I HAVE BEEN WATCHING IRISH DTT FOR AGES SO WHY SAY TEST BEGINS IN OCTOBER 2010

swoofer

I am amazed that the minister for communications can be so out of touch with Irish DTT. What is a test?

Ireland, I give up.

gb--

Sponge Bob

He said launch not test. You mean the dáil questions yesterday ??

http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2010-06-01.49.0

Simon Coveney disappointed greatly. Evidently Simon never reads this forum or if he does he certainly does not understand it.

the reality is that nobody will be accessing it from October. We do not even have set top boxes. We do not know what they will look like, how much they will cost, who will make them, who will provide them or who will install them. There is total uncertainty around how we can access digital television. Even though RTE has to have the infrastructure and capacity to broadcast digital terrestrial television from October to, potentially, 90% of the population, none of the 1 million or so people who will need to have DTT installed in their homes, ready to go by the time analogue switch-off happens, will have it in October.

In response Ryan said

The Deputy is correct; we start in October and it will take a number of months to get it technically correct, have all the standards in place and make sure the set top boxes work before it is properly launched widely to the public, although it will be available from October. I am told that set top boxes and other kit is ready to go.

The Cush

GBCULLEN wrote: »

I am amazed that the minister for communications can be so out of touch with Irish DTT. What is a test?

Ireland, I give up.

gb--

The RTÉ online article is misleading and was probably written and published before the Minister finished speaking yesterday (and before the transcript was made available). Better to read the actual debate transcript.

sesswhat

Which bit is misleading?

To me it looks like an accurate reflection of what he said.

The channel line-up may stabilise in November but they seem to have no intention of giving this any publicity until at least next year.

Keep stretching it out Eamon. Keep waiting for that miracle.

The Minister for Communications has told the Dáil that the Digital Terrestrial Television service will be up and running in a testing capacity by October.

Eamon Ryan earlier said he had told RTÉ that the full DTT service will be launched on 31 December 2011.

Minister Ryan said it would be a tight schedule but that the necessary set-top boxes were ready to go.

Sponge Bob

The "full DTT service" Ryan refers to is the completion of the planned DTT transmitter installs by end 2011 not the launch of the service on those transmitters extant in October 2010.

Based on what RTE has tendered and installed/is installing this summer we are still 15 transmitters short of a national network.

FREETV

GBCULLEN wrote: »

I am amazed that the minister for communications can be so out of touch with Irish DTT. What is a test?

Ireland, I give up.

gb--

It is a case really of being unfortunate that we have elected representatives running the country of the calibre of complete and utter gobsh...s! Even in America one wouldn't see an on going saga like DTT or other policies anywhere apart from here! Don't be surprised of what will happen next.

Sponge Bob

I am perfectly aware of the Ministers capability in utter gob****ery....it's just that his opposite number surpassed him in same this time and he did nothing majorly wrong ...or said nothing majorly wrong. You should see the stacks of questions about fibre and broadband that he ignored altogether.

What Ryan needs to do is to set an end date for the tests BEFORE the start date for the service. 31st August should be the freeze.

Then let the suppliers test their firmware to get the product, most particularly IDTVs on the market before christmas.

The Cush

sesswhat wrote: »

Which bit is misleading?

To me it looks like an accurate reflection of what he said.

The channel line-up may stabilise in November but they seem to have no intention of giving this any publicity until at least next year.

What's misleading is the over emphasis on the word testing including here on the boards.

We know the service will launch to approx 90% of the population by the end of Oct by which time the engineering tests will have been completed on the transmitters rolled out to date but will continue on the new transmitters being rolled out.

The only reference he made to testing was the public testing phase (before the full launch in 2011 and after the soft launch by Oct), which will no doubt include all the stakeholders, the retailers, installers and general public. The public information campaign begins this autumn.

"We are starting the DTT service in October 2010, which is a crucial time. It will take time to test it and get it right before it is fully launched in a public way, that is, where we are pushing and selling it to the public."

Us lot here on the boards have had a head start on the rest of the general public, some with almost two years experience of the engineering tests, myself since Mar 2009. The rest of the population following the soft launch will now have to be educated including the retail and installation trade. Think of the con-men trying to sell you a "digital" aerial for digital tv.

