100,000 of us are watching DTT!!

mickeyboymel

Just saw this article on Digital Spy:

Freeview has proved to be a surprise hit in Ireland, even though the service is designed for the UK.

According to the Irish Times today, around 100,000 boxes have been sold to Irish viewers living near the Northern Ireland border, where reception can be picked up from the Belfast and Newry transmitters.

The viewing base in the Republic is around half of the 200,000 who receive the service officially in Northern Ireland itself.

The availability of Freeview to those on the fringe could impact upon plans by the Irish goverment to launch a ten-channel DTT offering. Industry sources told the newspaper that it had already had a "significant" effect on the takeup of the service from cable operator Chorus in the region.


Freeview has been available in one form or another in the UK for a few years now and it would seem lots of us can recieve it here in Ireland.

As a means of recieving Digital quality reception through your ordinary rooftop aerial with the addition of a set top box or specially equiped Integrated Digital TV, it provides all we have come to expect from regular digital satellite transmissions, including interactive features, crystal clear picture quality and enhanced teletext; without the need for a hefty monthly fee.

The equipment is purchased on a once off basis and can be obtained relatively cheaply.

Eventually it is planned to switch all analog broadcasts off, so really this is the future of terrestrial television, both here in Ireland and throughout Europe.

So have you tried to recieve the UK service here yet?

The snippet from the article above would suggest quite a few already enjoy the benefits of Freeview from Northern Ireland already, so vote and let us know!

JBoyle4eva

Originally posted by mickeyboymel
The availability of Freeview to those on the fringe could impact upon plans by the Irish goverment to launch a ten-channel DTT offering. Industry sources told the newspaper that it had already had a "significant" effect on the takeup of the service from cable operator Chorus in the region.[/I]


[/B]

Now, I had no idea it was this popular, but the Government are planning a DTT. Wow, this sounds like the Government actually care!

Mike 1972

Surely it is actully BENEFICIAL to an Irish DTT operator to have an "installed base" of 10,000 households (plus annother few thousand in NI who would have be within range of Claremont Carn etc)

mickeyboymel

I agree Mike, but this 100,000 figure, Surely this cannot be correct?

What are they basing this on? Going by this forum, which I always thought a good indicater of what is going on, it is only a few of us who have gone to the trouble of trying to recieve DTT.

Perhaps we should put a poll up and see if we can get a realistic percentage, especially from those in the border counties and eastern seaboard?

There do not seem to be all that many active contributions/ queries for assistance in aquiring/ setting up boxes etc as a figure like the one given would suggest if it were true.

Smeagol

from the Belfast and Newry transmitters

???

Originally posted by Smeagol
Belfast and newry transmitters

???

Typical journalistic mistakes....
I havent read the article, but it is not unusual for them to write them and get simple technical facts wrong.
Afaik, there are two Belfast transmitters that do DTT, the higher powered Divis, an extremely low powered Black hill ( ?) and then theres Brougher Mt in Co Tyrone ( often referred to as Enniskillen ) and Limavaddy up in Derry.

And of course there some of us down in the South East who can get it from the Presely Tx in Pembrokeshire Wales.

Smeagol

Black Hill, is that a relay?
I can only pick up the BBC mux from Brougher on clear nights. (yet) Does that count?:dunno:

--I want Freeview from Strabane--

Actually I stand corrected by myself
Black mountain is a relay that has channel five analog and not DTT
Big difference

mickeyboymel

All the relevant detail of transmissions from Divis, Limavady & Brougher Mountain are listed on the DTT Website, Here in an easy to read table.

The details of channel contents are on the same site Here

Also transmissions from Wales Here

spongebob

and Dublin

http://www.dtg.org.uk/news/world/-dublin_pilot.htm

M

silverside

Why would you have to 'sign up' for such a scheme? I guess they would be going with the Freeview standard so if you picked up a FreeView box in belfast it would work straight away. Am I right?

And what type of aerial would you need - would rabbit ears do?

I would presume, you would have to sign up to get the equipment.
It will , if it is like the previous proposal be using a different standard to the Freeview UK transmissions, so those boxes won't work.
Therefore, it would mean your participation in a pilot test would mean, you getting a box from RTÉ

It's quite possible that rabbits ears might work in many locations, depending on power.
I seem to recall, reading that it did, on the previous test.

