ITV-HD transmission method = RTÉ FTA on sat?

Zaphod

Just ruminating on the current method of transmitting ITV-HD. Hiding the PIDS and transmission as a data channel (?) means that, for the most part, only Freesat boxes can receive it. This could be very useful for RTÉ.

RTÉ1,2 and TG4 could be transmitted in a similar fashion, and their reception (or placement on the EPG) restricted to a special ROI postcode. Similarly, anyone with an NI postcode would be able to view the channels. Zero encryption costs and a neat way around rights issues.

Now, anyone in the UK could still punch in the same ROI postcode, but probably most wouldn't as they would miss out regionalised versions of the UK channels. But for the expats, it would still be an option.

Surely if the BBC/C4/ITV can argue the legal fiction that by transmitting from Astra 2D limits their footprint to Britain and Ireland, and that satisfies copyright holders, the above method would be sufficient for RTÉ?

Tony

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=55826194#post55826194

Zaphod

Great minds think alike and fools seldom differ.

Tony

Foolish perhaps to think that RTE might grab this opportunity?

BHG

Is Freesat EPG/settings going to do wonky nono existent irish post codes. Are RTE paying for encryption anyway? or is it gifted to them in a deal? are they unhappy with Sky deal?. I know sky are happy. €1/2bn happy. It is interesting to read the only negative comment about diaspora TV to come from journalists that work for new.sinternational owed titles. RTE on Sky is a 2 way deal. Think who has left Sky's grip ITV1234 BBC1234 CH4 E4 More4 Film4 not forgetting Fashion TV! all still get EPG listing (some pay for it, others get must carry obligation)

re the legal fiction of the footprint & rights, same rights, same footprint, TV without frontiers directive on its way under a new name, and all because our spill over in UK is larger than the UK spill into us, our neighbours country's size gives us a problem (as I see it). Someone should challenge this inequity in European court of justice.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights 10.12.1948
Article 21 (2): “Everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country”

Article 19:
“Everyone has the right to freedom … to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

mandj@48m

RTE currently do very well with First Runs on imported US shows.

That would all change if RTE went FTA.

Don't get me wrong, I would love if RTE were FTA and wouldn't mind if RTE had to get in line and transmit episodes after the UK channels but I can't see RTE or their advertisers being happy about this.

Tony

I think you are missing Zaphods point here

mandj@48m

As far as I understand, ITV-HD intend to broadcast in a way that only a freesat receiver can interpret it.

As Freesat boxes can be easily setup to any location, the program maker and the UK broadcaster would claim that the freesat restriction is only a token one.

All you need is to buy a receiver the next time you are in the UK or in the north. Bring it home and set it up with a Belfast post code and Rupert is your long forgotten uncle that no-one likes to talk about anymore.

The program makers are prepared to accept this in the case of a UK channel overspilling to Ireland because of the difference in the sizes of the two markets.

They have already been paid to show it to 60 million what's another 4.5 mill between friends. (BBC and ITV have been FTA for several years and the sky didn't fall down, no pun intended.)

The question is would RTE go down the same path and make itself FTA for Freesat boxes

An Irish channel overspilling to the UK is a very different prospect.
RTE would have to pay a lot more to transmit ahead of the UK, as all a UK viewer would need to do to see their favorite episode early would be to reset the location setting on their Freesat.

The UK Broadcaster would be very unhappy with this.

This could be overcome if RTE transmitted after the UK broadcaster but RTE would be unwilling to do this as it would devalue their offering to their advertisers

So the only people who would want it to happen would be the viewers. The program owners and the TV companies on both sides of the Irish sea would be against it. Who do you think will win?

As I say, I would be delighted if it happens, I just think it is unlikely.

Tony

mandj@48m wrote: »

The question is would RTE go down the same path and make itself FTA for Freesat boxes

Of course not RTE cannot go fully free to air, what Zaphod is saying (and I on another thread) is that the technology that ITV HD are using could possibly by used by RTE to satisfy rights holders.

mandj@48m

Sorry Tony, I confused things using the term FTA.

mandj@48m wrote: »

The question is would RTE go down the same path and make itself FTA for Freesat boxes.

What I meant was Free for Freesat Receivers only (technically a type of FTV, i suppose) which is what the ITV-HD looks likely to be.

My point is that without a card or a phoneline a freesat box is not linked to any fixed location and so as long as you can buy a Freesat box you would be able to view any channels that were received by it.

