Irish DTT EPG

Satdog

I've been getting Preseli DTT (PSB Muxs) with full interactive text and EPG. I can also pick up Irish DTT from Mt Leinster on Ch 42 (nothing on Ch45 or 49). I have MHEG5 text for Irish DTT but no EPG. The TV is a Philips with MPEG4. When setting up the TV I put the country code as UK. The Irish DTT came in later when Mt Leinster started on Ch 42. When I press the EPG button on the remote all I get is the UK DTT EPG. Is this because the country code is set to UK? I'm a bit reluctant to rescan using the country code of "Ireland" in case I lose UK DTT. Any help appreciated.

mrdtv

Satdog wrote: »

I've been getting Preseli DTT (PSB Muxs) with full interactive text and EPG. I can also pick up Irish DTT from Mt Leinster on Ch 42 (nothing on Ch45 or 49). I have MHEG5 text for Irish DTT but no EPG. The TV is a Philips with MPEG4. When setting up the TV I put the country code as UK. The Irish DTT came in later when Mt Leinster started on Ch 42. When I press the EPG button on the remote all I get is the UK DTT EPG. Is this because the country code is set to UK? I'm a bit reluctant to rescan using the country code of "Ireland" in case I lose UK DTT. Any help appreciated.

I wouldn't change it. Irish DTT is a set of tests whereas Preseli is an operational DTT service. Are you getting E39 as they are now getting that in Wales too on the Lleyn peninsula.

Satdog

mrdtv wrote: »

I wouldn't change it. Irish DTT is a set of tests whereas Preseli is an operational DTT service. Are you getting E39 as they are now getting that in Wales too on the Lleyn peninsula.

MRDTV

No, I'm not getting E39. I'm in the position as are some other posters getting Irish DTT from their Peresli aerial. I'll stick with what works.

Thanks.

SRB

There is a country code flag on the Irish DTT stream, so it's possible that the TV is ignoring it as you've "told" it your in the UK.

mickeyboymel

I would imagine Philips will write software to update their sets once the standard is finalised and live here in Ireland.

My philips TV(32PFL5604H/12) puts the analog channels first, followed by digital with no station identity,epg or now or next etc when set to Ireland, but when I set it to France the digital channels store perfectly with identities and now and next. I have not yet found a country setting that enables the EPG, and I do know its there as it appears on my older Samsung MPEG2 set!!

If you look at the software update release notes from the Philips website, these updates normally address these sort of issues,specific to individual countries. Even though my set is relatively new, there have already been numerous updates published for the firmware to date.

sesswhat

mickeyboymel wrote: »

My philips TV(32PFL5604H/12) puts the analog channels first, followed by digital with no station identity,epg or now or next etc when set to Ireland, but when I set it to France the digital channels store perfectly with identities and now and next. I have not yet found a country setting that enables the EPG, and I do know its there as it appears on my older Samsung MPEG2 set!!

Slightly off-topic but I think your old Samsung is the same as mine (WS32Z419D CRT)? How does the Philips picture quality compare?

mickeyboymel

sesswhat wrote: »

Slightly off-topic but I think your old Samsung is the same as mine (WS32Z419D CRT)? How does the Philips picture quality compare?

No comparison, the Philips is miles ahead, the Samsung has been plagued by a known issue with the purple haze in the top right hand corner and problems with distortion in shapes and lines - not sure what the technical term is. Edges on certain things look slightly curved instead of linear.

slegs

EPG is not broadcast9ing from MT Leinster as far as i can see at the moment. Or else they are fiddling with the settigns on EPG.

SRB

It's OK with me on both Three Rock and Kippure.

Satdog

Curiosity got the better of me so I rescanned using “Ireland” for the country code and got all Mt Leinster Muxs (39, 42, 45 and 49) but no EPG. Signal strength was good and Ch 39 was the strongest. As posted by Mickeyboymel analogue was listed first and there were no channel titles for the digital. My TV is also a Philips PFL5604/12. I also got a week Ch 43 from Preseli but no EPG or text. Bear in mind that I only have a Preseli UHF aerial.

I rescanned again using “UK” for country code and got the PSB Muxs with EPG and text from Peresli but only got a week Ch 45 from Mt Leinster. I was getting a good Ch 42 from Mt Leinster before I rescanned. No doubt I could do another rescan and pick up a different Mt Leinster Mux.

All is not lost as I have Freesat and I may retune for Irish DTT only.

Thanks for all your replies.

Satdog

Update.