The full launch due by the end of 2011 should end the public test phase at which time the ASO campaign will probably begin.

Sponge Bob

90% population coverage and availablity in (parts of) every county in Ireland is near enough full launch for me. That is October 2010.

sesswhat

The Cush wrote: »

What's misleading is the over emphasis on the word testing including here on the boards.

We know the service will launch to approx 90% of the population by the end of Oct by which time the engineering tests will have been completed on the transmitters rolled out to date but will continue on the new transmitters being rolled out.

The only reference he made to testing was the public testing phase (before the full launch in 2011 and after the soft launch by Oct), which will no doubt include all the stakeholders, the retailers, installers and general public. The public information campaign begins this autumn.

The Minister is the one putting the emphasis on testing.

He also said..

we start in October and it will take a number of months to get it technically correct, have all the standards in place and make sure the set top boxes work before it is properly launched widely to the public, although it will be available from October

Can they not even begin to get it technically correct, or make sure the set top boxes work, until the end of October?

The Cush wrote: »

Think of the con-men trying to sell you a "digital" aerial for digital tv.

Let's not drag aerial installers down to the level of politicians.

scath

Sounds to me from reading all the posts is that the testing may be continuing due to fact of expanding rollout and testing up to December 2011. So it may well be launch in areas where is available. I don't know. It leaves open the possibility that further technical testing may be required if T2 is being tested so perhaps he is referring to that aswell which would then require further testing. The MOU does touch on compatible systems.

To me it sounds like boxes will launch for October 31st 2010 and be promoted but that full launch will be mooted as December 2011 so those who can't receive must wait. Otherwise it means no public info campaign until mid next Autumn 2011. Certainly if promotion Summer 2011 it will make T2 a distinct possibility as prices start to drop. What you may find is boxes available for sale but the service not pushed, just a low burner information campaign. The likelihood is that they leave the info campaign until January 2012 and then start a heavy campaign.

prioryc

i bet they still come out with some mickey mouse system for consumers...
and i wonder ifn "testing has finished & there ready to go" is really code for "we wen't on amazon & got a good deal on shipping for the lot"

what's next RTE calling themselves RTE-HD1 or NETWORK2-HD & perhaps
TG4-HD...& if were lucky sky adding them to their overpriced hd package to beef up that number...i wonder

sesswhat

scath wrote: »

Sounds to me from reading all the posts is that the testing may be continuing due to fact of expanding rollout and testing up to December 2011. So it may well be launch in areas where is available. I don't know. It leaves open the possibility that further technical testing may be required if T2 is being tested so perhaps he is referring to that aswell which would then require further testing. The MOU does touch on compatible systems.

To me it sounds like boxes will launch for October 31st 2010 and be promoted but that full launch will be mooted as December 2011 so those who can't receive must wait. Otherwise it means no public info campaign until mid next Autumn 2011. Certainly if promotion Summer 2011 it will make T2 a distinct possibility as prices start to drop. What you may find is boxes available for sale but the service not pushed, just a low burner information campaign. The likelihood is that they leave the info campaign until January 2012 and then start a heavy campaign.

Eighteen months on they have still not managed to approve anything to the current standard. Don't even mention T2 at this stage unless you want to give them an excuse to faff about for another 10 years.

Apogee

The Saorview standard is MPEG4 DVB-T. It has been that from the start and it will be the same in October.

swoofer

If they go on testing with no TV3 we will never get people interetsted. RTE should use TV3 picture quality as a good selling point but as usual the powers that be will want TV3 to beg! And if it is only a test until dec 2011 and ASO is 2012 give me one good reason why TV3 should join early??

gb-

watty

80% of people have ITV, beats me how TV3 gets viewers.

scath

From other thread sounds like is older spec form 2008 and no plans to move to DVB-T2. So dunno what the clarifying the spec is about...all done and ready to go. Maybe t2 boxes will be tested by teracom but that is just co-incidence that they are backward compatible.

slegs

scath wrote: »

Sounds to me from reading all the posts is that the testing may be continuing due to fact of expanding rollout and testing up to December 2011. So it may well be launch in areas where is available. I don't know. It leaves open the possibility that further technical testing may be required if T2 is being tested so perhaps he is referring to that aswell which would then require further testing. The MOU does touch on compatible systems.