This would be a problem for the broadcasters and program owners.

Tony

No problem. What if a box were to be programmed specifically for Ireland, this does not necessarily have to be a free sat box. The Ferguson boxes I sell are pre programmed specifically for the Irish market. What we are after here is something that satisfies the rights holders, advertisers and broadcasters don't even enter into the equation. Bear in mind Freesat boxes will find their way into Europe so "localising" a box is dependent on the customer entering their location via postcode or other means.

mandj@48m wrote: »

Sorry Tony, I confused things using the term FTA.



What I meant was Free for Freesat Receivers only (technically a type of FTV, i suppose) which is what the ITV-HD looks likely to be.

My point is that without a card or a phoneline a freesat box is not linked to any fixed location and so as long as you can buy a Freesat box you would be able to view any channels that were received by it.

This would be a problem for the broadcasters and program owners.

biologikal

mandj@48m wrote: »

An Irish channel overspilling to the UK is a very different prospect.
RTE would have to pay a lot more to transmit ahead of the UK, as all a UK viewer would need to do to see their favorite episode early would be to reset the location setting on their Freesat.

The UK Broadcaster would be very unhappy with this.

This could be overcome if RTE transmitted after the UK broadcaster but RTE would be unwilling to do this as it would devalue their offering to their advertisers

So the only people who would want it to happen would be the viewers. The program owners and the TV companies on both sides of the Irish sea would be against it. Who do you think will win?

As I say, I would be delighted if it happens, I just think it is unlikely.

Very unlikely, I think too. Is it possible that if there were an option to enable RTE/TG4 due to localisation with a STB, that some of the English channels would then be blocked from us from watching?

To be honest, I'd prefer to see RTE spending more money on good home-grown programming, and less on stuff like football, which is usually on another channel anyway, or soaps like Eastenders. How much do RTE spend on Eastenders anyway? I know there is the argument that not everyone lives near a Northern transmitter, or has access to the FTA stuff on satellite, but the flipside is, does being able to watch this cr@p really enrich anyones lives? If you want to watch a soap with a bit of everything, watch Ros na Run!

Would it be unfeasable for RTE to shove a lot of stuff on one channel that wouldn't be under rights issues and leave unencrypted (RTE 1 is essentially like this already), and have imported serials, football, etc on another channel, and have it scrambled, or even if a particular program didn't have rights issues, to temporary unscramble the channel. The Slovene channels on 13E are like this, often a football match is scrambled (usually on SLO-2), whereas SLO-1 is always in the clear. The Croatian channels do something similar.

Of course, RTE probably has the legs wide open for Sky at the moment, so speculation is probably a waste of time.

watty

I don't think so.

It's security by obscurity and no time at all before peoples release patchs for various boxes to show such content.

Zaphod. Are you just thinking out loud, trolling or forget the dried frog pills today?

dc69

watty wrote: »

I don't think so.

It's security by obscurity and no time at all before peoples release patchs for various boxes to show such content.

Zaphod. Are you just thinking out loud, trolling or forget the dried frog pills today?

In the next couple of days,every HD reciever capable of being patched will have ITV-HD.There method is purely to stop sky customers getting it,they realise other reciever will pick it up and be able to decode it in time.

Tony

What are you basing this on?

dc69 wrote: »

In the next couple of days,every HD reciever capable of being patched will have ITV-HD.

byte

I guess it is very possible that this would happen. Dunno if all HD boxes will get patches, but most likely the more popular brands and models, like Technomate, etc.

As it stands though ITV HD is only to be a part-time interactive "channel" from what I've read. Presumably it'll be a case of if a programme on ITV is also in HD, then you'd be prompted to press Red, for example, to see it in HD.

watty

dc69 wrote: »

In the next couple of days,every HD reciever capable of being patched will have ITV-HD.There method is purely to stop sky customers getting it,they realise other reciever will pick it up and be able to decode it in time.

I think an exaduration

Maybe over the next month some will add it.

(spellink is not my strong point)

Zaphod

mandj@48m wrote: »

My point is that without a card or a phoneline a freesat box is not linked to any fixed location and so as long as you can buy a Freesat box you would be able to view any channels that were received by it.

This would be a problem for the broadcasters and program owners.