And here is the link to the post that reported the reception.
The poster was in Donnybrook and received the tests transmitted from Three Rock.

silverside

that is interesting

i just assumed they would use the same standard as the UK so that mass-produced boxes (i.e. cheap) would work.

Without getting too technical, is there much of a dfference between the RTE standard and the UK freeview standard?

I think yer man mentioned the technical differences in that link.
Theres more if you do a search of terrestrial from around that time,or better still just read cableskeptics posts.

But from what I can remember the two standards were incompatable as were the digiboxes.
The standard RTÉ operated for the test and the one "its TV" ( the consortium that wanted to provide dtt in ROI ) were to use involved less compression, so a better quality picture and sound albeit with less channels as a result.

silverside

thanks

I had a brief look in that link. Theres a lot of technical stuff, but basically its a variation on the European Standard, so the boxes arent dissimilar to freeview boxes, but the decoding software looks slightly different. Looks promising for the future, if they ever put on the 5 main UK channels, it could put a big hole in NTL's revenues.

lawhec

My understanding of the planned Irish DTT network is that the Republic plan to use the 8K method of carrier encoding, as opposed to 2K used in the UK. Most modern UK Freeview boxes should be capable of receiving and decoding both and therefore be compatible with these trialled transmissions from Three Rock at least in terms of receiving the respective channels. A big question mark hangs over old ITV/On Digital boxes as to their compatibility with 8K.

It would be potential suicide for the Irish Government to use a different from the norm COFDM standard as quite obviously the county is too small to have its own unique standard and cheap boxes would not be available for quite some time - certainly not 80 Euro anyway.

If Irish DTT planned to use interactive applications I understand these will not be compatible with UK DTT boxes which use a MHEG Engine. Ireland (and for that matter most of Europe) plan to use MHP.

The story concerning the possibility of ten channels being made available makes me think that they plan to use two multiplexes with five video channels on each - as originally planned, using 64QAM. The ABR of these channels should therefore be roughly about 4.75Mbps - Excellent!:D

Just for the record, Three Rock Mountain has six DTT allocations - E23 & 26 from the current analogue aerials & E41, 44, 47 and 51 from a seperate aerial system lower down the mast, all allocations with a Max ERP of 10kW directional.

silverside

so if/when these transmissions go ahead all i need to do is

borrow a freeview box to see if my reception is OK

if it is, cancel NTL and look forward to free 10-channels for the foreseeable future?

sounds great - what's the catch?

lawhec

Originally posted by silverside
so if/when these transmissions go ahead all i need to do is

borrow a freeview box to see if my reception is OK

if it is, cancel NTL and look forward to free 10-channels for the foreseeable future?

sounds great - what's the catch?

No one yet fully knows what these ten channels will be (except for the four main channels, RTE1, Network 2, TV3 & TG4)

No certainity that they will carry the BBC, ITV or Channel 4 for no cost (I would be amazed if it actually happened).

watty

I think it's 80 euro a year

The newer DTT boxes ought to actually tune in the signal. Interactive won't work.

Older boxes may not work

FOXFISH1

I'm near gormanston area, east meath, thinking of getting an aerial for outside, currently looking for tips/ideas from this site....Seems to be alot of talk about freeview......what exactly is freeview?

Mossy Monk

Freeview is digital television through an aerial

DMC

And with almost 100% certainty, I would say that it would be impossible to get in Gormanston, as its even lower down than Drogheda.

bk

silverside wrote:

if it is, cancel NTL and look forward to free 10-channels for the foreseeable future?

sounds great - what's the catch?

You aren't likely to get any of the UK channels.

My guess at the lineup would be:

RTE 1
RTE 2
TV3
TG4
Setanta
Dublin City Channel (or some national version).
RTE+ (Repeats type channel)
TV3+ (Repeats type channel)
and probably 2 other RTE made channels, maybe DenTV, a music channel or sometihng like that.

Really the line-up will likely be crap compared to Freeview in the UK and it won't cause any danger to NTL/Sky

Maybe they will get a clue and carry the UK channels encoded for a subscription charge.

