Future of Saorview now that Virgin owns TV3 & UTV Ireland

Elmo

Mickey Mike wrote: »

UTV Ireland to be rebranded B3 from January, so the channel will be kept on air for a least a while anyway, shutters are been pulled down on the studios with everything moved to Ballymount.

They are rebranding the channel, which is to be expected. The channel is not closing, it is merging with UTV. If UTV had been in a position to buy TV3 it would likely have ment that UTV Ireland would re-brand to a TV3-esq name.

Mickey Mike

Elmo wrote: »

They are rebranding the channel, which is to be expected. The channel is not closing, it is merging with UTV. If UTV had been in a position to buy TV3 it would likely have ment that UTV Ireland would re-brand to a TV3-esq name.

Will TV3 opperate a 3 channel line up? I thought I read somewhere 3e and UTVi were to merge

Elmo

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Will TV3 opperate a 3 channel line up? I thought I read somewhere 3e and UTVi were to merge

Yes confirmed that it will be 3 channels, yet to confirm the new name for UTV Ireland, rumor is that it will be B3

b for brit, b for because, b for b******

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Elmo wrote: »

Yes confirmed that it will be 3 channels, yet to confirm the new name for UTV Ireland, rumor is that it will be B3

b for brit, b for because, b for b******

b for brilliant. That's what the rebranding people think they are for supposedly coming up with the name B3 and decided to but the B in as part of the name. Just patting themselves on the back.

Gerry Wicklow

Is B3 not a standards rating, as in poor second class?

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Couln'd they have run a competition and asked the public to come up with some rebranding ideas. I'm sure they would have come up with something more interesting than B3. Oh I forgot when did TV3 ever give a dam about what the viewers think.

h7nlrp2v0g5u48

Couln'd they have run a competition and asked the public to come up with some rebranding ideas. I'm sure they would have come up with something more interesting than B3. Oh I forgot when did TV3 ever give a dam about what the viewers think.

Mickey Mike

Meadow Bitter Glycerine wrote: »

Couln'd they have run a competition and asked the public to come up with some rebranding ideas. I'm sure they would have come up with something more interesting than B3. Oh I forgot when did TV3 ever give a dam about what the viewers think.

I'd like to know what the B stand for, I thought they come up with something better. I suppose it won't go HD

Gerry Wicklow

Blurry 3 perhaps?

Gerry Wicklow

Gerry Wicklow wrote: »

Blurry 3 perhaps?

Scandalous really that their PSB status isn't revoked over the failure to provide at least TV3 in HD on the platform.

Mickey Mike

Deleted User wrote: »

Scandalous really that their PSB status isn't revoked over the failure to provide at least TV3 in HD on the platform.

We should at least have TV3 and TG4 in HD on Saorview, I've said this I don't how many times, just getting a little tired of now. SD on Saorview is BAD, 544 by 576i is too low, they should all move up the ladder a bit. Pity 2rn chose interlaced instead of progressive scan.

flutered

Mickey Mike wrote: »

I read 17 pages of rubbish, didn't understand a quarter of what they were saying. No word about HD services, its a flop of a service and a flop of a Minister, all those wealthy lads must have pay TV.

on their non vetted expense accounts more than likely

Sam Russell

Mickey Mike wrote: »

We should at least have TV3 and TG4 in HD on Saorview, I've said this I don't how many times, just getting a little tired of now. SD on Saorview is BAD, 544 by 576i is too low, they should all move up the ladder a bit. Pity 2rn chose interlaced instead of progressive scan.

All Saorview (and for that matter Freeview) is interleaved. Progressive scan might be found on DVD but not on broadcast TV.

2RN should insist on the minimum definition of 720 by 576i on Saorview. It would not affect the broadcasters much but would affect the viewer and the perceived PQ.

lgs 4

The re branding of TV3,s channels is just PR stunt without the broadcasting authority of Ireland imposing a moratorium on rebroadcasting ITVs programs .Ensuring that TV3,s program output would be 70% Irish home produced programming on all of its channels.That,s not cheap chat shows .Not taking cheap way out by rebroadcasting ITV,s output. It's the Irish answers to Irish problem and the tv licence is not the problem , TV 3 don't want to spend money good home produced programs and the government is partly to blame . Taking France as the example its program output on all of its public service broadcasters is 65 % french home produced programs .We should striving to have commercial public service broadcasting to proud of .

Elmo

lgs 4 wrote: »

The re branding of TV3,s channels is just PR stunt without the broadcasting authority of Ireland imposing a moratorium on rebroadcasting ITVs programs .Ensuring that TV3,s program output would be 70% Irish home produced programming on all of its channels.That,s not cheap chat shows .Not taking cheap way out by rebroadcasting ITV,s output. It's the Irish answers to Irish problem and the tv licence is not the problem , TV 3 don't want to spend money good home produced programs and the government is partly to blame . Taking France as the example its program output on all of its public service broadcasters is 65 % french home produced programs .We should striving to have commercial public service broadcasting to proud of .

I wouldn't agree with 70%, France is a much bigger country with a larger population and doesn't have a large francophone country providing it with content, you'd have to look to other smaller francophone countries to compare.

TV3 should have been required to provide 30% home produced in its prime time schedule outside of news and sport.

Instead what we got was 30% across the day, meaning cheap daytime TV programming.

