RTE2 in 1080i

The Cush

Johnmb wrote: »

So why would they claim that RTE 2HD is a separate channel just because a Sky box can't receive it?

Because RTÉ say it is - http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/C13536EC-C703-4110-9A07-2A5DB4107DE3/0/PVTConsultationDocument.pdf, hence the reason for its inclusion in the Dept consultation.

Johnmb

The Cush wrote: »

Because RTÉ say it is - http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/C13536EC-C703-4110-9A07-2A5DB4107DE3/0/PVTConsultationDocument.pdf, hence the reason for its inclusion in the Dept consultation.

That document describes it as a HD version of RTE 2, not as a separate channel. There is nothing in that document, or any others that I am aware of that would require RTE to make the RTE 2HD channel available to Sky or anyone else, if they are already making RTE 2 available. I'm sure they'll happily offer it to Sky, but neither RTE nor Sky will pay for it to be carried as well as the SD version ofRTE 2. It is not currently viable for it to replace SD RTE 2 on Sky, so as I said, it is not likely to be carried on Sky any time soon, and there is no requirement for it to be carried. And, not to just be picking on Sky, the same is true for other carriers (e.g. UPC).

The Cush

stephendevlin wrote: »

Any idea what satellite they will be broadcasting from? Or are they already?

If you're referring to the Irish SD channels they're available via Sky box and dish, Sky sub required, no HD yet.

From May this year they should be available FTA from the Ka-Sat satellite at 9 deg. east requiring a new dish, LNB and receiver. RTÉ 2 HD will be there from the start.

The Cush

Johnmb wrote: »

There is nothing in that document, or any others that I am aware of that would require RTE to make the RTE 2HD channel available to Sky or anyone else, if they are already making RTE 2 available.

Broadcasting Act 2009, RTÉ must offer its services to other platforms subject to the agreement of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. As per the consultation RTÉ has said it will offer the five new services to other operators incl. RTÉ 2 HD.

Johnmb wrote: »

I'm sure they'll happily offer it to Sky, but neither RTE nor Sky will pay for it to be carried as well as the SD version ofRTE 2. It is not currently viable for it to replace SD RTE 2 on Sky, so as I said, it is not likely to be carried on Sky any time soon, and there is no requirement for it to be carried. And, not to just be picking on Sky, the same is true for other carriers (e.g. UPC).

I agree, RTÉ won't pay for RTÉ2 HD to be carried just as it doesn't pay for the current channels to be carried. Will Sky pay for it to be carried in addition to the SD version - only Sky will have the answer to that.

mcwhirter

The Cush wrote: »

If you're referring to the Irish SD channels they're available via Sky box and dish, Sky sub required, no HD yet.

From May this year they should be available FTA from the Ka-Sat satellite at 9 deg. east requiring a new dish, LNB and receiver. RTÉ 2 HD will be there from the start.

Will a regular lnb and receiver not pick up the signals from this satellite.

The Cush

mcwhirter wrote: »

Will a regular lnb and receiver not pick up the signals from this satellite.

No, Ka band LNB and Saorsat certified receiver required (Ku band for Astra/Sky). A regular FTA satellite receiver may do but the displayed frequency range within the menus will be different.

Gipo3

I thought Watty was saying that there probably wont be a certified saorsat receiver?

The Cush

Gipo3 wrote: »

I thought Watty was saying that there probably wont be a certified saorsat receiver?

We have no official information yet regarding reception equipment for Saorsat.

mcwhirter

The Cush wrote: »

No, Ka band LNB and Saorsat certified receiver required (Ku band for Astra/Sky). A regular FTA satellite receiver may do but the displayed frequency range within the menus will be different.

I'm surprised they are going ahead with ka band as I am sure it is affected by rain more than ku band and ireland is a rainy country.

The Cush

mcwhirter wrote: »

I'm surprised they are going ahead with ka band as I am sure it is affected by rain more than ku band and ireland is a rainy country.

I think watty and others discussed the rain issue over in the Saorsat thread.

watty

mcwhirter wrote: »

I'm surprised they are going ahead with ka band as I am sure it is affected by rain more than ku band and ireland is a rainy country.

In Summary
The margin for rain is allowed for. Same size dish also gives nearly x4 signal in clear sky anyway for same TX power. The actual EIRP may be higher too. Big dishes on Satellite.

It's cost and Cost.
Carriage cost is low as Ka-Sat has about x20 to x30 capacity of normal Ku Satellites and isn't highly in demand as 28.2E Ku Band is.

No extra x10 to x20 rights costs as essentially only overspill to mainland UK comparable to Terrestrial, so no card management or encryption costs. Huge saving. It's FTA.

No EPG costs. Probably just a copy of Saorview.

They need Sat backup for DTT sites anyway, BBC and Five etc expensively use other satellite(s) to 28.2 as the actual content (bitrate, formats etc) is wrong to use Sky/Freesat as DTT site feed or backup.

Even if no Public used Saorsat, it's good value as DTT site backup and feed for Community DTT sites.

Johnmb

The Cush wrote: »

Broadcasting Act 2009, RTÉ must offer its services to other platforms subject to the agreement of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. As per the consultation RTÉ has said it will offer the five new services to other operators incl. RTÉ 2 HD.

I agree, RTÉ won't pay for RTÉ2 HD to be carried just as it doesn't pay for the current channels to be carried. Will Sky pay for it to be carried in addition to the SD version - only Sky will have the answer to that.

It may all be a mute point. I was in a different room, so may have misheard, but I'm sure there was an ad on the Horror Channel last night from Sky which indicated that they were planning on replacing existing boxes with Sky+HD boxes. If they were to actually do that, they could replace SD RTE 2 with RTE 2HD without many problems (assuming there is room on the transponder for a HD channel, once a SD channel is removed).