Retuned Ch39 manually for Irish DTT and it replaced Ch45 in the programme list (Country Code still UK). I'm getting this Mux stronger than the others. Is this because it is further down the band and therefore is less prone to interference form the Preseli Muxs? The five Irish DDT channels have now appeared on the EPG from 302 to 306, right after the BBC Red Button on 301. Happy Days.:D:D:D

Is this more evidence that Mt Leinster should go with Ch 39?

MRDTV. You might have something to add?

mrdtv

Satdog wrote: »

Update.

Retuned Ch39 manually for Irish DTT and it replaced Ch45 in the programme list (Country Code still UK). I'm getting this Mux stronger than the others. Is this because it is further down the band and therefore is less prone to interference form the Preseli Muxs? The five Irish DDT channels have now appeared on the EPG from 302 to 306, right after the BBC Red Button on 301. Happy Days.:D:D:D

Is this more evidence that Mt Leinster should go with Ch 39?

MRDTV. You might have something to add?

Yes! Firstly E39 is ahead of all Preseli channels so will load first in any neutral channel scan or smart receiver (Sony Bravias let you sort the channels btw). Secondly 42, 45, 49 are cochannel with Preseli COM muxes and they are going to interfere with each other to the point of MADness. This is because Preseli COM muxes are omnidirectional and operate at 10kW ERP. It has been seen time after time that with the new high power DTT services that they carry right out to the edge of the footprint and in Ireland everybody has high gain aerials and masthead amps, so they are always going to have a strong Preseli interferer. This will wreck the RTE cochannel signals and render both sets of services completely unusable (this is because Preseli is above the 20dB AWGN threshold, evidenced by the perfect PSB muxes. ) So cochannel interference migrates from venetian blind effects to blue screens rendering all the services unusable.

Having been away for a bit its increasingly clear to me that OneVision will pull out if they have any commercial acumen, given the disastrous state of the economy, the competitive landscape in Ireland, previous EU country experiences with commercial DTT, and the rights controlled by Sky. This will leave RTENL holding the three unwanted multiplexes because no one else will step in and OneVision will be certain to give a very interesting and well framed set of reasons for withdrawing. This will completely undermine confidence of any other investors. Then with RTE forced to make further cuts in the New Year the tests will be scaled back leaving only one multiplex testing ( it makes no sense to incur operating costs if there is no commercial DTT operator in prospect.) I predict January is going to be very interesting indeed.

Of course in a scaled back PSB-only Irish DTT only one mux is either needed or viable. Naturally RTENL should seek to integrate itself into systems already in use for terrestrial DTT and 'coattail' off their economics: this would mean the use of non cochannel frequencies in overspill areas AND shared technology. As I have said before DVB-T2 is coming in Q1 2010 and this is going to have a major impact.

It should also be noted that because E39 has no relationship with ANY Preseli channels it has the BEST coverage. That is why it is ALSO being received in NW Wales and in W and SW Wales. Of course the main problem is that RTENL have singularly failed to think all this through which is why Irish DTT is an ongoing trainwreck. The Minister's woeful statement in another thread on this board posted at the weekend shows that he is completely clueless and is very badly advised. With this lack of basic knowledge it is clear that a credible coherent cost-effective consumer friendly DTT rollout plan is still far away from realisation.

On a related note of how far these signals are travelling I see that on DS that it is being reported that Cambret Hill DSO DTT is now being received reliably in Carryduff and Moira (latter looks like tropo though!) Northern Ireland off a 3.8kW DTT transmitter!!!! This shows why a coherent choice of channels is needed to avoid CCI in the real world of high performance high power DTT reception.

Satdog

Thanks for the detailed reply MRDTV.

Sponge Bob

mrdtv wrote: »

This will leave RTENL holding the three unwanted multiplexes because no one else will step in and OneVision will be certain to give a very interesting and well framed set of reasons for withdrawing. This will completely undermine confidence of any other investors. Then with RTE forced to make further cuts in the New Year the tests will be scaled back leaving only one multiplex testing ( it makes no sense to incur operating costs if there is no commercial DTT operator in prospect.) I predict January is going to be very interesting indeed.

