RTE Announce FTA Saorsat service

MarkK

rlogue wrote: »

You say that Saorsat is modest expenditure for RTE. How much will it cost? How much would it cost to broadcast a FTA channel on Eurobird without any EPG charges to pay?

Why are you are you comparing the cost of Saorsat to a FTA channel on Eurobird?

How is a FTA channel on Eurobird going to provide all the Saorview channels to places such as the Nire Valley and Kilmacthomas in county Waterford?
Saorsat will do this.
Will a single FTA channel on Eurobird provide backup transmitter feeds for Saorview? Saorsat will do this.

A Eurobird channel with no EPG listing would only provide service for tech savy people with satellite dishes and within the service area of the satellite.

I think an expanded and improved RTE Player International is the way to go as it provides service for anyone worldwide with broadband access.

rlogue

I would agree with you about an expanded and improved RTE Player for international audiences is the only realistic way forward at this point. If RTE want to charge international audiences then I would suggest that extra programme content not currently available and also at a higher quality would be the way forward.

It would be a joke to charge for the existing thin gruel we currently get from RTE.

The Cush

rlogue wrote: »

You say that Saorsat is modest expenditure for RTE. How much will it cost?

€1.5m p.a. according to RTÉ in July 2010 with that cost reducing if other channels join the service.

The Cush

rlogue wrote: »

If RTE want to charge international audiences ...

The future it appears - http://www.independent.ie/business/media/rte-considers-charging-its-licencepayers-for-online-services-2939049.html

Charging for international access will be used to help increase the proportion of revenue RTE earns from its online business. Last year, online accounted for only 2.5pc of the broadcaster's turnover. Mr Curran wants that up to 15pc by 2015.

http://www.rte.ie/about/pressreleases/2011/1117/171111dgdigitalfuture.html

Macy0161

rlogue wrote: »

RTE won't stream the drama series Love/Hate worldwide. Is that because they might sell it to STV?

Love/Hate is an RTE/ITV co production. The end of the credits also lists ITV as the distributors.

zg3409

I tested my little dish (40cm) for Saorsat in north east Belfast (Whitehead south of Larne) and the small dish picked up the signal fine.

The spectrum analyser showed about 13dB signal to noise. I think the signal in Dublin was about 20dB signal to noise.

This does not account for rain fade but it shows the signal is fine and strong in the North East on a small dish in dry conditions.

I now have two more people waiting on 20GHz LNBs and of course live feeds, come on RTE NL!

rlogue

How is the supply of Ka LNBs coming along?

moro_original

rlogue wrote: »

If AM radios were still being built to that degree of engineering today would we still want FM

Yes. Cheap receivers that fit in your pocket while producing good sound.

satwyn

rlogue wrote: »

How is the supply of Ka LNBs coming along?

they're out there apparently £45.00 seen some o the satellite tv.ie site for just over £44

watty

moro_original wrote: »

Yes. Cheap receivers that fit in your pocket while producing good sound.

Only on headphones. You need a minimum of 6" speaker. Ideally 8" or more, but with larger speakers (>7") you really need more than one speaker. At 6" you can have a single speaker. At 12" you really need a 4" to 6" also.

astra2d

What is the latest news on Saorsat, any launch date?

As for an international RTÉ, they could do what the BBC did years ago (BBC Europe), this was a combination of BBC One and BBC Two with some other programming slotted in. Their best international channel :-)
Only Irish programmes from RTÉ and TG4, this is what the expats want.

Mr. Rabbit

I am a critic of Saorsat because I believe RTE should have spent the money on providing a properly rights-cleared satellite service worldwide.

Exactly Richard.

Viewers in NI should have had access to the same channels on the mini mux on the Freesat EPG.

OK, so it would have been free to air for viewers in the rest of the UK but how many would know how to tune it in under the other channels or non freesat mode ? Very few would suspect, with the only people interested being anoraks like ourselves, or Irish ex pats.

As for the rest of Europe, how many Germans, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italians, etc etc. would even be interested in watching RTE ? Again, apart from a few anoraks or Irish ex pats very, very few (hardly 250 million people).

Surely the narrow beam also limits reception to solely the UK (which is why all the BBC regions were able to go free to air some years back).

