Saorview for multiple hotel rooms

mdol

Hi all,

we cannot continue to justify the cost of Sky TV at our place of business and are contemplating Saorview for all the rooms. From our feedback, the vast majority of our guests tend to view tv online instead of traditionally, yet there will always be some people who want a television set in their rooms.

I know next to nothing about it so perhaps some of you could fill me in on the following:

1. We have 12 rooms, do I require just one Saorview aerial to get Saorview?

2. Can the Saorview signal be split to each tv in each room, and all viewable independent of each other?

3. We have seven hdmi compatible tv's, 5 crt's without hdmi input. Can the saorview boxes be connected to the aforementioned five by RF or scart cables?

Thanks for your time

Johnboy1951

Most of the Sky channels are available Free to Air, so no cost to provide those to all rooms.
You can add the Saorview channels also, from one aerial with the correct device to split the signal without loss.

How were you distributing the Sky TV channels to all the rooms?
What equipment have you in each room to receive the channels?

mdol

We have ten of the most basic boxes/packages and Sky does a deal with us as long as we renew every 12 months. Costs us €135 a month.

There's some kind of box on the end of the dish with a pile of cables coming out. I assume that's feeding each box.

When you say most of the Sky channels are available Free to Air do you mean freesat or freeview boxes? Do they have the terrestrial channels from the Sky channels (BBC, Ch4, etc) don't know much about them tbh.

I'd assume they are better than saorview so are they expensive? When I look up that stuff online I get bogged down pretty quickly. Most of it goes over my head and I don't want to get conned if I get a TV guy in.

Del2005

mdol wrote: »

We have ten of the most basic boxes/packages and Sky does a deal with us as long as we renew every 12 months. Costs us €135 a month.

There's some kind of box on the end of the dish with a pile of cables coming out. I assume that's feeding each box.

When you say most of the Sky channels are available Free to Air do you mean freesat or freeview boxes? Do they have the terrestrial channels from the Sky channels (BBC, Ch4, etc) don't know much about them tbh.

I'd assume they are better than saorview so are they expensive? When I look up that stuff online I get bogged down pretty quickly. Most of it goes over my head and I don't want to get conned if I get a TV guy in.

What ever box has a Sky card can be reset to receive Free to Air channels. All you need to do is Google how to reset it after you remove the card and disconnect any phone lines. If you can get FTA channels in your rooms you are doing better than a lot of hotels I've stayed in. Unless you have a lot of Irish guests I wouldn't bother with soarview and even if you do I doubt many would have issues with missing them.

Johnboy1951

IMO you would be best served by getting a few quotations to distribute FTA Satellite plus Saorview to all TVs.
If you are lucky the existing distribution system will be adequate.

The Free to Air channels I referred to are from the satellite dish ... and of course include BBC, ITV Ch.4, Ch.5 etc and many more. They do not include any of the Irish channels, so you need the aerial for those.

Stoner

Johnboy1951 wrote:

IMO you would be best served by getting a few quotations to distribute FTA Satellite plus Saorview to all TVs. If you are lucky the existing distribution system will be adequate.

Thats good advice IMO

B.A._Baracus

I've have yet to be in a hotel that had all the irish channels (soarview) and free to air channels (uk) so that would be a nice touch to be honest. You would be offering more than most in terms of TV.

Johnboy1951

If I were doing this for 12 rooms from scratch I would attempt something like
2 Terrestrial tuners for Saorview
12 Satellite tuners for FTA sat channels

feeding a backend box running something like tvheadend (or equivalent).

Put small cheap client boxes at each TV running Kodi (or equivalent) with a channel list set on the backend server.

All TVs would then have access to all stations simultaneously.

The distribution to each room would depend on what already exists.

All the software is free.
All the TV stations are free.
The hardware would not be costly when the cost is spread over a year's use.
It would probably pay for itself in one years Sky sub, with whatever labour it costs extra.

The Cush

mdol wrote: »

We have ten of the most basic boxes/packages and Sky does a deal with us as long as we renew every 12 months. Costs us €135 a month.

There's some kind of box on the end of the dish with a pile of cables coming out. I assume that's feeding each box.

When you say most of the Sky channels are available Free to Air do you mean freesat or freeview boxes? Do they have the terrestrial channels from the Sky channels (BBC, Ch4, etc) don't know much about them tbh.

