RTÉ 1 HD on Saorview before end of year.

formerly scottish paddy

Looks like RTÉ 1 HD could be on Saorview before the end of the year according to RTÉ's "strategic plan".

RTÉ intends to make RTÉ One HD available on SAORVIEW by the end of 2013.

also:

The costs of upgrading play-out for RTÉ One to HD, and the HD upgrade of the post-production and graphics environment, have been included as part of the capital expenditure plans for 2013 and 2014 respectively. By the end of 2013, it is the intention that RTÉ One will also be broadcast as a HD channel.

and for the near future:

RTÉ has already partially upgraded one of its production studios to HD, and this is expected to be completed within the next 12 months. RTÉ is in the process of implementing a new digital content server which will handle acquisition and independent production content in HD.

The Cush

Expected to launch in the New Year - http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=86323386#post86323386

Even though the strategy documents were only published in recent days they cover the period between 2012 and 2017 and so have been around in some form within RTÉ for more than 18 months maybe. The comments about it by Glen Killane in the introduction of the new season brochure from Aug are probably more up to date.

whitebriar

I'd imagine they're aiming for Xmas.

watty

But only if Mux2 is launched.

The Cush

watty wrote: »

But only if Mux2 is launched.

I assume they wouldn't have announced RTÉ 1HD unless they were going to switch it on.The Comreg Decision on the broadcast transmission market during the summer has probably clarified the situation for RTÉ/RTÉNL and the Minister who had final say in relation to tariffs.

More Music

MUX2 will be switched on before the end of the year.

RTE1 HD will be broadcasting in time for Christmas.

That's 2013, BTW!

fryup

but will that mean we won't be able to record rte1 and watch rte2 at the same time on the combo recievers?

The Cush

fryup wrote: »

but will that mean we won't be able to record rte1 and watch rte2 at the same time on the combo recievers?

We don't know which services will be on each mux yet but we'll assume RTÉ 1 & 2 HD will be on the same mux with TV3, 3e and TG4 maybe moved to the other mux creating capacity for RTÉ1 HD.

Souriau

It would make sense to have all RTE channels on one MUX along with interactive text.
RTE can allow PVR to follow a program onto another channel in the same MUX if something is running late on some live event, also RTE can stat mux without affecting TG4 or TV3 HD picture quality if they move onto Mux 2

fryup

in laymens language whats a mux?? a frequency??

The Cush

fryup wrote: »

in laymens language whats a mux?? a frequency??

Multiplex, an 8 MHz wide frequency channel carrying a package of TV, radio and other data mixed/mux together e.g. Mullaghanish Ch. 21 (470-478 MHz) transmits Mux 1, Mux 2 is allocated Ch. 24 (494-502 MHz)

eirman

The Cush wrote: »

Multiplex, an 8 MHz wide frequency channel carrying a package of TV

Just for curiosity, how many analogue channels would have fitted into that 8MHz in the past and was the power output higher?

The Cush

eirman wrote: »

Just for curiosity, how many analogue channels would have fitted into that 8MHz in the past and was the power output higher?

1 analogue TV channel and as a general rule of thumb DTT transmits at about one fifth of analogue power for the same coverage e.g. Cairn Hill 800kW analogue/160 kW digital.

Higher equivalent DTT power increases coverage area requiring less transmitters, there were approx 170 analogue transmitters and now down to 64 DTT transmitters for the same coverage.

watty

One

Power is complicated.
DVB-T, DVB-T2, DRM and DAB uses COFDM, thousands of parallel carriers, each carrier is QPSK or QAM and thus has a spectrum slightly more than the symbol rate of each carrier. Satellite and Cable digital use a single wider carrier (COFDM not needed).

DTT thus has a very solid nearly 8MHz wide spectrum with even power level, so for the same Transmitter output stage as Analogue, assuming a perfect amplifier you need the peak power to be more than 10dB less.