Is it possible to deflect Freeeview, I'd imagine there would be great demand if you could, the channel lineup is excellent.

Pal

FOXFISH1 wrote:

what exactly is freeview?

www.freeview.co.uk

it is a load of
free digital tv channels
(and radio) from the UK

Telefís

Just out of interest does anyone care to hazard a guess as to how accurate this 100,000 figure is?!
It has sat in my head ever since this thread was started a few months back and I just can't believe it is true!

100,000 households equates to at least 300,000 people.
100,000 households equates to nearly 10 times the amount of households in Dundalk, the second largest town in the country.

As much as I'd like to believe it, simply as a fascinating fact if nothing else, it's difficult to accept. It's hard to image there's even 100,000 households scattered along the border, let alone 100,000 interested enough to jump up off their feet and get the service installed, let alone again so quickly.

And there are no major towns along the border capable of receiving Freeview either! Well Dundalk and Drogheda are both excluded anyway.

I'd love to think it is correct. Where would the article have got the data from I wonder, as presumably you don't have to 'sign up' south of the border do you?

watty

I don't believe it either. Maybe they added on the number of Chorus and NTL Digital subscribers on MMDS. Or Cable and MMDS.

I don't think that there are a huge number of Digital MMDS.

lawhec

Telef&#237 wrote: »

And there are no major towns along the border capable of receiving Freeview either! Well Dundalk and Drogheda are both excluded anyway.

I do believe that it is very possible in Cavan town, and possibly Monaghan with a good enough setup as well.

I do doubt the 100,000 figure though. Have done so for quite some time. 10,000 is a little bit more believeable.

byte

I'd love to know where that figure came from, and I too think it's a tad optomistic. When you buy a DTT box, you don't sign somethign to say you're taking it across the border into ROI, so they've no way of tracking it.

I know of a few houses in parts of SW Donegal that have gone to greater lengths to get DTT but generally the service doesn't seem that popular down here. Towns like Mountcharles and Dunkineely (and parts of Killybegs and Fintra) could get DTT from Brougher quite easily due to their height, but few seem to have the service, or care about it.

Pal

100,000 boxes in the Republic seems plausible.

a few things to bear in mind;

• There are more than 1 million homes in the Republic.
• 10% with Freeview seems reasonable.
• 29% of respondents to this poll have it
• many people have Northern Ireland boxes in holiday homes in the South East
• Freeview is received in 10 of the 26 counties
• Mullingar is a big town and gets it. Wexford and Dundalk too.
• Some real sad cases like yours truly have two boxes.

Pal

byte wrote:

few seem to have the service, or care about it.

Ambivalent in Donegal perhaps. The anecdotal evidence in my part of Wexford is the complete opposite where everybody seems to have it.

watty

It makes the Nielsen TV viewing figures seem even more implauseable. They claim 440k digital housholds!
(presumably Cable + MMDS + Sky Satellite Subscriptions, possibly little accuracy on FTV aor FTA Satellite)
1/4 of Digital viewers have DTT?????

Sponge Bob

But this thread containing the '100k UK DTT Households in the south' claim was started in APRIL 2004 Watty, while Pal may have advanced reasons that the claim _may_ be plausible today in JAN 2006 I feel the original claim is bull .

Its not even a question in the next census to be conducted april 2006 so we won't know soon

Telefís

Yes, it was the April 2004 date that did it for me - utterly implausible then, and barely credible even now. Where the heck The Irish Times of all papers got that figure from, let alone why they ran with it goodness only knows

Pal wrote:

• There are more than 1 million homes in the Republic.
• 10% with Freeview seems reasonable.
• 29% of respondents to this poll have it
• many people have Northern Ireland boxes in holiday homes in the South East
• Freeview is received in 10 of the 26 counties
• Mullingar is a big town and gets it. Wexford and Dundalk too.
• Some real sad cases like yours truly have two boxes.