Then why aren't the programme owners complaining about the current situation? BBC, ITV and now C4 all transmit FTA from Astra 2D. And it not just 'overspill' into Ireland, but into vast swathes of western Europe. Yet it's OK because the lawyers can argue the official footprint covers UK and Ireland only.

In the recent past C5 were soft-encrypted in analogue. Once you had a videocrypt decoder (no card!), you could watch the channel. Again it was sufficient for the copyright holders.

biologikal wrote: »

Very unlikely, I think too. Is it possible that if there were an option to enable RTE/TG4 due to localisation with a STB, that some of the English channels would then be blocked from us from watching?

Perversely, that might make the whole idea more attractive to copyright holders and RTÉ as it would be less attractive for the average Briton to opt for the Irish EPG on installation.

biologikal wrote: »

I know there is the argument that not everyone lives near a Northern transmitter, or has access to the FTA stuff on satellite, but the flipside is, does being able to watch this cr@p really enrich anyones lives?

Leaving aside the argument about spending more on home-produced stuff, I happen to know of quite a few people who have don't even have the option of viewing that foreign cr@p unless they subscribe to Sky because the analogue terrestrial signal is non-existent. And it'll get worse with DTT.

watty wrote: »

It's security by obscurity and no time at all before peoples release patchs for various boxes to show such content.

You'd be surprised how well security by obscurity works. How many of the 500,000+ Irish Sky subscribers, outside of the regulars on this forum, do you reckon know anything about watching BBC Four via Add Channels?

dc69 wrote: »

In the next couple of days,every HD reciever capable of being patched will have ITV-HD.There method is purely to stop sky customers getting it,they realise other reciever will pick it up and be able to decode it in time.

It has nothing to do with Sky customers. If they only wanted to prevent Sky customers from viewing it, all they'd have to do is use a symbol rate which a digibox can't handle. The reason they have adopted this approach has to do with copyright. The ITV-HD transponder has a pan-European footprint as space on 2D is at a premium. So they are using a non-standard transmission format to restrict viewing to holders of Freesat boxes.

No doubt some manufactuers will come up with patches, but this will only still represent a small percentage of total viewers. It would also have the same implications for ITV as it would have for RTÉ.

BTW Freesat can easily frustrate owners of patched receivers by regularly changing the hidden PIDs similar to what Imparja do in Australia. A Freesat box will manage to reidentify the PIDs from the EPG stream on Eurobird, but a patched receiver won't.

Tony wrote: »

Foolish perhaps to think that RTE might grab this opportunity?

I reckon that's the biggest hurdle. Going by what they said in the Dáil committee, their whole focus seems to be on DTT. Yet DTT will actually increase the need for a FTA service on satellite.

Mr. Cathal Goan: At present, RTE1 and RTE2 are available to 98.5% of the population...The legislation guarantees similar coverage for TG4. In analogue, the channel has a slightly narrower coverage than RTE, at 95%.

Contrast that with the DTT proposals:

Boxer will invest in excess of €115 in world-class broadcast network and multiplexing services capable of achieving 92% population coverage by analogue switch-off in 2012.

At the time of analogue switch off in Ireland, the EasyTV footprint would cover 93% of the population of Ireland.

OneVision will offer 90% coverage at analogue switch-off, and plans to push to 93% post ASO.

Any if anyone believes those targets will actually be reached, then I'm the Sultan of Brunei.

watty

Good arguments.

Existing terrestrial coverage by RTE is a scandal. Not what they claim. TV3 is less than 80%.

My information is that RTENL has no plans at all to have DTT coverage past 80%. Without 100s of new transmitters (not relays). DTT coverage for anyone will nver be past 80%.

Yet RTENL insists on Terrestiral digital feeds for all the existing analogue/DTT, rather than Satellite (which would ease building of extra low power transmitters to get 99% coverage).

Either we have a plan for 99%++ coverage or RTE & Goverment start thinking about a 12 year overdue Irish Satellite Platform.

Israel (smaller country) is launching their 4th shortly. (The US money has to be spent on US weapons, so don't tell me it is US financed).

Zaphod

watty wrote: »

Existing terrestrial coverage by RTE is a scandal. Not what they claim. TV3 is less than 80%.

Goan's 98.5% did look a bit too good to be true.

One other advantage of the Freesat route is that RTÉ could uplink the 3 channels as MPEG4 SD over DVB-S2 and keep bandwith costs to a bare minimum.