This whole rights thing is a complete misnomer. I agree entirely with Richard.

What we have now is a sstellite system whereby the LNBs are unavailable, the boxes are unavailable and manufactured by no one (are UK Freesat boxes compatable with Saorsat), still no actual programmes being transmitted, no launch date, and a trade that is probably not tech. savy with any of it

I get the impression that Irish politicians seem to think Irish TV has a far higher profile and importance than it actually has.

I wonder how many people in the UK have even heard of RTE, TV3, or TG4 let alone want to view it ?

Hardly 50 million people.

Mr. Rabbit

zg3409 wrote: »

I tested my little dish (40cm) for Saorsat in north east Belfast (Whitehead south of Larne) and the small dish picked up the signal fine.

The spectrum analyser showed about 13dB signal to noise. I think the signal in Dublin was about 20dB signal to noise.

This does not account for rain fade but it shows the signal is fine and strong in the North East on a small dish in dry conditions.

I now have two more people waiting on 20GHz LNBs and of course live feeds, come on RTE NL!

Good news then (I'm in Jordanstown , only a stone's throw away from you), especiaslly for people in East Antrim that wont have access to the mini mux or Clermont Cairn.

I assume my old 1 Metre Sky Dish (for Sky and Eutelsat 13degrees east) could possibly be used with a suitible ka LNB and a Freesat box ?

Mr. Rabbit

astra2d wrote: »

What is the latest news on Saorsat, any launch date?

As for an international RTÉ, they could do what the BBC did years ago (BBC Europe), this was a combination of BBC One and BBC Two with some other programming slotted in. Their best international channel :-)
Only Irish programmes from RTÉ and TG4, this is what the expats want.

Once upon a time there was Tara TV on Sky.

zg3409

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

I assume my old 1 Metre Sky Dish (for Sky and Eutelsat 13degrees east) could possibly be used with a suitible ka LNB and a Freesat box ?

We suspect Sky dishes (with holes) will not work well on 20Ghz. We reckon a solid dish is better. It does not need to be more than 60cm as far as we can tell. I don't think anyone has attempted a mesh dish.

The freesat box may work as long as it can be put in non-freesat mode and has diSEqC facilities to switch from the BBC dish to the RTE dish.

watty

65cm is recommended minimum. I thought (not a guess, but sums) that 44cm would do. I was told no.

Really anyone would be mad not to get UK Satellite also. So you need 80cm to 90cm for both on same dish with decent rain margin.

Of course you can have two dishes... If there isn't a troublesome local council.

Macy0161

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

I get the impression that Irish politicians seem to think Irish TV has a far higher profile and importance than it actually has.

I wonder how many people in the UK have even heard of RTE, TV3, or TG4 let alone want to view it ?

Hardly 50 million people.

It's not Irish Politicians, it's international rights holders. And I think you underestimate how many would watch Irish TV in the UK. Just an off the top of my head example - you'd have pemier league highlights earlier on a Saturday and Sunday evening than MOTD.

There's a case to be made for an RTE International of some discription FTA on Astra2/ Hotbird (An extended RTE News Now with things like Nationwide, Ear to the Ground added to the current affairs content is what I've thought was a possible option). The question is who pays for it.

Saorsat, as proposed, is a cost effective solution to the problem of areas that can't get DTT, and as network back up. The critics, imo, are wanting it to offer a solution to a different problem.

zg3409

Regarding putting two LNBs on the one dish for 9 Saorsat and 28.2 for Freesat I considered the triax dish with triax supplied multi mount. This, in theory, allows 20 degree seperation between the two satellites. It appears to fit the bill, but after research it doesn't.

See:

http://gtsatellites.com/Triax-Multi-LNB-holder--587.asp

This only works with TD model Triax dishes.

However others have problems with this as it does not allow elevation adjustment.

Not Saorsat but gave me the questions:
http://www.satpimps.com/showthread.php?73487-setting-up-a-triax-multi-lnb-holder-in-west-of-ireland

From:
http://www.satellitesuperstore.com/3satsystems.htm
Feedback. I got a 90cm Triax Dish, Diseqc switch and multi-arm bracket from you last year
and it is working a dream in Dublin - I use 3 of the LNBs for Hotbird, Astra 1 and Astra
2/Eurobird.

