RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

The Cush wrote: »

All Saorview calls and emails are handled by an external service provider now I believe. RTÉ published a tender for Saorview contact centre services last Nov, so that probably explains the email.

Perhaps English is not the first language of the staff in this agency.

Full Email from June, Saorview reply in Bold.

“Dear Sir/Madam,

Will RTE One HD, TV3, 3e and UTV Ireland on launch be broadcasted on the Saorsat platform ?

Thank you and Kind Regards,

(My Name)”

“Hello (My Name)

Thank you for contacting SAORVIEW

TV3 and 3e are currently on Saorsat due to a decision by TV3 Group not to have the stations carried on Saorsat, I have no information as to weather or not they are planning to change this decision.
UTV Ireland are currently still in talks as to whether or not the will be broadcasting on SAROVIEW and Saorsat.

Regards
(1st Saorview Rep)

SAORVIEW Support”

“Hi (1st Saorview Rep),

Thanks for your reply.

Will RTE 1 HD broadcast on Saorsat, at the moment we only get standard RTE 1, I believe RTE 1 HD is on Saorview.

Kind Regards,

(My Name)”

“Hi (My Name)

Eventually RTE 1 and 2 will be upscaled to HD on the Saorsat system as of yet we do not have a time line

Kind regards
( 2nd Saorview Rep)”

“Thanks (2nd Saorview Rep)”

On a lighter note, I did some adjustements with the dish yesterday and now picking up a much improved signal Quality level approx 97%.
In the past I was only getting approx 73% and loosing Saorsat in heavy rain.
Hopefully I have an improvement now.

FRIENDO wrote: »

RTE/Saorsat strike again :mad:

The hurling all Ireland final moved to RTE One which is in standard digital.

Why have we not got RTE One HD on Saorsat yet?

This might work:D

Elmo wrote: »

Bad decision to move the Hurling to RTÉ ONE as its HD service isn't fully roled out , Sky customers if they had Sky Sports would have moved.

Yes and it shows how RTE demote the All Ireland Hurling Final to its standard digital channel on satellite.
Sky in its wisdom put the final on SKY Sports One HD.

Only a couple of weeks ago an RTE pundit Joe Brolly was complaining that RTE did not have the rights to show a qualifier game.
It wont be a suprise if RTE loose more GAA games to SKY and Setanta.

channelsurfer2 wrote: »

in defence of RTE(a rare one I might add), the hurling was available in HD to 98% of the population on Saorview and UPC/ Evision. You can ask Sky as to why they will not bother showing the national channel - irelands most popular in HD.

I have already asked RTE.
RTE/Saorview dont have RTE One HD on the Saorsat platform.
If you read back on some of the posts you will see the emails and JOKE replys from Saorview/RTE.

I'm not a sky customer, so I wont be asking them anything.

Apparently the only 'bone of contention' is the fact that RTÉ1 is not in HD on Saorsat yet.

I guess it is a low priority given the small numbers that receive this service.

It does need to be attended to soon .....

Elmo wrote: »

This is how it went in RTÉ Land

Executive 1: So we have clashing games
Executive 2: Hurling on 2?
Executive 1: Yeah and Soccer on 1
Executive 3: Sport during Prime Time on 1??
Executive 2: Yeah suppose can be having that
Executive 1: But its the All Ireland Final
Executive 2: And 2 is really the home of sport
Executive 3: But its prime time on 1
Executive 1: Alright I can't come up with any other real reason why it'd by on 2 over 1, clearly prime time is more important

I'd say HD and what sport on what channel never came into the discussion.

I agree - the HD issue didn't come into it I'd imagine.

I also don't think there was any discussion because there was none to be had.
As I said - football is just about always on RTÉ Two - with almost no exceptions.

The Cush wrote: »

And as someone mentioned earlier with the Angelus/Six-One News on RTÉ1 the All-Ireland Hurling Final fitted into the RTÉ1 schedule better than the European qualifier.

You know they could always just show both on News Now, and if they're inclined a repeat showing of Six One after the match on One.

Nothing stopping them as such.

One could make the argument that there are a number of free alternatives to LW (e.g. FM, Saorview, DAB (sort of), DVB-S radio, internet) whereas no free alternative exists for Saorsat.

There is no legal requirement on them to provide Saorsat AFAICS. Although if a universal broadcasting charge is introduced, politically it might be more difficult to remove it.

zg3409 wrote: »

In the future there may be newer KA satellites at 28 east, and so an unencrypted spot beam could be used for Ireland only coverage, and theoretically a new LNB could receive both older and new KA signals, but it would at the very least require a new LNB on the dish, and of course a new satellite launched.

Astra 2E & 2F do have Ka Band beams, but in comparison to Eutelsat's Ka-Sat at 9 East it has each a single wider beam aimed primarily towards central Europe, presumably for two-way internet use, certainly neither of the two has an Ireland-only spot beam even vaguely close to what Ka-Sat has.

In Radio User magazine December 2014, dxtv and satellite news, there is the following item:

The Irish free-to-air satellite package, Saorsat, is to test in ultra high definition (UHD). Saorsat is intended to provide a means of reaching the small number of viewers (around one to two percent) who cannot receive Saorview, the terrestrial digital service. Saorsat broadcasts in the Ka band from Eutelsat 9A at 9°E. It's footprint is tightly restricted, so it is unlikely to be receivable outside Éire.

