RTE - FTV Card

Niall1234

Anyone know if there's a possibility of RTE in conjunction with TV3 and TG4 doing an FTV card for Sky Digiboxes to receive the channels for free in Ireland ?

Would there be anything for RTE to lose if they were to do this ?

stanley1

already free to view via aerial.

Elmo

already free to view via aerial.

Surely a better reception with the use of an FTV card?

Tony

RTE are contracted to sky so no chance of a FTV card

steveon

It's a shame there isn't an FTV card available to people for the Irish Based channels on Satellite as it would give consumers a better choice and I think personally depending on where you live one small dish is much tidier that two Aerials..and perhaps cheaper in the long run.

Mossy Monk

stanley1 wrote:

already free to view via aerial.

And what if terrestrial reception is non existant? Your reply is worthless to this thread.

Niall1234

stanley1 wrote:

already free to view via aerial.

You think an analogue feed is good enough, especially considering analogue is going to be switched off within a few years ?

Lennoxschips

Current RTE/Sky contract runs out in 2008 (I think) so there'll be no change till then at least.

Sponge Bob

The ongoing issue of SKY not paying Irish Vat also arises.

Were SKY to show some goodwill on a special FTV card to be made available to those with an up to date TV licence and flagged out of the TV Licence database then I could forego the VAT for the greater good .

Of course there should be an Irish FTV card by now. TV3 is only available over about 70% of the state by area (max) while analogue pictures in many areas are crap and are worsening as the deflectors are abandoned and windfarms are complicating things . No new analouge relays have been built in this decase, unsurprisingly.

That muppet Dempsey totally skirted the issue in his broadcasting bill , predicably .

stanley1

what about DTT, will it not be available shortly?

Mossy Monk

stanley1 wrote:

what about DTT, will it not be available shortly?

I wouldn't say shortly.

BrianD

If we were to provide an FTV card for Sky Box owners would we not be obliged provide reciprocal arrangements for MMDS and cable customers? After all, all you are doing is paying Sky to convey RTE's content to your home as a service - just like the non-satellite platforms do.

I doubt if there will be any FTV cards on the agenda until Sky get regulated here. The fact that they are now an employer in Cork suggests that they might be making moves towards being part of the Irish market (as opposed to just beaming in from the UK). Providing jobs also influences politicians as well.

Best option is for the powers that beto get the finger out and get a proper DTT system in place.

L1011

Cable and MMDS aren't delivery platforms - they're closed networks. Satellite is a delivery platform. This is a major, major difference.

watty

BrianD wrote:

If we were to provide an FTV card for Sky Box owners would we not be obliged provide reciprocal arrangements for MMDS and cable customers? After all, all you are doing is paying Sky to convey RTE's content to your home as a service - just like the non-satellite platforms do.

No not at all.

BrianD

MYOB wrote:

Cable and MMDS aren't delivery platforms - they're closed networks. Satellite is a delivery platform. This is a major, major difference.

I beg to differ. If CATV/MMDS is not a delivery platform then what are they?? Only difference is the technology and that satellite can be an open system. However, from a consumer point of view there is no difference as they provide the same type of service - the delivery of multi-channel AV content to your home. In some places you have a choice of delivery platform in others none. I don't think that creating a FTV card for lapsed Sky Digital subscribers would be good for competition and I suspect that that the other players would rally against it.

L1011

Cable and MMDS are subscription television platforms - you must pay for the equipment owner to install hardware on your premises.

Satellite and terrestrial are delivery platforms - you can install equipment to receive signals yourself (legally, unlike MMDS). Therein lies the difference. RTE would have no responsibilities to those who choose to pay a cable/MMDS provider for signals if they provided an FTV card for those who use a satellite delivery platform. None whatsover.

