DTT Mt Leinster, Ch45 blocking Presely in the South East

mrdtv2010

Deleted User wrote: »

It's time it stopped.
You and I are paying for it to at best satisfy the curiosity of a few RTENL engineers if thats the reason for the test.
I suspect that jamming is the real reason.


They might as well be pointing the tx to the moon and applying for a research grant to test reception in weightless conditions :rolleyes:

I do find it extraordinary that this bleeding of red ink on balance sheets continues because:

a) its crystal clear, as it was years ago, that Irish commercial DTT is DOA.

b) the BCI could have learnt from the UK experience with DTT eight years ago. To paraphrase Bill Clinton: 'Its the economy stupid, it has to be free'.

c) The fannying about with different technical standards from the UK in the past twelve years has cost Ireland dear: they could have had a DTT service in 2000. Now the UK is changing standards; you can get a Sony Freeview 32 inch HD DVB-T2 TV from Tesco for £549 this month, as advertised in the UK Times on Saturday. Its all about economics. And today its all about Tesco economics.

d) The addressable Irish DTT market has shrunk to 200,000 homes MAX.

e) Sky have capitalised beautifully on their satellite RTE distribution monopoly.

f) Freesat is the perfect multichannel free digital system outside UPC areas.

g) The extended Mount Leinster tests on multiple channels are a King Canute like response to the overspill tide: they are incurring operating costs on a system which will now never be built in Ireland. It is time to pull the plug on this waste of RTE licence fee payers money.

h) RTE is very poorly positioned now to offer even a basic FTA DTT offer. Who is going to underwrite software development, marketing costs, staffing costs. operating costs and maintenance costs? The market is FAR FAR TOO SMALL for a standalone offer which derisks the platform. That is why RTE don't do anything.

Prediction: More talk and more inaction. Comme d'habitude...

CORRECTION on Freeview HD prices: Sony 32 inch KDL32EX403HD, Freeview HD, £499. With trade in of old TV is now £399. Page 18, full page add in Saturday's UK Times.

Sponge Bob

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

.Its all about economics. And today its all about Tesco economics.

CORRECTION on Freeview HD prices: Sony 32 inch KDL32EX403HD, Freeview HD, £499. With trade in of old TV is now £399. Page 18, full page add in Saturday's UK Times.

Or buy online

http://direct.tesco.com/product/default.aspx?R=208-1669

I can confirm Tesco are aware that the firmware in any 'cheap' Freeview HD box should be compatible with Saorview. Watch out for them around the £99/€99 mark at christmas.

STB

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

c) The fannying about with different technical standards from the UK in the past twelve years has cost Ireland dear: they could have had a DTT service in 2000. Now the UK is changing standards; you can get a Sony Freeview 32 inch HD DVB-T2 TV from Tesco for £549 this month, as advertised in the UK Times on Saturday. Its all about economics. And today its all about Tesco economics.

The UK have and do continue to fanny about with DVB-T standards. MPEG4 on DVB-T2 for a handful of HD stations and MPEG2 on DVB-T for all the SD stations in parallel for the forseeable future! Such confusion for the poor UK consumer!

However that has little or no interest to little old Ireland as we have adopted the standard that the rest of Europe have in Mpeg4 on DVB-T.

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

h) RTE is very poorly positioned now to offer even a basic FTA DTT offer. Who is going to underwrite software development, marketing costs, staffing costs. operating costs and maintenance costs? The market is FAR FAR TOO SMALL for a standalone offer which derisks the platform. That is why RTE don't do anything.

DTT is a given. The majority of the infrastructure is in place.

ASO is also a given.

Oh if only RTE had the licence fee income that the BBC collect from its 20 times population.

We Paddys, we can never seem to get it right, Can We.

Tír gan T2, tír gan anam

EDIT: By the way the LG 32 LF7700 will do the same for Irish DVB-T standards and has a Freesat HD tuner too for £350 (more importantly its actually reported as working here).

mrdtv2010

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

CORRECTION on Freeview HD prices: Sony 32 inch KDL32EX403HD, Freeview HD, £499. With trade in of old TV is now £399. Page 18, full page add in Saturday's UK Times.

Which retailer is doing that?
I need a new kitchen tv to replace the old 33" crt.

T'will be interesting to see if it handles mpeg 4 RTENL but I'm not worried as the house is piped with sky at any rate and obviously we have analogue untill 2012 at least and we will have the UK channels off the aerial.