The simplest option would be a new aerial for Saorview together with the existing satellite dish feeding a 12 output multiswitch (examples). You may have this already, the box at the base of the dish with the cables coming out.

Single cable to each TV point carrying both Saorview and satellite feeds, split at the TV end with a splitter or splitter faceplate. Independent viewing for each TV.

Are any of the TVs Saorview and possibly satellite compatible? I assume the CRTs aren't. A cheap combi box is an option for these TVs using a scart or RCA to scart cable (no RF out) - http://www.freetv.ie/saorview/boxes/combos/

As finance allow, there are relatively cheap combined Saorview and satellite TVs available from both Walker and Nordmende with all channels in a combined list (TV and radio) for easy access and a hotel mode option to prevent guest messing with the tuning. A single channel list can be created on 1 TV and uploaded to the others via USB key.

Have a look at Powercity, selecting Walker or Nordmende with satellite tuner option, example: https://powercity.ie/product/218842

List of free-to-air satellite channels available using the existing dish - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free-to-air_channels_at_28°E

Thurston?

mdol wrote: »

We have ten of the most basic boxes/packages and Sky does a deal with us as long as we renew every 12 months. Costs us €135 a month.

There's some kind of box on the end of the dish with a pile of cables coming out. I assume that's feeding each box.

10 boxes, but 12 rooms? Is there a box in each of these 10 rooms, or are they all in one location, with each providing a single channel that is then distributed to all the TVs?

The 'kind of a box' could then just be the LNB, an octo I'd assume, with some of the outputs split.

Del2005

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

If I were doing this for 12 rooms from scratch I would attempt something like
2 Terrestrial tuners for Saorview
12 Satellite tuners for FTA sat channels

feeding a backend box running something like tvheadend (or equivalent).

Put small cheap client boxes at each TV running Kodi (or equivalent) with a channel list set on the backend server.

All TVs would then have access to all stations simultaneously.

The distribution to each room would depend on what already exists.

All the software is free.
All the TV stations are free.
The hardware would not be costly when the cost is spread over a year's use.
It would probably pay for itself in one years Sky sub, with whatever labour it costs extra.

The OP already has Sky in all the rooms so should be able to distribute FTA over the same system with little extra investment.

As a business owner its not a good idea to distribute from potential pirated sources. They will be inspected by several agencies and none would be happy to see potential illegal distribution of pirated material. Supplying WiFi and people using Kodi on their own devices is not the OP's problem.

Johnboy1951

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

If I were doing this for 12 rooms from scratch I would attempt something like
2 Terrestrial tuners for Saorview
12 Satellite tuners for FTA sat channels

feeding a backend box running something like tvheadend (or equivalent).

Put small cheap client boxes at each TV running Kodi (or equivalent) with a channel list set on the backend server.

All TVs would then have access to all stations simultaneously.

The distribution to each room would depend on what already exists.

All the software is free.
All the TV stations are free.
The hardware would not be costly when the cost is spread over a year's use.
It would probably pay for itself in one years Sky sub, with whatever labour it costs extra.

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP already has Sky in all the rooms so should be able to distribute FTA over the same system with little extra investment.

Yes, should ...... as I had already posted, but dependent on the distribution method in place, which the OP seems to know nothing about.

As a business owner its not a good idea to distribute from potential pirated sources. They will be inspected by several agencies and none would be happy to see potential illegal distribution of pirated material. Supplying WiFi and people using Kodi on their own devices is not the OP's problem.

I surely agree that any person, business or otherwise, should not involve themselves in dodgy practices.

Now tell us why you felt it necessary to post that in response to my post?

Also why mention wifi?

It would appear that you have some ulterior motive .... else why even mention such things when they were neither suggested or implied?
The alternative seems to be you have little or no knowledge about what you commented on.

dubrov

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP already has Sky in all the rooms so should be able to distribute FTA over the same system with little extra investment.

As a business owner its not a good idea to distribute from potential pirated sources. They will be inspected by several agencies and none would be happy to see potential illegal distribution of pirated material. Supplying WiFi and people using Kodi on their own devices is not the OP's problem.

The suggestion did not involve pirated sources. It was basically to convert the satellite/aerial feed to IPTV and distribute over the local network.