Analogue TV actually had four signals:

1. Main B&W AM signal, most of the power in the vision carrier and one sideband more than half filtered out. The carrier is thus offset in the 8MHz channel and uses more spectrum than the Luminance bandwidth.
2. Colour Subcarrier, almost no carrier as it is two quadrature DSBSC signals. Offset 4.433MHz approx from vision carrier and overlapping the B&W vision AM signal on the full sideband. Bandwidth is exactly twice the chrominance (colour) bandwidth.
3. FM Audio subcarrier. Spectrum depends on sound content in level and frequency and is about x10 the audio bandwidth. Offset 6.5MHz from vision carrier. Much lower power.
4. Nicam Subcarrier. A purely digital signal, so the spectrum is like other Digital signals, very solid with flat top. Offset to 6.5MHz and close to edge of the 8MHz logical channel.

A fifth serial digital data stream is carried in blank lines of the vision signal, thus from spectrum point of view it can be seen separately if the time interval it appears at can be "gated". It's essentially time compressed. On Digital it's simply multiplexed separately as is Interactive, Firmware updates, subtitles, background downloads and on pay systems the viewing card info.

Digital signals, especially COFDM (i.e. DTT & DAB & DRM) have a very "solid" spectrum. Average power is similar to peak and a signal for 8MHz channel (DTT) is about 4 times power as same level of signal in a roughly 2MHz channel (1.7MHz DAB).

Analogue has most of the power concentrated in the vision carrier, which actually does nothing except make a diode detector work. If you removed most of the Vision carrier and the vestigial sideband and used a special synchronous receiver (Pilot based SSB) the range would be identical but "transmitter" power maybe less than 1/2.

So a lower power DTT signal inherently "goes further" than Analogue as all the RF energy is actual signal unlike analogue. Additionally DTT uses very clever FEC (Forward Error correction) allowing even lower power, or greater range at same power.
FEC for digital systems was invented in 1950s!
The current FEC system is argued to be as mathematically good as entropy allows, so the only likely improvement is a cheaper implementation method. Reed Solomon coding invented in 1960s!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_error_correction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%E2%80%93Solomon

So direct comparison of Analogue PAL and DTT power is fairly meaningless. An effective reduction in transmitter ERP is still actually more usable signal allowing more range for perfect reception. But due to the FEC and digital "cliff" effect the area of fringe reception is a tiny edge. On analogue the fringe reception can be four times the area of "perfect" reception and 50% more than the Digital coverage.

watty

The Cush wrote: »

Higher equivalent DTT power increases coverage area requiring less transmitters, there were approx 170 analogue transmitters and now down to 64 DTT transmitters for the same coverage.

Not as simple as that as historically RTE started by choosing just high sites based on minimal number of Band I (huge range compared to UHF and much better range than Band III) transmitters.

So many Analogue repeaters and transmitters were bad sites for UHF. Arguably Truskmore, Leinster, Kippure, Maghera and Mullaghanish are not the "Best" UHF sites.

So part of the DTT roll out they picked many new locations to minimise the number of transmitters.

If they had aimed for 99% portable TV coverage there would be about x6 as many sites.

The original DTT plan actually had more sites than used for Analogue UHF. So the reduced number of sites is more about planning & rollout decisions than power or DTT coverage.

eirman

Janey Mac - You ask a simple question and Watty gives us a course!




... Only joking Watty ... Thanks

The Cush

watty wrote: »

The original DTT plan actually had more sites than used for Analogue UHF. So the reduced number of sites is more about planning & rollout decisions than power or DTT coverage.

RTÉ original plan mentioned up to 188 PSB sites which roughly matched the number of analogue sites but said themselves that they were surprised at the level of coverage from the main sites once they started their engineering test transmissions e.g. Mullaghanish DTT could be received on the Aran Islands, which allowed them to revise their rollout plan and reduce the number of DTT sites. Add to that the 4 new taller masts at Mullaghanish, Maghera, Truskmore and Mt Leinster for increased DTT coverage.

watty

I did give the simple answer first though "The Cush" hit the post button before I finished the longer answer!