The presely dtt is brilliant for the bed and breakfast guest rooms.
Thats what I use it mainly for.
Small wall hanging flat panel 22" tv's in each of the rooms with digital BBC1,2,3,4,ITV1,2,Ch4,5,More4 and BBC news aswell as RTE1 and 2,TG4 and from the fall TV3 aswell.

Thats 15 channels in perfect digital quality off an aerial with no dish and for free.

Who in this area would be mad enough to pay for those channels?

Of course it will be nice to get the commercial channels back aswell like film four,Dave,Fiver,Five USA [a great channel!] and E4.
I mean how long is a test a test?

mrdtv2010

Deleted User wrote: »

Which retailer is doing that?
I need a new kitchen tv to replace the old 33" crt.

T'will be interesting to see if it handles mpeg 4 RTENL but I'm not worried as the house is piped with sky at any rate and obviously we have analogue untill 2012 at least and we will have the UK channels off the aerial.

The presely dtt is brilliant for the bed and breakfast guest rooms.
Thats what I use it mainly for.
Small wall hanging flat panel 22" tv's in each of the rooms with digital BBC1,2,3,4,ITV1,2,Ch4,5,More4 and BBC news aswell as RTE1 and 2,TG4 and from the fall TV3 aswell.

Thats 15 channels in perfect digital quality off an aerial with no dish and for free.

Who in this area would be mad enough to pay for those channels?

Of course it will be nice to get the commercial channels back aswell like film four,Dave,Fiver,Five USA [a great channel!] and E4.
I mean how long is a test a test?

www.tesco.com, somebody quoted a link on the board in this thread.

The main problem I think is that RTE management and RTENL are very jealous of the success of the UK Freeview system. Its very interesting if you read the UK forums how quickly Freeview HD is being taken up across the UK and, of course, the prices are falling like a stone. It would be far better for them to fess up, launch a one MUX ROI service, and cash in on the coming economics from Freeview HD boxes & Tvs in the UK. That would be a case of realpolitik in the recession but the tragic history in Ireland has been television standards partition!! To absolutely no avail as we survey the trainwreck which is Irish DTT.

BB: for your convenience, here is the link:

http://direct.tesco.com/product/default.aspx?R=208-1669

watty

Also if you NEED a dish, i.e. not near coast or boarder you can feed up to 1024 TVs from one dish and a Quattro LNB. In fact if the Sat Tuners have DISEQC you can have 4x Quattro LNBs 13E, 19E, Freesat 28.2 on one dish and anything on 2nd dish. The cost excluding cables, Quattros and Dish is about 30 Eur per Tuner for a large trunk AMP + multiswitch system for 4 satellites.

icdg

Spongebob, play the ball and not the man please. No more potentially libelous comments that might get boards.ie in trouble.

Mr McBoatface

I posted it in another thread earlier but it seem appropriate to mention it here too. I think Mount Leinster have turned off the extra muxes. I lost all channels on all muxes earlier today only to have them reappear about 20 minutes later on just one mux.

Can anybody else confirm that the extra muxes are now gone ?

bothyhead

jobyrne30 wrote: »

I posted it in another thread earlier but it seem appropriate to mention it here too. I think Mount Leinster have turned off the extra muxes. I lost all channels on all muxes earlier today only to have them reappear about 20 minutes later on just one mux.

Can anybody else confirm that the extra muxes are now gone ?

Yes, I can

I haven't had a chance to see exactly how many are gone, but I did a quick flick and some of the previously blocked channels are now coming in with a quality of 100%.

Happy days - let's hope it remains that way!

yes!!!!!!!!!!!
ch49 and ch 42 are blasting in and it's not a lift.

RTE are on 45 only and have switched off ch39 which is a bit stupid as they should be on 39 not 45 as co wexford and south wicklow will have no digital service.

Wonder how long this will last?

Sponge Bob

Deleted User wrote: »

Wonder how long this will last?

All week, Eamon Ryan is in Japan and is unavailable to deal with frequency co-ordination issues while he peddles the standard Smart Green waffle in Asia.

"9:40～10:10 Lecture "Ireland: Smart Economy, Green Innovation"

http://www.ict-summit.jp/2010/en/program/index.html


OMG , look who is listening :eek:

lol

marclt

Oh great!

Back to analogue for me!! :rolleyes:

marclt

marclt wrote: »

Oh great!