The Cush

Johnmb wrote: »

It may all be a mute point. I was in a different room, so may have misheard, but I'm sure there was an ad on the Horror Channel last night from Sky which indicated that they were planning on replacing existing boxes with Sky+HD boxes. If they were to actually do that, they could replace SD RTE 2 with RTE 2HD without many problems (assuming there is room on the transponder for a HD channel, once a SD channel is removed).

How many non-Sky HD receivers would have to be replaced in Ireland? How many are outside the initial 12 month contract? Would a new contract be required? The cost of physically replacing every non-HD receiver.

Might work out cheaper to carry RTÉ 2 HD as an additional channel.

watty

If sky want to pay carriage for RTE2HD, they can.

Unless they have replaced every box with an HD model (and the reason to do this is to save money on SD Pay TV carriage once you have more than a critical mass of HD, not to give everyone HD). I don't imagine RTE2HD is of any great concern to sky for maybe another year

Absolutely when sky have enough HD boxes they will replace the rest and go to DVB-S2 on Sky PayTV only transponders and go to MPEG4 SD for all MPEG2 Pay TV channels. At a certain point it makes a massive ongoing saving and frees over 50% capacity on payTV. It won't be about giving people cheaper access to HD, but about saving carriage costs on SD PayTV.

Also they can "jump" people to a new 12month minimum contract in exchange for "free HD package" (or 3 months free HD etc) to reduce churn.

Freesat started in a sense too soon and should switch to HD only box sales pronto.

Johnmb

The Cush wrote: »

Might work out cheaper to carry RTÉ 2 HD as an additional channel.

If I heard the ad correctly, I seriously doubt they are doing it just to carry RTE 2HD. They would have some other motives in mind if that's what they are planning, and carrying RTE 2HD would be a side effect. How much do they pay to Astra for the space on the satellites? If everyone (current subscribers, they owe no duty to provide a service to non-subscribers) had a HD box, there would be no need to carry all the SD simulcast channels, and that freed up space could be handed back to Astra to save money, used for new channels, or used to transfer existing SD channels over to HD channels.

MercySeat

Tonight is an opportunity for RTE2 to broadcast a genuine 1080i picture as the BBC will broadcast their rugby match in hi-def. I imagine they get their pictures from the BBC.
I've asked a mate in RTE if they have an intention of doing so but I've no response so far.

The Cush

MercySeat wrote: »

Tonight is an opportunity for RTE2 to broadcast a genuine 1080i picture as the BBC will broadcast their rugby match in hi-def. I imagine they get their pictures from the BBC.
I've asked a mate in RTE if they have an intention of doing so but I've no response so far.

Not happening according to an earlier post in the thread

An Tarbh wrote: »

got an email from RTÉ saying they won't be showing the 6 Nations in full HD, hardly surprising but extremely disappointing nonetheless.

watty

I suspect even if ready they will "save" HD launch for the May 2011 "full public launch" to shiny it as much as possible.

Schorpio

watty wrote: »

I suspect even if ready they will "save" HD launch for the May 2011 "full public launch" to shiny it as much as possible.

Awh, I was really hoping for a hi-def 6 nations this year. I don't see how broadcasting in HD now would take away from the launch in any big way, but I still don't think I'll be seeing tonight's match in HD.

bob11

not sure if it's a HD picture, but it's pretty good, if it's not ...

Way better than the RTE2 and BBC picture on UPC ..

Are you sure about BBC showing the game in HD ?
It's not on my BBC HD channel on UPC .. maybe it's on BBC1 HD , Is it ??

BArra

yep its on bbc1 hd

mickeyboymel

bob11 wrote: »

not sure if it's a HD picture, but it's pretty good, if it's not ...

Way better than the RTE2 and BBC picture on UPC ..

Are you sure about BBC showing the game in HD ?
It's not on my BBC HD channel on UPC .. maybe it's on BBC1 HD , Is it ??

Yep on BBC1 HD

barnicles

Doesn't look HD to me.. looks pretty decent compared to the Temp channel though :P

Minstrel27

RTÉ Two is most certainly upscaling atm.

pennypacker

If players appear to have a green line around them, particularly the red Welsh jerseys, is that down to the TV not being good? Becomes more evident in longer shots, kind of makes it seem at times like the players are on a 'green screen' and the background pitch is artifically generated.

I assume digital means interference results in pixellation skipping etc. as opposed to analog type interference where it affects the quality of the picture.

mike65

I couldn't really decide if it was proper native HD or not. Still a pretty good picture though.

Gipo3

if your able to switch between rte2 and bbc1 hd its obvious. Picture so much better on rte 2 dtt than sky all the same.

EdRey

Watching the Wales England game tonight, I thought it looked great on BBC HD, but the RTE2 picture seemed very poor. I'm open to correction, but to the untrained eye RTE2 didn't even seem to be broadcasting this upscaled.

Maybe I've just become too used to glorious 1080p. I'm on freesat.

EdRey

EdRey wrote: »

Watching the Wales England game tonight, I thought it looked great on BBC HD, but the RTE2 picture seemed very poor. I'm open to correction, but to the untrained eye RTE2 didn't even seem to be broadcasting this upscaled.

Maybe I've just become too used to glorious 1080p. I'm on freesat.

It has to be upscaled, if it wasn't then it would be a 720x576 (or 768x576) picture with a massive border around it to fit a 1920x1080 frame.

Minstrel27

EdRey wrote: »

Maybe I've just become too used to glorious 1080p. I'm on freesat.

Freesat HD is 1080i.