Given, there is already a Sky setup in place, I think it wouldn't be worth the cost.

I think the cheapest solution would be to install an aerial and combine its signal with the satellite feed. Then buy a cheap combo box for 60-80 euro which would receive the feeds. You would need one per TV and to connect the satellite and aerial feeds to it.

After that, there would be no more TV bills and you would get all the main UK and Irish channels.

Johnboy1951

dubrov wrote: »

The suggestion did not involve pirated sources. It was basically to convert the satellite/aerial feed to IPTV and distribute over the local network.

I am informed (have not tried it personally) that IP can be distributed successfully over coax, if that is what is in place.

Given, there is already a Sky setup in place, I think it wouldn't be worth the cost.

I think the cheapest solution would be to install an aerial and combine its signal with the satellite feed. Then buy a cheap combo box for 60-80 euro which would receive the feeds. You would need one per TV and to connect the satellite and aerial feeds to it.

After that, there would be no more TV bills and you would get all the main UK and Irish channels.

That post of mine began with

If I were doing this for 12 rooms from scratch I would attempt something like

which should explain why I ignored whatever distribution scheme is in place, for that post.

Some of those cheap combi boxes can be updated via ethernet, so would be easy manage in the event of channel changes etc. ... not that manually applying a change to individual boxes would be onerous for 12 boxes.

Del2005

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Yes, should ...... as I had already posted, but dependent on the distribution method in place, which the OP seems to know nothing about.



I surely agree that any person, business or otherwise, should not involve themselves in dodgy practices.

Now tell us why you felt it necessary to post that in response to my post?

Also why mention wifi?

It would appear that you have some ulterior motive .... else why even mention such things when they were neither suggested or implied?
The alternative seems to be you have little or no knowledge about what you commented on.

The OP already has a working system that just costs too much. So why would they rip out a functioning system to replace with a complex system that they understand even less than their current system.

Regardless of what Kodi is designed to do when the vast majority of people see or hear about it they think copyright infringement. So we have a business owner subject to regular inspections trying to explain something that they don't understand to someone who doesn't understand what Kodi really does.

My ulterior motive is to get the OP TV channels in their hotel rooms for the least cost and hassle. Resetting the current boxes will do this, starting from scratch and installing an IP system when they have zero technical knowledge is silly and going to be an ongoing cost. I've stayed in a 4 star hotel with fancy iP TV and other fancy technology like casting from your device, they had about 2/3s of the 10 channels working any time I was there and the cast , alarm or other features never worked. So if the OP can provide all the FTA channels, at zero cost to them, then they have a better TV package than nearly every hotel I've stayed in.

Johnboy1951

Del2005 wrote: »

The OP already has a working system that just costs too much. So why would they rip out a functioning system to replace with a complex system that they understand even less than their current system.

Again you are not reading what is written!
I had already advised the OP to get quotes from professionals to provide FTA channels to the rooms.

Regardless of what Kodi is designed to do when the vast majority of people see or hear about it they think copyright infringement. So we have a business owner subject to regular inspections trying to explain something that they don't understand to someone who doesn't understand what Kodi really does.

What is there to understand?
You are just being ridiculous.
They would have a system that provides TV to the rooms, and nothing else.
All the stations provided are Free to Air.
Nothing to inspect!
... and yet again I emphasise that I started that post with

If I were doing this for 12 rooms from scratch I would attempt something like

and previously advised to get some quotes,

which you seem to wish to ignore.

My ulterior motive is to get the OP TV channels in their hotel rooms for the least cost and hassle. Resetting the current boxes will do this, starting from scratch and installing an IP system when they have zero technical knowledge is silly and going to be an ongoing cost.

First thing they will need to do is to change the Sky STBs for something that will work properly for the stations provided ...... a combi box or other device to display Sat + Saorview channels.
Resetting Sky STBs will not do this.

What on-going cost?

I've stayed in a 4 star hotel with fancy iP TV and other fancy technology like casting from your device, they had about 2/3s of the 10 channels working any time I was there and the cast , alarm or other features never worked. So if the OP can provide all the FTA channels, at zero cost to them, then they have a better TV package than nearly every hotel I've stayed in.

You should stay in better class hotels!


EDIT:
This is just taking this thread off topic so I will resist any further engagement on it.