I think the first three points there Pal are irrelevant - they're simply conjecture. You might as well say there's 25 million homes in the UK so I think it's reasonable to suggest 30% of them have a kitchen blender. It means nothing.
And Dundalk does not get Freeview - rather the very outer fringes a mile or so north of the town in bandit country can get it. Very few homes I'd imagine have two boxes - and especially so early in on April 2004 when Freeview was scraping it in to two years of existance.

40% of Irish households currently subscribe to digital television as of 2006 - approaching 550,000 homes which is nothing short of extraoridinary in a country without a natiional indigenous digital provider. Of that figure, Sky represent about 370,000 while NTL and Chorus hold the remainder.

The notion that there are 100,000 Freeview boxes in Ireland is only now beginning to look realistic, nearly three years later, and factoring in all Freesat boxes all over the country which in my opinion is the real driving force behind the spread of FTA in Ireland - not Freeview.

Sponge Bob

Telef&#237 wrote: »

The notion that there are 100,000 Freeview boxes in Ireland is only now beginning to look realistic, nearly three years later, and factoring in all Freesat boxes all over the country which in my opinion is the real driving force behind the spread of FTA in Ireland - not Freeview.

Very astute, its 100% Freesat around where I live with second hand Sky boxes and UK FTV cards . Once you add FTV in Sky boxes and DTT Freeviews you most certainly have over 100,000 households in the state who can pick up free UK digital TV .

meb95sc

Hi Guys
I'm moving over to Dublin on Monday from England and am wondering whether I should go and buy a freeview box here this weekend to bring with me.

I have spent some time searching the web and can't work out exactley what freeview coverage is available through a normal tv aeirel (not satellite) in the Dublin area. My search led me to this forum and you are obviously quite knowledgable people

I'm not bothered if the coverage is official or not yet just want to know what channels i can pick up and what spec I should look for in the digibox that i buy here in the UK to make sure its compatible.

I'm going to be on the third floor so theres a good chance of picking up a weak signal.

Steve

doh.ie

meb95sc wrote:

Hi Guys
I'm moving over to Dublin on Monday from England and am wondering whether I should go and buy a freeview box here this weekend to bring with me.

I have spent some time searching the web and can't work out exactley what freeview coverage is available through a normal tv aeirel (not satellite) in the Dublin area. My search led me to this forum and you are obviously quite knowledgable people

I'm not bothered if the coverage is official or not yet just want to know what channels i can pick up and what spec I should look for in the digibox that i buy here in the UK to make sure its compatible.

I'm going to be on the third floor so theres a good chance of picking up a weak signal.

Steve

Without a decent, well-boosted aerial (rooftop), I'd say your chances of picking up Freeview is quite limited. You'd have a chance of getting the UK terrestrials on analogue, but the signal would hardly be good enough for digitial unless you had excellent line of sight to Wales. If you're not in a village/town along the east coast and are living further inland, chances reduce even further. You'd be better off with Freesat which wouldn't cost much more (you'd get that even on a minidish sitting indoors on a windowsill, though obviously you need to face south) and failing that Dublin is well cabled by NTL (though you'd have to pay for that). But avoid Chorus like the plague.

L1011

With the kind of antenna setup that houses were being sold with here in the 1980s - 30 foot pole, two huge UHF antennas diplexed - using modern kit you can get the BBC multiplexes here in Maynooth (from NI) but I wouldn't be so sure about getting the private ones - the one person I know who got the 1 and B was unable to get 2, A, C and D.

Pal

meb95sc wrote:

Hi Guys
I'm moving over to Dublin on Monday from England and am wondering whether I should go and buy a freeview box here this weekend to bring with me.

No. It will not work in Dublin.

lawhec

Forget about Freeview DTT, at least from N.Ireland, in Dublin. Co-channel interference issues put paid to any possibility except for maybe one or two multiplexes unless some very elaborate multi-aerial setups are involved with no certainty of success still.

meb95sc

Northern Correspondent wrote:

Forget about Freeview DTT, at least from N.Ireland, in Dublin. Co-channel interference issues put paid to any possibility except for maybe one or two multiplexes unless some very elaborate multi-aerial setups are involved with no certainty of success still.

OK guys thanks for all of the above help and the very speedy response!:) It's a shame - Freeview in the UK is great as a virtually zero cost alternative to subscription services. NTL or FreeSat is is then!