But the third DTT bidder IS RTE themselves and UPC

They get a crack at it in January if Onevision pull out .

http://www.bci.ie/DTT/easy_tv/easy_app.pdf

UPC Broadband for Service Delivery, Local IT, Encryption & CA Services; RTÉNL for Transmission Distribution & Multiplexing Services; Osmosis for STB and Smartcard Distribution and Fulfillment Services; Rigney Dolphin for Telesales and Customer Support Services.

mrdtv

Sponge Bob wrote: »

But the third DTT bidder IS RTE themselves and UPC

They get a crack at it in January if Onevision pull out .

http://www.bci.ie/DTT/easy_tv/easy_app.pdf

Please get real! The party is over for Irish commercial DTT: its worth f*** all squared. No international investor is going to touch this with a bargepole. The reasons are straightforward:

a) Very small market

b) Too much competition

c) Too many costs

d) F***ed economy

e) Sky control all pay-tv rights.

f) A Government and regulatory structure which is poorly informed, commercially unrealistic, and singularly naieve.

In investment terms Irish commercial DTT is facing a 'sell-note'!!

Sponge Bob

I take it that you don't know who UPC are but that is OK.

If onevision pull out in January then the Easy TV consortium WILL be offered the Commercial DTT licence in January like I said they would be.

Sam Russell

................... and UPC have money to invest. They would be well placed to get the commercial muxes up and running. They would also like to get the broadband option, because they are getting a high take up of their cable/broadband option. It would also allow them to ditch the MMDS system.

They could make it work, because they have a large customer base. (.... but nor me!):)

Sam Russell

...... also, if RTE are involved with the commercial venture, they could immediately launch DTT!

mrdtv

Sponge Bob wrote: »

I take it that you don't know who UPC are but that is OK.

If onevision pull out in January then the Easy TV consortium WILL be offered the Commercial DTT licence in January like I said they would be.

Ha! UPC are a minor EU cable outfit. Why would they bother to cannibalise their existing customers? Irish DTT has not happened for the last TEN years and it won't happen now. I find the lack of commercial realism on this board deeply unimpressive.

Sponge Bob

That was not a commercial prediction , that was a regulatory prediction.

mrdtv

Sponge Bob wrote: »

That was not a commercial prediction , that was a regulatory prediction.

Meanwhile who do you think the biggest shareholder in SKY happens to be? I haven't a clue will suffice

Regulatory predictions are the only sign of DTT life in Ireland: in fact they are entirely predictable as BCI lurch from one failed DTT bidder to the next. LOL. Commercial players are rather shrewder: they don't invest any money. For a very good reason: there is no commercial return on Irish commercial DTT.

icdg

mrdtv wrote: »

Ha! UPC are a minor EU cable outfit. Why would they bother to cannibalise their existing customers? Irish DTT has not happened for the last TEN years and it won't happen now. I find the lack of commercial realism on this board deeply unimpressive.

Minor? They are the biggest cable TV operator in Holland and are active in more countries than any other pay-TV operator on the continent! They were the biggest pay-TV outfit in Ireland until very recently and still hold a massive market share particulaly in Dublin. Despite all this, I don't think they should be allowed run the DTT network, they already hold practically all the cable licences and all the MMDS licences, giving them a third platform would be madness. At this stage the Government should be making moves towards a Freeview platform but as there are vested interests against this happening it looks like nothing will happen in DTT for a while yet.

Incidently if this thread continues down this road it will be merged with the existing one.

The Cush

icdg wrote: »

mrdtv wrote: »

Ha! UPC are a minor EU cable outfit. Why would they bother to cannibalise their existing customers? Irish DTT has not happened for the last TEN years and it won't happen now. I find the lack of commercial realism on this board deeply unimpressive.

Minor? They are the biggest cable TV operator in Holland and are active in more countries than any other pay-TV operator on the continent! They were the biggest pay-TV outfit in Ireland until very recently and still hold a massive market share particulaly in Dublin. Despite all this, I don't think they should be allowed run the DTT network, they already hold practically all the cable licences and all the MMDS licences, giving them a third platform would be madness. At this stage the Government should be making moves towards a Freeview platform but as there are vested interests against this happening it looks like nothing will happen in DTT for a while yet.

UPC is a brand of Liberty Global Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Global, Inc. with revenue of $11.3 billion and 22,000 employees worlwide. Irishman Shane O'Neill is Chief Strategy Officer of Liberty Global Inc.

IMO RTE should have been awarded the contract initially, it would have been launched by now. The amount of MMDS spectrum available to UPC will probably decrease in the next few years, DTT would allow them to provide a subscription package to a larger percentage of the population than MMDS.

Sponge Bob

The Cush wrote: »

The amount of MMDS spectrum available to UPC will probably decrease in the next few years, DTT would allow them to provide a subscription package to a larger percentage of the population than MMDS.

They lose all of it by end 2014, 5 years. That and the customers.

The Cush

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They lose all of it by end 2014, 5 years. That and the customers.

No, they are guaranteed it until 2019 under current regulations.