Euro 2024 blocked on Saorsat

marclt

If Saorsat is aimed at ROI, why hasn’t RTÉ argued the case for carriage of the Euros on the platform.
It just shows it’s not really an alternative to Saorview, if big events coverage are blocked on rights grounds. Saorview has greater overspill into the north and probably is more easily accessible. So it seems odd.

dublinman1990

How many people have Saorsat in Ireland at the moment?

Do you have access to watch the games for free on ITV1 & BBC1 in the UK?

goldiefresh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058355951/euro-2024-blocked-on-saorsat

I know it's odd but they don't look at it like that it's to do with broadcasting fta on satellite in general. It seems regardless of footprint of beam the rights would cost them a hell of a lot more and they wouldn't bother. But your are right it's crazy in this day and age. A card system tied to proof of residency in the south and encrypting the channels would have been a better system. They could still be used as soarview backup by 2rn if needed.

loyatemu

you'd imagine 100% of Saorsat users also have satellite access to UK channels. So they can still watch the matches, albeit with added jingoistic commentary on any of England's games.

Schorpio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122269860#Comment_122269860

Doesn't really matter though, does it? Saorsat is supposed to be an infill service for Saorview. It's clearly not fulfilling the brief if it can't/isn't providing an equal service. (Not to mention the lack of the VM channels).

It's odd though, the choice of band and satellite was deliberately selected to minimise overspill. Plus, do BBC/ITV have Euros rights for RoI? Doubt it. And their overspill is far beyond that of Saorsat.

loyatemu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122270491#Comment_122270491

I guess BBC/ITV have paid for rights for 70m people, a few more watching on overspill isn't significant. RTE have paid for 5m people, even slight overspill could double that.

goldiefresh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122270584#Comment_122270584

Thats exactly how it is. We're only a tiny part of the overall number for them across the pond.

TAFKAlawhec

I'm willing to stick my neck out and suggest that the amount of households in NI & GB that receive Saorsat is somewhere between 0.1-0.5% of those that receive Saorview in the same territory area, yet there is absolutely no question of not showing the games from some of the Saorview transmitters that have significant overspill outside the Republic (and what a shitshow that would be if they tried that).

goldiefresh

That is true but that's the nature of the game. There rights cover fta on terrestrial and encrypted on satellite. Stupid I know but like I said earlier why it was not free to view instead of free to air from the start. It would incur another change for a cam or a receiver with card but it would be once off and would eliminate this issue and open all programs and events to licence paying viewers.

marclt

I’m guessing that coverage is blacked out on Sky in NI and on the freeview NI mux?

goldiefresh

Sky subscribers in Northern Ireland (only) get access to a limited range of RTE services on the Sky platforms as the product of historical reciprocal cross-border agreements.

icdg

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122272085#Comment_122272085

I’m given to understand that it is, yes, and on Virgin Media O2 also.

Nothing reciprocal for us - we’ve always been able to watch the BBC coverage, and historically the ITV coverage too.

Schorpio

I've long said that I'd love to know an estimate of the number of households which use Saorsat. I'm willing to be that the number is tiny - even with any overspill accounted for.

Also, the only place you can really get Saorsat outside of RoI is in NI and some of the west of GB. All of these places already have the Euros FTA anyway. It doesn't really make sense to block them, and the only people actually impacted are those in RoI who can't get Saorview (you know, the people Saorsat is supposed to serve).

TAFKAlawhec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122271524#Comment_122271524

Around the time of Saorsat's announcement here, there was a discussion on the merits of footprint-limited reception versus CAS territory restricting. Technically limiting by footprint is an easier method to implement territory copyright restrictions as a CA card can be easily used outside of the territory if reception of the signal is possible, and CA cards are not fool proof - back in the 00's there was a time when when RTÉ's GAA coverage on Sky was blacked out even to subscribers in the Republic due to Setanta's paranoia of Irish emigrants in GB using Sky RoI subscriptions shipped over to them to watch Gaelic games that way rather than through Setanta.

The problem with the footprint limiting is that it's very tricky to get it done right for a European nation, the main UK broadcasters are able to get away with it due to their size of broadcasting market. Ireland (32 county) is one of the easier ones to try and implement (Iceland would arguably be the easiest) but even that requires a Ka Band signal and as has been shown, not everyone is happy with its tightness even though the additional overspill into NI & GB compared to terrestrial transmitters is marginal at best.