The Cush

watty wrote: »

DTT thus has a very solid nearly 8MHz wide spectrum with even power level, so for the same Transmitter output stage as Analogue, assuming a perfect amplifier you need the peak power to be more than 10dB less.

Ofcom decided back in 2005 during switchover planning that DTT power of the PSB muxes would be at -7dB relative to analogue (one fifth the power) at most sites and at -4dB at some. Having a quick look at the Irish DTT sites they transmit at one-fifth or higher power relative to their old analogue powers.

The power level of each signal is typically expressed as a relative measure, namely the relative power level of the digital service compared to that of the current analogue transmissions. A digital power level of “-7dB (decibel)” is one fifth of the respective analogue level and a power level of “ -10dB” is one tenth of the analogue level.

...

There are two main options in terms of transmission power: -10dB (representing one tenth of the current analogue power levels) or –7dB (representing one fifth of the current analogue power levels). In general the higher power option (-7dB) will result in higher levels of coverage. However, this will also require the broadcasters to incur higher capital (the extra expense involved in procuring the higher specification equipment required) and operating costs (relating to cost of energy) which have to balanced against the overall benefit (in coverage or service reliability) that the higher power would yield.

watty

Yes, new transmitters. I was referring to a hypothetical transmitter. In practice an old analogue transmitter isn't linear enough for DTT / COFDM even at -10dB of it's Analogue rating.

So in real terms the the Digital power is much more than effectively double what it would be if the spectrum graph of the flat top of DTT matched the Analogue Vision carrier.

This is because the average power density of Analogue ignoring the vision carrier is very low compared to Digital.

This is why -10dB is much more range than Analogue. -7dB is about 50% more range than -10dB and -4dB is about double the range of -10dB. All the Digital signal does something, unlike Analogue where the vision carrier does nothing at all even though a lot of the power is there.

When you add effect of FEC as well, then -7dB Digital vs Analogue is huge boost in effective receiver performance

The Cush

watty wrote: »

I was referring to a hypothetical transmitter.

OK, we were on different wavelengths - I was referring to real transmitters.

watty

No, problem. I knew we were on different roll-outs
I was badly trying to explain why with DTT a measured "less" is in reality a "more" vs analogue for real receivers.

So basically if a DTT transmitter is at its maximum power (what ever that is), you can drive it probably +10dB harder with Analogue PAL, but the range would STILL be less for a cleanish picture. But the range maybe x4 or more for a barely watchable picture.

More Music

More Music wrote: »

MUX2 will be switched on before the end of the year.

RTE1 HD will be broadcasting in time for Christmas.

That's 2013, BTW!

Good things come to those who wait

galtee boy

More Music wrote: »

Good things come to those who wait

Spot on with your forecast for RTE1 HD on Saorview, any chance you might know if and when it will appear on SKY ?, so that we can start recording RTE1 programmes in glorious HD, be them in full HD or up scaled.

watty

Costs money to record on Sky and if you cancel ALL your recordings are dead!

Better to record on laptop with a DVB-T stick or use a true Terrestrial PVR.

galtee boy

watty wrote: »

Costs money to record on Sky and if you cancel ALL your recordings are dead!

Better to record on laptop with a DVB-T stick or use a true Terrestrial PVR.

I would invest in a terrestrial pvr, but the only Saorview approved one is the Walker, which according to posters here, is giving a lot of problems with failed recordings and issues with series link etc. Until such time as a reliable Saorview pvr is available, I will continue to begrudgingly pay Sky. I watch very little live tv, so hence my hope that RTE1 HD appears on Sky soon.

watty

A lot of series link issues seem to be RTE data, not actually the Walker (Vestel) PVR.

Some UK DVB-T2 Freeview+ HD PVR models are reasonable choice. But at your own risk.

Mr Cumulonimbus

HD programme on now. 'Rachel Allen's Christmas'.

Jpmarn

Mr Cumulonimbus wrote: »

HD programme on now. 'Rachel Allen's Christmas'.

This was the first ever programme I saw to be marked HD on RTE One.

spockety

The lockout documentary was the first HD program early last week.