Rare mention of politics in satellite forum!

Lennoxschips

Labour calls to recognise emigrant community

There are other simple gestures the government could make to help these people. They could introduce a special free travel scheme entitling pensioners from the emigrant community living in Britain to free public transport in Ireland, as they are entitled to in the UK. This would encourage many of them to visit the family and friends they left behind in Ireland when they left.

“Also, the Government should investigate providing RTE television to homes in Britain. If we in Ireland can receive thousands of British, European, and US channels on basic TV packages, why is RTE not similarly available to the Irish community in Britain?"

Hehe, finally politicians go after the satellite viewer bloc vote. It was only a matter of time.

Still, no mention of giving the vote to Irish passport holders overseas.

Macy

Lennoxschips wrote:

Still, no mention of giving the vote to Irish passport holders overseas.

Good.

weehamster

They should be more worried why we have to pay €29 pm as well as our licence fee to watch RTE on Sky Digital. :mad:

chorus techy

weehamster wrote:

They should be more worried why we have to pay €29 pm as well as our licence fee to watch RTE on Sky Digital. :mad:

Its because RTE can't afford to pay for the uplinking, encryption and EPG placement of their channels :rolleyes:

By entering into Family Pack only, sky will cover the costs of their uplinking and give them the EPG placements.

Zaphod

weehamster wrote:

They should be more worried why we have to pay €29 pm as well as our licence fee to watch RTE on Sky Digital. :mad:

An Irish solution to an Irish problem.

Greenman

chorus techy wrote:

Its because RTE can't afford to pay for the uplinking, encryption and EPG placement of their channels :rolleyes:

By entering into Family Pack only, sky will cover the costs of their uplinking and give them the EPG placements.

How much would it cost to uplink and get EPG plaxement?

kramlq

Greenman wrote:

How much would it cost to uplink and get EPG plaxement?

Here are some estimated figures based on what I have read in various places.
- Transponder capacity about €500-600k per channel. Probably a better deal available for a multi year lease and for more than one channel.
- Uplink equipment?? They must have some spare kit already, as they use one of the intelsats for feeds. I think an uplink truck costs about 150k, so probably similar for some fixed equipment at montrose.
- EPG is £25-£75k a year depending on what deal they negotiate (better deal for joint EPG/Encryption contract)
- There is also Conditional Access fees, unless they opt to have a FTA 'Best of Irish TV' type channel. CA from NDS/Sky is expensive, but you sometimes get part of the family pack revenue in return for encrypting. Most small countries seem to use Viaccess for their standalone domestic/international FTV services (would not work in digibox though).

Greenman

kramlq wrote:

Here are some estimated figures based on what I have read in various places.
- Transponder capacity about €500-600k per channel. Probably a better deal available for a multi year lease and for more than one channel.
- Uplink equipment?? They must have some spare kit already, as they use one of the intelsats for feeds. I think an uplink truck costs about 150k, so probably similar for some fixed equipment at montrose.
- EPG is £25-£75k a year depending on what deal they negotiate (better deal for joint EPG/Encryption contract)
- There is also Conditional Access fees, unless they opt to have a FTA 'Best of Irish TV' type channel. CA from NDS/Sky is expensive, but you sometimes get part of the family pack revenue in return for encrypting. Most small countries seem to use Viaccess for their standalone domestic/international FTV services (would not work in digibox though).

Thanks for the detailed info!!!

Are all those crappy channels ie shopping and the like paying 500K per year plus plus?

OK RTE leave the status qou with $ky as they are tied in till 2008 I think!!!

But why why why not a FTA best of Irish channel, no rights issues just the home grown progs that many people from outside would love to watch.
TARA was so very popular in the UK!!!

Wake up Montrose!!!

Ulsterman 1690

Because RTE cant afford uplinking encryption EPG placement

Lets explode a few myths here

Of course RTE can afford uplinking because If RTE were to bypass $ky and go to SES (operators of Astra) directly they could get transponder space for a fraction of the running costs of their existing analouge network Hell the cost of an uplink (especially a digital one) is only a fraction of the cost of maintaining a network of over a hundred transmitters and relays on remote mountain tops around the country and supplying these with electricity.How do you think al thosel the "filler" channels on Astra and Hotbird that have a peak viewership of aproximately five people can afford it ?

EPG placement If $ky want to sell subscriptions to Irish viewers they HAVE to give the most prominent EPG slots (i.e. 101-104) to Irelands terrestrial broadcasters. Its in the Broadcasting act. This is why in the Republic RTE get slots 101 to 104 while in the UK BBC ITV and Channel 4 get those slots (with 105 reserved for channel five)

Encryption If RTE HAVE to use encryption theres nothing to say they have to use $kys system. If they had the b@ll$ to put their foot down and go for something like Viaccess $ky would be forced into either having to put CAM slots on their boxes or making a CAM for NDS/videoguard

weehamster

chorus techy wrote:

Its because RTE can't afford to pay for the uplinking, encryption and EPG placement of their channels :rolleyes:

By entering into Family Pack only, sky will cover the costs of their uplinking and give them the EPG placements.

That’s not the point.

I’m paying the licence fee so I am entitled to watch it for free. I don’t mind paying a once off for equipment but not a subscription as I’m already paying a yearly fee which entitles me to watch RTE etc. This is done in the UK and Holland. :mad:

Greenman

See my sig.

Management in Montrose have very little foresight.

Lennoxschips

Macy wrote:

Good.

god forbid we should let all our citizens vote in elections like all other EU countries do

Macy

Lennoxschips wrote:

god forbid we should let all our citizens vote in elections like all other EU countries do

That doesn't make it right. Why should people who won't have to live under the Government get to vote it in?

Guys,I mod the politics board aswell as this one and I can tell you that here is not the place to discuss voting rights.
Click on the politics url under my avatar if you want to do that.
But please read and abide by the charter when you go there thanks.

Now back on topic please.

Lennoxschips

kramlq wrote:

- Uplink equipment?? They must have some spare kit already, as they use one of the intelsats for feeds. I think an uplink truck costs about 150k, so probably similar for some fixed equipment at montrose.

They already do the uplinking to Astra 2D themselves, from their own uplink dish.

Capt'n Midnight

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Encryption If RTE HAVE to use encryption theres nothing to say they have to use $kys system. If they had the b@ll$ to put their foot down and go for something like Viaccess $ky would be forced into either having to put CAM slots on their boxes or making a CAM for NDS/videoguard

I keep pointing out that on Italian TV they only encrypt the stuff they don't have satellite rights to. The rest is FTA.

Also ALL SKY Digiboxes have a pcmcia type slot to take a different decryption module - but I'd reckon that's in case somebreaks the SKY encryption rather than to offer as a service to others. Say what you want about RTE - you see the number of repeats on Discovery etc. there is well enough new material per week to provide a totally FTA channel

chorus techy

Greenman wrote:

Are all those crappy channels ie shopping and the like paying 500K per year plus plus?

Most likely not, but take a look through some of the channels - would you like RTE and TV3 to be displayed on your TV at minimum bitrates, like most of those shopping channels do? Some of the TPs with shopping channels can carry 20 or more channels on them, and one particular transponder has near on 50 TV and radio channels!