Lack of HD services on Saorview - rendering it a bit redundant at this stage?

PixelCrafter

I was just looking at the channel listings that someone had posted on the DVB-I thread, https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=MUX-2&liste=1&live=44&lang=en

And it's a bit shocking to see that only 1 channel on Saorview is in HD i.e. RTE One.

If they're going make it a useful service, it really needs to up its game a bit. It's not the 1990s and people really do notice low res video formats on tvs. Surely it should be possible to improve this? Or, is ComReg really hobbling it with a tiny slice of radio spectrum?

I mean there are UHD services on air in France and Spain for example : https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=R9&liste=1&live=1&lang=en

and by and large the regular MUXes are carrying better resolution services than Saorview, which seems to be just basic as basic goes.

swoofer

Have you got SAORview????

The Cush

RTE 2 and TG 4 are also HD, plus RTE News broadcasts at a slight higher resolution than the VM SD channels, 704x576

VM have chosen not to transmit their channels in HD format on Saorview due to the tariff for HD channels.

Regarding the French UHD mux this was launched for the Paris Olympics last summer with 2 channels. It only carries the France 2 public channel now and a test channel, not sure what their future plans are for the test mux

Germany transitioned to a higher spec to improve their DTT service a number of years ago using DVB-T2/HEVC

galtee boy

Im no spring chicken myself, so I'm not insulting the elderly, but it must be only a small minority of elderly people who use Saorview only for their tv. As a tv service, albeit for free, it's appalling, the lack of HD other than RTE/TG4 is a disgrace. If it shutdown in the morning, there would be a week of grumbling and that would be it.

paddylonglegs

I would be tempted to go with the low cost of saorview as the terrestrial tv goes on once or twice a week in this house, the rest is streaming (family of 5, young kids) we do pay for a tv service through Vodafone fibre but it’s not much more than saorview and freeview combined in my view.

I hadn’t realised they didn’t broadcast in HD though. Does anyone know if freeview is still available in Ireland the way it was a few years ago?

Manc-Red_

Have Freesat and Saorview myself and I’ll use Saorview for when Ireland are on in Football or Rugby.

The Virgin channels looking like something from years gone by is unwatchable compared to what’s on Freesat UK for example though, surely that can be upgraded?

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123917389#Comment_123917389

Freeview overspill continues as before. Same with satellite overspill.

The next 5-10 years could see changes to this if/when they transition to IP delivery of their channels instead of traditional broadcast.

They have already launched Freely, the probable replacement for Freeview/Freesat. This will be geo-blocked here.

ednwireland

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123917411#Comment_123917411

course it can, virgin media just won't pay for it.

having said that I don't have fibre and got starlink several months ago so streaming works now. so have a android box to watch stuff which works OK now.

KaneToad

I use Saorview, Astra Satellite and Virgin streaming app. I get everything I need in HD for €0 monthly cost.

PixelCrafter

Freesat is likely to remain around until the current fleet of Astra satellites in that orbital position are retired - they may last longer but they are only designed to get about as far as 2029 to the very early 2030s. As it stands doesn’t seem like anyone’s in a rush to pre-order new capacity so my guess it will be withdrawn, or replaced with a very slim mostly BBC service to cover the few very hard to reach spots. There’s still a need for some kind of coverage by satellite.

You can see it beginning in France already as Canal+ rapidly loses interest in satellite technology — the equivalent of Freesat, TNTSAT is already seeing decent channels drop of and be replaced by cheaper ones.

Manc-Red_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123917573#Comment_123917573

Also on an android myself. Great stuff on that from the official sources around the globe.

Getting back to Virgin on Saorview, who runs that - RTE?

sbs2010

Obviously I'm a bit of an old fogie in this area but words like shocking, disgrace and unwatchable in some of the posts above are a bit OTT.

I've got a satellite dish for the UK stuff and Saorview aerial for the Irish stuff and I've no issue with the Virgin channels or any non-HD stuff.

Its just tv folks, its not real life. Not everything needs to be super mega 8k latest greatest, etc....

PixelCrafter

To be fair, expectations of screen resolution have shot up. If you’ve a decent TV programming in anything less than 1080 looks bad - the bigger the screen the worse it looks. Sky News for example has imaging and onscreen text and graphics very obviously intended for HD - it looks bad in SD on Saorview.

Manc-Red_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123917731#Comment_123917731

It’s not the end of the world or any of that but the SD version ran at that bit rate looks like tripe compared to what they stream out via their app.

They can send out the SD versions at a watchable 720 but they are choosing 480 or so on Saorview.

Life goes on and all that jazz

PixelCrafter

Life goes on and viewers switch off. It has the vibe of a service that is only there because of some legal requirement to have DTT – it looks very underfunded and bare bones.

Charles Babbage

In my opinion, the cost of transmission should be taken from the TV licence revenue and offered at a reasonable price to broadcasters, but any licenced broadcaster should be required to provide HD if they provide HD elsewhere. The government have really messed up on this.