To me it sounds like boxes will launch for October 31st 2010 and be promoted but that full launch will be mooted as December 2011 so those who can't receive must wait. Otherwise it means no public info campaign until mid next Autumn 2011. Certainly if promotion Summer 2011 it will make T2 a distinct possibility as prices start to drop. What you may find is boxes available for sale but the service not pushed, just a low burner information campaign. The likelihood is that they leave the info campaign until January 2012 and then start a heavy campaign.

As has been said a million times before the spec is announced and they have no need to go with DVB-T2. If you want DVB-T2 for UK Freeview HD you can buy one of the already available boxes and it will very probably do both anyway.

Do you want to get this thing lauched at all? The people running this in Ireland couldnt run a pi$$ up in a brewery so changing the spec at this stage would almost certainly set the whole thing off track by 6 months to a year.

scath

As I said..I accept it is the 2008 spec. Just thought would be best to have the most advanced system and if delayed things so be it. But we have decided and I can see yere point. Sure we can always introduce DVB-T2 in a few years time if we want.

kkontour

scath wrote: »

...... Just thought would be best to have the most advanced system and if delayed things so be it......

Poblem is We can never have the most advanced system in this country. By the time our politicians decide on a system is will have been surpassed by something else.

STB

scath wrote: »

As I said..I accept it is the 2008 spec. Just thought would be best to have the most advanced system and if delayed things so be it. But we have decided and I can see yere point. Sure we can always introduce DVB-T2 in a few years time if we want.

Scath,

You do realise that DVB-T2 is a UK solution to a UK problem.

They have 100 stations on Freeview and not enough space as a result for HD stations so they are gradually moving over to DVB-T2. This way they can also gradually move from MPEG2 to MPEG4 as a more efficient way of broadcasting their SD stations (and even that is in the future).

In Ireland we will use DVB-T for the forseeable future because we dont and wont have that problem of not enough capacity.

HD will be run on DVB-T in Ireland not DVB-T2.

Its a platform. Running MPEG4 HD on DVB-T2 over DVB-T does not affect quality. Some people always have to have the latest toys! Simple truth is that our SD stations use a more efficient codec than the 90% of what Freeview is now and will do for the forseeable future. Dont believe a lot of the nonsense that is posted here about DVB-T2. You are only getting the positive bits.

There are plenty of negative bits for UK householders in the transition, believe me.

1. 95% of their stations remain the same - they might as well not have moved to DVB-T2!

2. The freeview HD rollout plan will not completed until 2012 ie its not available everywhere until that date (whereas Freesat is available to 98% of the Uk now)

3. Freesat has iplayer out of the box right now (and VOD/IPTV). Freeview does not.

4. Freeview has one sports stream on the red buttom etc. Freesat HD has all of the BBCi sport streams.

5. Freeview may have Channel 4 HD first but longterm and by 2012 it is highly likely that Freesat will have more HD channels than Freeview which will be limited to the number it can have.

6. Bit rate. Significantly lowerbit rates on Freeview HD than Freesat HD.

watty

DTT anamorphic HD 1440 x 1080i
Satellite is true WS 1920 x 1080i HD

mossym

STB wrote: »

6. Bit rate. Significantly lowerbit rates on Freeview HD than Freesat HD.

and has been said, potentially one of the reasons the bit rate on the SAT BBC HD channel was dropped, to avoid Freesat having a noticeably better picture than Freeview

scath

I was aware T2 was a UK solution to a UK problem and the capacity issues. I knew that alright. If they really wanted to free up the platform to a par with satellite they would roll out T2 across all UK DTT muxes and not just the PSB one. That would be quite a transition. But my thinking was doing it here means we could do one of 2 things. 1 is lower consumption of electricity on T2 for the transmitters and then more space meaning that more bandwidth could if not given to the BAI then could be given to ComReg than with DVB-T for other uses.