Will TG4 be on HD on Sky since UPC have it

dublinbusdude

Hi all,

Will TG4 be on HD on Sky since UPC have it???

Thanks

zg3409

Sky can take TG4 for free any time they want. The only catch is they would need to transmit both TG4 SD (for older boxes) and TG4 HD for newer boxes.

I don't know how likely it is. Sky have somehwat limited capacity and every transponder costs money. They would need to do a cost benefit analysis. They never took RTE News now, nor RTE Junior/RTE1 +1. They also know down the road there will be more channels on Saorview which may have a much higher demand from users.

We will not know for sure until it happens but I'd say it is unlikely in the short term at least. It may happen in the future along with future Saorivew channels.

How about ringing Sky and saying the channel is on UPC and will be on Saorview, are they going to carry it. If no-one rings Sky why would they bother?

JDxtra

zg3409 wrote: »

Sky have somehwat limited capacity and every transponder costs money

Sky have a lot more capacity than UPC. An awful lot more. Remember, there was capacity for 24 x HD (and SD) streams for the BBC Olympics.

Kurn

JDxtra wrote: »

Sky have a lot more capacity than UPC. An awful lot more. Remember, there was capacity for 24 x HD (and SD) streams for the BBC Olympics.

I think they problem might be once the give us something they can't take it back? I asked on their forums, and the said they knew nothing about Tg4 HD and RTE News

Beamobhoy

Quote on TG4 Facebook account:

This is a pilot scheme and cable is the ideal platform on which to trial it. As it beds in on cable, we will, of course engage with the other platform providers Saorview and Sky.

watty

Disgraceful to trial a PSB service on Pay Cable. They should "trial" (what?) on Saorview and/or Saorsat or not at all.

TV Licence Payers and Taxpayers subsidising a Foreign PayTV company.

Nearly as bad as "Sound & Vision" money going to Setanta which ought to be criminal offence to fund a PayTV channel from TV licence fee.

Storm 10

Cant understand this, I have UPC and also RTE2 HD but it wont let me view TG4 HD as it says I am not subscribed to this channel, for <MOD EDIT> sake its a FREE Irish channel. Anyone have the same problem, who should I call on this.

icdg

First of all, mind your language, this is a publicly accessible (including by children) forum. Second of all, the issue is one for the Cable/MMDS forum. But to answer your question, RTÉ Two HD is available to non-HD subscribers and TG4 HD is not. Not sure why the distinction is drawn (other than RTÉ Two HD is available for free on Saorview while TG4 HD is not) but you'll need to take that up with UPC and TG4. Any more discussion on that issue should be in the relevant thread in cable.

Solair

JDxtra wrote: »

Sky have a lot more capacity than UPC. An awful lot more. Remember, there was capacity for 24 x HD (and SD) streams for the BBC Olympics.

Yes and no. Sky doesn't actually have any capacity in its own right, the channels are all rented space on the Astra / Eurobird satellite system. While there are extra channel spaces available, it doesn't necessarily mean that Sky will be willing to pay for an extra slot for a channel that probably has very limited audience uptake unless it is something that is likely to encourage more people to pay for Sky subscriptions.

BBC has its own independent capacity on the same system which is used for both Sky and FreeSat customers. All Sky does is integrate BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content into the EPG. The channels are not encrypted or uplinked by Sky anymore.

BBC is a bit of a bottomless pit when it comes to stuff like this. It seems to have vast funds and they really pulled out all the stops for the olympics. They may have even received extra funding for that stuff from the Government as it was a special event. So, I don't really think the olympics are a reasonable comparison with TG4 HD's situation.

RTE, TV3 and TG4 are however encrypted by Sky, so that's a different setup entirely where Sky are providing the space to ensure that it gets more Irish people onto the platform as it's a direct replacement for cable.

I'm not sure how limited UPC's capacity is, but they've a hybrid fibre-coax network and quite a lot of bandwidth on it. It probably could carry a lot more channels than it has at present. Although, I suspect they're keeping a lot of the capacity for broadband and phone services.

What limits UPC's capacity is the lowest common denominator on their cable network. They've a standard channel line up, so they can only expand it to whatever the space the lowest bandwidth part of their network is would provide. Otherwise, they'd need to have different line ups in different areas of their network depending on how recently they had been rewired.

UPC also do not have ongoing costs renting transponders from someone else as it's a closed cable network that they own outright.

Storm 10

First of all, mind your language, this is a publicly accessible (including by
children) forum

Sorry about that, thanks for the reply