Why "Saorview Approved"?

PabloAndRoy

I don't get this "Saorview Approved" thing...

DVB-T is an ETSI standard. MPEG-4 is an ISO standard. So why do we need "Saorview Approved"? Isn't the whole point of using standards that we don't need proprietary "approval"? What's going on here?

I don't have an issue myself as my bog standard USB DVB-T sticks work fine for me ... Although I do have an "old" DVB-T LG which doesn't seem to work natively with Saorview. There is no Ireland in the country settings and UK does not work.

Can someone shed some light on this odd use of standards and why some DVB-T equipment doesn't work? Is it the combination of DVB-T/MPEG-4 that is the problem or is it those SSB channels?

lertsnim

I have an approved TV and a STB that isn't approved.

When a new channel appears (a rare event) it will appear automatically on the TV. I have to tune it in manually on the STB. That isn't an issue for me but for many it is.

Both offer a 7 day EPG but I only get Aertel on the TV. I hardly use Aertel though.

The Cush

PabloAndRoy wrote: »

I don't get this "Saorview Approved" thing...

DVB-T is an ETSI standard. MPEG-4 is an ISO standard. So why do we need "Saorview Approved"? Isn't the whole point of using standards that we don't need proprietary "approval"? What's going on here?

The reason, there was no harmonised DTT receiver standard for all of Europe. Each country decided how the different components of a DTT signal are implemented to ensure a standard receiver spec for their population.

Some people complain when Europe mandates compliance with various regulations but this is what happens when there is no fixed standard.

I thought we would see the end of various reception standards used in analogue, PAL B/G/I and SECAM L/B/G/D/K, when DTT came along but unfortunately we seem to have even more now, D-Book in the UK, the Italian DGTVi, the ETSI E-Book and Scandinavia's NorDig and their various national implementations such as Saorview who use Nordig as their primary standard with specific additions for Ireland.

Sam Russell

When God made standards, he made plenty of them.

PabloAndRoy

The Cush wrote: »

The reason, there was no harmonised DTT receiver standard for all of Europe. Each country decided how the different components of a DTT signal are implemented to ensure a standard receiver spec for their population.

Some people complain when Europe mandates compliance with various regulations but this is what happens when there is no fixed standard.

I thought we would see the end of various reception standards used in analogue, PAL B/G/I and SECAM L/B/G/D/K, when DTT came along but unfortunately we seem to have even more now with DTT, D-Book in the UK, the Italian DGTVi, the ETSI E-Book and Scandivia NorDig and their various national implementations such as Saorview who use Nordig as their primary standard with specific additions for Ireland.

Excellent response. Thanks. What a mess!

Carawaystick

I presume the dvb-t(2) and mpeg4 are common standards, but the auto tuning, channel positioning, flashy teletext replacement* etc are the variables from country to country.

*teletext was always digital

Sam Russell

Sam Russell wrote: »

When God made standards, he made plenty of them.

And He must have had an off day when He allowed us to pick the standard we got. We've ended up with the embarassment that is the sole Saorview+ recording device (Walker box). We should have continued on from the almost common PAL-I standard (VHF III tuners in Ire TVs) that the UK & Ire previously used and adopted the UK's D-Book. We would now be able to use the range of decent recording STBs that they enjoy now.

Sam Russell

Deleted User wrote: »

And He must have had an off day when He allowed us to pick the standard we got. We've ended up with the embarassment that is the sole Saorview+ recording device (Walker box). We should have continued on from the almost common PAL-I standard (VHF III tuners in Ire TVs) that the UK & Ire previously used and adopted the UK's D-Book. We would now be able to use the range of decent recording STBs that they enjoy now.

We probably would have done had RTE won the beauty contest. Unfortunately the contest was run by a consortium that included a Danish outfit that went with Nordig.

The UK D-Book is a secret (unpublished) standard unlike Nordig, so if we had gone with that, we would not know what we had gone with, so we might be no better off. As it is we have Nordig plus MHEG 5 for our sins.

There was no problem with the Saorview signal and Series Link for UK sets until 2RN disabled it - so complain to 2RN about it - but they do not listen.