You also fail to realise that the majority of people who wish to use satellite to receive RTE are not "lapsed Sky Digital subscribers", as once again its a delivery platform NOT a subscription television platform. The majority of people who wish to receive RTE by satellite live in areas which are failed, woefully, by RTE coverage-wise.

watty

Don't verge on Trolling BrainD
A FTV card scheme doesn't even have to involve sky. It can work in non-Sky boxes only or in Sky and non-Sky boxes or in Sky Boxes only.

Sky don't own the boxes, don't own the satellites and in many cases don't even rent the transponders. Sky sell a service that uses a very good delivery platform.

Anyone can connect to Satellite. You can subscribe to services other than Sky or only free channels.

Anyone can start a new pay service or FTV or free service on Satellite tomorrow, even on same Dish location as Sky uses.

The MMDS & Cable is entirely owned and run by the operator. No-one else can offer a service on it. Anyone wanting to offer the equivalent of MMDS would have to find a new licence & Spectrum (unlikely) and anyone wanting to do cable would have to lay new cables (Magnet & Smart via fibre in new developments only).

If BrainD insists on trying to confuse people he'll get banned.

Irish licences for Satellite ONLY required for uplink of program content. The 5 Irish channels have this already.

Sky of course "pinched" a orbital slot intended for Central Europe, so it is hard for anyone to offer a rival service on the orbital slots intended for UK & Ireland. SES-Astra had to pay a lot of compensation to Eutelsat.
As to if Sky had to contribute, I don't know.

Anyway essentially at the minute there is no real Irish Satellite service. Only A UK one marketed to Ireland with s special deal between the UK based BSkyB and RTE /TV3/TG4 to provide the Irish channels in Ireland as part of a subscription and with RTE/TG4 to provide them in NI as part of Pay TV.

Foolishly IMO, RTE did not demand payment. RTE are proud of fact they don't pay except for their own upload, they fail to notice the finacial advantage to Sky and the fact that Sky pays BBC to carry EPG to Irish Pay subscribers (which ironically BBC pay Sky for for UK). Since BBC is actually available here without a subscription now, this may seem a little wierd.

BrianD

MYOB wrote:

Cable and MMDS are subscription television platforms - you must pay for the equipment owner to install hardware on your premises.

Satellite and terrestrial are delivery platforms - you can install equipment to receive signals yourself (legally, unlike MMDS). Therein lies the difference. RTE would have no responsibilities to those who choose to pay a cable/MMDS provider for signals if they provided an FTV card for those who use a satellite delivery platform. None whatsover.

With all due respects - Sky Digital is a delivery platform as is NTL Digital etc. The only difference is the technology and, yes, NTL Digital does have exclusive use of cable where as in theory there could be a number of Sky Digital type services available satellite,. For the average consumer Sky Digital=NTL Digital=Chorus whatever, each with its pros and cons some of which are dictated by the delivery method employed satellite v cable v mmds. In my all posts I am not referring to satellite or cable specifically by rather the platform provider that sits on it that Joe Bloggs pays to receive his multichannel telly.

You also fail to realise that the majority of people who wish to use satellite to receive RTE are not "lapsed Sky Digital subscribers", as once again its a delivery platform NOT a subscription television platform. The majority of people who wish to receive RTE by satellite live in areas which are failed, woefully, by RTE coverage-wise.

If you have read the thread you will have noticed that the original poster specifically asked about the possibility "... doing an FTV card for Sky Digiboxes to receive the channels for free in Ireland". It would not be reasonable to assume that this person is either a lapsed Sky Digital subscriber or one who does not have a current subscription for whatever reason. So I'm not failing to realise anything, thank you very much. Whether Irish TV should be generally available via satellite is not being discussed. The only viable way at the moment of providing a FTV system in this market is via a Skybox unless the Irish channels want to create their own FTV platform.

