Freesat in Ireland?

jamieh

Hi all,

Will it be possible for us to get Freesat when it launches in the UK?

I have a Sky HD box at the moment, will I be able to add ITV HD and C4HD manually?

syboit

From reading other threads/forums I believe the answer is yes that we will be able to pick up freesat here, using same dish as for sky. But not 100% sure wether or not you'll be able to manually tune in the channels using sky boxes.

TheDriver

Freesat will require a freesat compatible box. There will be no new channels that you can't get on sky and its a competitor to sky in that it will have its own epg. Youcan use it no problem here by getting a box and hooking it up to the cable that currently goes into the back of your $kybox.

biologikal

Sounds like the Freesat box will be useless if you want to look at satellites other than 28.2E; is this the case?

Is there any plan to transmit any additional EPG info (other than now and next, if even?) with each channel (like some French/German channels do), or will it be an affair like with the Digiboxes, where the box needs to be on constantly to keep the EPG up-to-date?

syboit

TheDriver wrote: »

Freesat will require a freesat compatible box. There will be no new channels that you can't get on sky and its a competitor to sky in that it will have its own epg. Youcan use it no problem here by getting a box and hooking it up to the cable that currently goes into the back of your $kybox.

I've also seen some-one mention you can also get the channels via a sat card (dvb-s/dvb-s2) via your pc, though you might not get their EPG.

Sounds like the Freesat box will be useless if you want to look at satellites other than 28.2E; is this the case?

Yes, this box will work just like a skybox. tied into 28.2e and its own epg.

ShaneOC

TheDriver wrote: »

Freesat will require a freesat compatible box. There will be no new channels that you can't get on sky and its a competitor to sky in that it will have its own epg. Youcan use it no problem here by getting a box and hooking it up to the cable that currently goes into the back of your $kybox.

Not 100% accurate as you may not be able to get Channel 4 HD with an Irish Sky HD box. At the moment they are transmitting with a symbol rate of 29500 which is fine if it's on your card but it cannot be added to the other channels.

watty

TheDriver wrote: »

Freesat will require a freesat compatible box. There will be no new channels that you can't get on sky and its a competitor to sky in that it will have its own epg. Youcan use it no problem here by getting a box and hooking it up to the cable that currently goes into the back of your $kybox.

Only for the auto tuning and full program guide and Interactive.

To watch the channels ANY satellite receiver will do.
To watch any HD channels there may be, an HDTV and any HD satellite receiver.

Freesat is simply duplication of the Sky EPG and Interactive without a Sky Digibox. It makes no difference to the actual channels.

It's not a separate Broadcast platform as such, just some extra data streams on the existing Satellites / channels for a new custom Firmware receiver.

Depending on licence, it's not impossible for some or all to be implemented on a non-Freeview branded receiver.

Sky uses "Open TV" (proprietary) for extended EPG and Interactive, from Thomson. You can't get a licence to add the version Sky uses. You can buy an "open TV" licence for the Sat box you make and transmit it on Satellite, just like there is non-Sky version of NDS Videoguard. Neither VideoGuard or OpenTV licensed to other Makers/Operators will of course work with Sky UK or Sky Italia.

Onikage

watty wrote: »

Sky uses "Open TV" (proprietary) for extended EPG and Interactive, from Thomson. You can't get a licence to add the version Sky uses. You can buy an "open TV" licence for the Sat box you make and transmit it on Satellite, just like there is non-Sky version of NDS Videoguard. Neither VideoGuard or OpenTV licensed to other Makers/Operators will of course work with Sky UK or Sky Italia.

Do you have any information on whether Freesat will license epg slots in the same way as Sky? The story of http://www.rapturetv.com/ comes to mind.

watty

No it will not be the same as Sky. Sky charge MILLIONS for something that cost nearly nothing. Freesat will likely be charging a reasonable commercial fee, at the most

But only available for Free To Air channels.

Onikage

I see here that the intial price is quoted as £30,000 http://www.astra2d.com/freesat.htm before November 2007. No details for after that.

As I recall, rapture got into a spat with sky over a price of £79,000 and that was with a fairly obscure epg number (19x)

Interesting to see if this shakes things up!

Dman001

So we can watch free HD content? Sweet.

disley

I see new Sony TV have Digital tuners.Will they work with Freesat ?

byte

disley wrote: »

I see new Sony TV have Digital tuners.Will they work with Freesat ?

No, the integrated tuners are digital terrestrial tuners, no good for satellite.

watty

Dman001 wrote: »

So we can watch free HD content? Sweet.

You can do that today.

You need a Decent HD TV and any HD Satellite reciever

Dman001

And how much does a receiver cost? This way seems an easier set up.

syboit

Dman001 wrote: »

And how much does a receiver cost? This way seems an easier set up.

I think there was a system from maplin advertised recently for aroun 200ish yoyo, couldnt be 100% on that though.

Also, as fas as I know BBC-HD and LuxHD are the only 2 freesat HD channels coming from the astra cluster. Would have to look at the other sats to see what freehd content is on those.

disley

Panasonic are fitting Freesat tuners to their TV sets. I am sure it wont be
long before DVD recorders have dual tuners as well.

scath

Has anyone opened a thread on Freesat here? I know there's one on digitalspy.co.uk

Anyhow, appears Disapora TV is planned to have no advertising! On the face of it sounds nice, but what does it mean? It means the TV license cake getting smaller! I've emailed the minister to consider changing that. What is needed is an advertiser funded service where all Island of Ireland broadcaster put their irish content and get the ad break revenue sold by one company. This also applies to a potential Ireland Kidz channel. RTE 2-Cula 4 is ready made and only needs a rebrand. Seems the way to go before the DTT brings in Nickleodean, Paramount Kids etc..

RTE have shown in recent times their willingnewss to enter partnerships. Without ad breaks why would TV3 bother putting on Ireland AM, Sports Tonight, TV3 News. No incentive. As stakeholders along with RTE and TV3 they would have and no EC state aid issues with a public-commercial Ireland One brand.

Also as in future this channel would be available in the USA and Australian markets such a channel would with localised advertising would provide Irish broadcasters including UTV and BBC NI with monetisation opportunities, exactly needed as they face an increasingly competitive DTT era.

Public service on Freesat without ads doesn't make sense on Freesat. Total opposite of BBC UK foreign approach. Also it robs Irish diaspora of plurality and TV3 of opportunities for monetisation.

Imagine 4 news on Ireland One, twould be comprehensive. And RTE and TG4 as contributing the most content and majority stakeholders would get the most revenue. City Channel, TV3, UTV and BBC NI would gain monetisation and presence with the Irish diaspora. sound like a win win to me. Now, all that's needed is a change of gov policy.

Also take Freeview Ni and Top Up TV Ni into Irish DTT and rollout DVB-T2 and MPEG 4 across the whole island (NI=upgrade). Economics= 6 million combo DTT box strategy and network upgrade instead of 2 seperate upgrades! Spectrum management simplification!

Also begs question of BBC NI into RTE with more spectrum for TV3 and UTV channels with change to Island of Ireland rights seperate from new mainland UK rights.

This may require move to new thread for Freesat for Ireland.

watty

There are DVD/HDD recorders with Dual DTT & DVB-S2 tuners (4 tuners total)