Back to analogue for me!! :rolleyes:

Same here for RTE...

bothyhead

I'm not sure if this is related, but I lost radio reception (RTE, Radio 1) today for about half an hour. This also happened with the last two weeks as well. Presumably our Radio reception is also coming from Mt Leinster. I wonder if they are re-configuring, or perhaps having transmitter problems. Could this be tied up with yesterday's switch-off of the TV muxes ...

Antenna

I did hear that Radio 1 from Mt leinster had a long outage last Thursday for a time during the afternoon, but other radio channels (from there) were OK.

This situation would have nothing to do with DTT.

PyeContinental

It seems to be only using channel 45 now.
This is no good though, it needs to be channel 39. :mad:

I'm guessing and this is only a guess that they are taking down the extra mux tx equipment in preparation for using it for some of the many infill relays.

I shall have the ear of one of the engineers in the next week in the flesh which could be a very interesting chat!

RTENL will have to be told that ch39 is the only practical solution to the widespread usage of presely.
I can get ch45 here no bother if I unplug presely but I won't be doing that.

If they don't do something on that front aswell,RTE in this household and TV3 will be restricted to one tv at a time via sky.
Another solution would be to separately wire a mt leinster aerial to a decoder and pipe this receiver without rf pass through to other tv's.
I'm not sure how you would do that and it would be just simpler if RTENL switched to 39.

Sponge Bob

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm guessing and this is only a guess that they are taking down the extra mux tx equipment in preparation for using it for some of the many infill relays.

Would the TX gear not be a tad Massive for a relay

I shall have the ear of one of the engineers in the next week in the flesh which could be a very interesting chat!

Do tell us how it goes, I shall await agog!

Macy0161

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, as Preseli would be my natural option for freeview. Pre-aso I was getting weak Preseli ITV through the back of a wideband grid, in the loft, pointing at Kippure!

What channel are the HD channels on/ down for, channel 50?

If most of Preseli channels are free from interference from Mount Leinster, are channels 50 and 54 too close to use a combiner?

mrdtv2010

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm guessing and this is only a guess that they are taking down the extra mux tx equipment in preparation for using it for some of the many infill relays.

I shall have the ear of one of the engineers in the next week in the flesh which could be a very interesting chat!

RTENL will have to be told that ch39 is the only practical solution to the widespread usage of presely.
I can get ch45 here no bother if I unplug presely but I won't be doing that.

If they don't do something on that front aswell,RTE in this household and TV3 will be restricted to one tv at a time via sky.
Another solution would be to separately wire a mt leinster aerial to a decoder and pipe this receiver without rf pass through to other tv's.
I'm not sure how you would do that and it would be just simpler if RTENL switched to 39.

Economic realpolitik may finally be intervening. It makes the greatest sense if Saorview one mux only (and I think that is what is affordable ONLY) is launched that Mt Leinster Irish DTT should be on E39. Reasons are straightforward:

a) E39 is completely clear of Preseli in SE Ireland

b) Slots in neatly with Preseli Freeview services in MPEG2 if you have an MPEG4 box.

c) Preseli T2 starts in two weeks time which means that anybody with a T2 box or TV will get Saorview as a bonus for nothing on top of UK FTA HD services.

Is it too much to hope that consumer, commercial and economic pragmatism will finally hold sway? We will see...

Sponge Bob

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

Is it too much to hope that consumer, commercial and economic pragmatism will finally hold sway? We will see...

It is far too much.

That is if you ever heard of Eamon Ryan the sole shareholder in RTE and thereby RTENL and of course he who appoints the Board of the Broadcasting quango that awards commercial DTT licences.

mrdtv2010

Sponge Bob wrote: »

It is far too much.

That is if you ever heard of Eamon Ryan the sole shareholder in RTE and thereby RTENL and of course he who appoints the Board of the Broadcasting quango that awards commercial DTT licences.

We'll see. I think economics in the current EU situation will be decisive: its a great leveller and will kill off projects which are now unviable and kill off unnecessary operating costs.

lawhec

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm guessing and this is only a guess that they are taking down the extra mux tx equipment in preparation for using it for some of the many infill relays.

I shall have the ear of one of the engineers in the next week in the flesh which could be a very interesting chat!

RTENL will have to be told that ch39 is the only practical solution to the widespread usage of presely.
I can get ch45 here no bother if I unplug presely but I won't be doing that.