Vic_08

lgs 4 wrote: »

The re branding of TV3,s channels is just PR stunt without the broadcasting authority of Ireland imposing a moratorium on rebroadcasting ITVs programs .Ensuring that TV3,s program output would be 70% Irish home produced programming on all of its channels.That,s not cheap chat shows .Not taking cheap way out by rebroadcasting ITV,s output. It's the Irish answers to Irish problem and the tv licence is not the problem , TV 3 don't want to spend money good home produced programs and the government is partly to blame . Taking France as the example its program output on all of its public service broadcasters is 65 % french home produced programs .We should striving to have commercial public service broadcasting to proud of .

That's just unrealistic nonsense.

RTE even with the licence fee don't produce 70% original homegrown output.

France has a population of 65 million and little competition from neighbouring broadcasters in their population's native language.

If that restriction was imposed either TV3 would cease broadcasting due to no opportunity to turn a profit or they would turn the 2 minor channels into 24hr tele-gambling, phone sex and repeats of Ireland AM, leaving the main channel free to run the premium ITV Studios content.

Elmo

Vic_08 wrote: »

If that restriction was imposed either TV3 would cease broadcasting due to no opportunity to turn a profit or they would turn the 2 minor channels into 24hr tele-gambling, phone sex and repeats of Ireland AM, leaving the main channel free to run the premium ITV Studios content.

Largely speaking TV3 could run all simulcast ITV content on be3 and keep its last 2 years of TV3 programming (though major overhaul would be needed). UTV Ireland weather people like to admit it took the majority of its viewers from TV3. No real reason for TV3 not to do this. be3 could carry TV3. Though with the lack of imagination shown for programming at TV3 it would be a difficult task. perhaps just fire management.

The Cush

Mickey Mike wrote: »

Pity 2rn chose interlaced instead of progressive scan.

Sam Russell wrote: »

All Saorview (and for that matter Freeview) is interleaved. Progressive scan might be found on DVD but not on broadcast TV.

Only the German DVB-T2/HEVC pilot mux is using progressive scan, 1080p/50, their network transition begins at the end of March next.

Sam Russell

The Cush wrote: »

Only the German DVB-T2/HEVC pilot mux is using progressive scan, 1080p/50, their network transition begins at the end of March next.

OK, but it is very new and not likely to happen here for a verrry long time if ever.

mrwish

TAFKAlawhec wrote:

I actually doubt that increasing the screen resolution of SD Saorview channels from 544x576 to 720x576 would require such a significant bitrate increase to keep a visible quality against marcoblocking.

Doing a check myself of leaving each channel on for a few minutes at a time, RTÉ1, RTÉ2 & TG4 on the RNI1 (NI Mini Mux) are averaging in the range of 2.1 - 2.5 Mbps for video with no visible macro blocking that I noticed, all three services broadcast full D1 (720 x 576) resolution.

I think RTÉ NL are way over cautious when it comes to the video bitrates on Saorview.

After changes this year, France's DTT system is pretty similar to Ireland's in terms of the technical spec: ~24Mbps multiplexes, with a mix of HD and a few SD channels. They're getting either 5 full HD channels (1920x1080i) or a combination of 4 full HD and 2 full SD (720x576i) in MPEG4 into a single multiplex with pretty decent quality. They're on Digital Bitrate too so an easy comparison with Saorview.

The SD channels run at around 1.1-4.0Mbps for video, with an average of ~2Mbps. As you say with the NI mux, there doesn't seem to be a macroblocking problem with this, plus any text on graphics is much nicer and clearer than on a 544x576 image.

As far as I understand it, the channel charges for Saorview are based on average bitrate rather than the specific minimum or maximum at any given time?

I'd imagine you could tweak the encoder settings to keep the averages per channel (and therefore the costs) the same, while at the same time getting the most out of the stat muxing and upping the resolution to 1920x1080/720x576.

You could let the HD services drop lower than 2Mbps when they don't need that much (in France and on UK services on satellite most 1920x1080 channels seem to be configured to go as low as 1Mbps), and go a bit higher than 9Mbps when they really need it (The French DTT services peak at around 11Mbps). Equally the SD channels are peaking at about 7.5Mbps in 544x576 whereas in France they get up to 5Mbps at most in 720x576!

Even if they did nothing else, the current configuration should be absolutely fine for 720x576 rather than 544x576 and would be a huge improvement.

If you were really going to do it properly, and there weren't the politics of the costs for each broadcaster, you could even do something like this -

Mux 1
RTÉ 2 1920x1080i Native HD
TG4 1920x1080i Native HD
TV3 1920x1080i Native HD
Tithe an Oireachtais 1440x1080i Upscaled HD
Saorview Info 1920x1080i HD (Needs minimal bitrate!)

Mux 2
RTÉ One 1920x1080i Native HD
UTV Ireland/Be 3 1920x1080i Native HD
3e 1440x1080i Upscaled HD
RTÉ Jr/One + 1 1440x1080i Upscaled HD
RTÉ News Now 1440x1080i Upscaled HD

With room there for the upscaled channels to go full HD when the source is acutally in HD. Seeing as the Saorview spec actually mandates it you could also get the most out of the bitrate available for video by putting the audio in HE-AAC or even E-AC3 at a lower bitrate than now (including the current 112kbps radio stations!)

Mickey Mike

It all looks like Virgin Media TV Ireland is going to be shafted again with a another sell off. Liberty Global is pulling out of the Irish market.