Tony

That's not really an excuse for the mess as Boxer had already pulled out long before the service was fully launched. there was ample opportunity to change the spec from the Nordig saorview approved model

Sam Russell wrote: »

We probably would have done had RTE won the beauty contest. Unfortunately the contest was run by a consortium that included a Danish outfit that went with Nordig.

The Cush

Tony wrote: »

That's not really an excuse for the mess as Boxer had already pulled out long before the service was fully launched. there was ample opportunity to change the spec from the Nordig saorview approved model

By the time Boxer and the other consortia withdrew from the process both the FTA and pay TV STB specs had been published and almost a years work had been done on it.

Starting all over again would have meant selecting a new specification, D-Book would have been the obvious choice but it didn't include MPEG-4 video at the time which had been selected as our video compression standard the year before. Another delay would be required to tailor the D-Book spec to Irish requirements by which time the D-Book DVB-T2/MPEG-4 spec had been approved but no STBs were available. All of this in the face of a looming EU mandated 2012 analogue switchoff.

The Cush

The Cush wrote: »

By the time Boxer and the other consortia withdrew from the process both the FTA and pay TV STB specs had been published and almost a years work had been done on it.

Starting all over again would have meant selecting a new specification, D-Book would have been the obvious choice but it didn't include MPEG-4 video at the time which had been selected as our video compression standard the year before. Another delay would be required to tailor the D-Book spec to Irish requirements by which time the D-Book DVB-T2/MPEG-4 spec had been approved but no STBs were available. All of this in the face of a looming EU mandated 2012 analogue switchoff.

Humax Fox T2 STB available in August 2010, plus DVB-T2 tuner TVs were also around. Could we not have held off till the Summer of 2012 to launch the service?

The Cush

Deleted User wrote: »

Humax Fox T2 STB available in August 2010, plus DVB-T2 tuner TVs were also around. Could we not have held off till the Summer of 2012 to launch the service?

Too late in my opinion, too close to the EU's ASO deadline, too little time for viewers to transition. There were already lots of DVB-T/MPEG-4 TVs out there, albeit not Saorview approved but working OK with Saorview. I purchased my first MPEG-4 TV around April 2008 in anticipation of MPEG-4 being selected as the Irish standard, 8 years later it's still going strong.

The Saorview STB spec was published in Dec 2008.

Tony

There still could have decided not to go with the nordig spec which was only chosen because of boxers involvement ( I was told this at a meeting in Donnybrook at the time ) Very little work was done by RTE on this they were simply following Nordig. A company from that region was also chosen to carry out the completely unnecessary approval process . A much better idea would have been to adapt existing hardware from the UK which would also have meant that the hardware shortage at switch off could have been avoided.

Water under the bridge I know but if we forget the mistakes of the past we are condemned to repeat them.

The Cush wrote: »

By the time Boxer and the other consortia withdrew from the process both the FTA and pay TV STB specs had been published and almost a years work had been done on it.

The Cush

Tony wrote: »

There still could have decided not to go with the nordig spec which was only chosen because of boxers involvement ( I was told this at a meeting in Donnybrook at the time ) Very little work was done by RTE on this they were simply following Nordig.

If it wasn't Nordig then D-Book was the only other logical option but that wasn't compatible with MPEG-4 Saorview at the time.

It was obvious that the Boxer standard would be chosen as the FTA STB standard because the pay DTT operator was to be the "DTT champion", as they referred to them in the documentation, who would push this to the viewing public via promotion/advertising/etc. with a FTA option for the pay DTT refusenicks.

Tony wrote: »

A company from that region was also chosen to carry out the completely unnecessary approval process.

The company is Teracom, who were the 50% shareholder in the Boxer consortium. They are the equivalent to 2RN in Sweden, operating the national terrestrial network and own the Boxer pay DTT operations in Sweden/Denmark/Finland. In addition to compliance testing for those 3 networks they also do the same for Norway's DTT network. They are also one of the developers of the Nordig specification.

Tony wrote: »

A much better idea would have been to adapt existing hardware from the UK which would also have meant that the hardware shortage at switch off could have been avoided.

Agree with you there and have said it many times before, unfortunately the whole pay DTT process between the BAI and the Boxer and OneVision consortia took way too long (almost 2 years) leaving too little time to go through a whole new process again considering the network engineering test transmission were already well underway.