If they don't do something on that front aswell,RTE in this household and TV3 will be restricted to one tv at a time via sky.
Another solution would be to separately wire a mt leinster aerial to a decoder and pipe this receiver without rf pass through to other tv's.
I'm not sure how you would do that and it would be just simpler if RTENL switched to 39.

Considering that any commercial pay-DTT operation is now effectively mothballed, would it not make more sense to instead transmit a Saorview multiplex from Mt. Leinster on E30 or E34? Both frequencies are cleared for use at the location, both fall within the current UHF analogue aerial group (TV3 & TG4) from the site (meaning viewers in the area have less headaches with possibly needing a new UHF aerial) which would allow a proper diplexed aerial set-up rather than in the case of using E39 relying on viewers picking up the signal off the side of an aerial directed eastwards across the water?

E45 made a little sense when there was still a possibility of a commercial operation using another three multiplexes before an analogue shut down, but it makes none now. Maybe the DTT aerials on the mast would require adjustment?

mrdtv2010

lawhec wrote: »

Considering that any commercial pay-DTT operation is now effectively mothballed, would it not make more sense to instead transmit a Saorview multiplex from Mt. Leinster on E30 or E34? Both frequencies are cleared for use at the location, both fall within the current UHF analogue aerial group (TV3 & TG4) from the site (meaning viewers in the area have less headaches with possibly needing a new UHF aerial) which would allow a proper diplexed aerial set-up rather than in the case of using E39 relying on viewers picking up the signal off the side of an aerial directed eastwards across the water?

E45 made a little sense when there was still a possibility of a commercial operation using another three multiplexes before an analogue shut down, but it makes none now. Maybe the DTT aerials on the mast would require adjustment?

These are interesting considerations. However with the local high power Mount Leinster ( I am assuming circa 50kW ERP) transmissions side beam COFDM reception will be fine with Group B aerials used for Preseli so only one aerial would be needed. Therefore E39 makes a lot of sense. Also with newer smarter tuning DTT boxes E39 would be loaded BEFORE the Preseli channels. The use of Group A channels would mean diplexers would be needed and you need to know where the frequency cut would be made. Certainly lone radiation on E45 makes no sense as this will be wrecked by Preseli in overlap areas. The entire trial at Mount Leinster has proved one thing conclusively: overlapping cochannel DTT allocations cannot work with overspill. This will be bad news for the Drogheda relay which will get zapped by the Divis analogue and DSO signals (going up by a factor of nearly twentyfive to fifty depending on mux allocation.)

mrdtv2010

mrdtv2010 wrote: »

These are interesting considerations. However with the local high power Mount Leinster ( I am assuming circa 50kW ERP) transmissions side beam COFDM reception will be fine with Group B aerials used for Preseli so only one aerial would be needed. Therefore E39 makes a lot of sense. Also with newer smarter tuning DTT boxes E39 would be loaded BEFORE the Preseli channels. The use of Group A channels would mean diplexers would be needed and you need to know where the frequency cut would be made. Certainly lone radiation on E45 makes no sense as this will be wrecked by Preseli in overlap areas. The entire trial at Mount Leinster has proved one thing conclusively: overlapping cochannel DTT allocations cannot work with overspill. This will be bad news for the Drogheda relay which will get zapped by the Divis analogue and DSO signals (going up by a factor of nearly twentyfive to fifty depending on mux allocation.)

Would the way it is now on e45 have a major signal impact on the reception of preslie frequencies - so if rte was on e39 instead teh preslie channels would come through alot stronger?

Gerry Wicklow

To my mind the fact that RTÉNL insisted on using 45 instead of 39 just goes to prove that it is deliberate jamming. I can only assume they got their diplomatic skills in Israel, 'it's legal so we will bloody well use it regardless of who we p**s off!' Whether it works or not is beside the point.:mad:

Gerry Wicklow

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

To my mind the fact that RTÉNL insisted on using 45 instead of 39 just goes to prove that it is deliberate jamming. I can only assume they got their diplomatic skills in Israel, 'it's legal so we will bloody well use it regardless of who we p**s off!' Whether it works or not is beside the point.:mad:

isnt there supposed to be co-ordination between european states in regards to frequencies used?

watty

Yes there is.

That would very much apply to Strabane and Longford.

watty

watty wrote: »

Yes there is.

That would very much apply to Strabane and Longford.

there are other spill over areas as well as just those two -