By the way, when setting up the multi-arm I found that the maximum 'tilt' of the arm was
quite limited and was insufficient to get a good signal from the 3 satellites.
Must be the vertical angles in Dublin! I had to do a bit of cutting/scraping to
increase the tilt but it works great now (~80-90 signal from Astra 1 & Hotbird
and over 90% with Astra 2). Regards, Dominic



Now to the maths (dishpointer.com)

For Saorsat from Dublin:
Elevation: 27.5°
Azimuth (true): 161.2°
Azimuth (magn.): 165.4°
LNB Skew [?]: -11.1° (Skew does not apply) Dish Skew [?]: 90.0°

For 28.2
Elevation: 21.4°
Azimuth (true): 139.5°
Azimuth (magn.): 143.6°
LNB Skew [?]: -15.3° Dish Skew [?]: 90.0°

So there is a 6.1 degree difference in elevation and 21.7 degree difference in azimuth.
The further east you go the more the azimuth will change. If both could be picked up in Southhamptom UK 5.5 elevation 22.8 Azimuth would apply.

This would seem to suggest this holder will not work.
Has anyone suggestions of holders that will work, which dish they will work with and what is the worst case that will cover every point in Saorsat coverage?

This should give lots of fun for installers!

UPDATE: Having looked at the photos I am wondering is it possible to get more than 20 degrees by swapping over the brackets from one side to another. Each bracket seems stepped a little to the left or right. By swapping around it might be possible to "hang" both LNBs slightly over the end, at each end. If this achieved 0.9 degrees each side it would be enough for Dublin. Can someone in the trade or a user confirm this by measurements?

Apogee

Some earlier posts on 28E/9E setups:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=72761862&postcount=1289
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=68948323&highlight=span#post68948323
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=69971038&postcount=1002
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=72472797&postcount=1229

watty

The holder does work!

The Triax mount is mounted upside down and then the variation in Elevation between 28E and 9E works. (more tilt). The mount hole is offset, so it can mount still with same arc but more squew. The assembly drawing assumes 19E & 13E in France/Germany.
It also does about 23 degrees spacing max.

zg3409: You have actually SEEN this at my house with 4 x Quattros for 28, 19, 13 & 9E (all Ku). But I guess you didn't take it in! The brick under arm isn't needed. That was from testing heavy ODU from VSAT.

Apogee kindly linked my post


I'll be replacing the 9E Ku quattro with a Ka single LNB connecting only to one port. That will work with the distribution system. You don't need Dual, Quad, Quattro etc with Saorsat.

zg3409

Thanks for the replies.

This is a 1M dish, probably a bit overkill but should be stronger (both in signal and strength) and seems to allow 30 degree seperation:

http://www.triax.ro/unique-multi-reception-dish.html

It's probably a bit much for the front wall of a house.

The gain is the same as a single 70 X 78CM dish at ALL positions over a 30 degree arc. So it would be the equivalent of putting up one 70CM dish for Saorsat and a second 70CM dish for Freesat.

This crowd:
http://www.wavefrontier.us/

Also do a special multi-lnb dish within 40 degrees of an arc. They seem to have a smaller version.

One catch
"Toroidal uses a second reflectors called sub-reflector. This left-hand circular signal directed to sub-reflector and makes another bounce. It becomes right-hand circular signal. Reversed DBS LNBF is designed to recognize this right-hand circular signal by reversing the voltage circuit inside LNBF in the manufacturing process. Without a proper LNBF, your receiver will show signal strength but no picture."

I hope the eventual KA LNBs will have the option to change from LHCP to RHCP otherwise the wavefrontier dish is of no use for Saorsat. My US sourced LNB will switch to RHCP but it may not physically fit.

It also does not mention 20Ghz in the specifications (which is used in the USA) so the tolerances of the dish may cause problems.

The small version has the same gain as a 60X65CM for every position.

The best, off the shelf, Irish based solution seems to be this:
http://satworld.ie/product-info.php?Maximum_e85_Multi_Focus_Satellite_Dish-pid247.html

It has 29 degrees of view on an 85cm dish (possibly even more) and seems the right size and type for Ireland

Mr. Rabbit

And I think you underestimate how many would watch Irish TV in the UK.