I cannot find anything online to confirm this. Has anyone else here heard about it? Whatever their source is, it is good to see that they got the satellite details correct.

Just got an answer from @SAORVIEW on twitter
"There are no plans at present to carry UTV Ireland on Saorsat"

ok guys. i have A 88 triax dish and i want to get soarsat and astra on it.

i assume from reading back i need to do the following.

line the dish up a single lnb to 19e and the attach my multiblock and then line then up.

following the mauanl i have lnb1 soarsat to the right of the mutliblock about 90mm to right of the centre and the astra 20mm to the left of centre.

anyone every done one like this? can someone post up a picture?

irishgeo wrote: »

buy wont you be able to get it from Astra or is it going to be encrypted?

According to King of Sat web site, UTV Ireland encrypted at the moment.

Similar with RTE TV, TV3 and TG4 - UTV Ireland will possibly remain encrypted on 28 for licence reasons.

http://en.kingofsat.net/find.php?question=utv+ireland&Submit=Zap

its probably going to be the coldest day of the year tomorrow but i got this job to do, as i promised the brother i do it for him.

so its a case of lining up the dish with a universal lnb to 19e and the tighten that up and then start working out from the center until i find astra and 9e and the astra side of the arm should be higher than soarsat side.

RTV Slovenia are available via 16 east - however form any time I've observed them much, only their 3rd channel - mainly carrying news & current affairs - is FTA for the majority of the time, the 1st and 2nd channels being encrypted the majority of the time. Also, they share on transponder costs with their Croatian neighbour HRT. At present RTV SLO use the space to broadcast three TV and three radio stations, but the TV stations are all in SD and it doesn't look like there is much room for expansion on the said transponder (although RTS Sat from Serbia did appear on it earlier this year, again SD only).

With RAI in Italy, their three main channels plus most of their recently launched genre channels are by and large FTA in SD, with encryption only coming into play normally for sporting rights e.g. F1 racing. There is a legacy in this in that RAI were one of the first broadcasters in Europe to eagerly take up satellite as so to expand their reach into cable networks across the continent. However all of their HD output is fully encrypted, and the way that TivuSat is marketed, there's no guarantee that their HD transmissions will eventually go along the same path as their SD ones do.

The main reason for Saorsat being as it is is mainly down to cost, at least according to RTÉ anyway. They claim that the costs involved are around €1-1.5 million per year, which in comparison to the average cost of a transponder lease on a satellite over Europe is quite cheap (reckoned on average to be around €3 million per year) and whilst allowing for commercial confidentiality blurring the true costs, the rate of transponder rent on the Astra 2 satellites is thought to be among the most expensive not just in Europe but also the world. So just as an example we'll say it's €4 million per year. For RTÉ - or rather 2RN - to rent that transponder, the cost is no short change. What RTÉ could do is say strike out a deal with say the BBC, ITV or Channel 4 in the UK and do something similar to RTV SLO and share transponder costs i.e. use half of the corresponding bit rate. This takes the rental costs of a transponder down to around €2 million - however the bit rate available to them is rather constrained. For a DVB-S transponder this gives them around 17 Mbits/s, which might be enough to fit in the SD versions of RTÉ1, RTÉ2, News Now & RTÉ Jr/RTÉ1+1 at a half-decent quality using MPEG2 but not leave much room for other TV stations. What could be done instead is if the transponder is DVB-S2 then you've upped the bit rate to around 22-23 Mbit/s for half a transponder - you could have RTÉ 1 & RTE 2 in HD without SD duplication (as is the case on Saorview) along with RTÉ's other channels in SD MPEG4 with just about enough elbow room. You would however potentially leave those with Sky non-HD receivers out in the cold in terms of receiving these services.

Then comes additional costs - the costs of CA which need to be managed one of which being that tying such CA to Videoguard only could be politically contentious. Broadcasting FTA as they do with Saorsat avoids these headaches. Then other Irish broadcasters like TV3 & TG4 would have to likely make their own arrangements outside from RTÉ.

So overall Saorsat is a bit of a fudge, a classic case of an Irish solution to an Irish problem, but it does work - well at least it should do for most people. The problem is of course the issue of rain fade at 20GHz frequencies, coupled that the places most likely needing to avail of Saorsat are on the edge of the spot beam (Kerry, Cork, Donegal) where rainfall is quite high in comparison to other parts of the country, and the recent change in FEC value has done nothing to help with this. There would appear to be scope for 2RN to be able to increase the transponder power to compensate for this, but it doesn't look like it. Again probably down to cost.

Poor alignment or too small a dish.

irishgeo.
Have you ever been able to get a picture from Saorsat by mounting the KA lnb at the prime focus of the dish and pointed at 9E .?
Regards

sorry guys.

I have a first strike fs-1 meter.

I have done the following dish aligned to 19.2 with a universal lnb then aligned 28.2 then aligned with 19.2. i then swapped to a soarsat lnb and nothing coming in for rte.

I do have an astra signal though.

I am not sure what settings out in here for soarsat in order to tune it with out a lock.

http://firststrikemeters.com/images/fs1-1.jpg as the frequency doesnt go above 20000.

Thurston? wrote: »

You mean 9 east, rather than 19.2 here? Which tp did you use? What channels were coming in on it?

I think i used this one , 11766 V
tp 52, not at home now to check.