost of approx 50Mbps, two "virtual" transponders. This will be less than cost of ONE channel on 28E for the entirety of both Multiplexes of Saorview.

Transponder costs, not Prices:
The Launch cost for Ka-Sat is similar to one of the FOUR Ku Satellites at 28E. The Actual build cost of satellite might be x5 a regular Ku satellite. But the satellite has about x20 raw capacity. So overall the actual cost of raw transponder space including recovery of capital expenditure is about 1/4. But 28E has a premium on capacity putting price higher. Also Saorsat is all DVB-T2 and MPEG4, so about 1/3rd the spectrum per SD channel of Freesat SD channels.

The Ka-Sat has about minimum 8 Earth Stations compared to one for a Ku Satellite, but capacity x20, so total Earth Station cost about 1/2

Compare with cost of 40 more DTT to have 91 instead of 51 (There are near 170 RTEs sites at present and perhaps 145 DTT would give virtually 100% coverage).
Build cost maybe €70M, over 10 years thats over €7M a year or more
Maintenance (on call staff, Spares in stock), ESB: Maybe near €1M a year or more

Peter Henderson wrote: »

I was thinking more from the viewer's perspective Cush !

OK, was never much good at mind reading. The discussion up to that point was about the broadcasters transmission related costs.

RTE expects you to get UK TV and HD for Free

Debate debates.oireachtas.ie
(worth reading the whole thing)

Quote:

Mr. Conor Hayes:
The UK channels are available under an approach called Freesat, which is broadcast by a company owned by the BBC and ITV. They broadcast these channels in the clear over Ireland using a wide-band satellite operating in the KU band. RTE’s satellite option is a narrow-band satellite operating in the Ka band. One cannot get them on the same satellite. In the US, there are hybrid dishes available and householders can receive Ka band and Ku band signals. That is technically feasible and there are some 22 million households in the US using it. The cost of the dish is approximately $65.

It's 99.99% certain that it's Ka-Sat @9E. Launch scheduled 20th December 2010

RTE have stated they intend to be fully HD on Saorview/Saorsat for a while before offering the HD content to Sky (which will have to be PayTV only and carried at Sky's Expense).

John896 wrote: »

Hi i am from Swansea i have a 2.4m Channel Master Dish when Saorsat is live,do you think i would get a signal on my 2.4m if i changed the lnb to KA.?A few years back i did get RTE One and Two from Terrestrial,but in the rain i lost signal.I now have to pay a satellite company in ireland who, set up Sky Ireland for me so i can watch RTE One on Sky.

Can you get RTE2/TG4/TV3 also on Sky? Also Swansea is quite a distance for ROI signals to travel. Do you know from which transmitter they came and do you still pick these signals up in good weather conditions? If so a higher gain aerial may do the trick.

watty wrote: »

Debate debates.oireachtas.ie
(worth reading the whole thing)

Obviously hasn't been read by many based on the questions and speculation posted here at times.

For those unable or unwilling to read three pages of transcript the debate can be watched here - http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0714/newsspecial_av.html?2787365,null,230.

KA-SAT
Ordered by Eutelsat from EADS Astrium, KA-SAT is scheduled for launch between November 2010 and January 2011. Entirely innovative in design, the satellite will be configured with over 80 spotbeams, with a network of eight ground stations connecting to the Internet backbone.

The KA-SAT programme is to deliver efficient resources for the mass-market delivery of the Tooway™ consumer broadband service, targeted at users across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin located beyond range of ADSL networks. With a throughput of over 70 Gigabits per second, KA-SAT will be capable of serving over one million users who expect bandwidth and prices comparable to ADSL2 performance.

Eutelsat will also drive the development of satellite-based consumer broadband services with triple-play capability, by combining broadband services in the Ka-band, through KA-SAT, with the reception of TV channels in the Ku-band. In order to facilitate the availability of high-performance triple-play equipment at competitive prices, Eutelsat will deploy the KA-SAT satellite to 9° East. This deployment will simplify production of dual-feed antennas transmitting and receiving broadband services in the Ka-band from 9° East, and receiving television in the Ku-band from Eutelsat’s flagship HOT BIRD™ neighbourhood at 13° East.

Hope it's launched on this date (21st Dec) as if it's late, it could cause a problem for Santa.