No I don't Macy.

No one in the UK is interested in tuning Irish TV stations in under the other channels feature, apart from anoraks and Irish ex pats.

Just as an example, my wife's sister and husband live Southampton. I have absolutely no doubt that if I told them they could receive RTE1 and 2 along with TG4 by entering a frequency, polarization, and symbol rate and then doing a scan they would even bother.

For goodness sake, I'll bet they don't know how to tune in UTV under the add channels feature, or realise that BBC1 NI is on channel 943 (they likely watch BBC1 South on 101).

Mr. Rabbit

Just an off the top of my head example - you'd have pemier league highlights earlier on a Saturday and Sunday evening than MOTD.

and who would even bother with recorded highlights when we have several hours of it (far more than RTE) on the BBC (Premier League matches and the championship ) ?

It was different when RTE broadcasted live Premier League football on a Saturday afternoon when no one else did (apart from Sky.)

MarkK

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

Viewers in NI should have had access to the same channels on the mini mux on the Freesat EPG.

OK, so it would have been free to air for viewers in the rest of the UK but how many would know how to tune it in under the other channels or non freesat mode ? Very few would suspect, with the only people interested being anoraks like ourselves, or Irish ex pats.

Viewers in GB would not need to mess around with non-freesat mode, they just need to set up Freesat with a NI postcode.
AFAIK most Freesat boxes let you move channels around, so they could swap their the NI BBC 1 & 2 for their local variations.
So the only thing they would 'lose' is easy access to their local ITV news, which is not much of a loss IMHO.

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

As for the rest of Europe, how many Germans, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italians, etc etc. would even be interested in watching RTE ? Again, apart from a few anoraks or Irish ex pats very, very few (hardly 250 million people).

Surely the narrow beam also limits reception to solely the UK (which is why all the BBC regions were able to go free to air some years back).

This whole rights thing is a complete misnomer. I agree entirely with Richard.

If these rights issues don't exist, why does Channel 5 encrypt four of their five regions and encrypt 5* and 5 USA?
I don't see their would be a lot of interest from the Germans and Italians in them either.

astra2d

Channel 5's channels were on a beam that covered most of Europe. they have now moved to Astra 1N.
All their SD channels will be FTA by December 8, 2011.
Channel 5 HD will join Freeview and Freesat in July of 2012 (go FTA).

Macy0161

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

No I don't Macy.

No one in the UK is interested in tuning Irish TV stations in under the other channels feature, apart from anoraks and Irish ex pats.

Even if it was just Irish people and those of Irish descent, it isn't an insignificant number, compared to the population of Ireland.

However, even if you are right, it's not me you'd have to convince, it's the rights holders who'd want RTE to pony up for UK and Ireland rights, rather than Ireland only.

Mr. Rabbit

it isn't an insignificant number, compared to the population of Ireland.

I'd very much doubt it would be 5 million plus.

they just need to set up Freesat with a NI postcode

and then they'd lose ITV1 HD, along with ITV 1 +1.

I hardly think too many UK viewers would even bother.

MarkK

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

then they'd lose ITV1 HD, along with ITV 1 +1.

As we are talking about the future, as was assuming they would UTV HD and UTV+1 would be available on satellite by the time RTE 2 HD and RTE1+1 would be.

Any answer on why Channel 5 encrypt?

Machinehead

MarkK wrote: »

Mr. Rabbit wrote: »

then they'd lose ITV1 HD, along with ITV 1 +1.

As we are talking about the future, as was assuming they would UTV HD and UTV+1 would be available on satellite by the time RTE 2 HD and RTE1+1 would be.

Any answer on why Channel 5 encrypt?

C5 has been FTA for a while now on 10773H but only on the UK Sky & Freesat EPG. Up until now all region versions have been encrypted, but within next few weeks all C5 versions & 5* & 5 USA are expected to go FTA thanks to the extra narrow beam capacity made available with the newly launched Astra 1N (freq 10964H 22000).
Roumers over on DS fourms are that C5 HD will follow in mid 2012.

zg3409

Testcard seems to be off today.

Please let me know when it comes back. The carrier is still there but no video.