And that's not until you'd get into a discussion over the technical details of a CAS territory restricting card scheme e.g. what CAS system to use, would Videoguard be employed, who takes the burden of the overall costs (the old Solas card scheme in the UK before they started FTA broadcasting on their tight-ish footprints at 28 East was free to UK licence fee payers), setting up of call centres etc. It is not something at this stage that I can see being set up as a replacement or run in parallel to Saorsat as the costs would either never be fully recovered for whatever length of time "linear broadcasting" as we know it will still exist, or that the costs on to prospective customers would likely to regarded as high & off putting.

c2r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122273101#Comment_122273101

Agreed entirely with this… the beam is so tight that there's not a lot of overspill in reality - it's not like you can get it in London or Leeds because of how the beam pattern works..

I for one would much rather add another LNB to my dish and plumb saorsat into my distribution system along with Astra 1, Astra 2, and Hotbird rather than having a massive aerial pointing at Dublin - but we are where we are with it; the channel selection, quality, and programme availability on saorsat is worse than saorview, and the irony really is that the radiation patterns from Kippure and from Clermont are designed to push signals far into the north which is why you see houses everywhere with aerials pointing at Irish transmitters, despite the avialability of Saorsat and RTE on the freeview NI multiplex

Apogee

Looking into the future, Ka-sat was launched in 2010, with a nominal lifetime of ~15/16 years. Sold by Eutelsat to Viasat around 2020. Not aware of any plans for Viasat to launch a replacement as such - especially considering how internet-by-satellite technology has moved on.

Closest possibility currently would be Eutelsat Konnect at 7E based on the "Irish" footprint published by SatBeams (although I can't find an original source). Eutelsat site shows only the combined footprint of the individual spotbeams: https://www.eutelsat.com/en/satellites/eutelsat-7-east.html

Hard to find specific details on Konnect but it seems to cover same freq range and also uses CP.

https://www.eutelsat.com/files/contributed/support/pdf/Eutelsat_Broadband_Services.pdf

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122285617#Comment_122285617

Viasat purchased eutelsat's share of ka-sat a few years ago but not the orbital slot. The slot reverts to eutelsat once ka-sat reaches end of life.

Eutelsat's Konnect satellite at 7 degrees east is an interim geosat, manufactured and launched fairly quickly, when a cooperation agreement between them to launch a high-throughput (HT) European satellite fell through about 2017/18.

It has a lower throughput than ka-sat, 75 Gbps vs 92 Gbps iirc with a similar spot beam structure. Also a different payload; Hughes Jupiter vs viasat, again iirc, so different CPE required, dish/router, for internet use (not Saorsat).

With Konnect being rushed out eutelsat was procuring its own HT satellite, Konnect VHTS, 500 Gbps . This went operational at 3 degrees east last October with approximately 230 spot beams.

The interim Konnect geosat may be repurposed for Africa only coverage in future.

Viasat has been developing it's own fleet of 1 Tbps HT geostationary sats, Viasat 3. Three sats covering the Americas, EMEA and Asia. Much delayed, the Americas sat was launched last year but is practically a write off following a solar panel unfurling issue.

The plan now appears to be to place the EMEA sat over the Americas later this year.

The European EMEA sat was required by the ITU to be in it's European slot by last July. Viasat has leased an Israeli slot, 13.8 degrees east, to operate it's satellite.

Unknown now the future for Viasat over Europe or even the future for geostationary platforms overall now that LEO and MEO sats will dominate this market.

What happens Saorsat once ka-sat is retired or fails? Likely it will cease as there is no planned Ka band replacement for the slot and if Saorsat moves to another Ka band sat who pays for the existing dishes to be realigned?

The future backup/replacement for DTT could be fibre, DVB-I, broadcast over fibre. The Italians have opted for this as a backup in case of transmitter failure and difficult coverage areas.

Good website here for spot beam info -

https://www.satbeams.com/satellites

Apogee

Viasat purchased eutelsat's share of ka-sat a few years ago but not the
orbital slot. The slot reverts to eutelsat once ka-sat reaches end of
life.

I guess Eutelsat could move Konnect to 9E? The RTÉNL contract alone wouldn't be worth it, but if you include the SAT-IP services also relying 9E, it might make commercial sense.

Equally, EOL for Ka-sat would be a convenient excuse for RTÉNL to kill Saorsat.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122286585#Comment_122286585

What happens the eutelsat Konnect customers if they move that sat to the 9E slot?

Not forgetting Ka-sat users are Viasat subscribers and Konnect users are eutelsat subscribers. There is no obligation on eutelsat to provide any backup to Viasat.

Also different payload on Konnect versus Ka-sat CPE, Hughes Jupiter versus Viasat.