If RTE were to provide FTV access with a card to Sky Digital then other platforms could say its anti-competitive. The fact that you have Sky technology even without a paid subscription means that you are a user that could be enticed to upgrade to other subscription packages which would put other platforms at a disadvantage. RTE et al, RTE specifically, would need to be able to provide FTV external to a commercial platform and I can't see this happening in Ireland. The fact of the matter is that in many areas there is an opportunity to chose between alternative TV platforms - you may not have cable tv in your home but it 'passes by' your home therefore it is a choice.

Watty - Don't accuse me of trolling - I'm not. I am simply debating the issue.

L1011

Did I say "Sky Digital" wasn't a pay platform? No. Sky does not equal satellite, as you should well know. However, in the past you've had an amazing ability to have sacks of mud to throw in the waters around this issue.

An FTV system doesn't need to have any connection to the dominant pay-TV provider in a state - RTE could well provide one using an alternate encryption system, or indeed use NDS UK and sell cards that coincidentally would work in Sky boxes; and if it was anti-competitive under European law, it would have long since been dealt with in the UK (where they've existed since 1998) and Holland (1999). Or Austria, where the most common equipment used for an ORF card in a Premiere box.

Elmo

IMO Sky and UPC and other television providers should provide a number of channels for free and if you want extra channels you buy a card from sky or UPC.

BrianD

BrianD wrote:

If RTE were to provide FTV access with a card to Sky Digital then other platforms could say its anti-competitive. The fact that you have Sky technology even without a paid subscription means that you are a user that could be enticed to upgrade to other subscription packages which would put other platforms at a disadvantage.

Bull
The only reason NTL or chorus don't have a satelite delivery system up is because they don't have the money to invest in it.
There is abosolutely zero argument in that case for anti competiveness.
They could go to the market and look for the money to put up a satelite tv delivery platform similar to sky's if they wanted to.
Theres absolutely nothing stoping them-ergo theres no anti competition argument there.

Watty - Don't accuse me of trolling - I'm not. I am simply debating the issue.

heh good one...

byte

This crap has gone on long enough.

BrianD banned for trolling.

Sponge Bob

An FTV system doesn't need to have any connection to the dominant pay-TV provider in a state - RTE could well provide one using an alternate encryption system, or indeed use NDS UK and sell cards that coincidentally would work in Sky boxes;

I take your point it need not be any Sky encryption scheme but as the boxes are out there already and as the Irish channels are already up there wrapped in sky NDS Videoguard crypto on astra 2 it sort of makes sense to look at the sky / astra2 / videoguard route .

frankly the Irish terrestrial analogue network is so woeful that its cheaper and more economic to use a satellite delivery in much (possibly most) of the state, naturally TV3 should help fund this scheme too as these areas frequently have no TV3 .

the rest of the state should get DTT .

L1011

Yes, obviously piggybacking Sky would be the most cost-effective way for consumers, and likely RTE/TV3/TG4 (as its now seperate) also. I was just stating that its possible for them to operate an FTV service entirely seperately, should they so wish.

Sponge Bob

MYOB wrote:

I was just stating that its possible for them to operate an FTV service entirely seperately, should they so wish.

You could run a sort of French TV5 content aggregation and make it FTV if you combined RTE and TG4 programming, TV3 does not make any programs one could deliberately overspill on the rest of Europe without making the whole of Ireland look completely stupid . Maybe ask BBCNI and UTV to contribute their own local programming to provide a 32 county FTV channel . A bit of Irish shopping and you have 24 hours of programming .

Imported US shows and Sport programming that has been sold to Setanta will not go out FTV in my opinion .

watty

Elmo wrote:

IMO Sky and UPC and other television providers should provide a number of channels for free and if you want extra channels you buy a card from sky or UPC.

no.
MMDS/Cable the Infrastructure costs entirely out of UPC's (or caseyvisions pocket) They should not have to offer any free connection. However all the main Irish channels must be available, and available on any package. Which they are.


Satellite is nothing to do with Sky. There are plenty of good free channels that work without a Sky card. Sky provides additional pay TV. You have been reading to much of BrainD's muddy waffle.